3D Video Tutorials: Gnomonology – The Refinery Project

Gnomonology - The Refinery Project | 3GB | English

The Refinery Project is a four chapter tutorial that demonstrates, in real-time, how to bring a static image to life in seven hours. Starting with a static photo of an oil refinery, Alex integrates 2D and 3D elements using Maya, After Effects and Photoshop.

Chapter One: Sprite Rendered Smokestacks
In chapter one, sprite rendered smoke is added to several of the refinery's smokestacks. Topics include: Importing the image plane, aligning the 3D camera, adding 3D reference geometry, volume emission, fields, sprite set-up, expressions, adjusting particle speed without changing behavior, hardware rendering separate elements, motion blur, particle disk caching, compositing, color correction and final integration.
Chapter Two: Sky and Water Replacement
In chapter two, the original sky and static water of the refinery photo are replaced. Using Photoshop, we mask out the original sky, replace it, then color correct to match the lighting of the scene. For the water we use Maya's Ocean Shader to create animated water that integrates perfectly into our scene, including reflection of the backplate and shore/pier intersection through the use of camera projections.
Chapter Three: Rolling Sprite Fog
In chapter three, animated fog is added to the Maya scene using volume emission, fields, sprites, expressions, disk caching, hardware rendering and motion blur. All necessary steps are discussed as we build the effect from scratch and integrate it into our composite. Final tweaks are added in After Effects including color correction, level adjustments, masking and movement.
Chapter Four: Shoreline, Birds, Particle Instancing
In this final chapter, we begin by adding a new foreground shoreline and some rocks in the water. We pull elements from a photo using masking, fringe removal and warping. We then move to Maya to create a dynamic flock of birds that fly into frame. The bird effect is created from scratch including joints, skinning, looping animation, UVs, texturing, particle instancing, emitters, fields, expressions, lighting, rendering and the final composite of the Refinery Project.
Homepage: Code:
http://gnomonology.com/group/10

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Gnomonology – The Refinery Project

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