IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
Hi, I'm Adam Crespi, and welcome to
Vehicle Rigging in Maya.
| | 00:08 |
In this course, we'll look at constructing
a rig for a car.
| | 00:11 |
We'll start out by getting the model in
shape, checking for any geometry issues,
| | 00:16 |
and making sure everything is scaled to
the right size, and right place.
| | 00:20 |
I'll show you how to do this by importing
references using the Free Transforms tool,
| | 00:25 |
then I'll show you how to use the align
tool to get controllers you created on the
| | 00:30 |
right parts of the car.
I'll show you how to add non-linear squash
| | 00:33 |
deformers on the tires so they squeeze
down onto the road correctly, and the
| | 00:38 |
right parenting order for the tires and
wheel assemblies.
| | 00:41 |
We'll see how to create steering and
master car controllers, and put extra
| | 00:46 |
attributes on so we have control over the
headlights, tail lights and running lamps
| | 00:50 |
and turn signals.
We'll be covering all these features, plus
| | 00:53 |
plenty of other tools and techniques.
Now let's get started with vehicle rigging
| | 00:57 |
in Maya.
| | 00:58 |
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| What you should know before watching this course| 00:00 |
This is an intermediate course.
You should have a good working knowledge
| | 00:03 |
of modeling, and generally using, and
navigating the user interface in Maya.
| | 00:09 |
If you're not familiar with Maya, check
out the Maya Essentials series with George Maestri.
| | 00:13 |
You may also want to watch Modeling
Vehicles in Maya with Ryan Kittleson.
| | 00:19 |
This course will give you a better
understanding of creating the model we're
| | 00:22 |
using in the rig.
So feel free to explore these courses and
| | 00:26 |
more on lynda.com.
| | 00:28 |
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 |
If you're a premium member of lynda.com,
you have access to the exercise files used
| | 00:04 |
throughout this title.
The exercise files are organized by
| | 00:08 |
chapter, with each chapter being a Maya
project.
| | 00:11 |
Chapter 1 has an additional folder called
Cobra that has the end files from Ryan
| | 00:16 |
Kittleson's Modeling Vehicles in Maya
course as we'll be using that car to rig here.
| | 00:22 |
These are all the default directories in
the Maya project.
| | 00:24 |
So make sure you set your project before
opening the scene.
| | 00:28 |
Here in Maya, once you open the program
choose File > Set project.
| | 00:34 |
In the Project Window, browse to the
Exercise Files folder, and double click on
| | 00:39 |
the first chapter.
Click Set to set the project, then open
| | 00:44 |
the scene choosing File > Open.
In the scene's directory you'll see start
| | 00:48 |
and end states for each exercise.
I provided these so you can check at the
| | 00:52 |
end to make sure your work is correct.
You may see the occasional warning about a
| | 01:02 |
camera, and it's a function of the import
in.
| | 01:05 |
Don't be alarmed by it sometimes we'll see
this importing back and forth between scenes.
| | 01:10 |
Additionally here's some common workflow
in Maya for speed.
| | 01:13 |
First I'll press Ctrl+Spacebar to maximize
the UI.
| | 01:18 |
This way I can have the biggest window
possible to view the car.
| | 01:21 |
Ctrl+Spacebar will bring it back.
I'll also use my hot box extensively,
| | 01:26 |
pressing and holding the spacebar.
If you like click on hot box controls and,
| | 01:31 |
for example, show polygons, polygons only.
This restricts the hotbox down to that
| | 01:37 |
module making it easier to view.
I'll use marketing menus, Shift and Right
| | 01:42 |
Click, for example, to pull up a polygon
primitive creation.
| | 01:46 |
Or with an object selected, Ctrl and
Right-Click for selection, or Shift and
| | 01:51 |
Right-Click for polygon modeling.
If you're working full screen, you can
| | 01:57 |
press and hold the space bar for the hot
box, and click on the space to the right
| | 02:01 |
of maya to bring back your UI elements.
For example, the status line, so we can
| | 02:05 |
get to the menu line input and rendering
buttons.
| | 02:08 |
Ctrl+A brings back and forth the
attributes and channel box, so we can
| | 02:11 |
access either channels for multiple
objects or one object at a time.
| | 02:16 |
If you're a monthly member or annual
member of Lynda.com, you don't have access
| | 02:20 |
to the exercise files, but you can follow
along from scratch with your own assets.
| | 02:24 |
Let's get started with vehicle rigging in
Maya.
| | 02:26 |
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|
|
1. Sizing and Zeroing the ModelOpening and assessing the model| 00:00 |
In this video I'll open up the Shelby
Cobra model from Ryan Kittleson's,
| | 00:04 |
Modelling a Vehicle in Maya.
When you're taking in a care model, it may
| | 00:08 |
be from a variety of sources and it's
always important to open it and access
| | 00:12 |
what's going on before you start rigging.
First, I'll set my project choosing File
| | 00:17 |
and Set Project.
Right now, Maya is using my default
| | 00:21 |
project I browsed over in the Exercise
Files to Chapter 1, and in there are
| | 00:29 |
project folders I've created using the
Project Window.
| | 00:32 |
There's an extra folder in here called
Cobra, and in there are the folders and
| | 00:37 |
subfolders that contain the reference
objects for this car.
| | 00:40 |
I'll click Set, and now, I'll open up the
scene, pressing Ctrl+O or clicking on the
| | 00:46 |
Open button.
Maya looks to the default scene's
| | 00:48 |
directory in that project.
I'll browse up to my Cobra directory and
| | 00:53 |
into the car directory from there.
Finally, I'll go into finished and pick
| | 00:57 |
car, the Maya binary.
I'll click Open, and what Maya says is
| | 01:02 |
it's looking for a reference file that may
be in a different directory that it can't find.
| | 01:07 |
I'll check Remember these settings.
So I keep going back to the same place and
| | 01:11 |
then browse for the wheel Maya binary at
the moment.
| | 01:15 |
I'll browse into the Cobra directory and
into the wheel directory and finally pick wheel.
| | 01:20 |
I'll open it and continue through with the
rest of the missing pieces until all the
| | 01:25 |
references are found.
Once my car is opened, I can see the full
| | 01:30 |
car, and I have an error line down in the
bottom.
| | 01:32 |
What this says is Maya can't find the
blueprint PNG that was used in the modeling.
| | 01:37 |
I can ignore that or put it in my Source
Images directory in my project and browse
| | 01:42 |
to it if I need.
As the model is done, I don't need that
| | 01:45 |
blueprint anymore.
I'll maximize my view by tapping the space bar.
| | 01:50 |
And now, I'll look at the model.
The first thing to do with a car model is
| | 01:53 |
to just look it over and see if there's
anything obviously missing or flipped, or
| | 01:58 |
needing some attention.
I'll spin around the car, and it looks
| | 02:02 |
pretty good.
Everything is rendering as smooth or
| | 02:06 |
shading correctly.
I can see in here that I may need some
| | 02:10 |
extra geometry in the wheel wells, as I'm
seeing through the back of the fender here
| | 02:14 |
and into the front and the door.
That's one to make a note of and send back
| | 02:19 |
to the modeling team.
We can always parent and extra object onto
| | 02:23 |
our body controller or something else and
fix that at a later point.
| | 02:28 |
I'll turn on Shading and Backface Culling
and make sure that things are also facing
| | 02:33 |
out the right way.
It looks like in the interior, we're
| | 02:36 |
missing some of the panels here up by the
gas pedal.
| | 02:39 |
Again, it's not a big deal to go back at
any point and fix these normals.
| | 02:43 |
But we do need to be aware of it before we
hit a render.
| | 02:45 |
What I'm seeing in the scene here, as I'll
scroll out and show, are image planes from
| | 02:50 |
the modeling process.
There's one off to the side and two here
| | 02:54 |
that oppose, front and back views.
I've also got some locator objects for
| | 02:59 |
things like the exhaust pipes.
These were used for aligning this in an
| | 03:04 |
odd angle, as they sort of come out from
the bottom of the car, and it's probably
| | 03:07 |
easier to model them straight up and down.
I've also got locators here on the
| | 03:11 |
windshield wipers for the same reason.
It was easier to model them straight up
| | 03:15 |
and down and use that locator to align
them on their pivot to the angle of the
| | 03:20 |
windshield of this car.
I'll do a little clean-up, first, going in
| | 03:25 |
and taking out the image planes.
I'll open my Outliner to do this pressing
| | 03:29 |
space bar for the hot box and choosing
window, out liner.
| | 03:32 |
What I can see here is I have a lot of
nested objects and parented transforms and things.
| | 03:39 |
I'll pick one of these image planes and
see what it selects and where it goes.
| | 03:45 |
Here's my front and back image plane, and
it says that it's got an unknown reference
| | 03:49 |
node for the parent.
Again, that's okay, as I simply need to
| | 03:53 |
know that this is part of the modeling and
I don't need it.
| | 03:56 |
I can also see over on the right side that
it's black in the sample where it's still
| | 03:59 |
looking for that PNG.
I'm going to pick this image plane and
| | 04:03 |
delete it.
I'll open up the others and do the same,
| | 04:07 |
starting with the lowest level transform,
and taking out the pieces.
| | 04:12 |
It's worth a little bit of time to get in
there and take them out properly in a
| | 04:16 |
quick assessment here in the Outliner, I
can also see I have some groups, and so I
| | 04:20 |
need to be aware of what in here is
grouped.
| | 04:22 |
My polySurfaces, which could be any number
of things.
| | 04:27 |
It looks like these are the taillight
trims and other pieces there.
| | 04:34 |
Now, I'll get the reference objects in.
I'll choose File and Reference Editor.
| | 04:38 |
Those are the reference objects, and
they're all loaded correctly.
| | 04:44 |
What I'll do is import them in, and that
way, I've got everything in one scene for
| | 04:47 |
my rig.
I'll click and drag down this list to
| | 04:50 |
select them all, and choose File and
Import Objects From Reference.
| | 04:55 |
Now the references are imported correctly
in the scene, and I can continue with my
| | 04:59 |
clean up.
What I need to look at, are things that
| | 05:02 |
are parented or otherwise to a locator,
such as the exhaust pipes.
| | 05:07 |
Well, we can see here when I select this,
is that selecting locator grabs the whole
| | 05:11 |
exhaust and pipe system, here.
But when I click on one sections of it,
| | 05:15 |
it's available as a single object.
I'll unparent these by pressing Shift+P,
| | 05:21 |
picking one and then the other.
It looks like it can't assign it to an
| | 05:25 |
initial shading group is the error down
there.
| | 05:27 |
So it's worth a check in the Outliner as
to what's going on.
| | 05:35 |
It's part of a group and what we can see
here is the exhaust reference and finally
| | 05:41 |
that object.
I'll select this and choose Edit > Ungroup.
| | 05:48 |
Looks like it's not able to ungroup it,
and that's okay.
| | 05:51 |
What that's really saying, and I can tell
here by trying to ungroup and getting an
| | 05:55 |
error, and also here in the hierarchy, is
that this object is parented to that
| | 06:00 |
locator, which is actually governed by the
transform of Group 4.
| | 06:05 |
I'll pick my poly surface for the exhaust
and hit Shift+P to unparent.
| | 06:11 |
Alternately, I can simply drag it out.
If that's not working, we can also take it
| | 06:20 |
out of the group and delete the history by
pressing Shift+Alt+D.
| | 06:26 |
I'll unparent as I go, and that seems to
work.
| | 06:29 |
What's important to know in this is that
as part of the modeling process, we may
| | 06:34 |
get some nested objects, and that's
perfectly fine.
| | 06:36 |
We may get cars that were the result of
scams or manufactured data, even
| | 06:40 |
translated from another program with
different up axes.
| | 06:44 |
And as long we're aware that things may be
nested and we need to deal with that we
| | 06:49 |
can and it's okay to have some trial and
error in finding out what's nested in here.
| | 06:55 |
Now, with that object unparented, I can
see if I can unparent the exhaust and it works.
| | 07:02 |
Down at the bottom, I get Result:
exhaustpolysurface.
| | 07:06 |
The final test then is if I can delete the
Locator and the Exhaust stays, I'm in good shape.
| | 07:11 |
I'll work my way around the rest of the
car on parenting and getting everything
| | 07:15 |
single and isolated.
Before I deal with the other exhaust
| | 07:20 |
though, I want to look at the tires as
we'll need those later.
| | 07:23 |
Right now, picking one tire actually picks
all four.
| | 07:26 |
And I'd like to have them independent so
when I put a free form deformation on them
| | 07:30 |
to squish them down to road I can do it
independently.
| | 07:34 |
When I rotate one tire here, as an
example, it looks like they all rotate,
| | 07:38 |
although, they may go forwards and
backwards depending on how they were mirrored.
| | 07:42 |
Again, this is the function of the
modeling process.
| | 07:45 |
And as long as we're aware of it we can
take care of that.
| | 07:47 |
I'll proceed with the unparenting,
ungrouping, and see if I can clean this up
| | 07:53 |
a little bit.
So what I end up with are all world level,
| | 07:57 |
unique objects that later I can parent and
group as I need.
| | 08:02 |
I've done some unparenting and ungrouping
and I'm ready to look at the wheels.
| | 08:06 |
Each wheel has a locator on it.
And again, this is fine for aligning in
| | 08:09 |
the model, but we're going to seperate
these pieces out for the rig.
| | 08:13 |
And so we need to have them a little more
unique and not looking to one object for
| | 08:17 |
their transforms.
What I'll do, then is to pick the tires
| | 08:21 |
and press Shift+P.
I'll pick the hubs and unparent them.
| | 08:25 |
And finally, the centers, lugs and other
pieces.
| | 08:32 |
As long as it says result down at the
bottom with its own transform, I'm in good shape.
| | 08:37 |
And a way to test this is to pick a
locator up front and look at it in the outliner.
| | 08:45 |
It looks like the locator called Wheel3
three is now unique.
| | 08:48 |
There's no plus next to it, meaning that
there's nothing parented to it or
| | 08:52 |
dependent on it.
I can delete it, and there's my wheel.
| | 08:57 |
At some point along here, I also need to
mirror the exhaust over.
| | 09:02 |
Something in the parenting and referencing
caused it to lose the left side and we can
| | 09:06 |
deal with that quite easily.
We can even use the center line of the car
| | 09:09 |
for our mirror.
I'll make sure the rest of my wheels are
| | 09:13 |
unparented first.
I may have to go through and do these
| | 09:16 |
uniquely, and that's okay because we want
these pieces to all be unique so that we
| | 09:20 |
control each individually when it's time
to animate it.
| | 09:29 |
I've unparented the tires so that when I
pick the tires, they're one object wheel
| | 09:34 |
polySurface and I can extract these later.
The hubs are unique, and again, I can
| | 09:39 |
extract them.
There's nothing in here that is governing
| | 09:42 |
all four wheels.
They're simply objects ready to be extracted.
| | 09:46 |
Now, I'll take care of that exhaust.
It's here as unique objects on the right side.
| | 09:51 |
And we need to mirror this over.
I've pressed Q for selection and I'll pick
| | 09:55 |
both parts of the exhaust.
When I press W for move for example, we
| | 10:00 |
can see it's transform is somewhere in the
exhaust here.
| | 10:03 |
What I'll do is turn on wire frame on
shaded, and that way I've got a center
| | 10:07 |
line on the car to snap to.
I'll press, v and d, v for snap, and d for
| | 10:13 |
enter edit mode, or move the pivot.
I'll snap the pivot of both objects.
| | 10:17 |
Right now showing as the two yellow
circles right here onto the center line of
| | 10:21 |
the car Making sure in the top view that I
am actually on the center when I snap.
| | 10:27 |
There's enough geometry here that we can
accidentally miss when we're trying this.
| | 10:32 |
Now that I've got it here on the center, I
can either mirror this or scale it.
| | 10:38 |
If your scale is a negative one, just
watch for flip normal.
| | 10:41 |
Mirroring works very nicely and we can
choose Mesh and Mirror geometry.
| | 10:48 |
There's my mirror and I'll see if it's in
the right place.
| | 10:51 |
Here's my poly mirror and there's a
direction to it and an axis to pay
| | 11:00 |
attention to.
Right now it looks like it went on the
| | 11:03 |
positive x and I need to change this
around to get it in the right place.
| | 11:07 |
When I flip that over and go underneath
the car I can see which way it needs to go.
| | 11:14 |
It's also only affecting one object and so
I need to make sure that I'm looking at
| | 11:19 |
the right part.
There's this mirrored piece and I can pick
| | 11:22 |
polymirror object and move it if I need.
If a mirror geometry isn't working for
| | 11:32 |
you, you can also try scaling by negative
1.
| | 11:36 |
I'll pick these elements here, and I may
even be able to combine them as they
| | 11:40 |
should all be chrome.
We can live them separate if we need or
| | 11:43 |
stick them together.
We need to look at if these are smooth
| | 11:47 |
before we combine.
I'll make sure I select it and press 1.
| | 11:51 |
And it looks like this is a smooth object.
I'll do the same with this back and try a
| | 11:57 |
quick experiment combining.
If I pick both and on my hot box choose
| | 12:02 |
Mesh > Combine, and then Hit 3, they seem
to look okay, and I've got my exhaust system.
| | 12:08 |
Now, I've got one object that I can mirror
a lot more cleanly.
| | 12:12 |
I'll get the pivot in the right place.
When we combine objects, the pivot returns
| | 12:16 |
to 0, 0.
On my hotbox, I'll choose Modify > Center
| | 12:21 |
Pivot, this way I can find it.
And now, I'll take that pivot and in a top
| | 12:26 |
view, put it on the center line of the
car.
| | 12:29 |
If it's easier to change to a wire frame,
you can do that, or stay in shaded and
| | 12:33 |
turn on wireframe on shaded.
I'll hold V and D to move that pivot.
| | 12:37 |
And put that center right on the center
here.
| | 12:41 |
Now I should be able to mirror this by
using a negative one on the x scale.
| | 12:45 |
And get the mirror into the right place.
I'll spin underneath so I can see it and
| | 12:51 |
turn off the grid, pr Ctr+D and try a
negative 1 mirror.
| | 12:58 |
I'll make sure that I use the Relative
Transform and put this in to get my
| | 13:03 |
exhaust system.
It's much better.
| | 13:05 |
Sometimes, we end up with some oddness in
trying to mirror things.
| | 13:10 |
We see this a lot in models that have been
maybe mirrored and cloned or cloned,
| | 13:15 |
mirrored, scaled, flipped, that sort of
thing.
| | 13:17 |
All we need to do is respect the
transforms and see where it is.
| | 13:20 |
And make sure we're mirroring correctly.
Now it looks like I do have an extra
| | 13:24 |
exhaust system from some trial and error
here sticking out of the hood.
| | 13:28 |
So I'll pick that one piece and delete it,
and just verify my objects are in the
| | 13:32 |
right place.
This kind of a thing is perfectly normal
| | 13:36 |
in cleaning up any model.
You may have one standard for modeling
| | 13:39 |
that somebody else is not running by, that
is, they're doing a perfectly fine job,
| | 13:44 |
but they have a different method of
organizing or cloning or mirroring, and as
| | 13:48 |
long as you're aware of it, you can take
it into account.
| | 13:51 |
Now that we've got it, we can parent all
these things to a body controller so that
| | 13:55 |
when the body rocks and leans, the exhaust
goes with it properly.
| | 13:59 |
We need to finish looking over the car,
making sure that all our pieces are unparented.
| | 14:05 |
If anything disappears and needs a
mirroring, we can do that.
| | 14:08 |
And everything has history deleted, that
way it's a clean model, ready to go for a
| | 14:13 |
rig and then we'll get into scaling it.
I've gone through and finished the
| | 14:18 |
unparenting and occasionally cloned an
object if the mirror disappeared as part
| | 14:23 |
of that, making sure I've got unique
objects all around, and ready to rig.
| | 14:27 |
I've left in three of the locators because
they'll be useful in rigging, and they're
| | 14:31 |
simple enough that I can use them for one
rotation.
| | 14:33 |
The windshield wipers each have their own
locator.
| | 14:37 |
These locators are set up in the center
and they're already at the right angle to
| | 14:41 |
make the windshield wipers sweep across
the windshield.
| | 14:44 |
As it's one object parented to that
locator, I can leave it in and just rotate
| | 14:48 |
the locator if I need.
I've also done that with the steering wheel.
| | 14:52 |
As we zoom in, we can see that the
steering wheel on, on it's locator on the shaft.
| | 14:58 |
And so just rotating the locator makes the
whole thing steer appropriately.
| | 15:03 |
I've got some other pieces in here for the
seats it looks like.
| | 15:06 |
And again I can check over and make sure
everything is un parented.
| | 15:10 |
This should do pretty nicely, and I've
made some notes on things that are
| | 15:14 |
missing, or normals that need to be
flipped back.
| | 15:18 |
I can take care of these whenever I need,
as I can always return to the, skin pose,
| | 15:22 |
or starting rig place of the car if I need
to add other objects in or fix things.
| | 15:29 |
Now, I need to worry about scale.
I'll make sure that it's the right size,
| | 15:34 |
that way when I animate the car in a real
size scene, the motion blur works
| | 15:39 |
correctly for composting, that the wheels
spin and blur and even burnout when needed.
| | 15:44 |
I'll save my scene in the Scenes Folder
and we'll get going making sure the scale
| | 15:48 |
is correct.
| | 15:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scaling a model uniformly| 00:00 |
Now that I've gotten the car unparented
and all unique and in the scene and ready
| | 00:05 |
for scale, I'm ready to make a box and
scale it.
| | 00:08 |
Now, you may look at me and go "Wait a
sec, what does he mean make a box and
| | 00:12 |
scale it?" Well, here's why.
Everything in here is unique now.
| | 00:16 |
The wheels can be extracted, but they are
unique objects from their hubs and lugs
| | 00:21 |
and so forth.
The exhausts are unique.
| | 00:24 |
What we need to do to scale a car is to
parent it to one master object, and then
| | 00:28 |
scale the master.
Here's why, I'm going to measure out the
| | 00:32 |
car in this scene, and make sure we're
working at the right size.
| | 00:35 |
There's a good chance when we get a car
in, although the car looks correct, and
| | 00:39 |
everything is the right proportion It may
not be the right size in real world units
| | 00:43 |
so it's important to verify that.
So that when we animate the car at real
| | 00:48 |
speed on a real road, we're moving the
correct distance overtime and our wheels
| | 00:53 |
are spinning correctly.
To give us the correct motion blur.
| | 00:55 |
This car is 156 inches long.
So what I'll do is make sure my units are
| | 01:00 |
in inches in my preferences.
And then use a poly plain to measure the
| | 01:04 |
car and see if I need to scale it.
I'll choose Window > Settings Preferences
| | 01:09 |
> Preferences.
And going to the settings section my
| | 01:13 |
linear units here in centimeters.
I'm going to switch over to inches
| | 01:17 |
although if you'd like to stay in metrics
you can, and make an equivalent measurement.
| | 01:23 |
Now I'll go into side view.
On my hot box, choosing Maya, and Right or
| | 01:28 |
Left View.
I'll Zoom out and use a Polyplane to measure.
| | 01:32 |
I'll do this a lot, because I can snap a
poly plane using points snap to other
| | 01:37 |
objects, holding Shift and Right Clicking.
I'll choose polyplane and make sure that
| | 01:41 |
my interactive creation is on.
I'll land the polyplane on the front
| | 01:45 |
holding V for snap, and snapping right on
that front grill,and all the way back to
| | 01:51 |
the back bumper.
Then I'll look at the polyplane 1
| | 01:54 |
attributes and I can see that this car in
inches is 6.029" long Again, that's okay.
| | 02:00 |
We modeled based on image planes and
everything is the correct proportion and
| | 02:04 |
placement, it's just a matter of scale.
What I'll do then is pull up my calculator
| | 02:09 |
and divide 156 inches by 6.029.
That'll give me the correct scale factor
| | 02:15 |
when I scale the whole car.
I can delete this polyplane, as it's not
| | 02:19 |
going to be needed beyond taking a
measurement.
| | 02:23 |
Here in my calculator, I'll take 156
divided by 6.029.
| | 02:31 |
This gives me a scale factor of 25.875.
That's good enough to get it right on.
| | 02:36 |
I'll remember that number 25.875 and go
back into Maya for parenting and scaling.
| | 02:43 |
I'll make a poly cube or other object off
to the side holding Shift + right clicking
| | 02:50 |
and choosing Poly Cube.
I'll land a poly cube here and then select
| | 02:54 |
the whole car.
With everything un-parented, so that my
| | 02:58 |
outliner is actually quite long.
I should be able to parent this car to
| | 03:02 |
that cube and scale it.
If anything expands out beyond the car, I
| | 03:06 |
still have some un-parenting work to do.
So be mindful of that.
| | 03:10 |
Being thorough in your collection and
un-parenting.
| | 03:12 |
Getting the car ready for scaling.
Now with the car selected, I'll hold Shift
| | 03:17 |
and pick that polycube and press P for
Parent.
| | 03:21 |
As a quick test, picking the polycube and
scaling it produces one-car-on-one-cube
| | 03:27 |
scaling, with everything in the car
staying in the same relative place to
| | 03:31 |
itself and each other and just scaling, so
I get a bigger car.
| | 03:36 |
If anything is to shoot out of the car, or
doubly enlarge, that's where I need to do
| | 03:41 |
some more unparenting.
With my cube selected, then, I can put my
| | 03:47 |
scale factor up here in the menu light
input.
| | 03:50 |
I'm using the relative transform so that I
can put in an offset here.
| | 03:54 |
I'll put in 25.875 on the x y and z
fields.
| | 04:04 |
When I hit enter the car should scale up.
And in fact it may get very big in the view.
| | 04:10 |
I might even need to pick my cameras and
move them back, and here's why.
| | 04:14 |
We can see in here a little bit of
artifacting and triangulation to
| | 04:18 |
perspective view.
My perspective, it looks like, is far
| | 04:21 |
enough back and I can pick my camera and
check its clipping planes to get rid of
| | 04:26 |
the triangulation.
I'll put the Near Clip Plane at 0.1 so
| | 04:29 |
that Maya can draw it correctly.
And that little blip at the bottom of the
| | 04:33 |
door is actually an indication of the car
drawing correctly in the graphics card.
| | 04:37 |
A front or a side view shows me a
different story.
| | 04:40 |
Going into a right view for example, and
pressing F to focus, may not show a car at all.
| | 04:45 |
Here's why.
If I go back to my prespective or top view
| | 04:49 |
and press w to move, and I'll go in and
pick that camera, it may actually be
| | 04:54 |
embedded in the car, or out beyond this
box.
| | 04:57 |
On my outliner then.
I'll go under Show and distill down
| | 05:02 |
choosing Objects and Cameras to filter.
I'll pick my side camera and press w for
| | 05:09 |
move, press f to focus and see where it
is.
| | 05:12 |
That side camera is way out here and it
might be facing away.
| | 05:18 |
What I'll do is set that near clip plain
to 0.1 and also scroll down in the camera
| | 05:24 |
down to the object display.
There is a locator scale for the camera
| | 05:28 |
and this is the drawn size of the icon and
the view not the physical scale.
| | 05:32 |
We never want to scale a camera because it
effects our view by changing the locator
| | 05:37 |
scale so lets say 200, let's just see that
camera.
| | 05:41 |
We can also make sure we choose Show and
Cameras, so they're visible.
| | 05:46 |
And there's that side camera.
And what it looks like here is that clip
| | 05:49 |
plane may be a little off.
I'll go up and put that far clip back and
| | 05:54 |
to 10,000 let's say, or maybe even
100,000.
| | 05:58 |
This way I'm guaranteed that when I go
into my view here, choosing "Orthographic"
| | 06:02 |
and "Side" for example, pressing F to
focus I should see the car.
| | 06:06 |
Sometimes what we have to do is just
simply move our cameras out.
| | 06:09 |
We can do this with a front view or top if
we need, although they looked okay.
| | 06:13 |
Now I'm going to remeasure the car,
holding Shift and right-clicking, choosing
| | 06:17 |
Poly Plane, V for snap.
And snapping a poly plane right over the car.
| | 06:23 |
When I check the Poly Plane 1 attributes,
I'm at 155.999, which is just about close
| | 06:27 |
enough to 156, that I'm on.
My car is all the right size.
| | 06:36 |
I'll delete this.
Select all of the car but not the poly
| | 06:39 |
cube, and press Shift + P to unparent.
Now I should be able to select the cube
| | 06:45 |
uniquely and delete it, and I'm ready to
get in there and start setting the wheel
| | 06:49 |
pivots so that they spin correctly.
| | 06:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Separating and naming wheels| 00:00 |
With my car scaled to the right size I'm
ready to get the pivots in place for the wheels.
| | 00:04 |
What I need for tires and wheels and hubs
and so forth is to have them all be unique.
| | 00:10 |
I want the ability to take one wheel and
spin it.
| | 00:14 |
And for the steering wheels in front roll
on the road one rotation and turn steering another.
| | 00:20 |
I need to make these wheels unique objects
instead of instances.
| | 00:24 |
We can tell that they're instanced because
when I select one, over here in the
| | 00:28 |
Attribute editor, I have clean attributes,
a transform node, surface or shape, a
| | 00:34 |
material and it looks like another
material, maybe a tire.
| | 00:37 |
What this tells me, by doing that and
selecting all of them because these are
| | 00:42 |
instanced objects.
And the other way I can tell is to press
| | 00:45 |
F11 for face and pick what I think is one
set of faces.
| | 00:49 |
What I see then is by selecting one set of
faces here on the rear I get the same
| | 00:53 |
selection on the front, meaning these are
instanced objects.
| | 00:57 |
I need to have them be uniquely named
objects so I can control the rotation, uniquely.
| | 01:02 |
And I can also have unique wheels, or
tires, squish when they roll over unique
| | 01:07 |
bumps in the road.
So I'm going to do a little clean-up here
| | 01:10 |
on the wheels.
I'm going to give myself some construction
| | 01:13 |
objects along the way.
So I've got points to snap to.
| | 01:17 |
Temporarily, I'll pick everything but the
title and choose Display > Hide > Hide
| | 01:23 |
Unselected Objects.
Here's my front tire.
| | 01:28 |
And what I'm going to do is to simply snap
a poly plane or something similar over it.
| | 01:33 |
I'll put a polyplane in place making sure
in the polyplane attributes that it's, I
| | 01:38 |
don't know, something square.
20 by 20 seems to work.
| | 01:41 |
I'll put my subdivisions width and height
at 2 by 2, so that I have a center point
| | 01:46 |
and now I'll align it to the tire,
choosing Modify > Align Tool.
| | 01:49 |
I'll align in the center and center.
So now what I've got is a polyplane that's
| | 01:54 |
a unique separate object.
Center on that tire.
| | 01:59 |
I'll take this poly-plane.
Press F to zoom in on it, or focus and
| | 02:04 |
align it, making sure I show the rest of
the car, so I can see where I am.
| | 02:08 |
With my poly-plane selected, maybe in a
front view for example, I'm going to snap
| | 02:15 |
it to the outside of the tire.
The reason I'm doing this is just to give
| | 02:19 |
myself a construction object, because I
may end up doing some deleting and
| | 02:23 |
replicating to get it ironed out.
So there's that poly-plane right on the outside.
| | 02:28 |
I'll duplicate it across to the other
side.
| | 02:30 |
Pressing control D to duplicate, V for
snap, and snapping it over.
| | 02:38 |
I'll take this and snap it to the rear as
well, pressing control d and cloning and
| | 02:44 |
snapping to the back.
Using my align tool again and aligning to
| | 02:49 |
the center of the back wheel.
Now as reference objects, I've got four
| | 02:54 |
poly planes.
Later I'll delete them, but I've
| | 02:56 |
established a clean center point.
What we'll see here, sometimes, is when we
| | 03:00 |
convert instances to objects, we need to
do some duplication.
| | 03:03 |
And as part of that duplication for my
wheels in setting the pivots, I need to
| | 03:07 |
get the names ironed out.
I want to name everything as uniquely as possible.
| | 03:12 |
Frankly, looking through polysurface 1
through 100 can be a little bit confusing.
| | 03:17 |
Especially in a script, or an expression
when we're trying to find a main node.
| | 03:21 |
Now take care of the wheels.
I'm going to pick my wheels here, and
| | 03:26 |
choose Modify > Convert > Instance to
Object.
| | 03:31 |
It looks like now, I have one tire.
What it's saying, really, is that these
| | 03:35 |
three objects were instances of this one.
So I'm going to show the one.
| | 03:39 |
I'll do the same with the rims in the
back.
| | 03:41 |
Again choosing Modify > Convert > Instance
to objects.
| | 03:46 |
And now look at the Spoke.
The ornaments on the center of the wheel.
| | 03:49 |
And finally the hub objects in the middle.
Now I've got my four wheel parts, but
| | 04:03 |
they're a little bit separated.
I'll select them and hide my unselected
| | 04:07 |
objects so I can see what I'm doing.
There's my wheel elements.
| | 04:15 |
Here's the tire, spokes, hub, and rim.
I'll take the rim and the tire, and on my
| | 04:25 |
hot box, choose Modify Align tool and
align them together.
| | 04:28 |
I'll check in a shaded view by pressing
five, and making sure that everything's in
| | 04:33 |
the right place.
It looks like my tire assembly is in good shape.
| | 04:37 |
And now I'm ready to clone it after I name
it.
| | 04:40 |
I'll name things here, this is the front
left tire and so in the transform note
| | 04:44 |
I'll call it tire fl.
You can use whatever naming convention you
| | 04:50 |
like as long as it's consistent so that
when we're doing things in the Expression
| | 04:53 |
Editor, we can find them cleanly and
uniquely.
| | 04:58 |
This will be rim front left.
Spokes front left.
| | 05:09 |
And finally hub front left.
Now for the cloning.
| | 05:17 |
I'll show it was last hiden.
And I'm ready to get in here.
| | 05:21 |
I'll pick my tire, my rim, my spokes and
my hub.
| | 05:27 |
I'll pick my planes, and hide the
unselected.
| | 05:38 |
And for cloning then, I can pick
everything here but the plane and clone it.
| | 05:44 |
Selecting, pressing V and D to move the
pivot.
| | 05:49 |
And I'm going to make sure with all these
objects, pivot is actually in the center.
| | 05:53 |
Now if I get in here and chose modify,
center pivot.
| | 05:57 |
It's going to work for most of them,
except for the spokes.
| | 06:01 |
We'll look at it in the right view here.
The tire thinks its center is in the
| | 06:05 |
center, the hub and rim are good, but the
spokes is, well, it's a little offset.
| | 06:10 |
What happened?
This is a three bladed object.
| | 06:13 |
Which means that it's not a square if we
draw a bounding box around.
| | 06:17 |
It's a rectangle.
And so the center is in the center of it's volume.
| | 06:21 |
Which is not in the center of the car tire
like we want.
| | 06:25 |
So i'll press V and D to move the pivot.
And put it right here centered on the car.
| | 06:30 |
Now I'm going to take that whole tire
assembly, but not my planes.
| | 06:35 |
Press Control D to duplicate, V for move
and I am going to snap it over onto my
| | 06:41 |
other reference plains, this is in the
right place and now I can clone them side
| | 06:47 |
to side.
I will make sure I name these at some
| | 06:49 |
point either selecting and cloning and
coming back to name or naming and then
| | 06:54 |
cloning again.
Now this round, what I'm going to do is
| | 06:58 |
duplicate by pressing Ctrl + D, move and
pull them off, E to rotate, and I'll press
| | 07:05 |
and hold E and left click and hold to turn
on discrete rotate if it's not already on,
| | 07:09 |
and I'll spin these around on the Y axis
by one hundred and eighty Now I'll move
| | 07:16 |
them over.
Sliding them in, and going into a front
| | 07:19 |
view to check.
Pressing F to focus, and V and D to move
| | 07:25 |
the pivot, taking all the pivots and
snapping them forward, and then snapping
| | 07:29 |
on the x axis up to my plane.
I'll make sure I check in a shaded view.
| | 07:34 |
That all the wheel components are in the
right place.
| | 07:37 |
And it looks like I got a little off
there.
| | 07:39 |
I need to make sure that, as part of this
move, everything ends up where it's
| | 07:43 |
supposed to.
I'll go through here hiding this plane by
| | 07:48 |
pressing Ctrl + H and moving and aligning
and snapping pieces.
| | 07:51 |
And I'll what it looks like when I'm done.
I've cloned my wheels.
| | 07:56 |
I put the centers in the right place.
And I've named them.
| | 08:00 |
There's collections here for front left,
rear left, front right, rear right.
| | 08:05 |
And everything in there is named, so I can
find it, uniquely, if I need.
| | 08:10 |
I've hidden my planes.
And now I'll show everything, again, by
| | 08:13 |
choosing Display > Show > Show Geometry >
Polygon Surfaces.
| | 08:18 |
And there's my car.
And now I can take these centering planes
| | 08:21 |
out if I need, or put them on a layer and
delete them.
| | 08:24 |
It's really up to you, as they're just
construction objects.
| | 08:27 |
The important part is part of this setting
the wheels in place is that I've got
| | 08:31 |
unique wheels with unique names that I can
identify and attach uniquely to free-form
| | 08:37 |
defermation boxes.
Or locators for the steering.
| | 08:40 |
Now, I'll get the pivots in place and
start the parenting on the wheels.
| | 08:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting wheel pivots| 00:00 |
With my wheels separated and named, I'm
ready to get all their pivots in the right place.
| | 00:05 |
I can either use my existing planes I had
used for construction objects or simply
| | 00:10 |
refer to the tires or hubs which have
vertices on the cardinal points for
| | 00:14 |
getting the pivots in the right area.
I'll work one wheel at a time.
| | 00:19 |
I'll zoom in and select, let's say, the
front right components here.
| | 00:23 |
Making sure I don't have anything else
selected.
| | 00:26 |
And choosing Display, Hide, Hide on
Selected Objects, or Show, Isolate Select,
| | 00:32 |
View Selected.
Now with this one wheel on I'll go into a
| | 00:37 |
left view and see what it looks like.
Here's my wheel, but I may have some
| | 00:43 |
oddness with the pivot.
If I press d for enter edit mode and I
| | 00:47 |
zoom in perhaps pressing 4 for a wire
frame to see it easier.
| | 00:51 |
I can see I have two pivots here.
There's the one pivot surrounded by a
| | 00:55 |
square, which is the pivot of most of the
things.
| | 00:57 |
And then the one offset pivot up here,
which is part of this spoke arrangement.
| | 01:02 |
What I'm going to do is hold v and d to
move the pivot.
| | 01:06 |
V to snapped points and D to enter Edit
mode or move, and I'm going to snap both
| | 01:12 |
objects' pivots on the center-point of the
wheel.
| | 01:15 |
Now I'll go in a top view and focus in by
pressing F, and see where that landed.
| | 01:21 |
It looks pretty good.
I don't mind having the pivot here for
| | 01:24 |
this particular wheel, as it's only
governing the rotation and will be
| | 01:28 |
parented to something else, but I like to
have the pivots in the right place so that
| | 01:33 |
there's no chance of wobbly wheels when
animating the car.
| | 01:37 |
When you're rigging a car, it's worth
being a bit of a neat freak.
| | 01:41 |
It's worth really watching out for where
your pivots go early on, making sure that
| | 01:45 |
everything is set.
So if you have to take this tire for
| | 01:48 |
example and spin it, pressing E to rotate
and rotating around on the red x axis that
| | 01:55 |
it revolves perfectly without wobbling.
It's much easier to fix issues like this
| | 02:00 |
now then to have compound issues in
rotations once things get parented so I'd
| | 02:05 |
rather take the time and go through it.
I'll finish up the rest of the wheels and
| | 02:10 |
just show what it looks like when I'm
done.
| | 02:13 |
I've made sure all the pivots are in the
right place.
| | 02:15 |
And what I should be able to do is a test
here on the rig.
| | 02:18 |
Just press e to rotate.
Press E and Left Click and hold, and make
| | 02:23 |
sure I'm rotating around the local axis.
And rotate all the wheels and all the hub
| | 02:28 |
and spoke and rim components on their x
axis.
| | 02:32 |
And see those wheels spin.
This is a good test to do to make sure in
| | 02:36 |
a car that before you get any controllers
or parenting on, that if all the pivots
| | 02:41 |
are in the right place for the wheels and
you rotate them, the wheels roll straight
| | 02:45 |
and aren't wobbly.
That way we know that as we get further
| | 02:48 |
along in the rig, we're not having to undo
or find a way out of odd issues and pivots.
| | 02:54 |
It's the first point of rigging, take care
of your pivots and then do everything else.
| | 03:00 |
Now with the pivots of the wheels in
place, I'll do a last check on geometry
| | 03:04 |
and see if there's anything else I need to
fix before I start getting controllers on.
| | 03:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Checking the model for geometry problems| 00:00 |
With the wheels' pivots all in the right
place, now is a good time to check for any
| | 00:04 |
last easily fixable geometry issues.
We know we need to have wheel wells made
| | 00:10 |
and it does look like there's a vent
missing here on the side.
| | 00:12 |
Beyond some missing geometry or normals we
need to flip, which we can take care of at
| | 00:17 |
any point, we should look for anything in
here that's a major modeling issue.
| | 00:21 |
Just as a last check, before we get into
more complex rigging.
| | 00:25 |
Anything in here on the modeling side,
that would effect the bounding box of an
| | 00:29 |
object, for example.
Or an odd mesh flow that would deform strangely.
| | 00:33 |
It's important to do this, to give it one
last check over.
| | 00:36 |
To make sure that, as we're animating,
there aren't built-in issues in here.
| | 00:41 |
There's some different ways to do this.
First a visual inspection.
| | 00:46 |
I'll go and look at the tires, for
example, and they're modeled with a
| | 00:49 |
tremendous amount of detail, which is
fantastic.
| | 00:51 |
This way we can put a camera, this close
for example.
| | 00:55 |
See the reflection in the shiny paint and
watch the treads go by in the tires.
| | 00:59 |
This is a typical car shot, we'll call it,
close up and seeing the steering and if
| | 01:05 |
we're doing a bit of a burnout maybe a
little smoke there.
| | 01:08 |
I'll do a visual inspection and just look
for any odd geometry I may have missed.
| | 01:13 |
Any t's or poles, things that would cause
odd smoothing.
| | 01:18 |
Non-manifold geometry.
I also want to look for overlapping faces,
| | 01:23 |
and one way to tell is to simply pan
around the model making sure that wire
| | 01:27 |
frame unshaded is off.
If you can pan around here and not see any
| | 01:32 |
flickering, it's pretty good.
It does look like I need to clone a door
| | 01:37 |
and also some vents somewhere along here.
But I can fix that easy enough just by
| | 01:41 |
going in and mirroring.
I'll fix the normals and make sure that
| | 01:45 |
I've got outside surfaces to everything.
I'm not worried about the materials yet,
| | 01:50 |
but as long as they display properly, I'm
in good shape.
| | 01:55 |
What I can also do is get in and move
things around as a way of checking geometry.
| | 02:00 |
If I take this body and I pull it, do I
see in moving the actual geometry versus
| | 02:06 |
moving the view, any odd flickering?
Even beyond simply moving it, switch over
| | 02:12 |
to viewport 2.0, which is using the Maya
hardware 2.0 renderer It's using DirectX
| | 02:19 |
to render, essentially showing our light
in a game-style way, we could call it, in
| | 02:23 |
the view.
Now with this object selected, if I pick
| | 02:27 |
it and scroll up, do I see any odd
flickering?
| | 02:31 |
No, it looks pretty good.
I do have some odd issues here with the
| | 02:35 |
wheels, and it could be which way their
normals are facing.
| | 02:39 |
What we can do for things like this is 1.
Use a double sided material or make sure
| | 02:44 |
the object is double sided here in the
render stats.
| | 02:47 |
I typically don't want to do this, because
that means I'm rendering both sides of
| | 02:51 |
every polygon.
So if I turn off double sided and make
| | 02:55 |
sure under shading back face coding is on,
I'm in good shape.
| | 02:59 |
It's worth going through and checking like
that.
| | 03:02 |
One of the ways we can handle this is
actually to select all of the car, choose
| | 03:07 |
window, general editors, attribute
spreadsheet, and in the attribute
| | 03:12 |
spreadsheet go into the renderer tab.
In Render, if you click double-sided and
| | 03:19 |
press 0, you'll turn everything off.
Now everything is single-sided.
| | 03:23 |
So as long as it's modeled to face out, we
should be in pretty good shape.
| | 03:27 |
It's a handy switch here.
1 and 0 and off and on are the same.
| | 03:30 |
It's a Boolean in the truest sense of it,
just a choice between those.
| | 03:35 |
And so by setting everything to a
double-sided value of zero, we turn it off.
| | 03:40 |
Now in Viewport 2.0 where it's respecting
the backface culling, if I spin around I
| | 03:47 |
can see if anything else needs attention.
Aside from the door and vent I need to
| | 03:52 |
close, it looks like I'm in pretty good
shape.
| | 03:55 |
I'm ready to get going with my controllers
and my steering, getting the car actually
| | 03:59 |
functioning together instead of as a
series of, well, parts that are next to
| | 04:03 |
each other looking like a car.
So make sure that you check over your
| | 04:06 |
models, looking for any geometry issues
before they're rigged.
| | 04:10 |
It's better to take the time to solve it
now than have to go back into a rig, or
| | 04:14 |
even worse an animated file, and try to
fix things.
| | 04:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Creating the ControllersCreating and cloning wheel controllers| 00:00 |
With the geometry of my car ready, scaled,
fixed up, and ready to rig, I can start to
| | 00:06 |
get my controller objects in place.
I've got my tires, hubs, rims, and spokes
| | 00:10 |
all unique and now I'm going to make
unique wheel controllers to start the
| | 00:14 |
rigging process on the wheels.
Controllers for us, distill control down,
| | 00:18 |
and here's why we need this.
To pick and animate these wheels I have to
| | 00:23 |
select four objects, assuming I can find
them all in the view I'm in.
| | 00:27 |
Then I've got to can key their rotation,
clicking and dragging on an axis and
| | 00:31 |
judging how much rotation I need over how
many frames I'm doing.
| | 00:36 |
It's fine for one wheel, but then I've got
four wheels and I need them all to go
| | 00:40 |
together, which gives me 16 objects to run
around and select.
| | 00:43 |
Then I've got the rest of the car.
There's a body, the doors, the rivets, the
| | 00:48 |
hood, the scoop, and so forth.
All elegantly modeled as single pieces, as
| | 00:52 |
they should be.
What I want to do then, is distill the
| | 00:54 |
control of multiple objects down to one
object.
| | 00:57 |
So that I can pick one unique named object
in an expression or from maybe an oblique
| | 01:04 |
or down on the road view, rock the whole
car with one object versus having to pick everything.
| | 01:10 |
I'll switch back to Default Quality
Rendering here out of Viewport 2.0 and
| | 01:14 |
make sure that my car is actually sitting
down on a 0 plane to start.
| | 01:18 |
What I like to do sometimes instead of
turning on the grid is just use a poly
| | 01:21 |
plane, and here's why: If I go into a
"Right View" and turn on the grid, I have
| | 01:27 |
a grey grid.
And I can adjust the grid spacing.
| | 01:29 |
But when I back out, I start to get greyer
and greyer until my car disappears in a
| | 01:35 |
fog, which is perhaps not optimal.
A lot of times, what I'll do is a shortcut
| | 01:40 |
then, to avoid actually the long way up to
the buttons and turning off the grid, is
| | 01:45 |
to hold shift and right-click, make a
poly-plane, and put it underneath.
| | 01:49 |
A poly-plane created in a perspective view
is on the zero plane.
| | 01:54 |
So now in my right view with no grid on
obscuring the view, I can pick my whole
| | 01:59 |
car but not my poly-plane.
Press w for move and pull it up to sit on
| | 02:04 |
the road.
Now I'm not going to snap the pivots down
| | 02:07 |
because I spent some time getting them
correct on the wheels.
| | 02:10 |
So I want to make sure that I get this
down to the road without squishing the tires.
| | 02:15 |
I'll turn on my Selection Lock Up at the
top here on the UI.
| | 02:19 |
And we can see that my y axis is
highlighted here in yellow.
| | 02:22 |
That means I'm only moving on that one
direction.
| | 02:25 |
But I can zoom in very close and click and
drag to pull that tire up right onto the road.
| | 02:32 |
We can get as close as we want in here,
and this is pretty good.
| | 02:35 |
We simply can't tell, any further, unless
we're right under the tire.
| | 02:39 |
Now I'll turn off the selection lock, and
I'm ready to get some real controllers
| | 02:43 |
into place.
I'll delete this plane, and start to make
| | 02:46 |
some nurb circles.
I use node circles for a couple of reasons here.
| | 02:50 |
One, their not renderable, unless we
extrude a waft along them.
| | 02:54 |
So I don't run a chance of having like I
would with a Taurus or, for example, a
| | 02:58 |
pike, an odd shape outside of the car.
Two, I want to be able to filter my
| | 03:04 |
selection, that is, I'd like to be able to
get in here and say, let's only select by
| | 03:10 |
nurb and therefore, because the rest of
the car is polygons, I can not select the car.
| | 03:15 |
It's important when you're animating to be
able to clearly find and select what you
| | 03:19 |
need in your rig.
Here's what I'll do then.
| | 03:22 |
I'm going to work on one tire and clone my
controllers out.
| | 03:25 |
This car has the same wheels in the front
and back.
| | 03:28 |
I can make one circle and clone it.
If you've got a car that has maybe, larger
| | 03:33 |
tires in the back, you'll need unique
circles for each one, as these circles are
| | 03:37 |
going to drive the role on the road or the
rotation of the tires.
| | 03:41 |
I'll hide my other objects by choosing
'Display', 'Hide', 'Hide Unselected', and
| | 03:44 |
zoom in.
I'm going to use a polyplane just to get
| | 03:50 |
the center of the tire.
As the vertices here (INAUDIBLE) a little
| | 03:52 |
close together to be able to snap to.
I'll make a polyplane of I don't really
| | 03:57 |
care what size, but give it two by two
divisions.
| | 04:00 |
I'll align it using my align tool, right
onto the tire.
| | 04:05 |
This way, even though the tire doesn't
have a center point, I have a center point
| | 04:09 |
of the tire on another object.
And I can snap my circle to it.
| | 04:13 |
I'll click on circle under curves, hold v
for snap, click and drag out from the
| | 04:17 |
center And snap right out, all the way out
to the edge of the tire, zooming in to
| | 04:23 |
check and make sure that I'm on.
It looks like I am at least the circle in
| | 04:28 |
its spans and points is out to the edge of
the tire.
| | 04:32 |
Now I'll spin around.
And I like to snap this onto the fronts so
| | 04:36 |
they're visible.
It's up to you where you'd like to put
| | 04:38 |
these circles but typically to be able to
pick them, I don't want to embed it in the
| | 04:42 |
tread of the tire.
I'll align it again, using in this case my
| | 04:47 |
align tool going front to back, and,
there's that circle sticking out.
| | 04:51 |
I can delete the poly plane, and I'm going
to name the circle.
| | 04:55 |
What I'll do is I'll call this Control
Front Left.
| | 04:59 |
Typically I'll name my control objects,
Control.
| | 05:02 |
So if I do a wild card search I can put
control in and only get my controllers.
| | 05:07 |
Here's ControlFL.
Now I can duplicate this around to the
| | 05:12 |
rest of my tires.
It's important in here to make the NURB
| | 05:16 |
circle and get the radius because we'll
use that in solving for the roll of the tire.
| | 05:21 |
Alternately, we could come back and
measure.
| | 05:22 |
But why duplicate work instead of doing it
once correctly?
| | 05:27 |
There's one other piece I'll add on here.
I'm going to add in a proxy object for
| | 05:31 |
particle emission.
This is a fast car, and there's a good
| | 05:35 |
chance I'd like to see a little smoke on
the tires, somebody taps the gas a bit.
| | 05:39 |
If I try to make this tire emit particles
Maya will choke.
| | 05:44 |
Can we do it, yes.
Is there a more elegant way?
| | 05:47 |
Absolutely.
I'll go back here in my right view.
| | 05:51 |
And I'm going to make a polycylinder.
I'll take my polycylinder and align it to
| | 06:00 |
the tire.
Going on center, center, and center.
| | 06:07 |
Now I'll take this polycylinder.
Grabbing the radius here from my nurb
| | 06:11 |
circle and changing it, so it's a perfect
match.
| | 06:17 |
Then I'll increase out the height,
scrolling up until it's the width of the tire.
| | 06:23 |
Finally I'm going to bevel this cylinder's
edges, pressing F10 for edge and picking
| | 06:28 |
those edges.
I'll hold shift and right click and chose
| | 06:31 |
bevel edge.
And turn off offset as a fraction, so the
| | 06:35 |
offset is in same units.
Now what I'll do is put an offset in of 1
| | 06:42 |
and that looks pretty good.
What this is going to be is a proxy that
| | 06:46 |
if I need this tire to smoke.
I can emit particles from the cylinder
| | 06:51 |
instead of from the massive geometry of
the tire.
| | 06:53 |
Looking like the tire is smoking on the
road, but coming from a far simpler emitter.
| | 06:59 |
I'll name this smoke emitter, making sure
that I right-click and choose object mode
| | 07:03 |
in reselecting it to name it in the
transform node.
| | 07:07 |
We'll call this Smoke, front left.
Now I've got my control components to
| | 07:13 |
duplicate and align to the other tires.
I'll make sure I have the cylinders
| | 07:17 |
aligned to the tires on the centers, and
the nerve circles aligned to the centers
| | 07:21 |
in the outside.
I'll duplicate these, using the Align
| | 07:24 |
tool, and show what it looks like when I'm
done.
| | 07:28 |
With all of my cylinders, and circles
cloned, and aligned.
| | 07:31 |
I'm ready to deal with my naming.
I've named this one, smoke front left, and
| | 07:35 |
now I have a front left one.
I'll just change this back to rear left,
| | 07:39 |
and do the same with the circle.
Again control rear left.
| | 07:44 |
I'll fix up the naming.
And then I've got all my objects in with
| | 07:50 |
one more final thing to do on the smoke
controllers.
| | 07:57 |
My names are all in.
I've got my smoke, front, left, right,
| | 08:01 |
rear, left, right, etcetera, etcetera, and
my controllers.
| | 08:05 |
I'm going to pick my smoke objects here.
And remembering to parent them when I get
| | 08:09 |
to the tires later.
Put them on their own layer by going to
| | 08:13 |
the channel box, and in my display layers,
creating a new layer and assigning the
| | 08:17 |
selected objects.
I'll name this layer Smoke Emitters
| | 08:25 |
(SOUND) I'll turn off Visible and hit
Save.
| | 08:28 |
They are there in the scene.
I'll have to remember to add them into the
| | 08:33 |
rig, but they're hidden for the moment.
So they don't render with giant cylinders
| | 08:36 |
of my tires.
But if I'm dealing in this car smoking a
| | 08:40 |
little bit, I have ready emitters for my
VMX animator to be able to get in, and key
| | 08:45 |
particle streams, too.
With these in place, I'll start to get my
| | 08:48 |
steering locators in and finally, the
control objects for the rest of the car.
| | 08:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding steering locators| 00:00 |
With the geometry cleaned and my tire
controller is in place, for controlling
| | 00:04 |
the roll of my wheel on the road, I'm
ready to get my steering locators in.
| | 00:09 |
If we spin underneath this car, we can see
it actually doesn't have any steering mechanism.
| | 00:13 |
It actually doesn't have any suspension
either.
| | 00:16 |
And that's fine because we really may not
be able to see it in a car like this.
| | 00:20 |
If you're dealing in a truck that's been
lifted, for example, and has visible
| | 00:23 |
suspension or it's more open like in a
dune buggy, you may want to model it.
| | 00:28 |
You may get models that have rudimentary
suspension modeled in rough boxes, all the
| | 00:34 |
way up through ones that have disc brakes
and calipers that can be animated.
| | 00:37 |
It depends what you're going to do with
the model as well.
| | 00:39 |
What I'll do is go into a top view here,
and make some locators to put a separate
| | 00:44 |
pivot in for my steering.
I'll choose create locator, from the top
| | 00:49 |
menu, or hot box.
A locator seen here off to the side, is
| | 00:54 |
simply an object that has no volume.
It just exists as a point in space with an
| | 00:59 |
extra pivot, so that we can separate the
rotation of these tires from rolling and steering.
| | 01:06 |
I'll take my locator and press v for snap
and snap it right on the center of the tire.
| | 01:14 |
Alternately, you could use your align
tool.
| | 01:15 |
I'm going to take this then and align it
to my tire here.
| | 01:20 |
So that I get it in the right place.
That way I can be consistent on both sides.
| | 01:26 |
Temporarily, I'll use my isolate select to
be able to show just these pieces.
| | 01:30 |
And I'll pick the locator, hold shift and
pick the tire.
| | 01:33 |
From my hotbox, choose modify a line tool.
Notice the speed there.
| | 01:37 |
I want it to be quick, which is why I'm
using the hotbox, picking quickly and
| | 01:42 |
choosing the tool.
Now I'll align this locator, centered on
| | 01:47 |
the tire.
It already is centered in the top view and
| | 01:50 |
front to back.
This gives me the locator at the place of
| | 01:55 |
the steering.
If you'd like to change the size of your locator.
| | 02:00 |
Don't scale it.
Scaling it actually doesn't work.
| | 02:04 |
What we want to do it with the locator,
either in the channel box or the attribute
| | 02:06 |
editor, is to use the local scale which
I'll put up at 3 to make it bigger.
| | 02:11 |
It's the drawn size of the object on the
view.
| | 02:14 |
Not the physical scale of that locator
object.
| | 02:19 |
Now with that in place I can name it.
And clone it to the other side.
| | 02:23 |
I'll call this one 'Steering'.
And this will be front left to keep with
| | 02:29 |
my naming convention.
I'll show everything else by turning off
| | 02:33 |
'isolate' and moving this locator.
It looks like I do need to correct that naming.
| | 02:40 |
It's okay to catch yourself on naming like
this and fix it.
| | 02:43 |
It's better to fix it now than when it's
part of an expression, something else is
| | 02:47 |
looking to.
I'll duplicate this locator and move it
| | 02:50 |
over, and use my align tools again to get
it aligned onto that tire.
| | 02:56 |
I'll select the tire, deselecting the
body, and on my Hotbox, choose Modify
| | 03:01 |
Align Tool.
Here's my front-to-back align.
| | 03:05 |
And it's in good shape.
Having these locators on the steering is
| | 03:10 |
important and here is why.
If I take a tire, and I rotate it on the
| | 03:16 |
red x axis here for rolling on the road,
it looks good.
| | 03:21 |
If I turn it on the green Y axis for
steering, again, it looks just fine.
| | 03:26 |
If I rotate and roll together, I get
wobbly wheels, which is probably not the
| | 03:33 |
best for driving.
So the locater gives me a chance to
| | 03:37 |
disassociate the Y rotation of the wheel
from the X rotation, separating them so I
| | 03:43 |
can have both at once without having
wobbly tires.
| | 03:47 |
Now that I've got the steering locators in
place, I'll get the control object in for
| | 03:50 |
the rest of the car.
A body, steering, and master control to be
| | 03:54 |
able to distill that control to as few
pieces as possible.
| | 03:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating steering, body, and master controllers| 00:00 |
With wheel and steering control and
locators in place, I'm ready to get more
| | 00:05 |
controllers that distill the control
higher up on my car.
| | 00:08 |
You can use any shapes you want for this
or any kind of objects.
| | 00:12 |
What I prefer to do, though, is to keep in
line with what I've done on the tires.
| | 00:15 |
I've used a kind of object, here a nerve
circle that is different than anything
| | 00:20 |
else on the car.
If I'm only using NURBS controllers, for
| | 00:24 |
example, I can choose it here in my
selection filter, NURBS.
| | 00:29 |
And this way I can click all I want on my
polygon objects but I cannot select them.
| | 00:34 |
(SOUND) If you use all polygon-based
objects, there's two things that could happen.
| | 00:40 |
There's a chance of an accidental render
of a controller object and you may
| | 00:44 |
accidentally select part of your car.
I'd rather be doubly insured by object
| | 00:49 |
type and layers that I'm not selecting the
actual car geometry.
| | 00:53 |
I'll start out here in a top view, zooming
out and creating some circles under
| | 00:58 |
curves, choosing circle.
This first circle will be my steering controller.
| | 01:03 |
I'll move it out here and really you can
use any shape.
| | 01:08 |
What I'd like to do is to Right click and
choose Control vertex.
| | 01:11 |
And pull the back one forward to make a
boomerang or a kidney shape we'll call it.
| | 01:17 |
This way, wherever it's rotated I can tell
which way the car is facing.
| | 01:21 |
I'll name this object Control Steering,
and I'll take this nerve circle and center
| | 01:30 |
it on the car, holding V for snap and
snapping it on the center line, pulling it
| | 01:36 |
back over the hood, and in a front or left
view, pulling it up.
| | 01:41 |
Rather than land the control on the
steering wheel, what I like to do is to be
| | 01:44 |
able to have that steering control
accessible from an outside view.
| | 01:48 |
Let's say we're going to see the car go by
and right here, turn the wheels, I want to
| | 01:53 |
be able to grab the steering controller
without having to hunt.
| | 01:56 |
So in that camera view I can turn these
wheels to be the right direction.
| | 02:00 |
Now make two others, a body and a master
controller.
| | 02:04 |
The body controller is just a circle, I'll
create it and let it be just under the body.
| | 02:12 |
Again, choosing to center it on the car.
In this case using my align tool.
| | 02:18 |
I'll center it, and then i'll take this
body controller and center it on the wheels.
| | 02:23 |
The reason for this, picking for example a
tire back here, is that this body needs to
| | 02:29 |
rock back and forth on the axles.
So being able to parent all the body
| | 02:35 |
geometry that is essentially static to
this controller.
| | 02:39 |
Lets me animate it forward and backward
and side to side over the axles so the car
| | 02:44 |
will rock and lean while steering
correctly.
| | 02:47 |
The last controller I need is a master,
and again, you can use any kind of object
| | 02:52 |
you'd like to fashion for this, arrows,
circles, squares, text, whatever strikes
| | 02:57 |
your fancy.
I'm going to use some circles here because
| | 03:00 |
they're easy.
I'll click and drag to make a master
| | 03:03 |
control, and then I'll right click and
choose Control Vertex and pull the front
| | 03:09 |
one out.
This kind of teardrop shape is a, we'll
| | 03:13 |
call it a large arrow, but shows me which
way the car is facing.
| | 03:17 |
This way, I can judge how much I've
rotated it by where that point is.
| | 03:22 |
I'll choose Object Mode, pick the whole
object, center it on the car body again
| | 03:29 |
using the Align tool, and center it on the
front wheels.
| | 03:35 |
If you noticed, I haven't left my Align
tool as part of this selection.
| | 03:39 |
I'll pick my steering control, pick one of
my front tires, and center it.
| | 03:44 |
What I'll actually do though, is move this
control object forward, and then pull its
| | 03:51 |
pivot back to match on the front wheel so
the car pivots around the front.
| | 03:56 |
I can do this in, let's say a right or
left view.
| | 03:59 |
Pressing V and D to move the pivot, and on
the blue z axis here, snapping back onto
| | 04:05 |
the center of that hub.
Then I'll take the master control and pull
| | 04:09 |
it up.
It's up to you where you would like to
| | 04:11 |
leave it.
But personally I find that if it's down
| | 04:14 |
here on the zero plane it tends to get
submerged in the road.
| | 04:17 |
So I'm going to take this and move it up.
Even with the tire.
| | 04:22 |
Even holding v to snap.
This way I can manually sit the car on the
| | 04:27 |
road, squish the tires down, and in any
view, especially a camera view like this
| | 04:32 |
where the car is coming towards me let's
say, I can grab this controller and rotate
| | 04:37 |
it or lean it as I need.
I'll name this Control Master, and I'll go
| | 04:45 |
underneath and name the last one Control
Body.
| | 04:51 |
It's important to keep your naming
conventions consistent so you can
| | 04:55 |
recognize objects.
Additionally, you might be rigging this,
| | 05:00 |
and somebody else might be animating it.
Or, you might be animating a rig that,
| | 05:04 |
somebody else rigged.
Everybody likes it when the naming is
| | 05:07 |
consistent, because it makes the things
that we expect to find easy to find.
| | 05:11 |
Hunting through 5 or 10 nerve circles is
kind of a drag after a while.
| | 05:16 |
But finding Control Body, or Control
Master makes the job much easier.
| | 05:22 |
With my controllers in place, I'm much,
much closer to getting a rig in.
| | 05:26 |
I get the geometry ready and I've got
locators and controllers for stirring,
| | 05:30 |
wheels, body, master, and stirring control
in.
| | 05:35 |
Now I can start to assemble things
together and begin to get in the fun
| | 05:39 |
stuff, like squishy tires for deforming on
the road.
| | 05:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Assembling the WheelsOverview of wheel organization| 00:00 |
With our geometry ready and our
controllers in place we can look at our
| | 00:03 |
wheel hierarchy in order to understand how
we should parent all the pieces together
| | 00:07 |
and what else we need to do.
If we zoom in and look at a wheel we've
| | 00:11 |
got four pieces that actually make up the
wheel assembly, the tire, rim, spokes and hub.
| | 00:18 |
Outside of that, we have a nerve circle
that's going to govern just the rotation
| | 00:23 |
on the x axis, giving us spin of the wheel
on the road.
| | 00:28 |
Inside then, we have our locator, and this
is going to be our steering.
| | 00:31 |
It's at the point where the whole wheel
assembly steers.
| | 00:36 |
If we take a wheel, and pull it to the
side for a second.
| | 00:39 |
We can look a little bit at how to move
this and what to do.
| | 00:43 |
Right now, if I take this wheel and spin
it I get the whole wheel rotating, and
| | 00:49 |
that's just fine until I decide to put on
things like a deformer.
| | 00:54 |
Anytime we're dealing in a deformer, we
are moving or affecting the geometry.
| | 01:00 |
For example if I take in here under create
deformers a lattice deformer and apply it
| | 01:05 |
to the wheel I can take this wheel and
squish that lattice.
| | 01:10 |
I pick my lattice point and take the
bottom set, making sure I grab all of them
| | 01:14 |
and pulling it up.
Now I have a wheel that's squished down to
| | 01:18 |
the road.
And again, if I select this wheel by
| | 01:22 |
object and rotate it, it actually rotates
through the squish zone.
| | 01:27 |
This is good, until I start to put on an
extra control, like a cluster.
| | 01:32 |
I'll get in here, and take these lattice
points that I had previously moved, and
| | 01:36 |
pull them back a little bit, and add a
cluster on.
| | 01:39 |
What a cluster does, is to take points,
like lattice points, or vertices, or skin
| | 01:44 |
clusters, for example and identify them
with a unique object.
| | 01:49 |
When I create a cluster, then I have a C
here, for Cluster, and I can grab all
| | 01:53 |
those points and move it.
However, this is where stuff gets messy.
| | 01:57 |
Let's say, for example, that my wheel
assembly is parented to a cube.
| | 02:02 |
I take my wheel and parent to a cube.
I take my lattice deformer and parent to a
| | 02:08 |
cube, and I take my hub and parent to a
cube.
| | 02:14 |
When the cube rotates, I get a mess.
The reason for this, is that the deformer
| | 02:21 |
is already effecting the geometry, so I'm
doubling the rotation, and because it is
| | 02:26 |
this lattice deformer, it's sheering
through that deformer itself.
| | 02:30 |
If I go into the FFD one, I can actually
change the outside lattice properties to
| | 02:35 |
everything, and that does help somewhat.
Although I still get a moderate mess.
| | 02:41 |
When I rotate again, now I get just a
double rotation.
| | 02:44 |
What I need to do then in looking at this
wheel hierarchy is to say, how do I
| | 02:50 |
isolate these rotations and deformations
down, and where do I have to make
| | 02:53 |
allowances for the possibility of a double
rotation.
| | 02:58 |
What I need to do then is using non-linear
deformer to affect the wheel.
| | 03:01 |
And so I'll use a squash and it'll affect
the tire and a tiniest bit of the rim.
| | 03:07 |
It'll look okay because most of the squash
will be in the bottom of the tire.
| | 03:10 |
We'll constrain it down using the balance.
Then I'll have my whole wheel assembly
| | 03:14 |
rotating on my nerb circle.
Which is then parented to my steering
| | 03:18 |
locator, and that way the whole assembly
including the squashed tire, which does
| | 03:23 |
not double the rotation, is steering.
Through about 20 degrees to either side to
| | 03:28 |
actually steer the car.
On the rear it's far easier.
| | 03:33 |
I simply have to spin and squish, and so I
don't have to worry about a second
| | 03:38 |
parenting tool locator inside the wheel to
steer, but rather everything parented to
| | 03:43 |
simply the nerve circle to roll on the
road and then squish the tire.
| | 03:48 |
It's important to think of these kind of
things.
| | 03:50 |
In a real car, we actually do distill down
that rotation so that every rotation is
| | 03:55 |
handled by another component.
It's very rare to see a universal joint
| | 03:59 |
for example in an instance like there
where I need to have rotation transferred
| | 04:03 |
on axes or changed between let's say x and
z.
| | 04:07 |
It's much more common to have a series of
essentially hinged joints that transfer
| | 04:12 |
rotation one axis at a time.
So with that in mind, we'll get in and
| | 04:16 |
start parenting the wheel and then add in
the deformation for the tires to make them
| | 04:20 |
squish down to the road.
| | 04:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Parenting the tires and hubs| 00:00 |
Now that we understand the hierarchy in
wheels and how to avoid a double rotation
| | 00:04 |
in steering, we can start to parent
together parts of our wheel assemblies.
| | 00:08 |
I'll begin with the rear wheels, zooming
in on the left rear and selecting the hub
| | 00:14 |
and then spokes, rim, and tire.
All these pieces need to rotate together.
| | 00:18 |
It's one wheel after all.
With those all selected, I'll hold shift
| | 00:23 |
and select the nerve circle outside called
Control Rear Left, and press P for parent.
| | 00:29 |
Now I'll test it.
As we've seen, it's very important to test
| | 00:32 |
a rig all the way through.
I'll press E for rotate, grab the red X
| | 00:37 |
rotation ring and spin it, and as we'd
expect with a parented object, the whole
| | 00:42 |
tire rotates together.
I'll do this on the right rear as well,
| | 00:46 |
and then I'll move on to the fronts.
Make sure you deselect before you start
| | 00:51 |
re-selecting to parent.
That way you don't accidentally parent the
| | 00:55 |
left to the right, for example.
I'll pick the middle, press Q to switch
| | 00:59 |
over to selection, and then pick the
spokes, rim, tire, and, finally, circle,
| | 01:05 |
and press P.
Again, I'll test it.
| | 01:08 |
If it seems redundant to test, or just
such a simple step you shouldn't do it,
| | 01:12 |
think again.
There's always time to test out and make
| | 01:15 |
sure something works.
As you get more and more into a rig,
| | 01:18 |
things get more and more complex.
Now work on the front wheel and since I
| | 01:22 |
happen to be on the right side, I'll start
on the right front.
| | 01:26 |
I'm going to select again, the hub,
spokes, rim, tire and nerve circle and
| | 01:32 |
press P.
Then, I'll take that node circle and spin
| | 01:36 |
underneath the car, to parent it to the
locator.
| | 01:39 |
I'll hold shift, zoom in and select that
steering locator that I had created earlier.
| | 01:43 |
Then I'll parent the whole assembly to the
steering and I'll test it once more.
| | 01:51 |
With the nerve circle selected, pressing E
to rotate spins the whole wheel, as we'd expect.
| | 01:57 |
Now zipping underneath and selecting the
steering locator and backing out a little
| | 02:02 |
bit lets me steer the car.
I can steer the car actually right through
| | 02:06 |
the engine there, and I'll need to limit
that down but I'll do it with the steering
| | 02:09 |
controller later, but my parenting is all
in good shape.
| | 02:13 |
What I should be able to do then as a test
is steer the car, pick the nerve circle,
| | 02:19 |
and rotate the wheel.
And I have isolated that rotation down one
| | 02:23 |
axis per object, so I'm not getting a
double rotation causing wobbly wheels.
| | 02:30 |
I'll finish up with the left side, making
sure I have all the pieces of the wheel
| | 02:33 |
parented to the circle first.
Here's the hub and spokes, rim, tire,
| | 02:39 |
circle, P for parent, and finally take the
parent and parent it to the steering locator.
| | 02:48 |
Now for the ultimate test.
When I pick the steering locator on both
| | 02:54 |
sides, making sure that I rotate on the
local axes I should be able to steer the
| | 03:01 |
car, and it looks like we're in pretty
good shape.
| | 03:06 |
I have my discreet rotate on, which is why
that's clicking over in every 15 degree increments.
| | 03:12 |
All of my wheels are parented, and I'm
ready for the next step, assigning the
| | 03:15 |
deformers to make the tires squishy.
And then parenting the deformers into
| | 03:19 |
something in the car, so that the wheels
squish, the deformers rotate with their
| | 03:22 |
parents for the steering, and it looks
like the car is sitting on the tires.
| | 03:27 |
(BLANK_AUDIO)
| | 03:28 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Flattening the tires to the road| 00:00 |
Once the car tires are all parented
together and onto their locators for the
| | 00:04 |
front sterring, we can start to think
about squishing the tires so that the car
| | 00:08 |
sits down on them.
We're going to use a nonlinear deformer
| | 00:11 |
for this.
A squash.
| | 00:13 |
And it's going to squash actually the tire
and the rim slightly.
| | 00:17 |
Now I realize that the rims should
actually be metal and not squashed, but
| | 00:20 |
we're going to limit down the squash so
much that it really just affects the
| | 00:24 |
bottom of the tire.
The reason to do this, as I showed before
| | 00:27 |
with the lattice, a squash let's us put
in, well, squishyness on the tires without
| | 00:32 |
doubling a rotation when it's parented.
A lattice deformer is going to give us
| | 00:37 |
that squishyness, but it's also going to
add in some really odd motion and
| | 00:41 |
deformation when we start to rotate and
parent.
| | 00:45 |
I'll begin with the rear wheels.
Zooming in on the left rear by pressing f,
| | 00:49 |
and adding in that deformer.
I'll select the rim and the tire and
| | 00:55 |
choose under create deformers in the
animation menu non-linear, squash.
| | 01:00 |
Now, a squash deformer, as its name
implies, is really made to squash and stretch.
| | 01:05 |
I'll press Ctrl+A to go over to the
attribute editor, and into squash 1, the
| | 01:10 |
actual non-linear deformer.
We can use factor in here, which is the
| | 01:14 |
squash factor, to deform this wheel and
get some very cartoony motion if we need.
| | 01:19 |
If you need your wheels to be very
sprongy, if you're dealing in, let's say,
| | 01:24 |
cartoon wheels for a Roadrunner and Coyote
example, we can really use this factor on
| | 01:29 |
the whole wheel to make it squish.
What I'm going to do, though, is take this
| | 01:32 |
squash, and lower down the high bound,
taking it down to zero, so that when I
| | 01:38 |
move factor around, it just takes the
bottom of the wheel.
| | 01:41 |
Then, I'll take the N smoothness up.
Again, this will help me smooth out that motion.
| | 01:47 |
Finally, I'll take expand down.
Maybe down to .1.
| | 01:52 |
This way factor doesn't squish out the
tire to the sides it just goes, basically
| | 01:59 |
up and down.
As long as I limit down how much factor I
| | 02:02 |
put into it, I can have a little bit of
squish on that tire to make it look like
| | 02:06 |
it's sitting down on the road.
For example, here's a factor of -.1, and
| | 02:11 |
the tire is just a tiny bit squished down.
That should probably be the maximum for
| | 02:17 |
that motion.
Any more and it's going to really start to
| | 02:20 |
squish the rim.
A factor, let's say, of .05.
| | 02:25 |
Does it pretty nicely.
The tire is definitely sitting down in the
| | 02:28 |
road, it's just a little flat on the
bottom.
| | 02:31 |
We can measure it more than we can see it,
but it's definitely got that slightly off
| | 02:35 |
look and we believe that the car has
weight.
| | 02:38 |
Returning the factor backt o 0 gets me my
full tire.
| | 02:40 |
So I need to make sure that eventually
when I put controllers on to these so I
| | 02:44 |
don't have to access that squash, that the
maximum facotr is 0.
| | 02:48 |
I can also play with the envelope to
adjust this.
| | 02:51 |
For example, if factor comes down a little
bit, we squish that.
| | 02:55 |
Envelope, then, affects how much of that
tire is affected by that deformer.
| | 03:01 |
With envelope at 0 there's not effect,
with Envelope at 1 it's full.
| | 03:05 |
So I'm going to back off the Envelope to
adjust around 1/2, which let's me pull
| | 03:10 |
down factor to -.15, for example, without
doing a huge deformation of the rim.
| | 03:16 |
It's the equivalent of the opacity.
How much are we doing and how visible is it?
| | 03:22 |
I'll make sure that I set this envelope
consistently, let's say .5 for all my
| | 03:27 |
deformers so I can remember it.
I'll return that factor to 0 and add those
| | 03:31 |
squashes in on the other elements.
Here's the front wheel, and I'll do the same.
| | 03:37 |
The rim, the tire, create deformers,
non-linear, and squash.
| | 03:43 |
Again in that squash, I'll put in the same
things.
| | 03:46 |
I can even go back and select the original
squash if I need or if make myself a preset.
| | 03:51 |
I'll do that by zipping back in.
Pressing 4 for a wire frame and selecting
| | 03:56 |
that squash, which we can just see at the
bottom of the tire.
| | 03:58 |
I'll choose presets.
Save non-linear preset, and I'll call this
| | 04:04 |
preset tire squash.
And I'll click save attribute preset.
| | 04:12 |
Now when I go back and pick the squash on
the front, I can load that in.
| | 04:17 |
Zipping under, selecting the squash,
choosing presets and tire squash replace.
| | 04:23 |
And now I have all those numbers in the
same on this tire.
| | 04:27 |
I'll add in the other squashes on the
other tires and show how this looks.
| | 04:32 |
I've put a squash on the remaining tires
and now I'm ready to test them out.
| | 04:37 |
Before I get into any parenting, I'm going
to test the squash and the rotation.
| | 04:42 |
Because they're all a squash, non-linear
deformer and they all have the same
| | 04:46 |
attributes, I can pick all of them at once
and squish all of the tires down.
| | 04:50 |
I'll pick one, two, and three, and four in
back.
| | 04:56 |
We can also do this in the outliner , if
you're having trouble pikcing that
| | 04:59 |
deformer as it sticks out of the tire.
With all of them selected I'll press
| | 05:03 |
control a to go to the panel box and zip
down into the inputs.
| | 05:08 |
In the inputs for squash one I have all my
attributes.
| | 05:12 |
Now notice up in the channel box it says
squash 1 handle dot dot dot.
| | 05:16 |
And what that means is there is more than
one object selected.
| | 05:19 |
Any common attributes are shown here in
the Channel box.
| | 05:22 |
Obviously, transforms such as translate
and rotate are common.
| | 05:26 |
And there's a squash handle shape.
But because they all have the Squash One
| | 05:30 |
inputs, they can all be affected by these
factors here in the Channel box.
| | 05:34 |
I'll take Factor Up by clicking and
dragging across factor and zero.
| | 05:40 |
And then clicking and dragging into the
view with the mouse wheel.
| | 05:43 |
And I've got squishy tires.
So, when I squish these all up, let's say
| | 05:46 |
to negative 0.5 for a little emphasis, and
then select the nerve circles for the
| | 05:52 |
front tires and press E to rotate, I can
spin them.
| | 05:55 |
And what I'll see is that those rotate
through that squash, giving me rotating
| | 06:01 |
wheels that are deformed to the road.
With my swatches in, I can start parenting
| | 06:08 |
the squashes and getting controls on so I
don't have to hunt for factors.
| | 06:12 |
I'll do that and then start getting the
rest of the suspension in place.
| | 06:17 |
So the wheel can travel up and down as
well.
| | 06:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding tire deformation controls| 00:00 |
With the non-linear squash defomers in
place on each tire, I can get some
| | 00:04 |
controls in, so I don't have to hunt and
peck for them.
| | 00:06 |
What I'd like to do is to have a control
that's on the tire.
| | 00:10 |
It's very possible, we'll see this car and
a few like this in the camera.
| | 00:13 |
Nice and close-up, we see the wheels
going, the exhaust and so forth, and we
| | 00:17 |
want to see the gloss in the paint.
In this kind of a view, we'd like to be
| | 00:21 |
able to take the tires and squish them.
So jumping underneath to try and find a
| | 00:25 |
squashed deformer is a bit of a mess.
What I'll do then is put some kind of a
| | 00:30 |
controller outside of the tire, so in an
oblique view I can effect the factor.
| | 00:34 |
I also don't want to accidentally over
crank factor, because we can see in the
| | 00:39 |
squashed deformers it's very easy in here
to really get in and push that around.
| | 00:44 |
I'd like to have it where a big movement
on the controller gives me a little
| | 00:48 |
movement on the factor.
I'll start out here in a side view, let's
| | 00:52 |
say a right view by making a new
controller.
| | 00:55 |
I'm going to make a circle.
And I'll click and drag to drag out a circle.
| | 00:59 |
I'll scale the circle by pressing r and
scale it on the z axis down to along the ellipse.
| | 01:06 |
This will be recognizable as an up and
down.
| | 01:09 |
What I'll do before I attach this or
parent anything to it then is freeze the
| | 01:13 |
transformations, choosing Modify and
Freeze Transformations.
| | 01:17 |
This is an important step.
If at any time in a rig we have a parent
| | 01:21 |
that is scaled, and we parent or rotate a
child on it, that child will sheer, and
| | 01:27 |
we'll get some very odd motion.
So whenever you scale a controller object
| | 01:31 |
or anything that will be a parent, make
sure you freeze the transformations.
| | 01:35 |
Now I'll get this in place.
I'll name it first, and even delete the
| | 01:39 |
history by pressing shift alt d.
It's now just a nurb circle and a shape node.
| | 01:44 |
I'll call this tire, squash, front left,
and I'll align it to my tire.
| | 01:52 |
Selecting the tire and zipping into a
perspective view, so I can see what I'm
| | 01:56 |
doing a little better.
And for my hot box choosing Modify > Align tool.
| | 02:01 |
I'll align it to the center of the tire
and centered in the view.
| | 02:07 |
I can put it on the front to back but that
might be a little close.
| | 02:10 |
We can see that really puts that
controller right on the tire.
| | 02:14 |
So what I'll do is land it there deselect
that tire and then move this control out.
| | 02:19 |
So that I stand a reasonable chance in
this side view of seeing it.
| | 02:23 |
It's also a nerve circle, so when I can
strain down my selection so I cannot
| | 02:27 |
select polygons, I have a good chance of
grabbing just this control correctly.
| | 02:32 |
I'll take this control and duplicate it
out to the other tires, and then start to
| | 02:36 |
attach it.
I'll press Ctrl+D, hold Shift, pick the tire.
| | 02:42 |
On my hot box, use my align tool again.
Spin around, and put it in the center.
| | 02:50 |
Now, I'll hold Ctrl and reselect the tire,
Ctrl+D to duplicate again.
| | 02:56 |
Zip around to the back of the car, and
pick that tire.
| | 03:01 |
I haven't left the align tool, and that's
an important one.
| | 03:04 |
A lot of times people ask, how did you get
so fast?
| | 03:07 |
And what I say is, I try not to leave a
tool until I'm done with it.
| | 03:12 |
It's very easy to hunt around for tools.
To get in there and say, let's do this tool.
| | 03:17 |
Let's switch to this one.
Let's do this.
| | 03:20 |
Now, let's move over here.
I would rather try to duplicate this as
| | 03:24 |
well as I can by using the Align tool,
which happens to let me select.
| | 03:29 |
This way, I have all four controllers
duplicated out very quickly, actually
| | 03:34 |
faster than I could explain it.
They're out here, so that in an oblique
| | 03:38 |
view I can select them, and I can also
select them in a front or otherwise.
| | 03:43 |
What I like to do with the controllers
often is change how they're drawn.
| | 03:47 |
This way instead of all blue, I can see
them in a distinct color.
| | 03:51 |
We could do it here in the display using
the drawing overrides or we can do it in
| | 03:55 |
the layer.
I'll use my drawing overrides here.
| | 03:58 |
Turn on enable overrides and change their
color around to maybe a bright yellow.
| | 04:04 |
Here in my indexed colors, I have a bright
yellow, and so now this object is very recognizable.
| | 04:09 |
I'll do it with the others, enabling the
override, and scrolling through to that yellow.
| | 04:13 |
I'll also make sure I get in and rename
these pieces, and this way I can recognize
| | 04:19 |
them in an outliner cleanly.
With all of them in place, named, and
| | 04:26 |
colored, it'll be an easy one to find.
I name the first one so all the succeeding
| | 04:31 |
shapes just need to change at the end.
So this'll be rear left, and here we have
| | 04:37 |
front right, and finally in the view rear
right.
| | 04:43 |
If you notice I didn't even spin around to
pick, and it's another way to be fast.
| | 04:47 |
We always want to ask, how can we do this
without moving around more, because when
| | 04:51 |
we move around we are asking our eyes, and
our thoughts to readjust to what we are seeing.
| | 04:56 |
So see what you can do, with limited
movement.
| | 04:59 |
I know I'm fast when I actually don't move
my hands much.
| | 05:02 |
Now I'll attach these to the squash.
What I'm going to do is limit down these controllers.
| | 05:12 |
I'll select them, and go into the limit
information after I freeze the transforms
| | 05:17 |
one more time.
I'll pick them all and under modify choose
| | 05:22 |
freeze transformations.
With the transforms frozen, they all think
| | 05:27 |
they start out at 0.
And we can look up here in the transform
| | 05:30 |
attributes to see that.
What this means then is I can take this
| | 05:34 |
one, let's say the front left, limit it
down and.
| | 05:39 |
Under Translate, put on a y limit.
I'll set the y here from a y of, let's say
| | 05:46 |
0 to a minimum of negative 1.
This gives me just a little movement, just
| | 05:55 |
enough to squish those tires.
If you'd like to put in more, you could
| | 05:58 |
say that this is negative five.
We just have to remember how much it is
| | 06:02 |
when we go and put in our squish here.
Now at negative five, I've got a good
| | 06:07 |
visual as to squishing that tire.
I'll do the same with the others, and then
| | 06:11 |
come back and get an expression in place
on the squash.
| | 06:15 |
With all of my controllers named Colored,
Limited, and in place, I'm ready to
| | 06:20 |
actually get them onto the squash.
What I'm going to do, is temporarily hide
| | 06:24 |
the geometry by choosing Show, and
unchecking Polygons.
| | 06:29 |
This way I can see my car rig cleanly.
Here's my squash, and in Squash 2, what I
| | 06:34 |
need to do is equate factor to the
movement of this controller.
| | 06:40 |
I'll go and squash to a right click, and
go into My Expressions by creating a new
| | 06:44 |
expression here.
Right clicking on the word factor to do this.
| | 06:48 |
Alternately you can choose Window,
Animation Editors, Expression Editors, and
| | 06:53 |
we'll get to the same place.
Here's Squash 2 handle, and I need to make
| | 06:58 |
sure I'm in the right place in my
expression editor to do this.
| | 07:02 |
I'll right click on Factor, and there's
those pieces.
| | 07:05 |
It's important to see squash 2 instead of
squash 2 handle.
| | 07:10 |
Squash 2 factor then is going to relate to
the movement on the y axis of that controller.
| | 07:17 |
So I'lll select squash 2 factor and press
control c to copy.
| | 07:22 |
Then I'll go select the controller, and
it's going to be tiresquashfl.translate y.
| | 07:29 |
And so here in my expression I'll put in
squash 2 factor space equal space
| | 07:34 |
tirequashfl.translate y, copying and
pasting down times a multiplier.
| | 07:41 |
Remember I said, the most I want to move
that squash factor is maybe 0.1, so what
| | 07:47 |
I'll do is put in some sort of a
multiplier here, to be able to reduce that motion.
| | 07:52 |
We can either do arbitrarily, or figure
out that percentage we need to move.
| | 07:57 |
I'm going to put in, for example here,
0.01.
| | 08:01 |
And a semicolon and see how this behaves.
I'll name this expression and call it tires.
| | 08:06 |
I'm going to use one expression for the
rest of what I do in the car, so it can
| | 08:10 |
all be in one place and evaluate together.
I'll hit create, and I get result tires
| | 08:15 |
down here at the bottom in the status
line.
| | 08:17 |
I'll slide my expression editor to the
side or down in the bottom.
| | 08:21 |
And pull this down, when I squish, I've
got a pretty good motion.
| | 08:27 |
What I want to do, looking at the
deformer, is, see how this behaves in the
| | 08:31 |
squash too.
As I pull this down, I get a get a factor
| | 08:35 |
here of negative .05.
So I want to put in a little bit more of a
| | 08:40 |
multiplier to get me to negative 0.1 for
my maximum squash, and I'll be in good shape.
| | 08:45 |
In my Expression Editor then, I'm going to
change that multiplier to 0.02, hit Edit,
| | 08:51 |
and I get another result.
Now when I pull this up and down, I have a
| | 08:59 |
factor from 0 to negative 0.01.
When I show my geometry again by choosing
| | 09:05 |
Show in Polygons, we can see I've got tire
squishiness.
| | 09:09 |
But just a little bit, and it's limited
down in the controller and constrained
| | 09:13 |
then on how much squash is put in by
factor.
| | 09:16 |
This means I can have a little squashed to
the road, and go over bumps, and see the
| | 09:21 |
tires spring back out, but it's not
excessive.
| | 09:23 |
And it's not introducing a giant
deformation of the rims.
| | 09:27 |
Now what I'll do, is put this on to the
other squashes.
| | 09:31 |
These are all named.
Squash 1, 2, 3, and 4.
| | 09:36 |
Which means what I can do is copy and
paste that line of code.
| | 09:40 |
I'll right click in here in the
expressions, and choose select filter by
| | 09:43 |
expression name, and there's my tires.
I'm going to take these, and copy and
| | 09:50 |
paste them down.
Then it's simply a matter of changing the name.
| | 09:56 |
I know I've got squash one, two, three,
and four.
| | 10:00 |
And so, I'll put those in, and then find
which tire they go to.
| | 10:06 |
We can actually select different pieces if
we need.
| | 10:09 |
So, by hiding the geometry, I can see this
a little better.
| | 10:12 |
Here is tire squash rear left, which
relates to squash 1.
| | 10:21 |
So here's squash 1 to tire squash rear
left.
| | 10:25 |
Squash 2 was the front left, which I'll
verify by selecting it.
| | 10:32 |
Rear right goes on squash 4.
So I'll put in tire squash RR.
| | 10:43 |
And that leaves me front right on squash
three.
| | 10:48 |
I'll hit edit, I get a result tires at the
bottom and I can close this expression editor.
| | 10:53 |
And now all of my controls for my squashes
are all linked to their correct squashes.
| | 10:59 |
But they're all independent and I can have
my tires squish up and down as I need.
| | 11:04 |
I'll show my polygons again, and I'm ready
to actually parent the controllers and the
| | 11:08 |
squashes onto the tires, making sure that
they stay with it when I steer.
| | 11:13 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Parenting and constraining the suspension| 00:00 |
Once the squash deformers are constrained
down, so that we've got control outside of
| | 00:05 |
the tire, and we can see them squash.
We can start to get the wheels all
| | 00:08 |
parented together onto the car.
We want to put in some additional controls
| | 00:12 |
here for the suspension.
You notice, I still have that warning down
| | 00:15 |
at the bottom.
And it's just looking for a camera that's
| | 00:17 |
not there, so I'm not letting it bother me
when I open the scene.
| | 00:20 |
It's just saying, for some reason there's
a camera that we can't find.
| | 00:24 |
This should probably go away when I take
this car into another scene.
| | 00:27 |
My plan, eventually, is to take this
rigged car and import it into my scene of,
| | 00:33 |
let's say, a road.
And I should see that error go away.
| | 00:36 |
When we see things like that, we shouldn't
let it bother us.
| | 00:39 |
We should read it, understand it, and be
able to move on.
| | 00:43 |
If it's an error in red, we need to pay
attention because it may be missing
| | 00:46 |
something like a texture, for example.
But in this case, it's simply saying we
| | 00:50 |
can't find the camera that may have come
with the file let's use another one, not a
| | 00:54 |
big deal.
Now for my extra controllers, what I'd
| | 00:57 |
like to do is take the control of the
wheel coming up and down.
| | 01:02 |
Off this circle.
I really like to have the circle for the
| | 01:06 |
control, just before rotation.
And so I'm going to put in one extra
| | 01:11 |
controller here.
I'll use another nerve circle, this time
| | 01:16 |
creating it in a perspective, or top,
view.
| | 01:19 |
I'll take this controller and align it to
the tire, making sure it's on the bottom.
| | 01:24 |
I'll align it in the center, center and
bottom to bottom.
| | 01:30 |
Then I'll take this circle controller and
elongate it slightly by pressing R for
| | 01:36 |
scale and scaling it out just so it's very
visible.
| | 01:39 |
If you're making controllers, make them
obvious.
| | 01:42 |
Nobody likes when animating to have to go
and hunt and peck for things.
| | 01:46 |
This is going to be my floor Where I can
take this controller and pull the whole
| | 01:50 |
wheel assembly up and down, essentially as
a static piece to simulate the working of
| | 01:54 |
the suspension.
Sometimes in a car we may have a modeled
| | 01:57 |
suspension and we can actually use spring
constraints and weighted correctly and
| | 02:01 |
make it go automatically on to the road
but what I'd like to do here is put in
| | 02:06 |
some individual control if I need and I
can hand animate over a bump.
| | 02:10 |
Ideally, I won't be driving this very nice
car over too many bumpy things.
| | 02:14 |
It's actually made for, well, flat roads
and hairpin turns.
| | 02:17 |
So having that unique control here for the
suspension will do well.
| | 02:20 |
I'll name this object Control Suspension,
Front Left, and clone it around.
| | 02:31 |
I'm going to free the transforms once I've
got them all cloned, because I'm going to
| | 02:34 |
move them around as well.
The cloning on this will follow what I've
| | 02:38 |
done with the others.
Pressing Control D to duplicate, holding
| | 02:42 |
shift, picking the next object and
aligning it.
| | 02:45 |
The align tool is invaluable in rigging,
because it lets us get in and align
| | 02:49 |
things, as the name suggests.
Two other objects.
| | 02:52 |
Duplicate.
Hold Shift, pick the other tire.
| | 02:56 |
Zoom in to see the tools and align on
center.
| | 02:58 |
Now I can rename and I'll make sure that
the naming is all consistent with my other conventions.
| | 03:04 |
As a note on naming.
We want to be consistent, and what we'd
| | 03:13 |
like to be able to do, ideally, is be able
to say to an animator in two sentences or
| | 03:19 |
less how the rig is put together.
I should be able to hand off this car and
| | 03:23 |
say, master control, steering control,
suspension and squash control.
| | 03:28 |
They're all nerbs curves.
Go animate it.
| | 03:31 |
And that should be all my animator needs.
They should look and say, I'm looking for
| | 03:35 |
the nerbs curves, I see them.
I click on them and I see their names, and
| | 03:38 |
I understand what they do, and that's all
I need to do.
| | 03:42 |
If you have to hunt for controls in a rig,
it's broken.
| | 03:44 |
If a rig isn't obvious in how it's
controlled, it's broken.
| | 03:49 |
Not that it's not functional but that it's
difficult to use.
| | 03:53 |
I want it to be an easy uptake, so that in
case I'm not there to explain if I've
| | 03:58 |
moved on to another project for example,
this car is very straightforward to simply
| | 04:02 |
drive it in many scenes as you'd like.
Now what I'll do is get these controls together.
| | 04:07 |
I'm going to pick my steering locator
underneath the car, and that's got the
| | 04:11 |
whole tire assembly parented to it.
Then I'll pick this new control and parent.
| | 04:16 |
Now when I pick my new control, which is
just a vertical, I've got control on the
| | 04:21 |
whole suspension.
I'll take my squash control and parent it
| | 04:27 |
as well.
Again, testing.
| | 04:30 |
I pull it up and down because it's a
parent, I'm not moving the squash control uniquely.
| | 04:36 |
That still is on its own movement and
there's the squash in the tire.
| | 04:40 |
Finally, I'll take that squash deformer,
zooming in to select it, and parenting it
| | 04:47 |
uniquely to the suspension.
One more test.
| | 04:52 |
When I take the squash control and I pull
it up and down I get the whole control
| | 04:57 |
squishing the tire.
Grabbing the suspension control moves
| | 05:00 |
everything up and down as a static object
and then within that I can squish, so now
| | 05:06 |
I have control for my animator to move the
suspension up and down, moving the whole
| | 05:10 |
tire assembly as a static, roll the tire.
And then squish the tire to the road.
| | 05:16 |
I'll finish the parenting for the other
objects and show what it looks like.
| | 05:20 |
Making sure that I parent the whole
assembly to a suspension control.
| | 05:26 |
The squash to the suspension, and finally
the squash control.
| | 05:32 |
I've parented my controls on, and I have a
choice to make in the parenting order here.
| | 05:36 |
Right now, I have my steering locator
handling the steering of the wheel, but
| | 05:42 |
the squash control is not moving with
them.
| | 05:44 |
It's parented to the suspension control
and so it's riding outside the car.
| | 05:49 |
It still works just fine if I pick the
squash controller for the front right
| | 05:52 |
wheel, for example.
And I squish it.
| | 05:55 |
I'm getting the right squash.
The question then is really one of, where
| | 05:59 |
do we want to functionality?
Not that it's going to change.
| | 06:02 |
I could parent this squash control to the
locator, that way, when I rotate the
| | 06:06 |
wheel, the squash control goes with it.
Or I can simply leave it out here, knowing
| | 06:10 |
that it's going to hold that same place on
the car.
| | 06:13 |
And let it ride \g being able to turn the
wheel and still access the squash control
| | 06:18 |
which is just not rotating when I steer.
I'm going to leave it like this, so that
| | 06:22 |
my squash controller's right outside of
the car as statics the whole time.
| | 06:26 |
This way I can pick them easily, even
while I'm turning the wheel in an
| | 06:29 |
animation, for example.
I'll make sure I go in and set this
| | 06:33 |
control back.
Right now, I've rotated this steering 30
| | 06:37 |
degrees, so in my attribute editor on the
Y-Rotation I'll zero it out to make sure I
| | 06:42 |
don't introduce a rotation into the rig as
part of it.
| | 06:45 |
That everything should be neutral to
begin.
| | 06:48 |
My wheels are ready.
I've got my suspension controls for the
| | 06:51 |
whole wheel.
I've got steering controls ready to link
| | 06:55 |
up to my steering wheel.
I've got squash controllers, and they ride
| | 06:59 |
up and down with the wheel and allow us to
squish the tire slightly.
| | 07:03 |
So we can take the whole car and push it
down to the road and squish those up, and
| | 07:07 |
then if we go over a jump, let's say Pull
them back out.
| | 07:10 |
Then I can make the suspension react
uniquely.
| | 07:14 |
If you'd like, you could add in one more
piece, and that's a full front and full
| | 07:17 |
back suspension.
That's an option in here which we can do,
| | 07:20 |
which is kind of handy, depending on how
we're driving.
| | 07:23 |
Right now, each wheel is uniquely sprung
as it should be.
| | 07:26 |
If you'd like though, you can add in one
more circle control in the middle, and
| | 07:30 |
parent both suspension controllers to it.
I'll show what this looks like as an option.
| | 07:35 |
I'm going to make 1 more circle and I'll
let this be fairly big.
| | 07:40 |
And then scale it to deform slightly,
alternately.
| | 07:43 |
I can get in here and pick maybe 1 of the
control verticies and pull it so I'll make
| | 07:48 |
another tear drop shape.
I'll take this object, which will be my
| | 07:53 |
front suspension controller here.
And center it on the car, aligning it to
| | 07:57 |
the car body.
I'll pull this control up, holding control
| | 08:05 |
to deselect the body and making this come
off the ground a little bit.
| | 08:09 |
I'll name this control front suspension.
And I can duplicate it across to the rear
| | 08:20 |
if I'd like.
I'd like to have the front have the
| | 08:22 |
possibility of being moved together but
the rear be individually sprung.
| | 08:26 |
So I'm only going to do one of these on
the front here.
| | 08:29 |
>> It's also a rear wheel drive car, and
so I want that rear to be feeling a little
| | 08:33 |
heavier, when the car sits down when I
accelerate.
| | 08:37 |
What I'll do then is I'll take my unique
front controls, and just parent them up,
| | 08:41 |
pressing 'p' for parent once I've got them
selected Now I've got steering control
| | 08:46 |
unique, I've got suspension control
uniquely and I have dual suspension
| | 08:51 |
control in the front.
We can limit this if you'd like.
| | 08:54 |
You can go into the limits here in the
translate and limit this down so we can't
| | 08:59 |
shove the tires through the fender.
I'll make sure that I pick this And zero
| | 09:04 |
out those transforms first.
It may be a good idea even to undo that parenting.
| | 09:09 |
Zero those transforms and then parent
them.
| | 09:12 |
But, I will try it first here.
If I choose modify and freeze
| | 09:17 |
transformations, it works expect my
controler disappeared.
| | 09:23 |
That's because when I select the parent,
the children go with it, so I'm going to
| | 09:26 |
unparent these suspension controllers by
pressing shift p.
| | 09:31 |
And now I've got, again, unique
suspension, and nobody parented to my controller.
| | 09:38 |
I'll freeze it's transforms out.
And now, I can play with the limits.
| | 09:44 |
I'm going to put the limit here at maybe
negative 2 to 2, this way I have a little
| | 09:52 |
bit of motion.
It's actually quite a lot of travel, 4
| | 09:55 |
inches there, but when I pair these pieces
up I have just a bit of travel here.
| | 10:02 |
Just enough to really make those wheels go
without them totally passing through the fenders.
| | 10:06 |
I like to give the possibility of
animation, but also, I like to limit down
| | 10:11 |
what I can do.
So that I can't accidentally move
| | 10:14 |
something and completely see it pass
through the geometry, breaking the illusion.
| | 10:20 |
I'll zero this back out so my wheels are
at their default and I'm ready for the
| | 10:25 |
next section of rigging the car.
I need to get all the expressions together.
| | 10:29 |
What that means then is I'm going to start
dealing with expressions to make the tires
| | 10:33 |
rotate as I move the car forward, steer as
I rotate the steering controller and move
| | 10:38 |
the whole car by pulling my master.
I may even put in a drift control so that
| | 10:44 |
as I spin that car and drift a little
sideways I can still have the master
| | 10:49 |
pointed down the road.
We;ll get going now that we've got all of
| | 10:52 |
our wheels parented together, one last
thing, make sure you test it every step.
| | 10:57 |
As you've seen every time I put in a piece
of the rig I test how it works and that is
| | 11:02 |
highly important.
The more you get into the rig.
| | 11:05 |
The more difficult it is to undo.
We just saw an example where I had to
| | 11:10 |
unparent that front control.
And it could have gotten a lot messier
| | 11:13 |
very fast.
So I want to make sure that everytime I do
| | 11:16 |
the simplest thing even just a parent I
test and make sure that it's behaving as I
| | 11:21 |
want before I get further in.
| | 11:22 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Stitching the Rig TogetherParenting the wheel assemblies| 00:00 |
Once the wheels are ready on the car, we
can start parenting things up to our
| | 00:04 |
master and body controller.
The idea in our rig is that we're taking
| | 00:09 |
lots of little pieces, such as the wheels
here, and distilling their control farther
| | 00:14 |
and farther up.
So, four pieces are controlled by one
| | 00:18 |
suspension control for example, and two
suspension controls are controlled by one front.
| | 00:23 |
The idea then, is that, we have a lot of
pieces being controlled by fewer and fewer parts.
| | 00:29 |
So eventually, we should be able to just
drive the car by setting the squish in the
| | 00:34 |
tires, pulling and moving the master
control and steering.
| | 00:40 |
We should have things like the body
controlled through one controller, which
| | 00:43 |
actually is just there as a pivot.
We'll even put the control for that on the
| | 00:47 |
steering, but that's getting ahead a
little bit.
| | 00:49 |
We'll start out then by getting the
suspension controllers parented onto the master.
| | 00:55 |
I'm going to pick my front suspension
controller and pair it onto my master, but
| | 00:59 |
I'll check the master first.
And I'll make sure in the transforms that
| | 01:03 |
it is in fact zeroed out.
I'll choose Modify and Freeze Transformations.
| | 01:09 |
So now it is at zero, zero, zero, with a
scale of 1, 1, and 1.
| | 01:14 |
While I'm here, I'm going to do this with
my steering control as well, freeze the transforms.
| | 01:19 |
And I'll do this with a body control that
I can see hiding just under the door.
| | 01:22 |
At every step of the way, before you
parent, check the transforms.
| | 01:29 |
And make sure they're frozen if they
should be so we're not introducing any
| | 01:33 |
extra scale into the equation.
Now I'll take my front suspension, hold
| | 01:38 |
Shift and select the master and press P
for parent.
| | 01:42 |
Now I'll also take the rear suspension and
do the same.
| | 01:46 |
Picking both objects and then the master
and then pressing p for parent.
| | 01:51 |
Here's the test.
If I pick this master control and I pull
| | 01:56 |
it forward on the z axis, my wheels break
loose from my car.
| | 02:00 |
There's no rotation yet, so they're moving
as a static, and if I rotate them, they
| | 02:05 |
spin around the front steering.
I've distilled the control partway, and
| | 02:12 |
I'm ready to look at getting the body and
steering controls in place I tested even
| | 02:17 |
that simple parent just to make sure there
was no doubled or inherited position happening.
| | 02:23 |
Making sure that one movement of the
master made one movement of the
| | 02:27 |
suspension, so the wheels don't skip ahead
of the car.
| | 02:31 |
Next, we'll look at getting the body
parented onto the body control and then
| | 02:35 |
finally onto the steering.
| | 02:36 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Parenting the body| 00:00 |
Once I've parented the wheels to the
master I can get the body on as well.
| | 00:04 |
To make it easier to see, I'll hit
Ctrl+Spacebar, which goes full screen in Maya.
| | 00:09 |
Then I'll use Ctrl+A to bring back my
channel box or attributes, and finally on
| | 00:14 |
my Hot Box, click in the space to the
right of Maya and bring back my status line.
| | 00:20 |
I typically work this way when I am not
animating.
| | 00:23 |
As I want the real estate on the screen
verses having the extra tools and things
| | 00:27 |
and the timeline down at the bottom.
I'll select my master and hide it
| | 00:31 |
temporarily by pressing Ctrl+H, and now
I'm going to deal with the body.
| | 00:35 |
The body is really a static, all the parts
in the body need to just move with the car.
| | 00:41 |
There's nothing I need to do in terms of
animation on it.
| | 00:45 |
So I'm going to pick all the body parts
right here, selecting them all, and making
| | 00:49 |
sure I don't grab the steering.
And making sure that the last selected
| | 00:53 |
object is that body control I had made
earlier.
| | 00:55 |
That circle we can just see peeking out
the top.
| | 00:58 |
If you're unsure about it, hold Control to
deselect and Shift to make sure that's the
| | 01:03 |
last selected.
I'll press P for parent, and now the whole
| | 01:08 |
body is parent to the body control.
So when I select the body control and
| | 01:12 |
rotate it, naturally the body spins.
I'll show what I had last hidden by
| | 01:18 |
choosing Display > Show > Show Last
Hidden, and I can take the body and parent
| | 01:24 |
it on to the master.
I'll pick the body control noticing that
| | 01:27 |
everything turns green to indicate that it
is a parent with children, hold Shift and
| | 01:32 |
pick the master and press P for parent.
Again, a quick test.
| | 01:37 |
If I take the master and pull it, except
for the steering control, my car moves as
| | 01:41 |
a static.
Rotating this master control rotates the
| | 01:45 |
car as a static object.
This is what I want.
| | 01:49 |
I want to move and rotate the car in the
scene with one control, the master, and
| | 01:54 |
everything goes with it.
Once that's all together, I can get my
| | 01:58 |
steering control on, and get the body
rocking in place correctly.
| | 02:02 |
you can also think about limits on the
body rocking controller,.
| | 02:06 |
And that way the body can't rock and flip
completely over, but instead, just rocks
| | 02:11 |
back and forth a little bit, to show
banking and turning and leaning, over
| | 02:17 |
those hairpin turns.
| | 02:18 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Writing expressions for the wheels| 00:00 |
Once you have the car parented and moving
as a static object, you can think about
| | 00:04 |
the expressions for the wheels.
We want to use an expression for the
| | 00:08 |
wheels that makes them roll on the road as
we pull the master control forward.
| | 00:12 |
What I need to do is solve for some kind
of rotation for one forward unit of
| | 00:18 |
movement on my Master Control.
When I pull on the x axis, those wheels
| | 00:23 |
should spin automatically.
When I had made my original Nurbcircles
| | 00:27 |
for the wheel, I had made one and not
deleted the history and then cloned it around.
| | 00:33 |
The clones don't have a radius, but in the
original control front left, the first one
| | 00:37 |
I made.
The makeNurbCircle1 tab has that radius,
| | 00:41 |
13.165 inches.
What I'm going to do then is use the
| | 00:46 |
circumference of the wheel to figure out
what one increment of rotation is per
| | 00:52 |
forward unit movement of the car.
Here's how this looks.
| | 00:55 |
I've switched calculator over to a
scientific view, just because there's a pi
| | 00:59 |
button there.
We can go under View and Scientific to
| | 01:03 |
pull that up.
Now I'll get the circumference.
| | 01:06 |
Taking 13.156 times 2, if we take the
radius times two, that gives us the diameter.
| | 01:15 |
I'll multiply this by pi, pressing times
pi equals 82.661 inches around that wheel.
| | 01:26 |
What I'm going to do then is say, what
fraction of the rotation is given by one
| | 01:32 |
forward unit of movement of the car?
So I'll take the reciprocal of this 1 over
| | 01:39 |
82.661 which gives me .012.
I'll multiply this by 360, as there's 360
| | 01:46 |
degrees around the wheel to get 4.355.
That is the amount of degrees this wheel
| | 01:53 |
should rotate for one inch forward of
movement of the Master C ontrol.
| | 01:59 |
I don't need all those decimal places.
I can remember 4.355, and put that into my expression.
| | 02:07 |
Back here in my event, I'm going to pull
up my Expression Editor, and make sure I'm
| | 02:11 |
putting the expression onto all four
wheels at once.
| | 02:15 |
These objects are named, and so they're
easy to find.
| | 02:17 |
Control front left, rear left, front
right, rear right.
| | 02:23 |
And so I'll put those in that same
expression I had used on the tire squishes.
| | 02:28 |
I'll choose Window > Animation Editors >
Expression Editor.
| | 02:33 |
Right now, I've still got the view going
by expressions.
| | 02:36 |
I can right-click and choose Select Filter
by object name or Expression name.
| | 02:40 |
And I'll often switch back and forth in
here to get what I need.
| | 02:45 |
Whichever object is picked is what shows
here in the expression.
| | 02:48 |
So when I pick the Control_Master, I can
find the attribute I need.
| | 02:53 |
In this case, the translateZ.
I'll take this Control_Master.translateZ
| | 02:58 |
and press Ctrl+C to copy it.
And then I'll go back to my Tire
| | 03:02 |
Expression by right-clicking and choosing
Select Filter > By Expression Name.
| | 03:06 |
I'll pick Tires, and there's the previous
expressions I'd used for the wheels' squish.
| | 03:11 |
I'll open up my Expression Editor.
Go down a couple of lines and start to put
| | 03:17 |
it my additional rotation.
We're going to rotate these wheel controls
| | 03:21 |
on their x axis.
And I want to verify that in the view.
| | 03:27 |
When I pick this NurbCircle and press E to
rotate, maybe even hiding the geometry by
| | 03:32 |
choosing Show and unchecking Polygons.
I can see that it's rotating on the red x axis.
| | 03:38 |
And when I press and hold E for the
Rotation Marking menu and left click and
| | 03:43 |
hold, I am verifying that I'm rotating
locally.
| | 03:46 |
So this wheel should rotate on the local s
axis, and it's an important check.
| | 03:51 |
Just making sure we're going to go on the
right axis, so we don't get wobbly wheels.
| | 03:56 |
Back here in the Expression Editor, then,
I'll make sure that I'm putting in
| | 04:04 |
ControlFL.rotateX equals what I had
copied, Control_Master.translateZ, times 4.355.
| | 04:24 |
That's my magic number from my solving for
the amount of rotation.
| | 04:28 |
I'll put in a semicolon, and test this out
before I go any further.
| | 04:33 |
I'll hit Edit, and down at the bottom it
says result tires, meaning the expression
| | 04:38 |
is valid.
As a node and expressions, make sure that
| | 04:41 |
you've got the text right.
Maya is case sensitive, that means that if
| | 04:46 |
I had put in a small f, for example, I
would get an error.
| | 04:50 |
So, you've got to get the naming right and
be deliberate in the naming.
| | 04:53 |
This is where that naming is really key.
Not necessarily in picking the objects,
| | 04:58 |
but in the Expressions where we are
targeting an expression on a unique named node.
| | 05:03 |
I'll minimize this or pull it to the side,
and show my car.
| | 05:11 |
Here's the test, then.
If I select the Master, press W for move
| | 05:15 |
and pull this forward, that wheel rotates,
and it's in contact with the ground.
| | 05:21 |
I know it's working, and so now I can Copy
and Paste the Expression.
| | 05:26 |
I'll select that whole line, press Ctrl+C
for copy.
| | 05:30 |
Press Enter for a new line, and Paste it
in three times.
| | 05:34 |
Now I'll put in the new names.
Control front right, rear left, rear right
| | 05:42 |
and hit Edit, it works.
And there's one more thing I'd like to do
| | 05:47 |
here at my Expression Editor.
I'll put a new line above this this Squash
| | 05:51 |
and put in some comments.
The double slash denotes comments and a
| | 05:55 |
lot of different code.
I'll put in, Tire squash controls.
| | 06:05 |
And down here.
//, (SOUND) tire rotation controls.
| | 06:14 |
And this way, somebody who opens this up
and reads it has a good idea about what
| | 06:18 |
each chunk of code is.
Now, any good rigger should be able to
| | 06:22 |
open up these lines and see, I see what
they're relating.
| | 06:27 |
But just in case, it's handy to comment
things.
| | 06:29 |
And as we get more and more complex in our
expressions, comments are useful.
| | 06:34 |
It's more difficult to read code than it
is to write.
| | 06:37 |
And so any opportunity we have to make it
easier on somebody who is not ourselves,
| | 06:42 |
reading our code we should take it.
It's a nice thing to do.
| | 06:46 |
I'll hit Edit and my expression is valid.
I'll close my Expression Editor and test this.
| | 06:54 |
If I grab the Master Control and pull, the
wheels rotate on the road.
| | 07:00 |
Now, this is good on the z axis, so
obviously, if I rotate this master, I'm
| | 07:05 |
going to get an odd rotation.
Where I want to use this car is probably
| | 07:09 |
on a motion path.
Where we get more complex is if we want a
| | 07:13 |
free car, where we can rotate that master
and move the car anywhere and wheels spin automatically.
| | 07:20 |
What that gets into are expressions, that
govern vectors for direction in magnitude,
| | 07:26 |
as well as, the placement, of the wheels.
Where they are, form where they were, and
| | 07:32 |
it's a different kind of expression.
For now, though, I'm happy being able to
| | 07:36 |
move the car, and have the wheels roll.
And wherever I put this, those wheels are
| | 07:42 |
going to roll, responding to the z axis of
that Master Control.
| | 07:46 |
Once I've got the wheels rolling, then I
can start to look at the body and steering
| | 07:50 |
controls in the next expression.
We want to work through our car, so that
| | 07:55 |
it is static, then it rolls.
And then finally it is steerable, making
| | 08:00 |
sure we test it every step along the way,
and using our expressions to relate
| | 08:05 |
unequal attributes
| | 08:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Writing expressions for the steering and body| 00:00 |
In the sequence of car rigging, once we've
got everything parented to the masters
| | 00:04 |
estatic, and then the wheels row.
It's time to look at rocking and leaning
| | 00:09 |
the body and then steering the car.
I'll start out by getting the rock and
| | 00:13 |
lean controls together.
I've got a controller in here for the body.
| | 00:17 |
This circle, we can see, is peeking out of
the door.
| | 00:19 |
And obviously this is not a good control
to have to hunt for.
| | 00:23 |
It's there really to provide the pivot and
to have all the disparate parts of the
| | 00:27 |
body parented to it.
What I'd like to do is actually put the
| | 00:32 |
control for rock and lean on my steering.
So rotating the steering on the y-axis
| | 00:37 |
steers the wheels.
Rotating on the Z-axis rocks the car side
| | 00:41 |
to side, and the X-axis leans forward and
backward for acceleration and deceleration.
| | 00:47 |
This way, I've got 1 control doing 3
things and I don't have to hunt for
| | 00:53 |
another control.
It's a straight forward expression.
| | 00:57 |
Simply relating rotation to rotation.
I'm going to do it with my expression
| | 01:01 |
versus another constraint, because I
already have an expression going and being evaluated.
| | 01:06 |
This will keep it a little more
streamlined and avoid maybe a possible
| | 01:10 |
slow down in the animation.
I'll pull up my expression editor,
| | 01:13 |
choosing 'Window', 'Animation Editor',
'Expression Editor'.
| | 01:18 |
There's my expression tires and I have my
select filter set to by an expression name
| | 01:23 |
to pull this up.
I'll scroll down and put another comment.
| | 01:30 |
I'll call this one steering and rocking
and leaning.
| | 01:37 |
And now I'm ready to get the expression
in.
| | 01:39 |
I can actually copy and paste my names
here, taking the transform node, control
| | 01:44 |
stirring and putting it directly in this
line.
| | 01:49 |
It's going to be Control_Steering.rotateX.
Now this is going to relate to the body,
| | 01:59 |
and so, even though I put the name in
here, I actually need the body first.
| | 02:03 |
In expressions, we always start with
what's first.
| | 02:07 |
This is what is being driven, in this
case, for example, the rear left wheel is
| | 02:12 |
being driven by the control master.
So we need to make sure we have the right order.
| | 02:16 |
So a lot of what I'll do in writing
expressions is just copying and pasting in
| | 02:21 |
the right order here.
Sometimes using maybe a notepad as a
| | 02:24 |
scratch working space.
In front of this then, I'll put in control
| | 02:31 |
body .rotatex equals control steering
.rotatex, I'll put a semicolon after, and
| | 02:42 |
hit edit.
I get result tires, which means I got the
| | 02:46 |
syntax right.
You can always check, the expression
| | 02:49 |
editor is modeless, and floats over
things.
| | 02:52 |
So if you need to go back, and pick
something, like let's say the body, for example.
| | 02:57 |
You can check, and verify the naming, it
is control underscore body, and so I go it right.
| | 03:03 |
Now what I do then, is also copy, and
paste this line down, and change the x to z.
| | 03:09 |
This way I have rock, and lean control.
On my stirring and it's a straight 1 to 1
| | 03:16 |
in the expression.
Now I can get the actual stirring at the
| | 03:20 |
wheels end.
I'll hit edit and just verify this works.
| | 03:26 |
If I select the steering, I can rock the
car side to side.
| | 03:31 |
Rocking on the X axis, well makes it pass
through it's wheels for the moment because
| | 03:36 |
I haven't limited it.
But the rotation is working.
| | 03:41 |
Because it's an expression it's evaluating
it based on the object's pivots.
| | 03:45 |
So even though I'm steering from up here
this car body is rocking from the center.
| | 03:51 |
For the steering then, I'm going to get
the names of the locators.
| | 03:56 |
Choosing show and unchecking polygons so I
can see a little more clearly.
| | 04:01 |
These locators are called steering front
right and front left and I'm going to
| | 04:05 |
rotate them on their y axis.
Back here in my expression editor then
| | 04:11 |
where I'll choose window animation editor
expression editor to get to I'll select my
| | 04:16 |
tires, scroll down and get my steering in
place.
| | 04:21 |
We can copy and paste again.
We'll take control steering, and change
| | 04:26 |
rotate z to rotate y.
But I'll also put in steering F-R, and
| | 04:35 |
steering F-L.
This is how that expression looks.
| | 04:44 |
Steeringfrontright.rotate y =
controlsteering.rotate y If you rotate one
| | 04:51 |
the other goes with it.
I'll take that line of code, copy and
| | 04:55 |
paste it down, and change front right to
front left.
| | 04:59 |
Because so many things in the car are
identical, it's simply a matter of
| | 05:03 |
changing the name.
And frankly, it should be that easy.
| | 05:05 |
We shouldn't have to be hunting for names.
With a consistent name and convention, the
| | 05:10 |
expressions go very fast.
Because of the way we've set it up and
| | 05:14 |
parented it, we've also distilled the
control down so that the expressions are
| | 05:18 |
concerning let's say four objects for the
wheels that are actually rotating sixteen.
| | 05:24 |
I'll hit edit, and there's my result
tires, meaning my expression works.
| | 05:29 |
What we can see also in the attribute
editor for the steering front right
| | 05:33 |
control is that the rotate y field is now
highlighted in yellow.
| | 05:37 |
What this means is that there's an
expression controlling that attribute.
| | 05:41 |
That we cannot simply grab the front right
steering locator and rotate it on the y
| | 05:46 |
axis anymore because it is controlled by
the expression tires.
| | 05:50 |
And there's that expression written out on
one line.
| | 05:52 |
We can always edit it.
Right from here in the Attribute Editor, I
| | 05:57 |
can right-click and choose Edit Expression
if I need, or I can pull up the Expression
| | 06:01 |
Editor in any number of other ways.
I'll close my Expression Editor and test
| | 06:06 |
this out.
I'll show my car again, pick that
| | 06:10 |
steering, and rotate.
There's the steering.
| | 06:15 |
And here's the rocking, and even the
leaning.
| | 06:18 |
And unfortunately, I've mashed the car
completely off its suspension.
| | 06:21 |
But my test works.
The three different axes of rotation on
| | 06:26 |
that steering control are controlling the
correct pieces on the car.
| | 06:30 |
Steering the front wheels, rocking and
leaning the body and doing each one on the
| | 06:35 |
correct pivot for that particular object.
So that my wheels steer together correctly
| | 06:42 |
and my body rocks and leans around the
center.
| | 06:44 |
There's the steering and both go in the
right direction.
| | 06:47 |
And again that body Rocks around the
center of the car.
| | 06:57 |
In this rig, then, we want to get all of
the pieces in place and working, and then
| | 07:02 |
apply the limits.
That lets us get those parts in, and test
| | 07:06 |
them out thoroughly, before we're dealing
in the limit, like, for example, on the wheels.
| | 07:10 |
That's very, very small.
We want to verify something works and then
| | 07:14 |
damp that motion down to be more
realistic.
| | 07:17 |
With the expression for the steering and
rocking lean in place I'm ready to get the
| | 07:21 |
limits going.
I can do that and my car (UNKNOWN) is
| | 07:24 |
almost ready.
| | 07:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Limiting rotation of the steering and body| 00:00 |
In the car rig, once the controls are set
for the steering, rocking and leaning, we
| | 00:05 |
need to get some limits on.
We've limited other things, like the up
| | 00:09 |
and down motion of the wheel and the
squash of the tires.
| | 00:13 |
I'm going to limit the steering in the
same way, so that I can't over-steer the
| | 00:17 |
wheels and I can't over-rock the body.
We always want to get that control in
| | 00:21 |
first and test it.
Seeing the full motion, even if it means
| | 00:25 |
seeing the geometry passes through itself,
before we put a limit on, so, we can
| | 00:29 |
verify it's working.
I'll pick my steering control.
| | 00:33 |
Because of the way I've distilled the
control in the car down, if I limit this
| | 00:37 |
one controller, the rotation of it's,
children, or the things that are driven in
| | 00:41 |
the expression are automatically limited,
so I only have to limit one piece.
| | 00:47 |
I'll test it out.
When I rotate on the y axis, it looks like
| | 00:52 |
I can get through about 30 degrees of
motion give or take before that wheel
| | 00:57 |
starts to clip.
Maybe a little bit less, right around 25
| | 01:00 |
will probably do.
So I'm going to limit the Y rotation on
| | 01:04 |
the steering to 25 and negative 25.
I'll verify this, and just make sure that
| | 01:10 |
wheel doesn't obviously pass through the
geometry.
| | 01:13 |
That's for my steering and then for the
body It feels like I can limit this way down.
| | 01:19 |
I'll make sure I turn off my discrete
rotate here, and it looks like over about
| | 01:24 |
2 degrees.
That's plenty of lean side to side.
| | 01:29 |
For the front and back again, maybe two
degrees is enough.
| | 01:33 |
That's a lot of lean front to back on a
car like this.
| | 01:36 |
With my steering control selected, I'll
scroll down to the limits, bypassing
| | 01:42 |
Translate and going into Rotate.
I've frozen the transformed, so this
| | 01:46 |
starts out thinking it is at, a rotation
of zero zero and zero.
| | 01:51 |
This way in my limits I can make my
current 0 and put in my plus and minus 25,
| | 01:57 |
for example.
First, I'll check all the boxes to turn on
| | 02:00 |
the limits.
For the rotation x limit, I'll go from
| | 02:05 |
negative 2 to 2.
Rotation y will be negative 25 to 0, to
| | 02:12 |
25, and rotation Z will be negative 2, 0
and 2.
| | 02:18 |
I'll test it out again, no matter how much
I try to rotate that steering, that's all
| | 02:23 |
I get, and side to side I just get a
little rock.
| | 02:27 |
It's just enough here, that if I'm
delicate when I animate, I can make that
| | 02:31 |
car really swing correctly.
And here's the front to back.
| | 02:35 |
Just enough that if I need to show a
little bit of leanback in an acceleration,
| | 02:40 |
I can put that in for that subtlety in my
animation.
| | 02:43 |
My limits are in place.
I've already put limits on the suspension,
| | 02:47 |
and I'm just going to verify that this is
working correctly.
| | 02:50 |
The front individual suspension let's me
go well, right through the car if I need,
| | 02:58 |
but the master front suspension is
limited, so that I just have a two degree swing.
| | 03:03 |
Just a little bounce.
I'm assuming that my animator will watch
| | 03:07 |
out and not shove the wheel through the
car and so, I'm going to leave that front
| | 03:10 |
suspension unconstrained.
But let the master front suspension handle
| | 03:15 |
the limitation.
For the rear, I'll do the same.
| | 03:18 |
I'll leave the limit unconstrained.
And that way, if I really need to shove
| | 03:23 |
those wheels up if we just went over a
jump, I have that possibility, and I'll
| | 03:27 |
assume that the animator again is going to
watch out for where that is.
| | 03:32 |
These controllers then are starting out
zeroed.
| | 03:35 |
And so I want to make sure that I can
always return back to that position if
| | 03:40 |
needed and leave it unlimited.
My car rig is ready, and I'm on to bonus
| | 03:47 |
things in the car.
I'm going to put in a drift control and
| | 03:50 |
also an overspin.
Because in a car like this, who can resist
| | 03:54 |
tapping the gas and smoking the tires a
bit?
| | 03:57 |
We also want to see in car ads the
possibility, especially, of slow motion
| | 04:02 |
and seeing those wheels overspin.
So I'll get some extra attributes in, and
| | 04:06 |
take this rig beyond the basic
functionality.
| | 04:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Additional Functionality and ControlCustom attributes for overspin on the drive wheels| 00:00 |
In the car rig, once you've got the basic
controls in for rolling, steering,
| | 00:04 |
rocking, and leaning.
You can start to think about additional
| | 00:08 |
controls for things like over spin on the
rear tires, and headlights.
| | 00:12 |
For example, this is a fast rear wheel
drive car.
| | 00:16 |
And so, we might want to hold the break
and tap the gas, making these rear tires,
| | 00:20 |
spin out a little bit, without moving the
car.
| | 00:23 |
We may also want, in a slow motion shot,
in a car ad, something like this, to see
| | 00:28 |
this car go by and those wheels
over-spinning and kicking up mud or dirt.
| | 00:33 |
I'll add in an extra attribute then.
That gives me overspin control on the rear
| | 00:38 |
wheels, and I'll put a seperate one in on
the front.
| | 00:41 |
This way I can do one or both if I need.
As the front wheels aren't driven, I may
| | 00:46 |
want to have them simply slide a little
bit, but let the rear wheels really spin out.
| | 00:52 |
I'll select my master controls, and in the
channel box, choose edit.
| | 00:57 |
Add attribute.
I'm doing this in the channel box so that
| | 01:00 |
this appears in the Control Master
section, right under visibility.
| | 01:04 |
We can also do it in the attribute editor,
we just have to make sure we're in the
| | 01:08 |
Transform node when we add in the extra
attribute.
| | 01:12 |
I'll name this first, calling it
"Overspin".
| | 01:17 |
This is going to be a float, a number with
three decimal places of accuracy.
| | 01:21 |
In our data types, we can also choose
lists, if we need, or enum.
| | 01:26 |
We can do a Boolean, which is an on-off
switch, or even an integer, and whole numbers.
| | 01:30 |
I'm going to make the minimum for Overspin
one.
| | 01:34 |
Leave the Maximum blank, and put the
Default at one.
| | 01:38 |
So, with nothing done to overspin, the
wheels roll normally.
| | 01:43 |
Only when I take overspin and pull it up
past one, will the wheels spin extra, as
| | 01:48 |
part of their rolling.
I'm putting the Minimum at one, so I can't
| | 01:52 |
negatively overspin the wheels, and take
the rotation below normal rolling of the car.
| | 01:58 |
I'll click OK, and now I have that extra
over-spin attribute on the control master.
| | 02:04 |
I'll go into my Expression Editor and put
this on to the rear wheels.
| | 02:08 |
I'll choose Window > Animation Editors >
Expression Editor and here's my tire's
| | 02:13 |
expression, which I can get to again by
right clicking and choosing Select Filter
| | 02:17 |
By Expression Name.
I'm going to switch back though, to
| | 02:21 |
object, attribute, name here and here in
control master, down at the bottom, is over-spin.
| | 02:28 |
I'll select that name.
Control underscore master dot over-spin.
| | 02:32 |
Press Control C to copy and then switch
back to seeing the expressions.
| | 02:38 |
Here in tires, then, I'll scroll down to
my tire rotation control section, and I'll
| | 02:43 |
put in after the 4.355, times that name.
It's important to have
| | 02:50 |
control-master-dot-over-spin in here.
If we put in just over-spin, we'll get an
| | 02:54 |
error in the syntax, because over-spin on
it's own is not pinned to a particular object.
| | 03:00 |
Here's how this looks.
If we just put in overspin, and hit Edit,
| | 03:07 |
we get an error.
Expression invalid after edit.
| | 03:10 |
Because overspin is not pegged to a
particular object, but when I put in the
| | 03:15 |
full name and hit edit, I get result
tires.
| | 03:18 |
When I scroll down again.
It shows, that's the full sequence,
| | 03:24 |
translate z times 4.355 times_control
master.overspin, and everything is named correctly.
| | 03:32 |
I'll take this and put it in the right
place.
| | 03:34 |
If you miss where you put an expression
in, you can always select it and delete
| | 03:39 |
that attribute.
I had accidentally put it on the front
| | 03:41 |
instead of the rear, and this is a rear
wheel drive car.
| | 03:44 |
So I'll put in times and paste that in
with Control V and do the same on the
| | 03:50 |
other rear wheel.
So now both rear wheels over spin is
| | 03:54 |
control by the one attribute on the
control master.
| | 03:57 |
I'll hit Edit I get result tires again.
And close and here's the test.
| | 04:03 |
Click and drag across Overspin, and pick
Overspin on 1.
| | 04:07 |
With the mouse wheel, click and drag in
the view, and spin that tire out.
| | 04:12 |
And now as I crank up Overspin, that wheel
is rotating.
| | 04:17 |
It doesn't take a lot to really get that
wheel going.
| | 04:19 |
Right now, because I'm not animating the
car I'm just using overspin to rotate the wheel.
| | 04:25 |
Which is why I'm not getting much
rotation.
| | 04:28 |
Once this car starts to roll, I'm really
going to see that kick up.
| | 04:32 |
If you 'd like to put in one for the front
wheels you can.
| | 04:36 |
You may want to call it something
separate, because this is not a
| | 04:38 |
four-wheel-drive car it's a
two-wheel-drive.
| | 04:41 |
And the real wheels are the drive heels.
To have a spin on the front assumes you're
| | 04:46 |
drifting in the car.
That you're breaking lose the rear-end and
| | 04:50 |
the car is sliding sideways on the tires.
We can put in an attribute like that
| | 04:54 |
called Drift fairly easily by adding in an
attribute.
| | 04:58 |
I'll name it Drift Wheels.
And set the minimum in default, again, to one.
| | 05:07 |
It'll be afloat and I'll OK it and I'll go
back into that Expression Editor and edit
| | 05:14 |
that expression.
Here in Tires then I can remember that
| | 05:19 |
name or I can simply copy and paste it in.
I'll take my Control Master.
| | 05:25 |
> Copy it And add in this "DriftWheels"
onto the fronts.
| | 05:31 |
So I'll put in ".DriftWheels".
Remember, Maya is case sensitive, so we
| | 05:40 |
have to get that exactly right.
We also have to get the spelling right.
| | 05:43 |
Putting in "DrfitWheels" is not going to
get me the right expression, and I'll get
| | 05:47 |
an error.
So it should be "DriftWheels".
| | 05:52 |
I'll take this and copy and paste it down
into the next line, the front right control.
| | 05:57 |
I'll hit "Edit", and I get a result
"Tires", meaning my expression is again valid.
| | 06:05 |
When I close it, if I take "DriftWheels"
and crank it up.
| | 06:09 |
I get a rotation.
So if I am drifting this car, I have the
| | 06:13 |
ability to spin out the tires and
differentiate between the front and rear,
| | 06:18 |
driven and not driven wheels.
Once those are in, we can start to look at
| | 06:23 |
other expressions.
Looking at how to control the headlights
| | 06:26 |
and taillights without having to go in and
pick the material.
| | 06:30 |
Because we may want to organize the car so
all the geometry is on the layer that is a reference.
| | 06:35 |
Or is simply unavailable for selection.
| | 06:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating normal and bright headlight controls| 00:00 |
The next custom attribute to add onto the
car are controls for headlights and high beams.
| | 00:06 |
I'll add this control on the master so
that I have all my control in place.
| | 00:10 |
Right now I've got overspin and drift on
that control master on the transform node.
| | 00:14 |
And we can see it here in the attribute
editor pressing Ctrl + A and scrolling
| | 00:18 |
down into the extra attributes.
Making sure we're in the transform node
| | 00:22 |
first, and there's over spin and drift.
Each node can have it's own attribute.
| | 00:27 |
So here in the shape node, there's an
extra attribute's roll out with it nothing
| | 00:31 |
in it currently.
It's important to watch where those extra
| | 00:34 |
attributes go when you're adding them on,
so we're not hunting for controls.
| | 00:39 |
So I'm making sure that I am in the
transform node to add these on.
| | 00:42 |
So in my channel box, pressing Ctrl + A
again, those things show up right here at
| | 00:47 |
the top in Ctrl + Master.
Now adding an extra atrribute for the
| | 00:50 |
headlights and also for the high beams.
And what this will do is control a spot
| | 00:55 |
light for the headlights.
And also the intensity of the material.
| | 00:59 |
By default it will be at 0, meaning I will
be multiplying those values by 0, so it is
| | 01:05 |
not on.
When I turn them on then, I will be
| | 01:08 |
multiplying the intensity of the light and
the material's self-illumination to make
| | 01:12 |
it look like the headlights are on.
I'll choose Edit, and Add Attribute.
| | 01:17 |
In here first, I'll put in a headlights
control.
| | 01:23 |
I'm going to leave it as a float with a
minimum of 0 and no maximum, and a default
| | 01:27 |
of 0.
The reason to leave the maximum off is
| | 01:30 |
because we may use this in a mental ray
rendering solution.
| | 01:35 |
With a mental ray photographic control,
depending on how we're seeing it through
| | 01:40 |
the exposure control.
How stop down the aperature is and what
| | 01:44 |
our ISO is and our shutter, we may want
the ability to brighten up those
| | 01:49 |
headlights considerably.
So we don't want to put in a maximum here
| | 01:52 |
and artificially cap how bright we can go.
We want to give our visual effects artist,
| | 01:57 |
or our lighting artist, let's say, the
flexibility to brighten up this attribute
| | 02:02 |
on the car to make the beams look right.
I'll add this in by clicking Add.
| | 02:07 |
And now I'll put in one more for the
brights, or the high beams.
| | 02:10 |
I'll name this high beams.
Noting that I've inter-capped here the big
| | 02:16 |
b in beams.
And again, I'll put a minimum of 0, a
| | 02:19 |
default of 0 and no maximum.
This is a place, if you'd like to
| | 02:24 |
customize, to put in a maximum of, let's
say 2 or 3.
| | 02:29 |
Whatever percentage brighter the high
beams should be over the regular.
| | 02:33 |
In this case we'll assume that the regular
headlights are on, and we switch over to
| | 02:37 |
the high beams by increasing this
attribute up to a fix point.
| | 02:41 |
Or we can simply leave it alone and again
have that flexibility and rendering to
| | 02:46 |
really boost up those high beams.
I'll click Okay.
| | 02:50 |
And now I've got two attributes here in
the Control Master.
| | 02:53 |
I'll get the material on, and then I can
think about connecting once I have any
| | 02:57 |
other attributes done.
I'll zoom in on my headlights, and select
| | 03:01 |
and isolate those pieces so I can see what
I've got going.
| | 03:04 |
In each headlight, there's a lens, a
trimring, and then the body of the
| | 03:09 |
headlight, we'll call it.
I'll choose Show and Isolate, and View
| | 03:13 |
Selected, and I can see them fairly
clearly.
| | 03:16 |
I have the outer lens, and its pivot is
actually over here.
| | 03:22 |
There is the trim ring which is going to
get a chrome, and then this inner backing.
| | 03:27 |
If you have more detailed headlights, you
may actually have Bulbs and reflectors and
| | 03:33 |
lenses in there, and you just need to
watch out, which material goes on which piece.
| | 03:37 |
So that the bulb looks bright inside the
glass of the headlight.
| | 03:41 |
What I'll do for this car though, is put
this glass on with its own self
| | 03:46 |
illumination, so it looks like glass until
it gets bright.
| | 03:51 |
I'm going to pick that glass.
And make sure I grab the other one.
| | 03:54 |
I'll exit the isolation.
And hold Shift and pick the other headlight.
| | 03:59 |
And assign a new material.
Right-clicking and choosing Assign New Material.
| | 04:05 |
In my new materials under mental ray, I'll
use my MIA material x-passes.
| | 04:10 |
I'll slide the nameless slider, and that
sizes up the material so they're easier to read.
| | 04:16 |
I'm going to use an mia_material_x_passes
so I have the compositing flexibility of
| | 04:19 |
the x_passes, putting out extra render
passes such as velocity and broad diffuse
| | 04:26 |
color for a compositing solution later.
In my x passes then, the first thing I'll
| | 04:33 |
do is I'll scroll over and name that
material.
| | 04:35 |
Calling this Headlights.
In my presets, I'm going to choose Glass
| | 04:45 |
Thick and replace.
I went in my presets and tried to apply a
| | 04:49 |
Glass Thick and I got an error at the
bottom.
| | 04:52 |
That's a Maya error.
Occasionally it forgets we're dealing in
| | 04:55 |
this material.
What I'll do then, is just try it again,
| | 04:58 |
choosing Presets, and Glass > Thick and
Replace, and now it works.
| | 05:04 |
Once in a while, Mental Ray seems to
forget it has a preset, and you just have
| | 05:07 |
to reapply it.
This is thick glass, meaning it is
| | 05:11 |
refractive if we need.
It's made for, typically entry and exit
| | 05:15 |
normal, but it'll give us the right
refraction on our lenses.
| | 05:18 |
We can also take these lens objects, and
clone them, making inside faces, if we
| | 05:23 |
really need to get close in the
headlights.
| | 05:26 |
But this'll look correct, like, well glass
headlights for now.
| | 05:28 |
I'll scroll down, go into the advanced
section.
| | 05:34 |
In the advance section, in the additional
color, I'm going to put in an MIA light
| | 05:39 |
surface node.
I'll click on the texture for additional
| | 05:42 |
color and in the create render node
dialogue under mental ray texture, I'll
| | 05:47 |
put in my MIA light surface.
What this does is let that material emit light.
| | 05:54 |
Although we may not need it to emit light,
Because we are going to put in actual
| | 05:57 |
lights to cast light out on the road.
It also has final gather and reflection
| | 06:02 |
contribution sliders.
So that we can correctly dial up and down
| | 06:07 |
for the look we want, the intensity of the
self illumination of the material and the color.
| | 06:12 |
If we want the reflections of the
headlights to show up more on a wet road,
| | 06:16 |
for example, we have an attribute right
here, reflection contribution to over
| | 06:21 |
crank that brightness.
If we need this to actually cast light in
| | 06:25 |
the scene we can by using the final gather
contribution, alternately, we can take
| | 06:30 |
this material and leave the final gather
contribution of those bright elements out.
| | 06:35 |
So that they don't affect our final
gather, casting final gather from small
| | 06:39 |
objects all over a large object, giving us
possible splotches and final gather artifacts.
| | 06:45 |
It has a separate intensity, and in our
expressions, then, will get the intensity
| | 06:49 |
of this material wired to that headlight
control.
| | 06:53 |
So we can turn on the intensity of our
headlights.
| | 06:56 |
There's one more thing I need to add here.
And that's the actual light.
| | 07:00 |
I'll choose Create > Lights > Spotlights.
I'm going to create a standard spotlight
| | 07:07 |
for now.
And if we need, we can add in mental ray
| | 07:10 |
properties later.
I'll take this spotlight and align it onto
| | 07:14 |
that headlight.
Holding Shift and taking the headlight geometry.
| | 07:17 |
And choosing from my Hotbox Modify Align
tool and aligning this into the center.
| | 07:24 |
Here's center, and in a top view or close
to centered.
| | 07:28 |
And then I'll bring it forward.
I may need to slide around so I can see
| | 07:35 |
this clearly.
Alternately I can just deselect and go
| | 07:39 |
find that light, which looks like it's way
off in the distance.
| | 07:42 |
I'll hold control and deselect the
geometry, press W to move and slide that
| | 07:46 |
light forward.
I'll focus in on the light and it's very
| | 07:50 |
very tiny.
Typically lights are drawn in Maya with a
| | 07:53 |
locator scale of 1.
What I'm going to do Is leave that locator
| | 07:58 |
scale alone under object display.
I may want the possibility of scaling the
| | 08:03 |
light using the actual object's scale to
scale up the admission area of that light
| | 08:09 |
so the shadows come out spread.
I also may want to leave the shadows crisp
| | 08:13 |
and so I want to see the actual scale of
the light if I need to scale it.
| | 08:17 |
So I'll leave the locator scale alone.
I'll rotate this light around by pressing
| | 08:21 |
e, making sure my discrete locate is on,
by pressing and holding e and
| | 08:25 |
left-clicking and holding anywhere, and
spinning this light.
| | 08:28 |
There's a 180 degrees, and I'll put this
light just in front of the headlight.
| | 08:36 |
Then I'll parent it to the geometry after
I clone it.
| | 08:39 |
I'll name this light, calling it headlight
left.
| | 08:42 |
Clone it, and parent to that headlight
lens.
| | 08:45 |
With the light named, I can press Ctrl + D
to duplicate, hold Shift and pick the next
| | 08:54 |
lens and align it.
As these headlights don't need to turn, I
| | 09:01 |
can simply parent them straight in.
Picking the lens, and pressing p for
| | 09:05 |
parent, and doing it on the other side.
I'll make sure I name that last light, so
| | 09:12 |
I can find it when I get to my
expressions, calling it headlight right.
| | 09:20 |
With the headlights in place,and the
attributes to control them, I need to
| | 09:24 |
think of anything else in those custom
attributes to add in.
| | 09:28 |
As I'll be putting the expressions to
control these lights in that same tyres expression.
| | 09:32 |
So all my expression are together and
being evauluated at the same time.
| | 09:36 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding brake light and turn signal controls| 00:00 |
Adding in the brake lights and running
lights, and also turn signal indicators,
| | 00:04 |
follows the same method for the
headlights.
| | 00:07 |
We need to add in an attribute, and then
get a material on, so we can later connect
| | 00:11 |
it in an expression.
First, I'll add in the attributes onto my
| | 00:14 |
Master Control.
I'm really looking to keep all the control
| | 00:17 |
in one place here.
I'll go in the control master and there's
| | 00:22 |
my extra attributes.
I can do it here or in the channel box by
| | 00:26 |
pressing Ctrl + A, and under Edit > Add
Attribute.
| | 00:30 |
First, I'll add in brake lights.
We have an option here on how we add this.
| | 00:35 |
Do we want one or two controls?
We could say here's one brake light
| | 00:39 |
control, and it can simply get brighter
being keyed, if we need when we brake.
| | 00:45 |
Or we can put in normal running lights,
and brake lights, and then have a separate
| | 00:50 |
control for it.
It's really up to you how you would like
| | 00:53 |
to add these pieces in.
What I'm going to do is add in one control
| | 00:58 |
for the brake lights.
If they're on, just normal running lights
| | 01:02 |
it's one intensity, and if we need to
brake we can simply key that intensity to
| | 01:06 |
go higher to show braking.
I'll put the name in, calling it brake lights.
| | 01:14 |
I'll set the minimum at zero.
No maximum and a default at zero, again.
| | 01:19 |
So that without any alteration, the brake
lights are off.
| | 01:23 |
This way, if we're running in the daytime,
we simply animate them turning on when we brake.
| | 01:28 |
If we're running at night, we'll simply
start out by putting in this attribute at,
| | 01:33 |
let's say, a multiplier of three, so the
lights are on as running lights.
| | 01:37 |
And then key that multiplier to go higher
if we're actually breaking.
| | 01:41 |
I'll add this in and then put in the
running lights.
| | 01:44 |
Now, here's the thing with the running
lights, on this particular car, the front
| | 01:52 |
running lights are also the turn signal
indicators.
| | 01:55 |
So I should probably put in dual controls.
Running light left and right.
| | 02:01 |
So I have the option to turn them on and
make them flash.
| | 02:05 |
I'll call this one running light, left.
Select the name and copy it.
| | 02:12 |
Put the minimum at zero.
No max and a default of zero.
| | 02:16 |
And hit Add.
And then I'll paste in this name and make
| | 02:20 |
this running light right.
And again 0, nothing, and 0.
| | 02:27 |
I'll click OK.
And now, I've got my controls in here.
| | 02:31 |
We may want to slim down our channel box a
little bit.
| | 02:34 |
What I'm going to do is hide the scale.
I don't need it here.
| | 02:39 |
I shouldn't be scaling this Master Control
at all.
| | 02:41 |
And so, I'll select all three of those
scale attributes, Right Click and choose
| | 02:47 |
Hide Selected.
And now scale is no longer available.
| | 02:52 |
I can always get it back by right clicking
and bringing those back.
| | 02:57 |
I don't need to.
I shouldn't need to scale that master at all.
| | 03:01 |
It should be a fixed size car in my scene.
Now it's a little more manageable here,
| | 03:05 |
and I've got translate, rotate, visibility
if I need, and my custom attributes.
| | 03:11 |
If you're feeling really slick in your
scripting you could even take this and put
| | 03:14 |
it on a custom window, using your mel
script to draw a window and adding in the
| | 03:18 |
attributes, but that's beyond this
particular video.
| | 03:21 |
What we want to do is have our control in
one place, so we can say let's turn on
| | 03:26 |
headlights, brake lights, and running
lights all at once.
| | 03:30 |
Now that I've got those attributes in,
I'll get my materials in place.
| | 03:36 |
I'm going to pick my running lights.
For these, they're going to be in orange.
| | 03:40 |
Kind of looking like a glass but we really
don't need to see in.
| | 03:43 |
If we hide these temporarily, they're just
really a ring pasted on the car.
| | 03:47 |
So it should be fairly opaque.
I'll right click and choose Assign New Material.
| | 03:54 |
In my new Materials under Mental Ray.
I'll scroll down and put my MIA material on.
| | 04:00 |
Here's my X passes.
In the X passes, the first thing I'll do
| | 04:06 |
is name it and I'll call this running
lights.
| | 04:10 |
I'll go in my presets and I'll use my last
pick, we could use glass thin in this one
| | 04:17 |
because it doesn't do any refraction.
But in case we have the possibility in a
| | 04:21 |
camera of seeing these lights up close,
thick will give us a little bit of a bend
| | 04:26 |
in what's going on in there.
Here's glass thick and I'll scroll up and
| | 04:29 |
go into the diffuse section and get the
color right.
| | 04:32 |
I'm going to start this out as an orange.
They'll begin this way.
| | 04:40 |
Nice and bright and orange, and we can
even add in a little more glass-like
| | 04:44 |
property if we'd like.
What I'll also do, though, is scroll down
| | 04:48 |
to the Advanced section, and add in that
MIA light surface node.
| | 04:53 |
Going into the additional color.
Clicking on the Texter.
| | 04:56 |
Going under Mental ray texters, and
putting in my MIA light surface.
| | 05:01 |
This way, I can put a color in if I need,
to make these go bright.
| | 05:06 |
And I got my final gather and reflection
contribution.
| | 05:09 |
If you'd like an advance, you can click on
the color, and there's that same orange
| | 05:13 |
I've preserved here in my color history.
What I'll do is later animate that
| | 05:19 |
intensity or pull it down to zero to
start.
| | 05:22 |
It's going to be driven in the expressions
by those attributes I've put in.
| | 05:27 |
So I really don't have to worry about it
now.
| | 05:29 |
As it will zero out, because of the
default intensity of those custom attributes.
| | 05:33 |
But it's going to look like these are
bright on anyway, until I get them connected.
| | 05:39 |
I'll do the same with my brake lights,
spinning around to the back, and selecting
| | 05:43 |
the actual brake lights.
It's always good to check what's going on
| | 05:46 |
with the Geometry.
These, again, are really just pasted on.
| | 05:50 |
There's kind of an interior shell to it,
but there's not a bulb.
| | 05:55 |
So I need to make sure that material is
fairly opaque.
| | 05:58 |
I'll pick both brake lights.
Right click and Assign a new material.
| | 06:01 |
Pick my MIA, and name this material brake
lights.
| | 06:10 |
When we pick an MIA, we get a shading
group, and that actually governs other
| | 06:15 |
parts in the material if we need.
What the surface is.
| | 06:18 |
And if we need to add in things like
contours for example.
| | 06:22 |
For now though, I can ignore the shading
group and go into brake lights, and I'll
| | 06:26 |
choose my glass thick preset again, and
put in a red.
| | 06:35 |
Here's a bright red with a little bit of
warmth in it.
| | 06:39 |
I can always back off the saturation
slightly if I need and fine tune that
| | 06:42 |
color based on photo reference.
But I just need to get the color in for
| | 06:45 |
the moment.
One more time I'll scroll down to the
| | 06:48 |
advanced section and put in that
additional color node using mental ray
| | 06:52 |
textures and an MIA light surface.
We can, again, put in that color if we like.
| | 06:58 |
We're going to bring this down to 0.
But now the bright by that same red and
| | 07:03 |
later we'll animate that intensity.
With my self illuminating parts in the
| | 07:08 |
car, it's starting to take on a little bit
of life.
| | 07:11 |
Instead of being just gray, I can at least
see it's got running lights, the
| | 07:14 |
possibility of headlights and brake
lights.
| | 07:19 |
Once I've got all the custom pieces on, I
can start to think about the expressions
| | 07:23 |
governing multiple attributes with one
expression, so that I can turn on the
| | 07:28 |
brake lights and running lights and then
key them if I need, from the Master Control.
| | 07:32 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Connecting self-illumination and lights to controllers| 00:00 |
With all my attributes added on, it's time
to get the expressions working to control
| | 00:04 |
the headlights.
I realize I may have introduced one
| | 00:06 |
attribute too many and here's where.
On the Control Master, I have an attribute
| | 00:12 |
for Hi Beams and Headlights.
Both of those default to a value of 0.
| | 00:16 |
I was thinking originally, I should
multiply them together.
| | 00:19 |
And that would get me either Regular
Lights or Hi Beams.
| | 00:23 |
However, if Hi Beams are 0, that means I'm
multiplying by 0 and my lights aren't on.
| | 00:29 |
If you realize you've added in an extra
attribute, and you go and think through
| | 00:33 |
the expressions and say, wait a sec, that
math is not going to work, you can take it out.
| | 00:38 |
I'll select Hi Beams and choose Edit and
Delete Attributes.
| | 00:43 |
Now Hi Beams is gone and I just have
Headlights.
| | 00:47 |
This way, with a value of zero in
headlights, my lights will not be on.
| | 00:52 |
Scrubbing forward to turn up those lights
means I will be multiplying by a positive
| | 00:57 |
value of headlights and so the lights will
be on.
| | 01:00 |
And I can simply increase that value for
my Hi Beams.
| | 01:02 |
Taking my control from two places down to
one, and avoiding a multiply by 0 scenario.
| | 01:09 |
It's important to think through these
things in the attributes.
| | 01:12 |
A lot of times what we do in the
expressions is to multiply things together.
| | 01:15 |
And so, we need to get this right so that
we can turn on the lights.
| | 01:19 |
Now, I'll get my expressions ready.
First, I'll select one of the lights.
| | 01:24 |
Press Ctrl+A to go the Attributes Editor,
and right-click on the Intensity to find
| | 01:29 |
out the name of this attribute.
I'll choose Create New Expression.
| | 01:33 |
If you don't know the name for things,
this a nice way to be able to figure out
| | 01:37 |
what they're called.
Here's what this is called.
| | 01:40 |
HeadlightLeftShape.intensity and in front
of it is a transform, and what it's
| | 01:45 |
parented to, the outer glass.
I'll select it, pressing Ctrl+C and
| | 01:50 |
copying, and then I'll get into my
expression.
| | 01:53 |
I'll choose it by name and it's called
Tires currently.
| | 01:56 |
To start, I'll rename, calling this Cobra,
this way, somebody looking at my
| | 02:01 |
expressions will know that this is an
expression for the whole car.
| | 02:04 |
Instead of seeing tires and assuming that
in only controls the tires.
| | 02:09 |
I'll go down to the bottom of my
expressions and add in one more section of comments.
| | 02:14 |
I've commented in Lighting Controls.
And now, I'll paste in this line.
| | 02:23 |
I'm going to make this equal my
Control_Master.Headlights.
| | 02:29 |
What I'll do is often select and copy a
line here, pressing Ctrl+C.
| | 02:36 |
And this way, when I select an object such
as a control master Right-click on
| | 02:40 |
headlights, and create a new expression.
I haven't lost what I'm doing.
| | 02:45 |
It's called Control_Master.Headlights.
But I'll go back to my Cobra expression
| | 02:49 |
and be able to find that and name it.
I forgot to hit Edit, and that brings up
| | 02:55 |
an important point.
If you're working in Expression, it's not
| | 02:58 |
saved automatically, therefore what we
have to do, is make sure we hit edit, to
| | 03:02 |
save that expression after we've edited
it.
| | 03:05 |
I'll put back in that comment, and then
get that expression in for the lights.
| | 03:11 |
I'll paste this back in,
HeadlightLeftShape.intensity equals Control_Master.Headlights.
| | 03:23 |
And I'll put a semicolon afterwards.
And before I hit Edit, I'll select this
| | 03:30 |
line and press Ctrl+C to copy.
When I hit Edit, I get result Cobra.
| | 03:36 |
The Ctrl+C is a safety.
In case this didn't work I won't lose that
| | 03:40 |
whole line of code.
Now, I'll take this and paste it down below.
| | 03:46 |
In this next line of code, I'll change
left to right and this'll affect both lights.
| | 03:51 |
I'll hit Edit and I get an invalid
expression.
| | 04:01 |
The reason for it is straightforward.
We've already defined the transform once.
| | 04:06 |
And so, in front of the Shape Node, this
extra bit about the transform is actually wrong.
| | 04:11 |
What it's saying is that this light is
linked to transform 1238, but it's
| | 04:16 |
actually not.
It's parented to something else.
| | 04:19 |
So rather than find that transform, I can
simply delete that section and hit Edit.
| | 04:30 |
I still have an error here.
Now, what we're seeing is that I need to
| | 04:33 |
go find the name for that object.
When we're writing an expression, it's
| | 04:39 |
worth seeing how to get out of something
if we need.
| | 04:43 |
What we've got then is the right attribute
from the master, but something in the
| | 04:48 |
headlight shape intensity is off and I see
what it is.
| | 04:53 |
At the moment, I've called it
HeadlightRighShape instead of HeadlightRight.
| | 04:58 |
This is where precise naming comes in and
being careful in how you type things in is
| | 05:03 |
very important.
When I hit Edit, I get my result Cobra and
| | 05:08 |
I'll hit close and see if this worked.
Right now, if my Control Master had it's
| | 05:13 |
headlight's value at 0.
My lights when I go and select them have
| | 05:18 |
an intensity of 0.
It's purple here in the intensity.
| | 05:22 |
Meaning its governed by the expression
which is in the cobra tab up here at the top.
| | 05:26 |
When I select that control master and
crank up that headlight value.
| | 05:32 |
Each light should now have an intensity of
44.
| | 05:36 |
Now, work on the material.
The object, temp headlight outer glass,
| | 05:41 |
now has a material called Headlights.
And in that material in the Advanced
| | 05:45 |
section is my additional color.
In the additional Color, I'll right-click
| | 05:50 |
on Intensity.
And create an expression, so I can see the name.
| | 05:53 |
It's called mia_light_surface1.intensity.
I may want to rename that light surface
| | 05:58 |
node, so I can find it a little bit easier
and so the naming makes sense.
| | 06:03 |
I'll take this and rename it.
I'll call this headlight lum for Luminance.
| | 06:11 |
Now it's going to be called
HeadlightLum.intensity.
| | 06:15 |
And that's what I will use my expression
from my headlights on the Control Master
| | 06:19 |
to control.
Back here in my Cobra expression I'll
| | 06:23 |
scroll down to the bottom, and I'll put in
HeadlightLum.intensity equals ControlMaster.Headlights.
| | 06:37 |
Making sure I just grab that one line.
I'll select this whole line again and then
| | 06:44 |
copy it, just for insurance and then hit
Edit.
| | 06:48 |
I get a result Cobra and now here's the
test.
| | 06:52 |
With the Control_Master.headlights, here
in the channel box of the attributes, a
| | 06:57 |
value of 44 for example, this material
should have a value of 44 in the intensity
| | 07:04 |
of that light surface, making it look like
the headlights are on.
| | 07:08 |
We can see in here if we go back up one
node to the output connection.
| | 07:12 |
That the additional color is controlled by
that texture.
| | 07:15 |
That's what that note means.
And that intensity again is purple, and
| | 07:19 |
it's controlled by the expression.
I'll put my running lights on the same way.
| | 07:25 |
I'll select them and the additional color,
the intensity is now mia_light_surface2,
| | 07:30 |
which I'll rename.
I'm going to get this in and the
| | 07:32 |
brakelights in and show what it looks like
in the expressions when I'm done.
| | 07:35 |
First, I'l right click on the intensity.
I'll select this line and press Ctrl+C to copy.
| | 07:42 |
And then I'll get into my expression I'll
choose it by Name, I'll select one of the lights.
| | 07:50 |
I'll take this and rename it, I'll go down
to the bottom of my expressions.
| | 07:59 |
And now, I'll paste in this
RunningLum.intensity.
| | 08:02 |
I'm going to make this equal my
Control_Master.Headlights, and choose Edit.
| | 08:17 |
I'll select this line and press Ctrl+C to
copy.
| | 08:21 |
And then I'll get into my Expression.
I'll choose it by Name.
| | 08:24 |
I'll go down to the bottom of my
Expressions.
| | 08:26 |
And now, I'll paste in this line and in
front of it add in this line here.
| | 08:34 |
I've finished attaching the expressions
for the Brakelights and the Running_Lights.
| | 08:38 |
And I have a couple of quick fixes to
make.
| | 08:41 |
On my Running_Lights, in my copy and paste
I had put it accidentally to Control_Mster_Headlights.
| | 08:46 |
But when I look at the Control_Master,
selecting it and looking at the attributes
| | 08:51 |
I've got, I have two pieces here.
Under Control_Master and the extra
| | 08:57 |
attributes, I've actually created
Running_Light, Left and Right, which means
| | 09:01 |
that for my running lights I actually need
two separate materials.
| | 09:04 |
This way, I can turn on both
Running_Lights easily if I need or I can
| | 09:09 |
key the intensity of one up and down if
we're signalling to turn.
| | 09:15 |
So in my code here,
BrakelightsLum.intensity equal
| | 09:16 |
Control_Master.BrakeLights is correct, the
HeadlightLum.intensity is correct and
| | 09:21 |
there's my Shape notes for the Headlight
lights and that also works.
| | 09:25 |
But running LightLum.intensity needs to be
fixed.
| | 09:29 |
I'll take that out temporarily by cutting
it, and hit Edit.
| | 09:34 |
There's my result Cobra, meaning my
expression is workable.
| | 09:38 |
Here's what I'll do.
I had put one orange material on both of
| | 09:42 |
these running lights I'm going to name
this material, Running_LightsLF and I'll
| | 09:50 |
clone it in the Hypershade, choosing
Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade.
| | 09:52 |
Here in my Hypershade, there's the
materials on my car.
| | 10:01 |
What I'm seeing here is that materials
that are Mental Ray materials are
| | 10:05 |
highlighted in red because I haven't
turned on Mental Ray as my rendering
| | 10:08 |
engine yet.
That's okay.
| | 10:10 |
We're still using Maya software and we
just haven't chosen to render in Mental Ray.
| | 10:14 |
Also, down at the bottom, it looks like
it's looking for.
| | 10:18 |
A headlight image that doesn't exist or
maybe isn't in my project.
| | 10:23 |
Again, I can go find this and put this in
when I detail out the materials on the car.
| | 10:26 |
I'll take my Running_Lights material
left-front, and press Ctrl+D to duplicate it.
| | 10:32 |
Duplicating it like we would any other
node in Maya.
| | 10:35 |
I'll rename this new Running_Lights
Material, Running_LightsRF.
| | 10:42 |
Into this Material in the additional
Color, I'll add in another of my
| | 10:46 |
self-illuminating textures, my light
surface nodes.
| | 10:50 |
Those show up here in the textures, and
because I've named them I can find them easily.
| | 10:55 |
Here's RunningLum and I'll actually make
this RunningLumLF for Left.
| | 11:02 |
I'll select it and duplicate it, press in
Ctrl+D.
| | 11:06 |
And now, I'll name this one RunningLumRT
for right.
| | 11:09 |
Now, I can get them all wired together to
their correct pieces.
| | 11:14 |
Back here in the materials, I'll take
Running_Lights, Right Front, drag it with
| | 11:20 |
a mouse wheel down into the work area.
And zoom out to see it all, making sure I
| | 11:25 |
drag with the mouse wheel shows that
material.
| | 11:29 |
Here's the material on the left and the
light surface node on the right.
| | 11:32 |
With the mouse wheel, I'll drag from the
light surface node on to the material and
| | 11:37 |
choose either additional_color or Other.
I'll go to the additional_color and it
| | 11:44 |
brightens up that surface.
Now, I've got named nodes for each of my pieces.
| | 11:48 |
Making sure I've got the naming right,
because Maya is letter and case-sensitive.
| | 11:54 |
This should be Right Front and the other
one is Left Front.
| | 12:00 |
This is RunningLumRT or even better yet
right front to keep my naming consistent.
| | 12:09 |
And the other one here in the texter is
RunningLumLF.
| | 12:13 |
This way each one goes together and I can
identify it uniquely in an expression.
| | 12:17 |
This intensity then, if I right click on
it, to create an expression is called RunningLumRF.intensity.
| | 12:25 |
And I'll copy that, and then equate it to
the correct part of the Master.
| | 12:30 |
In the Master, down here are my
Additional, Extra Attributes.
| | 12:35 |
Over here in the Transform Mode, it's
called RunningLightLeft, and the actual
| | 12:40 |
name for it is
Control_Master.RunningLightLeft.
| | 12:44 |
So I'll put this in, again working in kind
of a scratch space to get it all together.
| | 12:49 |
Copying and pasting and changing names as
I need to get these two lines all working.
| | 12:54 |
This should be RunningLumRF equals
Control_Master.RunningLightRight.
| | 13:03 |
I'll hit semicolon, select, copy, paste,
and change to left.
| | 13:14 |
As long as I get the naming right, I
should be in pretty good shape.
| | 13:17 |
We'll see very quickly.
I'll select both of those pieces, making
| | 13:21 |
sure I grab the semicolon.
Cut and go into my Cobra expression.
| | 13:25 |
Down here in the Expression, under
Brakelights, I'm going to paste in those
| | 13:33 |
two lines.
I'll hit Edit, and there's result Cobra.
| | 13:36 |
Here's what this means, RunningLight at
Left and Right at 0, mean the running
| | 13:42 |
lights are not on.
If I take both of them, and put them up to
| | 13:46 |
say 12 and 12, the running lights are both
illuminated.
| | 13:51 |
If I'd like to take, let's say left, and 0
it, and set a key.
| | 13:56 |
I can key this light to blink off and on.
Maybe having it blinking and using the Pre
| | 14:03 |
and Post Infinity Graph Editor to animate
simply looping.
| | 14:07 |
But I have unique control over each one
and it's material.
| | 14:09 |
So my lights are set.
My extra attributes are all wired in and
| | 14:13 |
working with my headlights and their
spotlights turning on.
| | 14:18 |
My brakelights available and finally my
running lights, right and left, available
| | 14:23 |
for turning.
If you'd like to go further, you could
| | 14:26 |
even add in unique controls for the
brakelights.
| | 14:28 |
So that right and left brakelights can be
used to match the intensity and sequencing
| | 14:34 |
of the running lights to be able to get
the right and left rear brakelights to
| | 14:40 |
blink off and on when indicating a turn.
What I've done also is to select all of
| | 14:44 |
these expressions and paste them into a
text document included in the Exercise Files.
| | 14:50 |
It's in the Scenes Directory for the
Chapter 5 project.
| | 14:55 |
This way, if you need help on the
expressions you can open up that text
| | 14:59 |
document or if you'd like to copy and
paste into your own model, you can see all
| | 15:04 |
the different part to make that car work
coherently.
| | 15:07 |
Once you've got the base functionality in
its time to really put the polish on
| | 15:11 |
getting the car paint going.
The materials on the tires and the rims
| | 15:16 |
and all the shiny parts everywhere making
all the bright work really stand out.
| | 15:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Finishing TouchesExploring the mental ray Car Paint shader| 00:00 |
Once my car rig is complete, I'm ready to
put some final polish on.
| | 00:04 |
I need to get car paint and other
realistic materials on my car.
| | 00:08 |
And then, also think about some cameras on
it so that I can animate the car and cut
| | 00:13 |
to different cameras, shooting lots of
different footage in an animation.
| | 00:17 |
I'll check the rig.
I'll grab that master control and pull it forward.
| | 00:21 |
And I can see one last small problem.
Although the steering control works, it's
| | 00:26 |
not parented to the master.
So I'll fix this by selecting the steering
| | 00:29 |
control, holding Shift, selecting the
master and pressing P.
| | 00:33 |
It's always good to test.
I'll select that master and everything
| | 00:39 |
moves forward as a statue.
My car is all working.
| | 00:42 |
Sometimes we forget to do the simplest
things like parenting a major control.
| | 00:47 |
It's easy enough to catch, but it's better
to catch it now than when we're deep in an
| | 00:51 |
animation now for the car paint.
Mental ray has a terrific car paint and
| | 00:56 |
that it understands that it should be car
paint and should function like the
| | 01:01 |
multicoat paint that car paint is.
I'll start out then by selecting the body,
| | 01:06 |
doors, hood, air scoop, trunk, and there's
my right door, right-clicking and
| | 01:16 |
assigning a new material.
In my Materials, under Mental Ray
| | 01:20 |
materials, and I'll increase the thumbnail
size, I'll choose my mi_car_paint
| | 01:24 |
phenomenon X.
What this means, the X passes material
| | 01:28 |
actually, is that it is a car paint
shader.
| | 01:31 |
It understands it should be car paint.
It is a phenomenon, meaning that it bends
| | 01:36 |
the light or is affected or changes by
light in some way and x passes.
| | 01:41 |
We get our render passes out of this
material free.
| | 01:45 |
And there are certain render passes, such
as raw diffuse, that come with only x
| | 01:49 |
passes materials.
So if you have a choice, always use x
| | 01:53 |
passes for flexibility.
I'll click on this material and the car
| | 01:57 |
turns red.
What we can see here is we get our
| | 01:59 |
standard shading group and then the car
paint phenomenon x passes material.
| | 02:04 |
I'll rename this first to Car Body Paint.
The default car paint is a candy-flake red.
| | 02:14 |
We can see some variance in the specular
highlight going on already.
| | 02:17 |
What I want to think of with my car paint,
is that it's got a Base color, an Edge
| | 02:21 |
color, and a it color.
I'll start out here by clicking on the
| | 02:25 |
Base color.
And I'm going to set this into more of a
| | 02:28 |
blue tone, choosing a blue and darkening
it and maybe swinging in just a little bit
| | 02:33 |
of purple in there.
Now, I'll add in a lit color.
| | 02:38 |
What this is doing is changing
conditionally depending on the Lit color
| | 02:42 |
bias to reflect a new color in the sun.
I'll click on Lit color.
| | 02:49 |
Make it a derivative of my original base
color by going lighter and less saturated.
| | 02:54 |
And now, in the sun or in bright light,
this car will shine in this lighter tone.
| | 02:58 |
Finally, there is an Edge color and for
most cars we can leave it at black.
| | 03:03 |
However, if we want this car to be
slightly iridescent on the edges we can
| | 03:06 |
put an edge color in for example.
I'm going to click on my Edge color, and
| | 03:11 |
sample my original blue, go a little bit
darker but swing into that purple a little bit.
| | 03:18 |
So on the edges, the car has a little
purple edge to it and sort of a lighter
| | 03:21 |
color in the sunlight.
I need to get some light in to test this
| | 03:25 |
and I'm going to use a standard daylight
system to start.
| | 03:30 |
I'll click on my Render settings button,
and in the Render settings dropdown under
| | 03:33 |
Render Using and choose Mental Ray.
In the Mental Ray section, I'll go under
| | 03:38 |
Indirect Lighting and create a Physical
Sun and Sky.
| | 03:42 |
We may end up doing this under street
lights or something else in animation, but
| | 03:46 |
the Sun and Sky of the daylight system is
a good testing environment for our car paint.
| | 03:50 |
I'll click create and it turns on final
gather for me.
| | 03:54 |
I'll put the secondary diffuse balances up
to two, so my light has a little bit of lift.
| | 04:00 |
What I'll also do is spin the sun a little
bit.
| | 04:02 |
If we look at our scene, we can just see
the sun as a tiny red dot off to the side.
| | 04:08 |
I'll select my sun shape.
And scroll down to the object display and
| | 04:12 |
put the locator scale up.
Let's try 300 for example.
| | 04:18 |
This is the drawn size of the icon in the
view not the physical scale of the sun.
| | 04:22 |
It matters where it's pointing not exactly
where it is.
| | 04:26 |
I'll rotate this over.
And aim it at my car.
| | 04:29 |
This way I've got all different lighting
conditions represented.
| | 04:33 |
Strong sun, directly on the hood let's
say, and on one side, and on the other
| | 04:38 |
side I'll see the car in shadow so I can
test.
| | 04:40 |
This object, this directional light, is
actually just a placement for the MIA
| | 04:46 |
physical sun.
What's really controlling it is the
| | 04:49 |
physical sky which has a multiplier, haze,
saturation and so forth and then a
| | 04:55 |
physical sun node at the end, that's
actually plugged into that sky hence the
| | 04:59 |
yellow in all those attributes.
I'm going to leave this alone and leave
| | 05:03 |
the default simple exposure on my camera
as well.
| | 05:06 |
Later we might switch out to a
photographic exposure for tone mapping,
| | 05:09 |
but for just testing the material, this
will work.
| | 05:12 |
Now, I'll zoom in on my car, and hide my
curves just temporarily, so I can see
| | 05:17 |
what's going on a little clearer in my
viewpoint.
| | 05:19 |
I'll choose Show, and turn off Nerves
Curves.
| | 05:24 |
I'll pull up my IPR window.
And make sure I'm using Mental Ray.
| | 05:30 |
I'll click on IPR and click and drag a
region.
| | 05:34 |
It should take a second start to update.
If it doesn't, we can always use a render region.
| | 05:39 |
And occasionally, MIA forgets to use IPR,
as we saw in the error at the bottom.
| | 05:44 |
I'll just use Render Region.
And run a quick render to see how this looks.
| | 05:50 |
It looks neat, although it's a little bit
in the bright purple side.
| | 05:53 |
We can back this off by adjusting the lit
color.
| | 05:56 |
But we can definitely see it's behaving
like car paint.
| | 05:59 |
I'm going to up size this a little bit, by
increasing the render size first and then
| | 06:03 |
zooming in.
When you're testing a car, test full.
| | 06:07 |
We need to really see how this works
because a lot of what we're going to do
| | 06:10 |
with a car is show it filling a frame.
In the common tab on the render settings
| | 06:15 |
I'll scroll down to the presets and choose
HD 720.
| | 06:20 |
It's a good test size even if you're going
to run at 1080 or for a digital
| | 06:24 |
intermediate even bigger.
Also in 2014 we've switched over in
| | 06:27 |
quality to the unified sampling.
I'm going to boost up that quality to 0.5
| | 06:33 |
just to get a little bit better sampling
quality on my car.
| | 06:39 |
I'll close this and zoom in.
Seeing it full in the frame and pull up my
| | 06:45 |
IPR again.
Under options I'll choose Test Resolution
| | 06:49 |
and running it at 75% should work nicely.
I'll click on IPR and I'll get a region.
| | 06:56 |
Alternately, I can click and drag to draw
out a region here.
| | 07:02 |
When I click render, it may take a second
to refresh, and I can always hit esc to
| | 07:05 |
stop that render and draw a new region on
it to test out that car further.
| | 07:17 |
It's a bright purple but the car paint is
working as advertised.
| | 07:21 |
It's bright in the sun.
And we can see a bit of a flake going on.
| | 07:24 |
A variance in the surface.
We can also see that bright, shiny
| | 07:27 |
reflection along the side.
Being changed by the geometry waving a
| | 07:31 |
little bit, which is as it should.
We've go a good reflection of our, still
| | 07:35 |
gray, exhaust pipes.
And we can actually see some of the
| | 07:38 |
physical sky reflected in the background.
Now I'll change the car paint just a
| | 07:42 |
little bit.
I'll pick any object of the car.
| | 07:48 |
And go into that car body paint.
I'm going to darken down my base color,
| | 07:53 |
darken my edge color and darken my lid
color, and get a much more muted paint.
| | 07:58 |
What we're also seeing here, if we look at
the camera, is that it's governed by a
| | 08:02 |
simple exposure.
It's a video camera style control with
| | 08:06 |
pedestal gain mean compression.
And I would rather switch to a
| | 08:10 |
photographic exposure control to be
working in true photographic controls such
| | 08:14 |
as Hi so F stop and shudder, in my
perspective camera than I will scroll down
| | 08:19 |
to the bottom into the Mental Ray section.
I will right-click on the lens shader and
| | 08:25 |
break the connection, and into that lens
shader node I will add that under mental
| | 08:32 |
ray lenses, my photographic exposure.
For those of you familiar with common
| | 08:38 |
camera controls, we're now working in film
speed camera shudder expressed in a whole
| | 08:43 |
number which is actually one over that or
1 over that or 1 100th of a second, f
| | 08:48 |
number or aperture, and also vignetting.
I'm going to run 400 speed here.
| | 08:54 |
Running my shutter at 256, at an F4.8 to
start.
| | 08:59 |
If you've got a table of values you'd like
to work with, you can put those straight in.
| | 09:03 |
I'll pull up my Render view, and try
another region.
| | 09:07 |
And we should see it be much more true to
life.
| | 09:11 |
It's nice and dark.
In fact, you may say it's too dark, but
| | 09:15 |
it's actually working correctly.
The values are much much closer to what we
| | 09:19 |
might use in a camera, even though those
are too open, too big, but I need to
| | 09:24 |
increase the physical sky multiplier to
get this to show better.
| | 09:28 |
My car paint though is reacting as it
should.
| | 09:30 |
I'm seeing that it's behaving like a car
paint, changing dynamically.
| | 09:35 |
I'll go in the physical sky, and crank up
that multiplier to 15.
| | 09:39 |
A lot of working with car paint is
actually not the paint, because the shader
| | 09:43 |
is very, very good.
It understands that it is car paint.
| | 09:47 |
It's really, do we have a testing
environment that is suitable to show our
| | 09:51 |
car correctly?
This is good but still not bright enough.
| | 09:56 |
But I am getting my darks back in my
render so I can test accurately.
| | 09:59 |
I'll put this multiplier up at 30 and try
one more render.
| | 10:03 |
It's pretty good but still a little dim.
With one more adjustment I'll turn my
| | 10:14 |
attention back to the car paint.
Right now, my car is very purple.
| | 10:21 |
There's a lot of this edge color bleeding
around the car.
| | 10:25 |
What I'm going to do is to dim this down
further and also look at the lit color
| | 10:29 |
bias in the car paint.
What we're seeing here is this lit color
| | 10:32 |
bias of 8 is really letting the lit color
bleed over the car.
| | 10:38 |
For example, when I try another region
here with a lower lite colored by us say,
| | 10:42 |
three, we're going to see a different
value with a lower lite colored by us we
| | 10:51 |
have more of that color over it.
As that Lit Color Bias us gets higher say,
| | 10:56 |
20, we're going to see more of the edge
and defuse color or base come in.
| | 11:07 |
And now, it's reacting very nicely like
car paint.
| | 11:09 |
If you'd like and you want to make more of
a metallic car, we have a Diffuse Weight
| | 11:14 |
and a Diffuse Bias.
For example, lowering this Diffuse Weight
| | 11:18 |
down makes that surface appear more like a
metal.
| | 11:21 |
Here's a Defuse Weight for example of 0.5.
Now, we'll see running a region over more
| | 11:26 |
of the car is that this behaves like a
deep purple metallic finish instead.
| | 11:36 |
We can continue to adjust this color
playing with our lit color, base color,
| | 11:40 |
and edge color playing as well as the
biases for each to swing that color around
| | 11:44 |
the car conditionally as we need.
What I'm going to do is put a little blue
| | 11:48 |
back in the lit color, shifting the hue in
the blue range, so it's not quite so
| | 11:52 |
purple there.
I'm also going to make sure my edge color
| | 11:56 |
is nice and dark and my base color is
still dark.
| | 11:59 |
Then I'll scroll down into the Specular
section.
| | 12:02 |
What we're seeing here in the Specular
parameters is it's a double layer Specularity.
| | 12:07 |
There's a first and second.
So we can have our broad bloom visible
| | 12:10 |
right here on the fender as well as our
pan highlights visible on the fine detail.
| | 12:16 |
Typically, I'm going to leave these alone
or we can play with it if we need to make
| | 12:19 |
that car a little bit more shiny.
Part of car paint is also a flake.
| | 12:26 |
There's a flake weight, flake relfection,
flake color, flake exponenent and density.
| | 12:32 |
We can see our car flakes here in the
fender and they're rather large.
| | 12:35 |
I'm going to zoom in and take that Flake
Scale down.
| | 12:40 |
I'll put the Flake Scale at .05, so it's
much, much smaller on the car.
| | 12:47 |
Depending on the kind of finish we're
using, we may see a greater or lesser
| | 12:52 |
incidence of flakes in the car.
Depending on the quality of the paint
| | 12:56 |
which, in this case, I hope, is very good
on this car.
| | 12:58 |
We should see more flakes in the surface
and it causes that shine to vary.
| | 13:03 |
We can also take down the Flake Strength
and even kick up the Flake Reflection so
| | 13:07 |
there's a sparkle in the finish.
I'll pull that Flake Scale down even
| | 13:11 |
further, 0.02.
And I've kicked up the reflection just a bit.
| | 13:16 |
We can play with the reflection if needed,
although, it does a pretty good job.
| | 13:20 |
These work in the same way that most
reflections do, with a color, a weight and
| | 13:25 |
a number of samples, which in mental ray,
samples at 0 is mirror perfect, shooting
| | 13:30 |
one ray getting a clearer reflection.
If we need the car to have more of a brush
| | 13:34 |
finish, we can increase those samples.
As this is a showpiece car, I'm going to
| | 13:38 |
say that it is polished to a wet glow and
leave those samples at mirror perfect.
| | 13:43 |
I'll try one more render, and I think I've
got my car paint pretty well-dialed in.
| | 13:47 |
If you've unwrapped your car and textured
it, you can add that texture in the Base
| | 13:52 |
Color, and even paint a custom color for
the lit.
| | 13:54 |
So for example, flames on the front start
out in red and depending on the lighting
| | 13:59 |
have a little yellow or orange in them.
With my final test render, I feel like the
| | 14:10 |
paint is looking pretty good.
I've got a good flakiness going on in the
| | 14:14 |
paint, not that the paint is flaking off,
but there's a subtlety and richness to it.
| | 14:19 |
Lots of little dots comprising the
reflection, so its got a good sparkle and
| | 14:23 |
luster in the finish.
I'm ready to start thinking about other
| | 14:26 |
material such as chrome on the wheels and
rubber on the tires, and also the other
| | 14:30 |
chrome trim pieces we need to really make
this car standout.
| | 14:33 |
Remember, this is car paint.
It's made to look like car paint because
| | 14:37 |
car paint is its own animal.
It's not good for other things.
| | 14:41 |
So we wouldn't put our car paint shader on
a floor.
| | 14:43 |
We probably shouldn't use it on furniture,
and it's going to look like, well,
| | 14:47 |
somebody put car paint on the wall if you
put it on the wall.
| | 14:50 |
It's made for looking like car paint, but
it's not good for much else, because it
| | 14:54 |
understands inherently that it should
behave like the multi-coat car paint that
| | 14:58 |
we use on real cars.
| | 15:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating chrome, rubber, and glass| 00:00 |
Along with the car paint body, we need to
create some other materials for our car.
| | 00:05 |
There's lots of chrome on this, Where
we'll put it on the trim rings around the headlights.
| | 00:09 |
We're going to chrome the hubs and also
the exhaust pipes and road bar.
| | 00:13 |
We'll get that in as well as rubber for
the tires and glass for the windshield.
| | 00:18 |
We'll start out with the tires, selecting
the actual tire objects, and putting a new
| | 00:23 |
material on them.
I'll right click, and choose Assign New Material.
| | 00:32 |
In the materials under mental-ray, I'll
choose my MIA material x-passes.
| | 00:38 |
Typically if it's not skin or car paint,
I'll use an MIA material x passes as my go
| | 00:43 |
to material for most everything.
It's a versatile utility material that's
| | 00:47 |
great for everything from rubber to glass
to masonry, and has lots of different ways
| | 00:52 |
we can customize that material.
It's also got good presets for starting
| | 00:56 |
out with things.
This way we can get a running start on
| | 01:00 |
what we're trying to make instead of
rebuilding from scratch with an
| | 01:03 |
approximation like a blend.
Under my Presets, I'll choose Rubber and
| | 01:08 |
Replace, and I get a deep brown or black
rubber here.
| | 01:12 |
In the MIA then there's a diffuse color
and a weight.
| | 01:17 |
And this weight lets us lower the amount
of diffuse color in the material.
| | 01:21 |
So the diffuse color can come more from a
reflection if we need as in a metal.
| | 01:26 |
What I'll do is lower that weight just
slightly, maybe to point 9 5, so a little
| | 01:32 |
bit of color comes from the reflection,
and then I'll darken this slightly.
| | 01:36 |
If we take this down to black, it's going
to read as really too black, but I'm going
| | 01:41 |
to pull this down to 0.04, so it's really
got some darkness to it.
| | 01:46 |
I'll name this material tires.
If we've got a color map, we can actually
| | 01:52 |
add that in the MIA here.
At the moment, I'm going to do just solid
| | 01:56 |
black tires.
And back off the roughness just a bit.
| | 02:00 |
Roughness is a Lambertian roughness in
that material that spreads the light along
| | 02:05 |
the surface.
I'll back it down to point eight as if
| | 02:08 |
these tires have had a little polish on
them or a good cleaning.
| | 02:12 |
Down here in the reflection then we need
to blur out that reflection.
| | 02:16 |
Our glossy samples are up.
Eight is decent but not stunning and so
| | 02:21 |
I'm going to kick this up to 12.
We can also see that the highlights only
| | 02:24 |
check box is checked.
And what that means is that this
| | 02:27 |
reflection only shows up in the specular
highlight of the material.
| | 02:31 |
That way the reflection is a very, very
low hit performance versus the whole tire
| | 02:35 |
being reflected.
I'll scroll down to the interpolation
| | 02:39 |
section on the material as well.
Interpolation in an MIA also gives us the
| | 02:43 |
chance to blur a reflection, and save time
in the Render.
| | 02:47 |
What I'm going to do is interpolate the
reflection down to half.
| | 02:51 |
If my Rendering is 1280 by 720, my
reflection will be calculated at 640 by 360.
| | 02:57 |
The reflection sample determines how
blurry the reflection is.
| | 03:01 |
When that sampling rate is higher we get
blurrier reflections.
| | 03:05 |
So these will be a little something going
on visible in a reflection.
| | 03:09 |
Not even a good reflection in the tire,
but just a blurred bit of whatever color
| | 03:13 |
is showing in the specular highlight.
Now I'll get some chrome going.
| | 03:17 |
I'm going to pick left side exhaust pipes,
Right Click and choose Assign New Material.
| | 03:24 |
Under my MIA materials, I have a preset
here for chrome.
| | 03:28 |
I'll name this material Chrome, and under
presets, choose Chrome.
| | 03:33 |
Unless you need to make a custom material,
this is a great way to start if you'd like
| | 03:39 |
to push it around a little bit, changing
the parameters and so forth, you can.
| | 03:43 |
But the default chrome is pretty good for
a quick chrome on the car paint.
| | 03:47 |
I'll test it, and I may end up wanting to
take out a bit of roughness in here.
| | 03:51 |
Right now it's got a little powder to the
surface, and I want my chrome to read as clear.
| | 03:56 |
I'll pull this roughness down to 0.2 and
I'll make sure I assign this to my other parts.
| | 04:02 |
We'll take that chrome and assign it to
the rims, the spokes, hubs, and any other
| | 04:09 |
wheel pieces in here.
Selecting some of them right clicking
| | 04:13 |
choosing Assign Existing Material and
Chrome and spinning around to catch the
| | 04:18 |
other side.
I'll pick those elements, and I can
| | 04:22 |
actually hit G to repeat last to assign
that material.
| | 04:25 |
It shows fairly dark in the Diffused View
in the View, but when we render, it should
| | 04:32 |
look like chrome.
I'll also make sure I pick these vents and
| | 04:35 |
the sides and assign that chrome, the roll
bar.
| | 04:38 |
Spinning around to the front and catching
the trim or bezel around the headlights,
| | 04:46 |
catching the, not the headlights
themselves, but the other ring around them.
| | 04:55 |
And the trim ring around the running
lights or turn signals up front.
| | 05:02 |
I'll right click and assign an existing
material and choose Chrome, and come back
| | 05:07 |
around this side.
I'll pick these side vents and assign, and
| | 05:10 |
finally onto the windshield.
I'm going to chrome the windshield frame
| | 05:15 |
all the way around.
If you have another material you'd like to
| | 05:20 |
add in here, that's totally fine, although
chrome was a nice way to start on this.
| | 05:25 |
I'll assign that material, and also pick
the windshield wipers.
| | 05:30 |
I'm going to put the chrome on all of the
parts here except for the actual
| | 05:34 |
windshield wiper blade (SOUND).
When you're assigning material, don't feel
| | 05:49 |
you have to catch all the pieces all at
once.
| | 05:51 |
It's very easy to pick one and hit G to
repeat last, and just run through and
| | 05:56 |
assign materials.
It's okay to do this, we don't have to get
| | 06:00 |
in and catch everything all at once.
It's very flexible, I can simply zip
| | 06:05 |
through here, and if I've noticed I've
missed a piece, as it's still showing in
| | 06:08 |
the lighter gray of lambert-one I can
assign that material.
| | 06:11 |
I'll go through and make sure I catch all
of the rivets and screws on these
| | 06:15 |
windshield wipers.
Finish assigning the chrome and show what
| | 06:18 |
it looks like when I'm done.
I've selected all the pieces that need
| | 06:22 |
chrome and assigned that material.
It took a few minutes, but it was good to
| | 06:26 |
be deliberate and make sure I'm catching
all of the exposed screws and.
| | 06:30 |
>> Fittings and trim and soforth.
A lot are ties when we're dealing with a
| | 06:34 |
car as we've seen.
It's broken up into dozens and dozens of
| | 06:38 |
parts in the modeling process.
And that's fine as long as we remember to
| | 06:41 |
go through and get the material on all of
them.
| | 06:44 |
This way, everything that's chrome will
have one surface on it, instead of having
| | 06:48 |
multiple chromes in the scene.
Now that I've gotten my tires, my chrome,
| | 06:52 |
and my car paint on, I can look at the
glass.
| | 06:55 |
When I pick the glass and press f to focus
in, right now it's got a glass material we
| | 07:00 |
put on temporarily.
It's just a blend, and I actually want to
| | 07:04 |
use a proper glass.
I'll right click and temporarily assign an
| | 07:08 |
existing material of lambert1.
The reason for this, is I just want to
| | 07:12 |
check the normals.
It looks like it's model double sided,
| | 07:16 |
which is good, because we want entry and
exit normals for our glass.
| | 07:20 |
I'll make sure and render stats, that
double sided is not checked, which I had
| | 07:23 |
done globally through the attributes
spreadsheet earlier, but just to ensure
| | 07:27 |
that I'm only seeing one surface from one
side.
| | 07:31 |
Now, I'll put a glass material on, right
clicking and choosing Assign New Material.
| | 07:36 |
I'll pick in Metal Ray Material and mia
material passes, and in here I'll name
| | 07:41 |
this Window Glass under Presets.
I'll choose Glass Thin and replace the
| | 07:51 |
existing material.
Glass Thin is made for window glass,
| | 07:54 |
specifically, flat or slightly curved
glass that does not refract.
| | 07:59 |
We don't want the image we see through the
glass to be bent at all, like we would
| | 08:03 |
through, let's say, a drinking glass.
And so Glass Thin is made to not bend the
| | 08:08 |
light, and the reflection.
We can see that in here, where in the
| | 08:12 |
refraction section, the index of
refraction is true for glass, 1.5.
| | 08:17 |
But, if we scroll down to the Advance
Refraction section, it is checked as a
| | 08:22 |
thin-walled object, meaning it does not
refract as opposed to a solid or a
| | 08:27 |
refractive costing.
This will behave correctly like our glass
| | 08:30 |
that we expect to see in the car
windshield.
| | 08:34 |
I'll make sure I cut all the pieces and
try a test rendering.
| | 08:37 |
It looks like I missed some of the trim
rings here on the roll bar and it's not a
| | 08:41 |
big deal to go back and catch them.
One way to do this nicely, is to take
| | 08:45 |
whatever material is on the car
temporarily, and put a color on it that
| | 08:49 |
really stands out.
For example if I make Blin-One red,
| | 08:54 |
anywhere that the red shows up tells me I
need to put a material on.
| | 08:57 |
Then I can always come back and gray it
out so it doesn't totally leap out in the render.
| | 09:02 |
I'll get my chrome on, choosing a sign
existing material, Chrome, and I'll back
| | 09:08 |
out my camera and try a test.
I'll pull up my render frame or just hit
| | 09:13 |
render for the frame, and see what this
looks like.
| | 09:18 |
In the render, I can see my scene is still
a little dim, but the car really has that
| | 09:23 |
look of car material.
Its car paint, chrome reflecting nicely,
| | 09:27 |
and a matte rubber on the tires with just
a tiny bit of sheen on it.
| | 09:31 |
Now I need to worry about the interior
materials, and this is a good place to
| | 09:35 |
work out your texturing chops, and all the
dials as well.
| | 09:38 |
I'll also see if there is any places that
I need to go back, and catch a material on.
| | 09:41 |
Maybe interior parts, or other fittings
that need the chrome again.
| | 09:44 |
It's not a big deal once it's made, to go
back, and assign the existing material.
| | 09:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying interior finishes| 00:00 |
Once materials are on the outside of the
car, we can get our interior finishes on.
| | 00:05 |
I've also made sure I've showed my objects
by choosing display, show, all and done
| | 00:11 |
some clean up.
There were a few extraneous pieces left
| | 00:14 |
around after the modeling process, maybe
from duplication or instancing or
| | 00:18 |
converting instances to unique geometry.
But I have to go through and do some minor
| | 00:23 |
deleting and moving as part of the clean
up in this.
| | 00:26 |
That's okay to do and you may find things
like that along the way where it needs a
| | 00:29 |
little bit of work.
Now, I'll get my interior finishes on,
| | 00:33 |
zooming in and looking at the seats first.
I'm going to put a black shiny leather on
| | 00:39 |
them, and I'll make a new material for
that.
| | 00:41 |
I'll pick my seats, and they also have a
welting in here which I choose what
| | 00:45 |
material goes on it separately.
I could put let's say, a white for an
| | 00:49 |
accent or make them all black.
I'll start out by picking my seats and
| | 00:55 |
right click, and choose Assign New
Material.
| | 00:58 |
I'll use my MIA Material X Passes again.
And for this, for a, let's call it a
| | 01:03 |
shinier leather, I'll start out with a
different preset.
| | 01:06 |
I'll choose Pearl Finish > Replace.
The pearl finish in the MIA gives us a
| | 01:11 |
soft, blurry reflection.
What we can do in here is interpolate the
| | 01:15 |
reflection to blur that reflection across
the surface, so it's not a perfect shine
| | 01:20 |
but is much hazier.
When you're dealing with a pearl finish,
| | 01:24 |
the first place to go is the interpolation
before you worry about color and shine.
| | 01:29 |
The default pearl finish has a grid
density of 2, or double the rendering
| | 01:34 |
size, which means for my 1280 by 720 image
I've chosen, it will calculate the
| | 01:39 |
reflection at a gorgeous but expensive
2560 by 1440.
| | 01:45 |
So one of the first things I do when I
choose a pearl finish, is stomp down that
| | 01:49 |
grid density, maybe just down to one.
So now it's calculating that reflection at
| | 01:53 |
the same size of the render but blurring
it using the six samples here in
| | 01:58 |
reflection samples.
Now worry about the actual finish.
| | 02:02 |
I'm going to darken out the color, so
their deep charcoal seats.
| | 02:07 |
I'll give it a little bit of roughness to
spread the light, and I'll scroll down and
| | 02:12 |
color that reflection a little bit as
well.
| | 02:15 |
Adding a little bit of a grey in, so it's
not a bright, white shine.
| | 02:19 |
Then I'll kick up the reflectivity and
gloss, maybe 0.5 and 0.5, so there's a
| | 02:24 |
little bit of a polish to those seats.
Depending on the sampling and how it
| | 02:29 |
looks, we can increase the glossy samples.
As these increase, as the tool tip shows,
| | 02:35 |
we're going to get a better reflection at
the expense of time.
| | 02:38 |
This will do for now, and I can always up
the samples depending on where I see the
| | 02:42 |
car, brings me to an important point in
these materials.
| | 02:45 |
We always want to fine tune our materials
from the animation, if we fine tune our
| | 02:50 |
materials looking at the car like this,
and say wow, I made good leather.
| | 02:56 |
But then we realize we're actually seeing
the car from here, that's a lot of wasted effort.
| | 03:01 |
So we need to get these approximate and
make sure that in the final lighting we're
| | 03:05 |
looking at our car from the camera to see
the depth of reflection and shine we need.
| | 03:11 |
I'll name this material, calling it
Charcoal Leather.
| | 03:19 |
I'm also going to add a little more sun
into my rendering.
| | 03:22 |
I'll pick my sun shape, and there's my
physical sky, and I'll boost up that
| | 03:26 |
multiplier just a little bit more to 60,
making sure I'm still in my perspective view.
| | 03:34 |
I'll go back in and look at the other
interior pieces.
| | 03:38 |
I need some chrome on the dials, and so I
can buzz through here, select these trim
| | 03:42 |
rings, and put in a chrome.
I'll also put it on the center of the
| | 03:47 |
steering wheel, and the sports struts.
I may want to add chrome on some of the
| | 03:52 |
knobs or bare backings and mountings as
well.
| | 03:59 |
It's up to you to look at reference
imagery to determine, how to color the car.
| | 04:03 |
You may end up with more of a car paint on
the inside, more chrome, or special colors.
| | 04:09 |
I'm going to chrome these switches, and I
may even chrome the, hands on the dials of
| | 04:14 |
the car.
I'll start out by selecting and assigning
| | 04:18 |
my existing material of chrome, and I'll
also catch the glove box lock, as well.
| | 04:26 |
There's lots of little pieces, and so you
have an opportunity here to get some
| | 04:29 |
richness and subtlety going in the
materials.
| | 04:31 |
It's your call how detailed to get.
We just have to make sure that when we get
| | 04:36 |
in here, we're assigning it all
consistently.
| | 04:39 |
It looks like I have a piece of my
windshield that actually got moved accidentally.
| | 04:43 |
I'll select it, making sure I grab the
base, and put it back in place, pressing W
| | 04:48 |
to move and pulling it in.
As an alternate, I can pick the one on the
| | 04:57 |
other side and simply mirror it over.
It's up to you, depending on where these
| | 05:00 |
pieces go.
What kind of position you would like to use?
| | 05:04 |
As this should be symmetric, I'm going to
pick this windshield base object.
| | 05:07 |
And the side, and mirror it across the
car, which I already have the pivots set
| | 05:14 |
up for, I'll duplicate by pressing Ctrl+D.
Scale on the x at a negative one, and it's
| | 05:22 |
in, make sure you've got all your pieces
straight.
| | 05:27 |
Make sure you select everything when
you're mirroring.
| | 05:29 |
In this case, I lost the base, and get all
your parts in.
| | 05:33 |
I've run through assigned materials on the
interior, catching the welting on the
| | 05:39 |
seats with the same charcoal leather.
And actually the tub, or the basin of the
| | 05:43 |
car, here, with that same material.
I've made a material for the dashboard
| | 05:47 |
called Black Shiney, as it seems to vary
in different reference photos.
| | 05:51 |
And if you have a custom material, you can
put one in here.
| | 05:53 |
What I've done in this is start out with a
default MIA, which is actually a glossy finish.
| | 05:58 |
I've upped the roughness so the surface is
more powdery and pulled down the color
| | 06:03 |
into my charcoal range.
I've pulled down reflection and gloss and
| | 06:07 |
turned on highlights only, so although it
shines, it doesn't have too much of a reflection.
| | 06:11 |
I've backed off the reflection color from
white, so it's a light grey, and I'll see
| | 06:16 |
how this looks.
I also had to assign some material to some
| | 06:20 |
screws I forgot because I missed them
along the way.
| | 06:23 |
And catch some extraneous pieces in the
rest of the car.
| | 06:27 |
We have a choice here we can see on the
petals.
| | 06:28 |
We can leave them alone or we can go in
and assign again a chrome.
| | 06:32 |
We can also see in here that our gauges
may need a texture.
| | 06:35 |
Right now we've got a glass in here and we
can go in and put in a backing.
| | 06:40 |
Texture of object as well, to show what's
actually on them.
| | 06:44 |
If you're going to see it, you can add
that in easily enough.
| | 06:47 |
I'll put my glass in, the same one I'm
using on the windshield, and that should
| | 06:52 |
just about do it for the interior.
I'll choose Assign Existing and Window Glass.
| | 06:59 |
And now that'll at least be a reflective
glass correctly.
| | 07:02 |
For the steering wheel we can do anything
in here from chrome through leather to
| | 07:06 |
wood, or a mix because it's done in
layers.
| | 07:09 |
I'll get in and at least design the chrome
on the middle stripe of this steering.
| | 07:13 |
There's three parts in here.
And the front and back I'm going to hit
| | 07:17 |
with that same charcoal leather so it's a
match.
| | 07:25 |
If there's any other pieces out there you
can catch them along the way.
| | 07:28 |
It's also handy in a car, to be able to
take things like the undercarriage and hit
| | 07:33 |
it with a good dark color.
It's not that it's exactly always black,
| | 07:38 |
but really we want it to be deep in the
shadow in the car, and not obviously
| | 07:42 |
reading as terribly light.
I'll pick that and right click and assign
| | 07:46 |
a new material.
Again, choosing in MIA material x passes,
| | 07:50 |
and a matte finish preset.
I'll black this out, toning down the
| | 07:56 |
reflection and the main color.
And this way it's just a dark color which
| | 08:01 |
I'll call flat rubber.
(SOUND) This is a good generic material to
| | 08:10 |
have on hand for a car.
Just a matte, flat black to hit things with.
| | 08:14 |
So if you need to see darkness without a
discernible shine or anything, you can
| | 08:19 |
throw this material on.
And it's good for covering in places so we
| | 08:23 |
don't see through or see something that's
accidentally too light.
| | 08:27 |
I'll do one more test in the day here, and
I should be done with my interiors and on
| | 08:31 |
the textures for the lights.
My car looks good.
| | 08:39 |
All the MIA materials are reacting
correctly to the sunlight.
| | 08:45 |
One of the things with cars is we like to
drive them outside.
| | 08:50 |
In the outside, we're typically lit by
some kind of daylight, unless we're doing
| | 08:54 |
a night shot.
In mental array, the daylight system,
| | 08:57 |
photographic exposure and MIA materials
are meant to work together that the
| | 09:02 |
photographic exposure correctly tone maps
the image, that the daylight system
| | 09:07 |
provides the right luminance of the sun
and the mental ray architectural material,
| | 09:12 |
the MIA, is meant to react properly with
both of them.
| | 09:16 |
So we can go all mental ray all the way on
this car, and get a good looking render
| | 09:21 |
fairly easily.
Now I can get a good detail on the
| | 09:24 |
headlights, taillights, and running
lights.
| | 09:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with headlight and taillight textures| 00:00 |
When you're crafting your car materials,
beyond the solid colors and car paints,
| | 00:04 |
you may need textures in your materials to
really make them appear realistic.
| | 00:09 |
A common place to put textures in as a
bump and also in refraction is in the headlights.
| | 00:13 |
Beyond being a simple dome of glass,
headlights are actually faceted surfaces.
| | 00:20 |
The lenses themselves are made to refract
and amplify and aim the light.
| | 00:25 |
Right now we just have our headlights
material, and that material is linked to
| | 00:28 |
the master control for animation.
What I'll do is use a headlight bump file
| | 00:34 |
included in the Modeling Vehicles with
Maya course to provide a bump in these, so
| | 00:39 |
they really look like the right glass on
the headlights.
| | 00:42 |
I'll scroll over on this to the material
called headlights here, and it's my MIA
| | 00:46 |
material x passes that is bright white at
the moment.
| | 00:51 |
The self-illumination or additional color
from that MIA light surface is making this
| | 00:55 |
light up.
What I'll do is scroll down to the bump.
| | 00:58 |
And in the bump in a mia material we have
a standard bump and an overall.
| | 01:03 |
The standard is where we put things like
bumps and normal maps, where the overall
| | 01:07 |
is where we use mental ray specific bumps
like round corner shaders.
| | 01:11 |
What I'll do is click in the standard bump
texture and in the Create Render Node
| | 01:16 |
dialog that pops up, choose File.
This puts in a bump 2d note.
| | 01:21 |
And it says, okay I'm ready for the file.
I'll click on file 2, and go browse for
| | 01:26 |
that file by clicking on the yellow file
folder.
| | 01:28 |
I need to browse to the source images in
my project.
| | 01:38 |
You want it to go in the mental ray
folder, as it may have been looking for
| | 01:40 |
something there originally.
Source images though, is where I'll keep
| | 01:44 |
the textures that I'm going to use, and
there's headlightbump.png, an image
| | 01:49 |
composed of mostly gradients that looks
like that pattern we see in the headlight.
| | 01:54 |
I'll click open and then go to the output
or up connection.
| | 01:59 |
I'll go up one more time and there's file
2 in my standard bump.
| | 02:04 |
I'd like to use this in two places, both
in the transparency and in the bump for
| | 02:08 |
this headlight to really make it look
realistic.
| | 02:11 |
Rather than load the file twice, I'll
connect it across in my hypershade.
| | 02:16 |
I'll choose Window, Rendering Editors, and
Hypershade.
| | 02:20 |
And here in the hyper shade are all my
materials.
| | 02:23 |
I'll open this window up a little bit, and
slide the dividing bar over, so I have
| | 02:28 |
more work space.
What I'll do is find my headlight material.
| | 02:32 |
And as they're alphabetical I can see it
right in the top row I'll right click and
| | 02:36 |
graph the network And zoom in on that
material.
| | 02:40 |
We may want to zoom in and focus on it, or
select all the nodes and press f to focus.
| | 02:48 |
In this case, this material is linked.
We can see the controls going in here, and
| | 02:53 |
the expression with the x equals into that
luninance.
| | 02:58 |
What I need to do is actually go into the
bump node here.
| | 03:00 |
Zooming out until I can see it all, or
moving nodes around until it's easy to get to.
| | 03:05 |
And with the mouse wheel, I'll drag from
file two onto the headlights material again.
| | 03:11 |
I'll let it go, and in here I'll choose
other.
| | 03:16 |
Right now we can see it's functioning in
standard bump.
| | 03:20 |
This pulls up my connection editor, and in
the connection editor, I can connect,
| | 03:24 |
parts of the material to, other parts, or,
other outputs from that file.
| | 03:29 |
When I choose either outColor or outAlpha,
I can see different parts are available.
| | 03:33 |
I'll pick outAlpha, and let it govern the
transparency.
| | 03:38 |
Or.
Out color to govern the refraction color
| | 03:41 |
in the headlight.
We have some choices here, we can
| | 03:44 |
experiment a little bit with how it looks.
Another option might be the refraction
| | 03:48 |
transparency color.
So that hit is weighted, or changes a
| | 03:52 |
little bit.
And it's not one uniform color.
| | 03:54 |
I'll try it in the refraction
transparency.
| | 03:57 |
And see how this looks.
I'll close this and go try another render.
| | 04:02 |
This is a great technique, where we can
take one material with one map or one
| | 04:07 |
texture, and use it in multiple places,
thereby economizing on our memory when
| | 04:11 |
we're rendering.
I'll zoom in on the car and try a quick
| | 04:15 |
render, just rendering this image to see
how it looks.
| | 04:18 |
There's my headlight, and with the default
mapping, I can see that that headlight
| | 04:23 |
lens bump is working nicely.
It's in the center, and it's effecting the
| | 04:27 |
look of it where I can see that refraction
going on right on the top.
| | 04:31 |
The chrome behind it shows through nicely,
and I'm ready for a final check on any of
| | 04:36 |
my material.
This is a good place, while you're
| | 04:38 |
testing, to see if anything else needs to
be made or retouched.
| | 04:42 |
For example, in the car here we can see
into the fans, and the pipes, and the
| | 04:47 |
backing area we'll call it around that big
intake.
| | 04:51 |
This is a good place to use that matte
black material, and if I like, I could
| | 04:54 |
chrome those fans as well.
I'll run around and catch any other materials.
| | 04:59 |
And then, once this is all ready and
material, I can take the final step of
| | 05:03 |
getting my car camera rig set.
So I have cameras that are attached to the
| | 05:08 |
car and ready to shoot footage from
wherever this car drives.
| | 05:11 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a car camera rig| 00:00 |
Once I've got all the materials on the car
and the rig is ready to go and I've taken
| | 00:04 |
care of any extraneous parts or fixes in
there.
| | 00:07 |
I'm ready to get a car camera rig
constructed.
| | 00:10 |
What a car camera rig is, is a series of
cameras that are positioned around the car
| | 00:15 |
to catch different shots of the car along
the animation.
| | 00:18 |
Typically, a camera rig for a real car,
looks nothing like the car.
| | 00:24 |
It doesn't look like we simply, take one
of these cars and film it with a camera.
| | 00:29 |
Rather it looks more like a truck is
eating a car, with several cameras watching.
| | 00:33 |
What we may see of the car in the shot
>> Is all that may be there.
| | 00:37 |
We may remove wheels, hoods, trunks,
doors, roofs, and almost everything of the
| | 00:43 |
car, in order to get the car we need.
Shooting digitally then with a car allows
| | 00:48 |
us to use the whole car, and position
cameras around it to capture the action as
| | 00:53 |
we need.
To make my camera rig that, I'll
| | 00:56 |
temporarily hide my curves, lights, and
cameras Choosing, display, hide, cameras
| | 01:02 |
and show, unchecking lights and show,
unchecking nerves curves.
| | 01:10 |
Now in a top view I'll start-out with my
camera, pressing F to focus on the car.
| | 01:15 |
I'll choose create Cameras, camera.
This camera is equivalent to a handheld
| | 01:22 |
camera, whereas a camera (UNKNOWN),
viewable here in the Camera Controls, is a
| | 01:27 |
dollied, or crane camera.
Camera Aim in Up has an up node that
| | 01:31 |
prevents gimbolock and flipping.
I'll start out with just a camera, as
| | 01:35 |
these'll be parented to the car body.
For example, I'm going to leave the focal
| | 01:39 |
length at 35.
Because my director photography and they
| | 01:42 |
want to switch this around depending on
his or her needs.
| | 01:45 |
What I will do for camera is to scroll
down onto the object display.
| | 01:48 |
And boost up the locator scale to lets say
15.
| | 01:52 |
This draws the camera object bigger in the
view without actually scaling the camera.
| | 01:58 |
As a side note, do not scale a camera.
What happens when you scale a camera using
| | 02:04 |
the object scale is that it distorts this
size and aspect to the final image output.
| | 02:11 |
So in order to make the camera icon
bigger, go into Shape mode and use the
| | 02:15 |
object display.
What I'll do is I'll take this camera.
| | 02:19 |
And position it on the car looking
forward, rotating it around so I catch a
| | 02:23 |
classic staring down the front wheel shot.
I'll go into my Front View, for example,
| | 02:29 |
and make sure this is up, even with the
wheel.
| | 02:32 |
Then I'll check it out from the camera
view, choosing Panels > Perspective >
| | 02:38 |
Camera 1 and there's my camera shot.
I can dolly it back a little bit with the
| | 02:42 |
right mouse, so I see the vents in the
exhaust, and tumble it over, so I'm
| | 02:46 |
staring down the car at the open road
ahead.
| | 02:49 |
And I'll see good shots of the wheels when
they turn.
| | 02:51 |
We can always move these around.
These are just rough placements until we
| | 02:55 |
know the actual shot we need.
I'll go back in my top view, and duplicate
| | 03:00 |
this across to the other side.
Pulling it over, rotating it back or
| | 03:05 |
tumbling in the view, and checking out
what it looks like.
| | 03:08 |
In this case, choosing panels perspective
camera two for my hotbox.
| | 03:12 |
There's another good shot.
As a side note, I will need a cover up
| | 03:16 |
here in the vent or I can orient the
camera a little farther down the car.
| | 03:22 |
Maybe we want to get closer or frame that
exhaust full in the view.
| | 03:28 |
Now I'll put on some other cameras facing
backwards.
| | 03:31 |
I'll duplicate this by pressing Control D
and spin this camera around so it looks
| | 03:35 |
backwards on the car.
Maybe I want a rear wheel shot a little
| | 03:40 |
bit farther out here, for example.
Again, I'll check out that camera and see
| | 03:45 |
those tires.
I want to see tires or maybe the exhaust
| | 03:48 |
as it comes burbling out.
We can see places where we definitely the
| | 03:53 |
interiors of the fenders, but we can
handle that in a model and simply parent
| | 03:56 |
that onto a body.
I'll take this camera and put it on the
| | 04:00 |
other size as a duplicate as well.
We want to think of putting lots of
| | 04:04 |
cameras on our car, even if we don't use
them all.
| | 04:07 |
That way we have the possibility of using
them in a shot.
| | 04:11 |
We don't have to use them, but it's easy
to do it now because there is no cost in
| | 04:15 |
the rig or the render.
Now I'll duplicate this camera and slide
| | 04:19 |
it up onto the hood.
This'll be our classic "looking through
| | 04:22 |
the window, seeing the driver" shot.
I'll pull this camera in, and check it out.
| | 04:28 |
Maybe dollying back a little bit, as it's
a small car and I want to see most of the windshield.
| | 04:33 |
Something of a 3/4 perspective to see the
driver here will work well.
| | 04:37 |
I'll clone this one more time by pressing
Ctrl-D and slide it over, rotating around.
| | 04:45 |
So the camera looks down the hood.
Maybe right over the air scoop.
| | 04:54 |
Here in my perspective, I'll pan down,
making sure I don't pass through the hood.
| | 04:58 |
Orbit over and there's those curves of the
hood.
| | 05:01 |
And right here I'm, next to the air scoop
in the shot.
| | 05:05 |
Seeing where I'm going in this car.
What we want to do is get our cameras in
| | 05:09 |
to show both where we're going, maybe
where we've been, reaction of the driver
| | 05:14 |
and maybe even a side shot.
Instead of hanging a real camera off the
| | 05:17 |
car, we can hang it off the side of our
virtual one.
| | 05:20 |
We need to have shots looking down the
road, and also seeing the reflections of
| | 05:24 |
what pass by in the glossy car paint.
You can add on any others that you wish,
| | 05:28 |
and also put others in the scene that are
not attached to the car.
| | 05:32 |
When you're done placing in any cameras,
and this is a typical whiteload/h for a
| | 05:36 |
camera, maybe six or eight of them on a
car, we want to parent them onto our car
| | 05:42 |
body or our master control.
This one is up to you where you parent.
| | 05:46 |
I'm going to parent to the master control,
so that any bumps in the car body don't
| | 05:50 |
take the camera with them.
I'll select all my cameras picking one,
| | 05:54 |
holding Shift and picking the others.
And showing those curves again, and now
| | 05:58 |
picking the master control and pressing P
for parent.
| | 06:03 |
I can always introduce a bit of a shake
into the camera later if I need, or shake
| | 06:07 |
it during the animation if I'm bumping
over or need a little more unsteady footage.
| | 06:12 |
Having the cameras on and parented is
great because now we can take this car and
| | 06:17 |
pull it around, and the cameras go with
it.
| | 06:20 |
I'll show this in a quick animation so we
can see how this looks.
| | 06:25 |
I'm going to put a plane under my car.
Nice big rows let's say and I'm going to
| | 06:29 |
have this car zooming along and drift or
slide into a powerstop.
| | 06:36 |
I'll give this road some length maybe
1,000 feet of road.
| | 06:48 |
Right now, my road is fairly wide at 30
feet.
| | 06:52 |
I'm going to slim this down so it's a 20
foot wide road, and I can even bend if I need.
| | 06:57 |
But this'll work quite nicely for our
purposes.
| | 06:59 |
I'll increase the Clipping plane on my
clipping camera.
| | 07:04 |
As we can see, I'm starting to clip off
the road right there.
| | 07:07 |
I'll put this up to 100,000 or even a
million and I should be able to see it
| | 07:12 |
full in the frame.
Now I'll get the car on.
| | 07:16 |
First, I'll pull this back, sliding back
on the z and placing that car on the road.
| | 07:21 |
Zooming in, and making sure it actually
sits down.
| | 07:24 |
I'll add in some more frames, maybe doing
a four second animation or 96 frames at 24
| | 07:31 |
per frame, and at frame one here I'll key
the car.
| | 07:35 |
Making sure that it's far back enough on
the road.
| | 07:38 |
We'll do a classic approach shot.
We see this car coming up and sliding in
| | 07:42 |
to stop right by us.
I'll key the Master Control by pressing
| | 07:45 |
Shift-W, and also Shift-E.
This'll constrain that rotation so it
| | 07:50 |
stays straight.
Now, I'll scrub forward to frame 96, grab
| | 07:55 |
that car, and pull it down the road.
I'll key that movement by pressing Shift + W.
| | 08:05 |
And then rotate the car as if he's drifted
to a stop here, pressing shift e.
| | 08:15 |
In a quick test, we start out down the
road and come sliding into a stop.
| | 08:21 |
I may want to take that rotation key and
slide it down further in the timeline so
| | 08:24 |
there's a little bit of straight first.
What I'll also do, is go into the end
| | 08:29 |
here, where the car has slid to a stop,
zoom in, and make sure those wheels turned
| | 08:34 |
as well.
What I need to do is make sure that
| | 08:38 |
they're keyed in the right place, and
discrete rotate is great for this, because
| | 08:41 |
I can tick them over Three times, or twice
actually for 25 degrees, does pretty well.
| | 08:47 |
Key it, by pressing shift e, jump back to
frame one.
| | 08:52 |
Frame in on the car, and spin those wheels
back.
| | 08:57 |
Now he's keyed, so there's a long drifting
power slide.
| | 09:01 |
I can go into the graph editor and adjust
this, but I'll show it using the camera
| | 09:05 |
sequencer first and I'll get one more
camera in so we can really see what this
| | 09:09 |
looks like.
I'm going to take one of my cameras and in
| | 09:12 |
a top view, focusing in on it, cloning it
down the road or I can create a new camera.
| | 09:18 |
It's up to you how you'd like to work it.
If you clone a parented object, it loses
| | 09:23 |
its parenting.
I'll duplicate this camera and move it
| | 09:26 |
back and scrub to the end of my animation
to make sure I'm seeing that car.
| | 09:33 |
I'll zoom in and make sure I pick that
last camera.
| | 09:40 |
If you can't find your camera easily
because everything has gotten, well, very,
| | 09:44 |
very small in the view.
We can also make sure that we use our
| | 09:49 |
masks for selection.
It appears my camera is also still parented.
| | 09:53 |
I'm going to make sure I select it and
press shirt p.
| | 09:56 |
And now I'll pull it down the road here.
The car comes zipping in to a stop, and
| | 10:01 |
I'll check it out from my camera.
We're to move this camera in a little bit,
| | 10:07 |
dollying by pressing ALT and the right
mouse, tumbling over, and maybe even
| | 10:13 |
moving down.
There's my final shot and so in the view,
| | 10:23 |
I should see that car come sliding in
towards me.
| | 10:26 |
Now I can always massage the animation,
but there's that power slide.
| | 10:30 |
Our wheels are going, my steering is
turning, and I've got all my cameras.
| | 10:35 |
Here's how this works for the camera
sequencer.
| | 10:37 |
Under Window I'll chose Animation Editor's
Camera Sequencer.
| | 10:42 |
In the Camera Sequencer we can create
shots and pass off an XML our editor if we
| | 10:46 |
need, along with playblasts of our
animation, so we can get started editing
| | 10:50 |
on the rough animation.
While we're still dealing with the rendering.
| | 10:55 |
I'll choose Create and Shot.
And the first one I'll do is going to be
| | 11:00 |
maybe shot one from camera seven.
Seeing the color off in the distance,
| | 11:05 |
going over one second or 24 frames.
And I'll hit Create shot.
| | 11:11 |
There's that first shot.
I'll scrub over in time here at the end.
| | 11:16 |
And I'm ready to get the next one in.
I'll choose Create Shot, and this one will
| | 11:23 |
be from camera one.
And I'll start it at 25 up through Let's
| | 11:30 |
say 43 or 42.
I'll hit apply and I'm ready to make another.
| | 11:34 |
Here's camera 2 for a reaction.
I'll make a few of these, zipping through
| | 11:40 |
my camera here.
And then, I'll start to sequence them.
| | 11:46 |
What I can do here, in my camera
sequencer, then.
| | 11:50 |
Is take these shots and pull them around
snapping them up on the same line or
| | 11:56 |
having them split if we'd like and frame
in pressing F to focus or selecting all of
| | 12:03 |
my shots and pressing F and now I can take
these and slide them back and forth.
| | 12:07 |
Retiming them by clicking and dragging on
the end here and setting up my rough cut sequence.
| | 12:13 |
We can also import in an EDL or XML, and
actually see how our shots will line up.
| | 12:18 |
There's a rough shot, over, let's make it
out to the full 96, and see how this looks.
| | 12:31 |
I'll verify that I've got the right
cameras here.
| | 12:33 |
Just going back in on my car.
And selecting them.
| | 12:39 |
This camera seven I have selected.
And when I zoom in on my car, or pick
| | 12:44 |
those cameras by going in to them, and
selecting it, I can select the right camera.
| | 12:50 |
For example, camera five, is looking over
the window.
| | 12:53 |
(SOUND) 'll make sure I have a good one of
these and Camera four looking back and
| | 13:01 |
camera one looking forward.
If you'd like to change these around in
| | 13:06 |
the camera sequencer, here's seven seeing
the approach, shot two down the road,
| | 13:11 |
three next to the car, four looking back,
five, we can also double click on a shot
| | 13:18 |
And in the shot, in the attributes we can
switch around which camera we're using.
| | 13:23 |
I'm going to make sure that the final, or
maybe the next to last is, camera five.
| | 13:31 |
Here in my camera sequencer again, which I
closed accidentally, I'm ready to play
| | 13:35 |
blast these out.
I'll choose playblast and playblast sequence.
| | 13:43 |
I'm going to put this out with a quality
of 70 and I can specify the resolution per
| | 13:48 |
my shot if I need.
I'm going to leave it at the default here
| | 13:51 |
or maybe go a little bit smaller.
And let this play out just to see the sequence.
| | 13:56 |
I'll put my res here by 960 X 540 for 3/4
of an HD frame.
| | 14:03 |
I'll hit play last sequence and see what
this looks like...
| | 14:14 |
It play blasted out an avi that's in the
movie's directory of my mya project.
| | 14:20 |
I'll go view that avi and see what I get.
Here we go.
| | 14:24 |
There's the car coming towards us.
Reaction, reaction, back to the driver,
| | 14:27 |
drift, and we need one more shot at the
end to see it come in.
| | 14:30 |
Her'es that sequence again.
Car's coming towards us, shots on the
| | 14:35 |
wheels, see the driver, and we need one
more at the end to show that power slide.
| | 14:40 |
It's easy to add, we're just reconfiguring
that camera sequencer.
| | 14:44 |
I'll add in one more shot, choosing create
and shot.
| | 14:48 |
And here in the shot I can add in, camera
seven.
| | 14:52 |
And I'll let the start time be 72, and the
end time 96.
| | 14:59 |
I'll create the shot, and I can always
slide it forward.
| | 15:02 |
This way, I can really use up that action
in the car.
| | 15:06 |
Focusing in, or selecting all of my shots
here and pressing f to focus, and then
| | 15:11 |
wrapping them or cutting them as I need.
Even stretching out the timing by Dragging
| | 15:17 |
out the end or start on that sequencer.
I'll play blast of this one more time and
| | 15:21 |
see what it looks like.
Here's my second play blast.
| | 15:25 |
And when I play it, there's the approach,
the sequence, and the final windshield,
| | 15:31 |
and there's the drift in.
It works great, and the cameras rigged to
| | 15:35 |
my car helped me get all of those key
action shots.
| | 15:38 |
And using the camera sequencer is a great
way to really get some mileage out of the animation.
| | 15:43 |
As we can see in this play blast, the
advantage of doing such a detailed rig,
| | 15:47 |
and spending the time getting all the
controls right.
| | 15:49 |
Is that when it comes time to animate,
once we've got our cameras on and our
| | 15:53 |
materials ready, we can just drive the car
like we want and everything functions.
| | 15:57 |
And then we can just see it or shoot it
from any position we'd like and get a
| | 16:03 |
terrific animation, with all the shot and
cinematography we expect to see with cars
| | 16:07 |
in the scene.
| | 16:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
ConclusionNext steps| 00:00 |
Thanks for watching my course on Vehicle
Rigging in Maya.
| | 00:03 |
I hope you had as much fun as watching it
as I did making it.
| | 00:06 |
If you'd like to take your skills further,
check out these courses at lynda.com.
| | 00:12 |
(SOUND) Modeling Vehicles in Maya with
Ryan Kittleson, which is the course where
| | 00:15 |
this car model, using the rigging, was
created.
| | 00:19 |
Provides a thorough grounding in polygon
and NURBS modeling techniques in the
| | 00:22 |
detailed model.
Photorealistic Lighting with Maya and Nuke
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with Mark Lefitz is a great way to take
your rigged car and put it into real
| | 00:31 |
background plates and match the lighting
in using HDRI.
| | 00:34 |
So jump into Maya and start rigging cars,
and I'll see you next time on lynda.com.
| | 00:40 |
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