Mikayla Fuehrer - The King and the Pawn

Lighting is going well this week! I'm working on my next batch of shots. It's fun because they all have different challenges. But I think it's off to a good start! Right now what I am spending most of my time on is sq200s120 and sq400s060. In 120, we are experimenting with adding a glow behind the queen chess piece that way we did in the green chess world. We really liked the effect that had so we want to try making something like that work for emphasis in the yellow chess world too. Also in s060, we have a pillar that is coming down and falling on David, so we really want a shadow to fall over his face to clue in the audience about like what is to come. It's almost like a foreshadowing thing. This one is definitely a bit of a challenge for me because I am animating and block come in front of a light to 'cast the shadow' but I also need to be matching it up to the pillar that is shown falling in the next shot. I actually haven't animated something in ov...

This unit I had a lot of shots due for final. It was a bit of a crunch with midterms going on, but I'm proud to say that I got all my shots worked on and submitted on time. I had some fixes to make towards the end, but I think overall it really helped the work look much better.  The backgrounds were getting a bit too grey and the pillar's visibility was getting lost. So for each shot I went in and adjusted the gradient of the background sphere so that even if the camera is ''lower' in the environment, the viewer can still see the full range of the gradient. It was a bit hard to keep everything consistent, so I did have to go back and forth a bit but I think I succeeded in that considering nobody noticed issues in that area. I got everything approved except for shot 160. I just need to make the chess piece a bit brighter so that it stands out against the background. I know how to do that though so it's a pretty easy fix.  I really loved working on t...

I was able to take and apply the notes I got in class to make the lighting much more ambient because there is no 'sun' or major light source in the chess world. I especially spent some time on the 'death' world scenes, with the green. I changed the color of the black king piece to a really dark red and shine green lights on it so that it would still appear like a black piece. Before, the colors made it seem like it didn't belong in the world. Changing it to a dark green made it blend in the environment too much and adding more light took too much of the black away and it looked like a green piece despite it being an extremely dark color texture wise. I think I got it working better than it was before Again, in case blogger has troubles displaying my work, here is a link to syncsketch https://syncsketch.com/pro/#/project/94008/reviews/601985

For this short unit, I really wanted to focus on getting this shot cranked out. It's short but it has an interesting transition into another one of my shots and I know we will need time to get that figured out. I went through quite a few iterations of this shot but I think I've got it to a place where the viewer can really focus on the chess board before the scene cuts. 

Lighting has a lot of work rescheduling but now we are getting into the swing of things. For me, I am taking on a lot of the shots in the chess world. We are using Maya Hardware 2.0 to render this world and lighting it comes with certain technical limitations. There is a limit of 8 lights, there's no light linking, there's a lot of dynamic camera and character moves.  I find these challenges to be enjoyable to tackle. The lack of linking requires a lot more time and problem solving for light placement. Working with 8 lights is sort of like having a lighting budget. On a personal level, I enjoy tackling this challenge and I find it exciting how much Maya has advanced because I believe we can really achieve something compelling without long render times. Anyways, here is some of what I've been working on. I didn't post all my versions because blogger struggles a lot with videos. I will attach a link to my syncsketch to help the viewing process. https://sy...

Another quarter begins and with it comes new challenges! School is online now due to the Corona Virus and spring break was a whirlwind of moving and transferring files so that I can work from home. I'm fortunate enough to have a computer that can run the software I need, but my C: drive was 100% full so I had to backup almost four years worth of college school work so I could delete it all off my laptop and have the space to do work. It was a bit crazy for me, but I got a setup that works now and I can work from home now. But that is all fixed now and I'm ready to jump into work! I updated one of our environment files to have the most up to date textures so that any lighters lighting flat shots will have textures to help their work be more accurate. I wanted to share it with the class so they know to go in and get the updated file off the collaborative space. I talked with Caleb about this shot going from morning to evening. I want to tone down the glo...