Nira's VFX Blog
A journey through my master

Tag: Rube Goldberg machine

Categories
Advanced & Experimental Advanced Maya

Week 4: Rube Goldberg machine camera set and render in Maya

In this lecture, we focused on finishing our Rube Goldberg machine texturing, camera set up, and rendering the final outcome.

I continued adding the last textures and finishing touches of the design, such as the finish lines numbers, and some more neon lights in the edges of the planks and of other components. I also modelled the light bulbs’ buttons to switch them on and textured them with glow.

Neon glow added to the rotating and fixed planks
Neon glow added to parts of the domino pieces and rest of features
Number 1 and 2 textures added to domino pieces at finish lines
Buttons modelling and texturing
Final look of finish lines when balls arrive and light bulbs are switched on

Moreover, I decided to animate some arrow lights on the top of the initial ramp to add another point of interest in the animation:

Arrow lights animated on ramp

After I finished with the texturing, I continued to set the camera movement using ‘camera and aim’. This way, I only have to set the ‘translate’ of the camera since the ‘rotation’ is adjusted with the aim. I tried to follow both balls switching priority between one and the other depending on the point of the animation and which one was more important to follow each time. Therefore, I not only framed the scene from the front view but I also made the camera rotate 360 degrees around the machine, showing its back too.

Camera and aim set up with keyframes on ‘translate’

In the last bit of the scene when the second ball has to reach the finish line, I had to reduce the duration of this since it was way too slow. Therefore, I selected all the elements of the scene and in the ‘graph editor’ I scaled down the number of frames required for this last movement. I reduced from 800 to 700 frames. The following video shows a preview of the camera movement I set:

Camera movement preview

When I had my animation fully set, I proceeded to set the render. Thought of adding a chrome textured background with the lighting of the skydome I had previously, however, it turned out to be problematic as there were too many reflections so the render would take too much time to finish. Maya also started to crash every time I tried to preview the render. Therefore, I decided to get rid of this chrome background and leave it with the original workshop background. I just lowered the light a bit so the glows added were more pronounced.

Disregarded dark chrome background
Render settings
Render preview with render settings adjusted

I was playing around with ‘Camera (AA)’, ‘Diffuse’, ‘Specular’, and ‘Transmission’ to get the best result without having to render for too long.

After two days rendering, this is the final result:

Final render

I really enjoyed this project and I feel enthusiastic about 3D modelling and animation. I also feel like I could improve the render, amending some details like adding a dark and reflective background to darken the scene and to make the neon lights more visible. However, due to limited time I was not able to do this (but I definitely will if I find some spare time before the end of term 2).

Categories
Advanced & Experimental Advanced Maya

Week 3: Rube Goldberg Machine Simulation Bake & Texture in Maya

This week, we focused on baking our bullet simulation to proceed to add texture and set our camera movement.

After all the bullet system is built and set up, we need to bake the simulation so the programme creates the animation’s keyframes of each active rigid body. In order to do this, I selected all the active rigid bodies, then selected ‘Bake Simulation’ on ‘Edit->Keys’ tab. Once Maya has created the keyframes of each element and since we no longer need the bullet system set up, I selected ‘Delete Entire Bullet System’ on ‘Bullet’ tab so all the bullet elements are deleted. I also manually animated with keyframes the background gears since I struggled a bit trying to animate them with bullet; every time I added a new hinge, the whole animation stopped working as I had it set up so it was really time consuming to adjust it all over again each time.

After baking the simulation, I proceeded to texture my design. I liked the cyberpunk mixed with steampunk look that my machine was getting and decided to add some metal textures such as copper, gold, chrome, and brushed metal, as well as glass texture on the helix slide, on the top part of the machine and on the light bulbs. These reflective materials gave me the opportunity to add glow to the balls and to some parts of some elements such as to the ring holders of the helix slide, to some neons on the finish line, and to the filaments of the light bulbs. The following examples inspired me with the colours, mood, and composition of the scene.

https://www.deviantart.com/rasrgallery/art/Steampunk-machines-Ko-fi-members-only-921823135
https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/74272993608971682038696429417138228411566038802837906295474335443412771143780
https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/off-topic-31/can-someone-tell-me-what-cyberpunk-and-steampunk-a-485443/

Before adding the textures, I searched an HDR in polyhaven.com and downloaded a wood workshop HDR with low and warm light conditions. I wanted to give the feeling that this machine was made in this workshop from random materials found in it. I also researched textures and references like wood, old gears and light bulbs:

Wood workshop
Planks wood texture
Metal texture with marks
Untreated wood texture
Base wood texture
Vintage number 1
Vintage number 2

I also found a tutorial in YouTube of how to make glow effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9iIf95BCQ4

The following sequence of rendered previews show the textures I used:

Wood texture for the base
Glass texture for the top with pink reflections (specular)
Glass texture for helix slide with yellow reflections (specular)
Copper, gold, chrome, and brushed metal texture for gears
I tried adding a bump map but this texture look too exaggerated
First texture attempt
Second texture attempt – it feels more subtle with just a few marks
Chrome texture for the second slide
Yellow and pink neon glow for the balls
Neon loops that would function as ‘holders’ of the glass slide
Wood texture for spinning planks – UV adjustment so the wood lines look vertically instead of horizontally
Chrome texture for fixed planks so it reflects the glow of the ball
Neon sides in the spinning planks so they are more visually appealing
Neon lights added to the finish lines and light bulbs with glass texture and neon glow in the inside filaments

The light bulbs were modelled and textured later on as I thought that the space at the end of the base was looking a bit empty and boring. So I modelled them with the idea that they would turn on when the ball hits the finish line planks and a switch is triggered. I modelled the base and outer side of an old school light bulb and added inside the filaments that I textured separately to give the glow effect. Also the glass of the light bulb is doubled so it gives this thickness and volume effect.

I could not finish the final design this week as I added more elements of what I initially planned and it took me longer than expected, but overall I am very happy with how this is turning out.

Textures and HDR:

  • Base wood texture and planks wood texture – https://polyhaven.com/a/wood_cabinet_worn_long
  • Metal texture with marks – https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=imperfection&search=metal&assetId=uh4obghc
  • Untreated wood texture – https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=bark&assetId=wghjcggn
  • Vintage number 1 – https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/ornamental-1-background_1138096.htm#query=no%201&position=31&from_view=search&track=sph
  • Vintage number 2 – https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/ornamental-2-background_1138095.htm#from_view=detail_alsolike
  • Wood workshop – https://hdri-haven.com/hdri/repair-facility
Categories
Advanced & Experimental Advanced Maya

Week 2: Rube Goldberg Machine Modelling & Animation in Maya

In this class, we learnt how to bake the simulation that we already set up, to then add texture, refine the design of our Rube Goldberg machine, and animated the camera movement of our scene.

After all our bullet actions are adjusted and we are happy with the dynamics of the animation, we will proceed to ‘bake simulation’ of all the active rigid bodies so all bullet set up is removed and converted in key frames instead. It is also important to select ‘delete entire bullet system’ to get rid of any bullet set up left in our outliner.

Once the dynamics of our scene are sorted, we can proceed to animate the camera movement of our scene, creating a new ‘camera and aim’, and setting its position and aim at the same time. We can also add texture to our scene and finish building up the final touches to make it look presentable.

This week, I focused in finalising my Rube Goldberg machine’s design and dynamics. I added a different route for the second ball, with a helix slide, a clock gear, and a second finish line. I also refined some of the elements, adding some edge loops, to then smooth them down pressing ‘3’.

Box added to top of seesaw so the ball stays in place
Refine of basket, adding edge loops on the top
Addition of third rail in the middle of helix as the ball was coming off without it
Addition of second basket or tube for the second ball
Second ball falls in slide
Helix slide for second ball
Second ball comes off the slide towards a gear that spins and redirect it
After bouncing on a domino piece, the second ball reaches the second finish line
Also added several gears and tubes as a connection between top and bottom level and as decoration
Full view of my design
Arnold rendered preview

The next step of this project would be to bake the active rigid bodies, so the programme creates the key frames of the movements set with bullet tool and continue to texture it and set the camera movement of the scene.

Categories
Advanced & Experimental Advanced Maya

Week 1: Rube Goldberg Machine Modelling & Animation in Maya

In the first week of term 2, we had our first contact with animation basics, trying to animate two bouncing balls made of different materials. We also started to design our first project of the term, the Rube Goldberg machine.

Firstly, we started a quick model of a basic staircase as a base of our first animation. Then, we created two spheres to start our bouncing animation. The first ball is suppose to be made of rubber, therefore, the animation needs to show a high bounce on each step of the staircase. The second is made of metal, so it should look heavier and less bouncy. We set the basic key frames for each jump, and then adjusted the animation with the ‘Graph Editor’. With this last tool, we can see the graphic of the animation, therefore, we could tweak each movement to make it look more realistic.

Stairs and balls wireframe view with planar for shadow surface
Texturing
Rubber ball bounce graphic
Metal ball bounce graphic
Final rendered look
Rendered animation

After understanding the principles of manual animation, we dived into ‘Bullet Physics’ in Maya. This plug-in is specialised in the interaction between the geometry of a 3D scene. In order to practice with this tool, we were assigned to create a Rube Goldberg Machine, using basic shapes that would interact with each other.

Before using this tool, the programme needs to be set up to be able to see the ‘Bullet’ tab in the programme’s menu. Once everything is set, we can start designing our machine. The first thing that popped in my mind when we were introduced to this project, was an instagramer that I follow on Instagram known as ‘Enbiggen’. He specialises in creating these 3D Rube Goldberg machines to reproduce the music of any known song, movie soundtrack, etc. I have attached two of his creations that inspired me:

https://youtube.com/shorts/KCSvlCAr-CY?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/Wfp3Gfa9MCM?feature=share

As a first idea of my Rube Goldberg’s machine, I came up with the following sketches as possible designs:

Initial idea with air balloon
Refined idea with regular balloons instead, and extra helix tube for second ball
Sketches made in Procreate app

Once the machine was planned, I continued to build it up in Maya. After designing and placing the basic geometry in the 3D scene, I set them as ‘Active rigid body’ or ‘Passive rigid body’ depending if I wanted the polygon to act as a dynamic object or as a static object. Once this is set, I needed to rewind the animation until the beginning (so Maya calculates how the objects would interact between each other), and to adjuste them as needed afterwards. This needs to be precise as the programme can be very picky with these calculations and can cause some errors at the time of setting up each object’s bullet action. Also, as I wanted to make objects spin, I added constrains to some of the polygons using a ‘hinge’ option, placed in the middle of the object (‘Rigid Body Constrain’ tool).

First ball pushing domino pieces and second ball boosted with a seesaw like object
Ball falling into the basket
Ball continues spiralling down the helix slide
Spinning boards setting up – ‘Active Rigid Body’
Spinning boards setting up – ‘Hinge’
Spinning board
Ball bounces on some fixed boards and falls down a ramp
Second ball reaches the end colliding with a domino piece
Refining of base edges using ‘Edge loop’ tool
Full view of helix slide
Full view of top set up
Full view of initial set up of the machine
Full view of initial set up of the machine

I am struggling a bit with the set up of the actions and adjustment of this as whenever I closed the programme and reopened the scene later on, the same actions that I set up previously, were reacting and behaving differently. I flushed the playback cache to see if this helped but it was doing the same. I had the same problems in both the university computer and in my personal computer.