Research is done!

It’s been a busy last few weeks – I presented/defended my research project for my Master’s to my committee last week, and graduation and wrap-up festivities are closing in this week. This semester really flew by; I think I’m still convinced it’s March. Come to think of it, I can’t believe it’s all over – the entire last 2 years have really flown. It’s hard to believe that I’m done with school for forever…unless of course I decide I need that PhD or VMD I’ve been thinking about…but right now, I’m ready to be done and start working.

On that note, time to share some stills from my fancy finished research project! I got some great feedback from my committee, which I’ll work on over the summer, but for now I’m saying it’s done. Stay tuned for the dates that it will be shown at the Field Museum – potentially in a few weeks!

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And, watch the finished animation!

The effects of stonefish venom on the cardiovascular system from Laura Schwartz on Vimeo.

Panic mode.

Only a few more weeks to graduation, and still so much to do I feel like I might explode. My research is nearly there though – this is almost the final product – I’ve since rigged the fish so he’s moving slightly, and after stringing it all together found some things I want to go back and fix, and then a few more things in post.

Then an entire other animation to crank out pronto, plus my demo reel…then done!

Stonefish model adjustments

I’ve gone back into ZBrush and fixed my dude’s jaw up a bit (he was too angler-fishy before) and made some fin adjustments too…also, I liked snapping a quick still of him in Zbrush to show his actual coloring before I dunk him in the ocean with all the caustics/fog etc. Now to get him rigged….

Quick screenshot - Dorsolateral body view

quick screenshot - ventral side

Stonefish animation

Here is the first full render of the stonefish animation with audio – I’m still doing additional renders to add in depth of field for the muscle scene and additional passes for the other scenes, but other than those details I’m fairly happy with the end result.

Moral of the story? If you ever decide to go on vacation in Australia, watch where you put your feet.

Productive night…

Last night (all night, ha) was an awesome work/catch-up night. I finished the stonefish model, which after finally scrapping the laser scan model I had, took only about 3 hours to model from zspheres and dynamesh in Zbrush. I really love sculpting and painting, I can definitely see myself focusing on that more. I might come back and tweak the model more later.

You know what I don’t love? Lighting. It’s so tedious, and I feel like I sit in front of the computer for hours tweaking one little setting, watching it render, then debating, then repeat. Over and over….Anyway, I’m determined to learn to deal with it this time, and get a good lighting set up.

The first few images are straight from Zbrush, and the last is with him in the scene and some preliminary lighting in Maya…not sure why I’m not getting any shadows on it, but it’s a start.

Mid-sculpting

Finished, side view

Finished, 3/4 view

Chilling out. Waiting to poison someone.

Zbrush dynamesh is fantastic.

I’ve been delaying working on modeling my actual stonefish for quite a while now, for a number of reasons. But! I have a model of an actual fish (sort of…it’s plaster), which I was able to put through a laser scanner and pop it into Maya and Zbrush for some cleaning and sculpting. The dynamesh in the new Zbrush is amazing – after spending an ungodly amount of time trying to clean up the form in Maya, I threw it into Zbrush and put it in dynamesh mode, which took care of a lot of the junk on the scan model…happiness. Now it’s down to sculpting up the model, fixing holes, and jamming out to Nickel Creek.

Here’s a quick progress shot – lots more sculpting to do still.

I love Zbrush.

Stonefish animatic…take 1

My first animatic – a few things to tweak as far as timing, but overall I’m pleased with it. Now collecting texture/mood references to start doing a couple concept paintings, like what I just finished for my rotifer for the maya class!