Mental Ray: Lighting and Shaders

Rendering Techniques with Matt Hartle

In the second DVD of this series, Matt Hartle focuses on lighting, shaders, and High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) within Mental Ray for Maya. Mental Ray supports most of Maya’s features, in addition to many others. This DVD shows you how to get the best use of Mental Ray to render fluids, particles, fur, geometry based paint effects, blurry reflections and refractions, area lights, contour rendering, and High Dynamic Range images.

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In this polygonal modeling DVD, Sean Mills shows you how to create a bipedal humanoid model. Sean begins with a set of primitives for different body parts – arms, legs, torso and face – and refines them into muscle masses, primary contours and silouhettes. He then shows you how to refine those masses, establishing preliminary edge loops around musculature and areas of major deformation. Sean concludes by integrating these primary forms onto a contiguous character mesh.

Contents:
Digital Female Character Design and Creation
Instructor: Sze Jones
Learn to create breathtaking 3D females from Blur Studio’s Sze Jones, covering both artistic and technical techniques.

Drawing From Design
Instructor: Feng Zhu
Acclaimed concept designer Feng Zhu shares how to create designs that strike a balance between uniqueness and mass-market appeal.

CG Survival Kit
Instructor: Jeremy Cook
Working hard and working smart are not the same thing. Learn to work more efficiently and make smarter decisions in your 3D workflow.

Creature and Character Design
Instructor: Neville Page
Neville Page, lead creature designer on Star Trek, shares how to utilize a variety of techniques to create a unique character design.

Dark and Stormy Nightmares: The Art of Dreaming on Paper
Instructor: Iain McCaig
Storyteller and artist Iain McCaig shows how to tap into your dream-mind.

Creature Development
Instructor: Alex Alvarez
Alex Alvarez will cover his 3D creature production process and how to work fast in the face of deadlines.

Environment Creation
Instructor: Martin Krol
Martin Krol will discuss the creation of a 3D environment utilizing Modo, Cinema 4D and ZBrush.

Traditional Art Values Applied to Digital Art
Instructor: Craig Mullins
Renowned digital painter Craig Mullins shares how he applies the timeless values behind traditional art to digital art.

Environment Modeling for Production
Instructor: Reo Prendergast
Reo Prendergrast of Blizzard Entertainment will show the creation of detailed environment assets, both organic and hard surface.

Mastering ZBrush 3.5
Instructor: Ryan Kingslien
Harness the power of ZBrush 3.5 for character, environment and concept design pipelines with Master ZBrush Artist Ryan Kingslien.

Overview of the Feature Film VFX Process
Instructor: Jeff Okun
Visual Effects Supervisor Jeff Okun walks us through the entire feature film VFX process, from beginning to end.

Workflow for the Animation Process
Instructor: Nick Whitmire
Nick Whitmire of Blur Studio shows you the complete workflow behind an animated scene.

The Digital Creature Creation Pipeline
Instructor: Alvaro Buendia
Alvaro Buendia of Blizzard Entertainment shares his process behind creating a digital creature.

Music Video Post-Production
Instructor: Ergin Kuke
Ergin Kuke will discuss the various tasks involved in post-production work for music videos, from concept to completion.

Sculpting Comic Book Statues and Maquettes
Instructor: The Shiflett Brothers
Learn to sculpt a comic book industry style statue from armature to fully roughed out sculpture.

Design and Visual Communication of Vehicles
Instructor: Scott Robertson
Scott Robertson will explain his approach to designing a variety of vehicle types for video games

Volume 1: Thumbnail Sketching and Line Drawings
Syd’s first DVD introduces the student to the principles of creating thumbnail sketches and subsequent line drawings in the process of creating a successful composition. Topics illustrated include establishing value using only shades of black, and then using those shades to identify levels of detail in the composition, including vehicles, architecture, people and foliage. He guides the viewer through the process of choosing appropriate camera angles, and determining the geometry of the image. Syd goes through the process of defining proportion, the horizon line, the vanishing point, perspective and the ground plane, resulting in a series of sketches ready for further development.

Volume 2: Value Sketching
The second DVD in the Syd Mead series, this lesson introduces the viewer to the process of creating the Value Preliminary. Using a series of grey to black markers, Syd shows you how to illustrate your image once you’ve determined the picture composition and sketch views. He guides the artist through a step-by-step process of choosing the best view and, using only a series of nine grey markers, he shows how to create a value system for your illustration, explaining that the more you establish your value range at this stage, the more you ensure the visual sense of your final picture. Using felt tip markers of varying values, Syd guides the user through the process of creating detail, blocking shadows, indicating highlights and defining the detail on the Value Preliminary.

Volume 3: Creating the Color Preliminary
Using the value study prepared during the previous DVD, the artist is ready to create a color version of the Value Preliminary. Using a prepared line drawing, Syd guides the artist through the physical creation of a gouache miniature color preliminary of the scene. He details how this part of the process helps the artist experiment, determine his color needs and show the client a good representation of the final product before producing the larger illustration. Syd shows the viewer how to prepare cold press finish board, mix paint samples and create a custom color palette in preparation for completing the final rendering.

Volume 4: Final Gouache Rendering
In this final DVD, starting with a piece of blank cold press illlustration board, Syd takes the viewer through the process of creating the final gouache rendering of his initial composition. He talks about how to create and prepare a transfer sheet in order to trace down and block in the original line drawing. Once the illustration is transferred, Syd uses the color preliminary as a guide and demonstrates how to use the pre-mixed custom color palette to add detail to the illustration one area at a time. Using this method, he adds detail from background to foreground, retracing at each stage, re-establishing detail areas and completing the illustration.

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Chapters:
1. Setting up your Scene
2. Setting up your Lights
3. Setting up your Camera
4. Getting Depth of Field
5. Increasing the Quality of your Render
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This set hopes to inspire and educate anyone who dreams of creating their own live-action production that incorporates dynamic visual effects.

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