Nira's VFX Blog
A journey through my master

Tag: Simulation

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Final Major Project FMP

Week 2: City Modelling in Maya

I tried to finish the overall city model this week to get it ready to start with the UV maps and texturing.

General city buildings modelling

I decided to make the general buildings of the city using some tools like ‘transform’ and ‘extrude’ to quickly generate random building shapes. I used the following tutorial as an example:

City Modelling tutorial (SYIA Studios, 2019)
I created a disc and reduced the subdivisions to have a irregular grid
I extruded the subdivisions to create the roads of the city
I extruded the subdivisions again but this time upwards to give some elevation to the terrain
I created some more subdivisions inside the current faces of the disc
I extruded the smaller subdivisions to give some separation between them
I used the ‘transform’ tool to give some randomness to the faces selected
I extruded the faces and, because I randomise them, these will elevate differently to create the effect of the buildings of a city
Top view of the buildings

Rocky base buildings remodelling

After modelling the city buildings, I noticed that the buildings in the rocky base were a bit off scale so I decided to remodel them and create a more cohesive design. I used the same technique that I used for the top city buildings, by randomising the faces of a cylinder and extruding them out. Then I picked a few faces I moved them inwards so it seems like entrances to the buildings or even garages for the flying cars.

Subdivisions created
Subdivisions reduced
Addition of more subdivisions within the previous uneven subdivisions
I deleted some random subdivisions to create more variety of shapes
Faces extruded slightly to give some separation between them
Transform tool to create randomness
Faces extruded
Random faces selected and moved inwards
Rendered view with rocky parts

For the bottom building, I tried to keep it simpler, and just extruded in the subdivisions (giving some separation between faces) and then extruded out some balconies. the bottom part has big doors as if they were entrances for big flying trucks.

Bottom buildings of rocky base
Rendered view with rocky parts

Skyscrapers and bridges modelling

To give some interest and variety to the city, I also modelled some skyscrapers that will be placed in the middle section of the city. I also added some bridges linking the lower buildings of the city.

Skyscrapers models
Skyscrapers models
City render view with skyscrapers and bridges added
Main view of the city to check balance of the design

City connections/pathways, entrances, & city barrier

Using the same technique I used for the rock of the city base, I created rocky connections between cities, with two main roads and a train track in the middle.

Stalactites made with ‘stamp’ tool
Rocky texture made with ‘stamp’ tool
Smoothed out the rocky texture and the stalactites length to create some variety in shapes
Render view of the city and the connections added
Render top view of the city and the connections added
Render view of the city base and the connections added
City entrances and barrier
Three connections created and attached to the city
Top view of connections and city

City details

Lastly, I added the city details like lamp posts, transit capsules, flying cars, cables, antennas, billboards, and cranes, to make the city more realistic and alive. I used MASH to help with the lamp posts repetition and with the flying cars positioning and animation around the city. I did not make many billboards as most of the advertising and signage is going to be holographic. Additionally, I remodelled the roof tops of the buildings with different shapes to give some variety to the overall look.

Big lamp posts for the city connections and small lamp post for the top city
Lamp posts added with MASH to quickly create a repetition of the object with equal distances from each other
Close view of lamp posts in place
Modelling of transit capsules to transport people between cities
Flying car bottom view
Flying car top view
Car simulation with MASH taking a torus as a base shape
‘Signal’ tool to create some variation in the cars movement
Flying cars simulation with MASH
I used curves to make the cables shapes
Cables between buildings
I also added some antennas and remodelled the roof tops of the buildings
Lamp posts added to the outside area of the city
Addition of billboards
Crane model
Cranes look on top of skyscraper
Overall look of the city details

References

SYIA Studios (2019). Maya Model a Simple City Quickly Tutorial (online). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2315V1g8fNw&list=PLAlv9GvsMvnMCUwPx_gcXaCj_yHYdIPqD&index=118&t=287s [Accessed 12 October 2023]

Categories
Advanced & Experimental Personal

Week 10: River Simulation Fix, Lighting, Camera Movement, & Render in Maya

In this week, I decided to fix the river simulation (as I was having issues with the water speed and density of the flow), to then illuminate the scene, and prepare the camera movement following my initial story board.

River simulation fix

Since my previous river simulation was way too heavy and it was giving me problems to see the actual speed of the water (I needed to render the whole simulation if I wanted to see the effect as the playblast was not showing the effect), I decided to find another way to simulate water that was not that heavy on the scene. So I found in YouTube this tutorial that uses a noise shader instead, and then I could just use the glass texture and coloured it to make it look ‘wet’.

Water simulation tutorial (SYIA Studios, 2020)
Adding some subtle colours to base and specular and give some contrast
Render of water simulation to see the colours applied are appropriate
Render of water simulation to see the colours applied are appropriate
Render in darker lighting
Water simulation play blast in Maya

I then also considered in polishing my river water simulation effect, as the waves were looking a bit too big for a river. They seemed to be more for a lake or a pool, but a river has smaller waves as it is more like a flow of water that follows a unique direction. Then, in the noise shader, I reduced the scale of the waves and added a bit more noise.

Correcting water simulation noise shader in Maya

Lighting, camera movement, and render

For lighting conditions, I searched in Polyhaven for HDRIs that simulate the light we experience at sunset. It should be subtle, yellowish, and that projects soft and stretched shadows. I found an HDRI that was not giving me the exact light conditions I wanted so I also tweaked the amount of light the it was producing and make it slightly darker.

Once the lighting was done, I started to do the camera movement is my scene. I did not want to show only that outer side of the environment from afar, so I made camera to pass through the rainforest to show the trees, palm trees, and foliage, to then jump over the river, going around the scenario in circles, to finish climbing up the pyramid up un til ending in a long shot of the environment.

Camera set up

In the following render of the scene, it is visible the camera movement I set in the scene, however, I noticed that I had some texture problems with the trees leaves, so I will need to revisit the textures paths, relink them properly to avoid this issue, and render again the scene.

References

SYIA Studios (2020). Maya Easy Animated Water Shader (online). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVjc3vvvJfo&list=PLAlv9GvsMvnMCUwPx_gcXaCj_yHYdIPqD&index=1&t=62s [Accessed 16 June 2023]