The final short

THE SUMMARY OF MY WORK IN HULA HULA

- Concept of the story
- Initial Storyboard
- Character Design (Robot, Beetle)
- Environment Design (landscape, backgrounds)
- Modelling (Temple interior, Temple exterior, beetle, book, rocks)
- Texturing (Temple interior/exterior, rocks, book)
- Animation (parts)
- Lighting in Modo (unfortunately not included in final film...volumetric lights I have done were no visible in  
   maya output).
- Music (title)
- Ends Credits and illustrations.

My end credits and sound (not included)  in the main project.

Software I used in the project: Modo 501, Modo 601, Vue 10, Maya 2012, Zbrush, Photoshop CS5, Flash, After Effects CS5.

Hula Hill. The scene where robot is facing temple and background behind him. Unfortunately no grass animation as preview was too small to play with wind setup. May add it later on though. The main character witch is placed in the middle of composition is the main point of interest anyway.

Hula Book updated -  I've played around with the lights and new Modo 601 render which got me much better results. some textures has been also enhanced.

Corrected bump maps and volumetric lights.

Finished Hula Book with textures on.

Hula title with sound. May need some touch up.

Today I set about texturing the Hula Book.

The book obviously need some more work to be done, namely: I am going to place some burned marks here and there (where the rounded edges are) and some dirt to give the book old grunge look. I am thinking of some animated manuscript writing on right page and some chains holding the book and attaching to the rock.

First four interior shot renders as they appear in order in the animation - book has to be still textured. Made some light tests and adjustments. Hope the effect will be similar after exporting the scene to Maya.

Additional render with different light settings, some extra texturing and the rock where the Hula Book will be placed. Bump map is still too uniform so I'm going to smooth some parts out later on.

...and one of the cameras close up shots - obviously missing the book and main character.

Came back to my previously neglected project part which is interior of the temple. Have defined slightly more the shape of the columns and especially grooves between the columns seams. I doubt the effect of specular and bump map will come out as desired when it come s to animate the camera i Maya but in Modo I'm quite satisfied with the result. The specular color is set to cold Persian Blue to nicely contrast with warm yellowish tone of the walls and columns. 

Hula Book model - the look needs to be more defined yet. Pages need to be jagged and shape of the cover more damaged which I think I may achieve by texturing. Was thinking to place something on the top of the book - hence those page creases. May add a metal heavy item to make a nice composition if time allow me to do so. Other than that I consider The Great Hula Book as finished :) Unfortunately I have no time to animate the pages but thinking about perhaps animate some magic dust or something...

 

Further update to the Hula Hill - refined the background craters and terrain and balanced it with the atmosphere.

Updated version of hula hill - with some craters in the background and more alieny look :)

Final -perhaps? render of the Hula Hill. Basically I've played with some parameters in procedural terrain, bitmap textures, function editor and atmosphere editor. Preferred ecosystem painter over material ecosystem for vegetation as the terrain itself won't be modified from this particular angle and it also allows me to paint vegetation only in specific area which significantly shorten render time.

The renders of the scene hula robot is facing the temple I created in Vue 10. First two represents only environment tests and trying out capability of the software. Initially the idea was to convey atmosphere of undiscovered forlorn world, where access to it is beyond the human measure. Again, the original idea was to present earth as a place of action. As I am not convinced either to the idea of earth or different planet - considering further action development - perhaps it is better when action goes on out of the earth...? and  Vitruvian Man appears and is discovered in different, unknown yet world ? Either way, I blended some characteristics of earth and foreign terrain into one scene.

The deserted terrain test render.

The mountains over the snowy valley.

Due to massive errors in walls mesh which appeared while exporting FBX to Maya I had to redone the model itself and uv's. The building has now slight makeup and I added transformed some columns and jagged side walls  as well. Textures are richer on right-side of the temple as left side will be covered by ivy. It'll be enhanced at later stage (I'm going to add more moss to the columns bases and ivy branches).  

Whole scene has been rendered in Modo 501.

Finally I forced myself to do some bump maps and do a test render. Will play with bumps later to ease out the grainy effect on some parts. Obviously it does not represents the final effect as probably displacement map will do a better job to convey a curvature of architecture objects and apply old, damaged look to it. Again the rocks mesh are decimated so I believe it'll render within a reasonable time.

And whole scene without vegetation details for now.

To emphasize scene and divided between an architecture forms I created some organic shapes. It'll be enriched with some other organic models of flowers, mushrooms, blade of grass etc...

And quick messy view of whole scene - bump map which is must for terrain hasn't been applied yet.

 I have made some tests with terrain, however the amount of polygons scare me off so I am going to apply only displacement or bump map - most of it will be covered by grass anyway.

Still no bump map and no specular.

Although the scene will be lighted in very restrained fashion, the light is going to be the main factor which let the details emerge from darkness. Secondly because light is fairly unpredictable I am going to focus more on the textures which are may be lit by the light source. (lower parts - mainly columns, capitals).

Initial textures for the temple interior (no bump map), advanced openGL.

The output software is going to be Maya 2011 so final render in mental ray will present more polished and

detailed render.

THE BUG MODEL

The character which appears in the first scene I modelling in Maya 2011. It is intended to be textured in Mari

and treated as a experiment how I'll find myself in ''The Foundry'' new production.