Digital Modeling Chapter Notes

Digital Modeling by William Vaughan

What Is Digital Modeling?
The process of creating a mathematical representation of a three-dimensional shape of an object.

A 3D model or 3D mesh is the result of digital modeling.

You can create 3D models manually or automatically. Sources of digital models are those generated by an artist or technician using 3D software, as well as meshes that have been scanned into a computer from real-world physical objects using specialized hardware.

Who Can Become a Professional Digital Modeler?

Demand for high-quality 3D graphics and animation is on the rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the job market for 3D artists is expected to grow at a rate of 12 percent through 2018 (www.bls.gov)

Problem solver with good observational skills and a desire to create things.

If you get to a point where you stop seeing these challenges as lessons that help build your ever-growing skill set, it's probably a sign that you've lost your passion for the medium and it may be time to explore other career options.

What You Should Know

• Fundamental understand of Windows computers.
• Basic file structure protocol
• Working with peripherals
• Using internet search engines
• Using portable storage drives.
• Working knowledge of one 2D paint and one 3D graphics program.
• Basic experience with 3D digital modeling
• Fundamental understanding of 3D space.

What You Will Need

• RAM
• Random access memory. More allows more date to be simultaneously accessed without having to wait for the system to load it from the hard disk.
• CPU Speed and Number of Cores
• Makes rendering and data processing faster.
• Graphics Card and GPU
• Allows to view digital models as smoothly as possible.
• Two Monitors

Software Requirements

• 3D Software
• 2D Software

A Final Word: Change Your Thinking

PICNIC
Problem in chair not in computer

Chapter 2

 

To truly master digital modeling, you must be aware of all aspects of production and understand how they are connected.

 

As players help enhance the stars of a team by supporting their individual skills, the team works together to reach an end goal.

 

Production pipeline - The path and schedule that the production will follow from the initial idea to the finished product.

 

Common departments for animation:

• Story
• Visual design
• Storyboard
• Edit
• Audio
• Modeling
• Scene setup
• Texturing
• Rigging
• Animation
• Effects
• Lighting
• Rendering
• Compositing

Pre-production - Process of preparing all the elements involved in a production and is the foundation of the project-the blueprint of the entire animation.

• Story/Visual Design/Storyboard
• Story - Story developes in the form of a script.
• The story should live in the director's head.
• Directors must work closely with the modeling and visual development team to create a world that holds true to the spirit of the story.
• Visual Design
• Maquettes - Clay sculptures
• Character designs need to be finalized.
• Sets and props need to be designed.
• Color and lighting theories have to be conceived and approved.
• Ideas are expendable. It is less costly to remove concept ideas rather than having a bad idea sent into production.
• Characters are the hardest to do and take the longest to get approved.
• Close collaboration between the character designer, modeler, rigger, and texture artist.
• Storyboard - Sequences of images that help previsualize the story.
• Most are directed back to the storyboards to ensure that they don't stray from the goal.
• Some of the best elements of any story are conceived during this stage of production.
• Skipping the storyboarding stage can prevent refinement and delay production.
• Aid director in having vision become a reality.
• Animation relies heavily on the storyboarding process.
• A storyboard artist fleshes out what isn't on the page.
• A writer, artist, actor all in one.
• Add visual puns in expressions and actions.
• Create action in a story when the script is vague.
• Cut production costs by giving production teams a better way to understand fights, stunts, the timing of a comdedic gag, special effects, and anything else that involves costly and complicated parts of a production.
• Storyboards speak more to the content within the frame than the drawing itself. No rendering each frame, but instead try to capture a moment.
• Consider framing/length of the shot, angle, and if there is any movement involved.
• Color is unnecessary.
• No attachment. Everything changes. Draw quickly.
• Know film terminology. Cut-in. Cutaway. To avoide crossing the line. Psychology of different camera angles.
• Draw quickly and clearly. Visual communication.
• Animatics - Story reel
• Using previously approved storyboards and scratch tracks, an editor works directly with the director to create an animatic.
• Pacing and story are still being refined.
• Animation is tim-consuming and expensive. Animatics allows for all levels of changes at little or no cost.
• If a movie doesn't work in 2D format, no amount of CG polish will help.
• Layout artists begin constructing a 3D animatic.
• Proxy models - Low-resolution, temporary models.

Production - Final elements of the animation are initially created based on the work developed by the pre-production crew. Must stay true to the blueprint in place and to maintain the director's vision.

• Modeling
• The longer it takes to get to this stage of production, the more likely you will be generating digital models for a successful project.
• Moderlers work under the art director and/or a modeling supervisor.
• Mesher - 3d models
• Moderlers create models that are ready to be rigged and textured by the other departments.
• Open communication because having a model sent back due to issues with the mesh can delay production.
• Some studios don't have a modeling department. TDs Techinical directors - create the models and then see them through to articulation (rigging).
• TD may also be required to generate UV maps (2D texture coordinates for points).
• Weight maps (a value that defines a bone's influence on a point) for the rigging department,
• Selection sets (which store a single state of a point, either selected or not selected) for the effects department.
• Flexible, adaptable, thick-skinned, assertive, a team player +
• Think ahead and problem solve on multiple levels.
• Take feedback and crit.
• Ask questions before modeling.
• Know good topology for better rigging.
• Know where to put accurate edge loops.
• Keep in mind of clean topology and proper base pose.
• Clean topology
• Good poly flow. Without a good poly flow, the model will never deform properly regardless of how much time and effort the rigger puts in.
• Good, clean poly-flow and efficient geometry with no extra or hidden stray pieces are a major boon to the effects artist.
• The more geometry the computer has to push through the calculation, the longer the process takes. Make sure that only what's actually needed is modeled is something you'll want to build up experience with. Effects department will sometimes request low-polygon "hulls," simplified objects to use in simulations where the full level of detail for interaction is not required. Being able to make a low-polygon version of your master asset is a skill.
• Build items to scale whenever possible.
• Accurate attention to detail.
• Have an accurate understanding of anatomy and how muscle structures work (in both humans and animals).
• Avoid stars (point with five or more polygons connected to it) in areas that have a wide range of motion is desirable for good deformations.
• Page 45. Hinge joints.
• Proper base pose
• Rest on the ground plane, centered on the origin, and facing forward.
• T-pose default. Though rigger may ask for something else.
• Scale of the model is accurate.
• Modelers should know rigging. Riggers should know animation.
• Understand the entire production pipeline.
• Supply low-poly objects for some items in the far background along with models with multiple levels of detail (determined by the distance from the camera) that are able to be swapped out with the final meshes.
• Know how UVs work.
• Rigging/Texturing/Scene Set Up
• Rigging
• Design and create rigs (bones and controls)
• Talk with animators to make sure the rigs have the functionality needed to animate. So the model will deform and move in the way it was designed to.
• Scene Set up
• Set decorators will start populating the 3D animatic scenes with the final elements based on the concept art and animatics generated by the other departments.
• Populate the scenes with objects that help make the backgrounds more believable, but not too distracting from the main action of the shot.
• Adding or adjusting details and props to help fill gaps in the scene or guide the eye to where you want the viewer to be looking.
• Texture
• Brings details and color to assets.
• Generates texture mpas from photographs.
• Create shaders that mimic real-world materials.
• Master observation.
• Keen eye for detail and the ability to reproduce materials based on the references they have been provided by the visual design department.
• Unwrapping and laying out UVs.
• Breaking out the mesh into multiple surfaces.
• Outputting ambient occlusion and normal maps.
• Painting texture maps for the various attributes of each surface.
• Finalizing the textured mesh for the production.
• Animation/Lighting
• Stages:
• Layout. Temporary models, or stand-ins
• Blocking. Low-resolution representations of the models that can be posed quickly, or specially created segmented models that are parented to the joints.
• Director may require a check of the blocking using the final models before signing off to identify any problem areas as early as possible.
• Facial animation and lip sync. Often where the first problems are seen. Expressions may be too extreme or bomcines expressions that weren't tested together.
• Final pass. Secondary animation, offsetting the timing of motions, and a final check to make sure there are no intersections.
• Lighting
• Set mood, color, and atmosphere.
• Works closely with render and compositing.
• Responsibilities
• Technical
• Ensure that the desired elements of the scene are proplerly illuminated.
• Fulfill the requirements of time, place, and weather.
• Ensuring continuity with other shots in the sequence.
• Aesthetic
• Setting or supporting mood.
• Composition through lighting, such as determining viewer focus through variations in light intensity across the image.
• Find light leaks, flipped normals, edges that need a microbevel.
• Effects
• Create hair fibers; elemental effects like water, fire, and smoke; as well as fabric dynamics. Debris, dust, water spray. Feathers, fur.
• To have the most impact, effects need to be lit a specific way as well. For these reasons, constant communication with the lighting and animation department is a very improtant part of this process.
• Rendering
• Break out approved shots into individual passes and render them out for the compositors to reassemble.
• Replacing proxy geometry, lighting, and effects with the correct and final versions, and optimizing the scene so it would render as quickly as possible without monopolizing the render farm.
• Nurnies (small technical details added to break up the surface of an object to add visual interest)
• Good naming convention.
• Edit
• Audio
• Scratch tracks/voices - stand-in voices performed by any willing member of the production crew.
• Tests shows with audio before committing to final dialogue and the pacing of scenes.
• Contributes 50 percent of what makes an animation a success or a disaster.
• Sounds tells things such as metal sound, motion of metal, duck sound.

Post-production - Take the longest due to the refinement of all of the aspects of the final product.

• Compositing
• Understand color theory. Artistic eye.
• Enhance the lighting and color of the shots, maintaining the established look form the director and visual design artists, but refining it with a final layer of polish.
• Final Delivery