V-Ray for Maya Tutorial: A Cute 3D Cat Emoji Making Process
This article is organized by Fox Renderfarm, a well-known render farm in the CG industry, and shares the process of making a 3D version of a cute emoji package from 3d artist Bao Xiaoge. The software used is Maya, V-Ray, etc. The inspiration for the creation comes from a mobile game, and the prototype is very cute, so I want to make it a 3D dynamic version. The overall is very simple, and there is no technical difficulty.
Modeling
The model production is not complicated. Because the surface of the prototype is smooth and the structure is few, it is more efficient to make directly from the simple basic block. So I chose to use the box as the base model to start making and then used the basic polygon modeling: starting from the points and lines to adjust the outline, we must pay attention to the line to be uniform. And remember to check the model more so that no obvious defects appear after smoothing.
If you still feel dissatisfied with the model later, you can also use the moving brush in the Maya sculpting tool to make fine adjustments.
Another thing to note is that in the model stage, you need to take into account the bone binding, such as the elbow needs to do bending movements, then the line segmentation of the elbow part should be sufficient. And the parts that need to be squeezed and deformed also need more segments to avoid problems such as model interpolation during animation.
Rigging
The rigging part is also very simple, without using deformers or the like, but using the most basic bones. Note that when you create a bone, remember to repair the bone axis. Generally, the X-axis points to the next bone, and the Z-axis is the rotation axis. The operation is as follows:
Turn on axial display: Select all bones and click Display-Transform Display-Local Rotation Axes
Repair the axial method: Select the bones, switch to the Rigging tab, and click Skeleton-Orient Joint.
The final axis is shown below:
And the hand bone part uses Spline IK because Spline IK is really simple to use, especially for novices.
After adjusting the final binding effect:
Animation
The main difficulty of animation is to make the feeling of soft and cute Q bombs. In order to achieve this purpose, some very basic but useful techniques are used in the animation: Keep the same volume: Keep the same volume when squeezing and stretching the body. Simply put, squeezing becomes a cake, and pulling will become a bar.
Follow and buffer the action: the body moves first, and the eyes move later (because the kinetic energy transmission of the fluid is different from that of a rigid body)
The shape of the eyes also needs to be squeezed when squeezing (such as closing eyes)
To sum up the above three points, a gif was drawn. Although it is very simple, you can basically see the effect of the above three points.
What, too fast to see clearly? Here is the slow version. Pay attention to the volume change and eye movement.
As long as you keep the three points above, the overall animation will be very flexible and cute, and you only need to add a little detail.
Rendering
The V-Ray renderer was selected for rendering. The part of the light is to weaken the ambient light as much as possible and let the light stick be a part of the light source. Because the character is waving a light stick in his hand, it will form a lighting effect at different angles during the movement, which is really suitable as a moving light source. Not only does this increase the atmosphere of the scene, but the changing colors will also make the whole picture more dynamic.
The remaining lighting arrangements choose to use three rectangular lights, of which the light source above the head is the main light, and the other two light sources are the auxiliary light. The three lights are disconnected from the ground so that the lights will only illuminate the character itself without letting The scene becomes very bright, let the lighting of the scene be left to the light stick!
The production of the material part is very simple. It is a mixture of Lambert material and luminous material. Since most of the body is covered by hair, a very simple Lambert gray-black material is used, while the cat's claws and eyes in the ear part are a blend of glowing materials.
To make the color change dynamically, here we choose to directly control the color to achieve keyframe control. Of course, you can also use the time axis to control the Ramp UV sampling output color, as shown in the figure below. The advantage of this is that the color control is more convenient, color transition and playback speed and better control.
As long as the production of hair is simple and quick, the function can be used. So choose to use V-Ray Fur. Just a few parameter adjustments can produce the effect. V-Ray Fur's basic functions are also very comprehensive, making small fluff without close-ups perfect.
If you observe carefully, there is no hair in the eyes and ears of the character. I use the mask map to control the growth range of the hair. I can also use the map to control the color and other parameters. Of course, the model must be divided into UVs first.
After doing this, you can render. And you will find that the above productions are all basic processes without using too many skills and operations.
Above is all you need to know how to make this cute 3D kitten emoji, we're sure you can make it! If you need a rendering service, why not try us at Fox Renderfarm, we have been the leading cloud rendering services provider in the industry for many years. Don't understand why you need a render farm? Then why not find out what is a render farm? Fox Renderfarm continues to bring news of modelling with various 3D software, so feel free to follow us!
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