The Butcher Turntable

Presenting the Butcher in his full 3d Glory. Now to unwrap for Detail/Sculpt and Texturing.
To subsurface or not to subsurface... :)

The Meal Character Sculpt

Maya/Mudbox workflow sculpt of The Meal

Animatic version 1 (without sound)

Presenting the Butcher...

Presenting the Butcher in all his glory!

The Meal Concept "Fuchsia Squig"

Family of Fuchsia Squig :)

More lighting and color tests...

Above is a lighting test based on light from a fireplace. Inevitably a large fireplace will give the environment a warm saturated orange light all round. It disturbed me as it gave the wrong vibe; the cosy warm afterglow.

But what if the fireplace burned with an eldritch green light, the sickly yellow-green glow that permeates the entire environment. However this lighting is quite cliche, and usually associated with haunted environments eg. LOTR: Minas Mogul and Army of the Dead, Saw movies, Monster House etc. Combining the 2 colors results in an unnatural yet dank/sickly
sort of ambiance that works. There is a balance of colors with a warm key and a cool fill. The fire burns normally and lights the room but the resulting bounce light is a yellow-green (probably bouncing off the moss and mildew on the walls)

Butcher Concept Bust

Semi-final concept bust of the butcher

Paint over in Photoshop.

Gave it a jaundice kinda look,

not quite sure what to do with the eyes.
Beady eyes= souless
Human eyes = problem with pupil size/eye color
Does it look like Jabba? I really dont see the resemblance :P
If u ask me I would likened the butcher to a demon possessed
Gusteau from Pixar's Ratatouille

Concept Sculpt of Butcher

As the window closes for pre-production, I need to get the finalised design for the butcher's face pinned down! I just realised that the sky's the limit...

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

Version 4

Version 5

Version 6

Version 7

Note: Small beady eyes (not too small), Sharp Pointed nose, Up turned mouth, Fat lips

The Meal concept 2

Was looking at the Dodos from ice age and Kiwi on Youtube and it dawned on me! I did this quick sketch and colored it "powderpuff" pink. Somehow I feel its more appealing than the previous one! haha.

Wicked looking butcher knives...

For flesh tearing purposes only...

Automated Batch rendering multiple files

Command Scripts

1. The first step is to finalize your render globals in your scene file. Refer to the image to the right for example. The batch commands we are going to write will override these global settings. However, we want to set these regardless in case we don't use all the flags/arguments in the batch commands.

Note: if you are moving files from one directory or machine to another, you'll may have to re-link texture files unless you copy the exact same file/folder structure you have (i.e. copy the entire Maya directory). Example if you have your texture files in a folder called "texutres", you'll need to copy your texture files to a folder called "textures" in the new directory. It's important not to have any spaces in your folder names or Maya file names. The render commands thinks that a space between words is a argument or action and will cancel that render.

Tip for Naming directories and scene files:

• Wrong: D:\Maya folder
• Wrong: render Maya file.mb
• Right: D:\Maya_folder or D:\Maya-folder
• Right: render Maya_file.mb or render Maya-file.mb

2. Okay, now its on to the nitty-gritty. Lets open up Notepad and start writing our list of files to render.

3. Type in command line like you normally would in the command prompt/dos shell. In the example below, I wrote a one line batch command that will render a maya scene file called mayafile.mb using all processors, start at frame 1 and end on frame 30, rename the output image to new_image_name, change my render directory (d:\scene2\shot3). Click here to see list of standard command switches. For more switches, go to the command promt and type: render -help

4. Having just one command line will render just one file. Let's say you want to render the same file but with multiple cameras that you set up in the Maya file. Copy the command line and paste it to the next line down. Then add the switch -cam cameraname replacing cameraname with the camera you wish to use. You can put switches anywhere between the main command (render) and the Maya file (scene2.mb). You can also batch render different Maya files also (scene3.mb, scene4.mb and so forth.)

5. Continue copy/pasting until you get all your cameras in that Maya file you want to render out.

6. I like to change all the image names to reflect which camera they came from like that of example below. I change the names so the files won't render over themselves. Instead using the -im switch, you can just render to another folder as long as it exists (shot01, shot02, shot03, etc.) to keep your image files from rendering over each other.

7. The next and a very important step is to save this text document into an executable file. Go to File > Save As..., name the file whatever but type inthe extention .bat. Save as type to All Files. If you don't save this file with the .bat extension it won't be executable.

8. Make sure you save the batch file in the same directory as your Maya file. Otherwise, you will need to write in which directory to find the scene fill in question.

Exmple:

render -n 0 D:\Maya\scenes\scene2.mb
render -n 0 D:\Maya\scenes\scene3.mb

This particular set of batch commands can be executed from anywhere because we list the absolute path for the scene file.

9. To run the batch file, just double click on it from your windows browser. A command window will open and the Maya rendering engine loads the first file in the command list to start rendering.

10. Now the Maya rendering engine will render every command line in the order you typed it in until it runs out of commands. As soon as it completes one rendering task, it go on to the next automatically. In the example given isstep 6, Maya's rendering engine will render all four commands and place each shot in a different directory.

If you want to copy and move files automatically at the end of a render, add the following line to the end of each render:

xcopy :\ :\ /i /s /y

This will copy all your images (and directories) to your new directory of choice. Replace :\ with whatever folder structure you like.

So a happy batch file will look something like this (assuming the scene files are in the same directory as the batch file):

render -n 0 -s 1 -e 3 -im shot01 -rd D:\scene2\shot1 scene2.mb
render -n 0 -s 1 -e 30 -im shot2 -cam camera01 -rd D:\scene2\shot2 scene2.mb
render -n 0 -s 20 -e 30 -im shot3 -cam camera02 -rd D:\scene2\shot3 scene2.mb
render -n 0 -s 45 -e 100 -im shot4 -cam camera1 -rd D:\scene2\shot4 scene2.mb
render -n 0 -s 200 -e 300 -im shot5 -cam camera3 -rd D:\scene2\shot5 scene2.mb

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Final Thoughts

Another advantage to using the command line to render, you are not using Maya's interface to render with. This means more computing power to your renders and less wasted time.

Never ever ever render to a movie file (.avi, .mov, etc.). If your render fails, you will have to start all over again with the entire render. Plus, you will be giving up all sorts of control over image quality (rendering in layers, render passes, alpha channels, z-depth, etc.) by rendering to a movie file. In most cases, Maya will render faster if you are rendering in frames (such as .tga, .tiff, .iff) and composite/edit your frames back together in composition software like After Effects.

I strongly encourage you to use all available (-n 0) processors regardless of how many processors your machine has. By using this flag, Maya will know to use whatever resources Windows is willing to give up to the render engine and maintain stability within your system. However, if you tell the render engine to use just one processor (-n 1) and your machine has only one processor, Maya will eventually use up all your system's resources and crash taking with your last rendered frame with it.

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FAQS

1. If one of your Maya files doesn't render, check to see if there is a one of the following problems:
• Typo in the command line (extra spaces, misspelled switches, file names, etc.)
• Non-renderable cameras
• Non-existant directories
2. "I double click my batch file to render and the command prompt opens but instead of rendering, the screen rolls with text."
• Answer: This means that something in you scene file is corrupt and most likely, its the camera you're trying to render through. Solution: Open up that scene file, make a new camera, copy/paste the old camera's info onto the new camera and delete the old one. Rename the new camera to the old camera's name (if named). Save the scene file.
3. "I double click the batch file to render and Notepad opens up the file."
   
   
   
   
   
   • Answer: The batch file was not saved with the .bat extension. The .bat extension makes the file executable.

If something in this tutorial doesn't make sense, please email me at brian@jawa9000.com.

Happy rendering!

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Common Render Switches

Switch	Argument/Command
-s <#>	Start rendering at frame (replace # with a number); -s 15
-e <#>	End rendering at frame (replace # with a number); -e 45
-n 0	Use all available processors for rendering; -n 0
-cam	Render from camera; -cam camera1
-rd :\	Render to directory; -rd c:\maya\project\images
-im	Rename image name (this won't affect the file extension); -im newRender
-log	Saves output information into a log file (log.txt works nicely)
-r	Specify which type of renderer to use

Return to Step 3

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Notes on Mental Ray

If you are attempting to render with Mental Ray, you will need to add the following line to your command:

-r mr

This flag, -r, stands for renderer and mr is for Mental Ray. Even though you set the renderer within the Maya file to Mental Ray, the command line renderer defaults to Software. Side note: Your batch render will error out if the Mental Ray plug-in is not installed and enabled. You may have to add additional Mental Ray flags and values to your batch file if the render doesn't turn out right in the first place. For reasons that are beyond me, not all of the Mental Ray values (or even the basic render settings) are passed to command line for batch rendering.

For more information on using batch rendering with Mental Ray, open up a command line and type this:

render -help -r mr

Happy rendering!

Layout 1 Lighting Test

Blue Pencil Sketch

Monochrome shading

Floor Fireplace Lighting Test

Hue and Saturation corrected :P

Rough Proportion Test

Rough proportion test for the butcher.

Multiple UV tiles for a single shader...

Did some R&D on how to have multiple texture maps allocated to a single shader.
Why do we want to do this? This allows us to have different resolution textures allocated to our mesh.
Example: A 4k  Texture map for the character's face, a 2K texture map for the body and legs, 4k map for the hands----> all this plugged into a single shader.

With this we can work within the Maya optimised Texture map size of 4k.

Step 1: UV unwrap and place your tiles in a positive UV space of (1,1), (1,2), (1,3), (1,4) etc. Under the Image tab click image range and Set the maximum and minimum U and V values, if tiling 4 squares to the right , set maximum V to 5.

Step 2: Create file nodes for each texture map you wish to assign

Step 3: In the place2dTexture node, uncheck Wrap U and Wrap V (you dont want it to tile), Translate frame to your UV coordinates ( 0,0 being the default square, 1,0 to the adjacent square on the right)

Step 4:  in the File Node go to Color balance and set default color to black.

Step 5: Create a layered texture. drop your file nodes into the layered Texture Attributes. Set blend mode to Add.

Step 6: Connect layered texture to the color, bump, specular etc. of the shader you want to use for your mesh.

Notes: Remember to set the default color of the file nodes to black. Reason being we are "adding" layers in the layered texture, hence black being (0,0,0) will not affect your color map values because as everyone knows 0 + X = X.

Butchery Concept

Rough Set blocking

Photoshop Paint over Mesh

Color Study of "the Meal"

Too bright; like poison arrow frogs of the Amazon screams Danger

Safer colors..muted, more innocent, not too loud.

Final "safe" color study.

The Meal

Final Concept Painting for "the Meal"

Progress paint of The Meal

First I blocked out a rough model in mudbox,

then build up the layers and experimented with colours in photoshop.

Presenting the Butcher...

Now its time to model him :P

The Red Herring...

A few treasures from the oracle...

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If ur gonna use a red herring like this, then might as well go all the way to mislead and subvert audience expectations

so, forget abt making it the pet, your storyboard with the barking dog sound good and logical now, ie the dog is barking because it's not a pet, its a scruffy street mongrel hauled back to be fattened as a macabre/cheap version of meatloaf

now you work your narrative on 2 parallel levels:

(1) you have your butcher fatten the poor unsuspecting mongrel (up to this point mistaken as a pet by audience) for the kill;

(2) you as the director-writer fatten your unsuspecting audience for the kill 

so picking up from your original storyboard, go for the macguffin after the "pet feeding-*pet*pet* good dog" cliched moment of affectionate bonding and stroking

(1) do a cut-away shot to something seemingly unrelated (cld be environment, storm outside abating etc); (2) camera slowly pulling out to re-establishment (3) slow fade to black

basically u PLAY UP to the audience's stereotype or expectations of nice warm fuzzy ending, except this is a false ending

u need to pace very carefully here, basically it shud slow down enuff to lull audience into a false sense of security-some editors will tell u pacing shud slow to mimic human breathing 

(commando friends have told me that is exactly how they kill chicken with their bare hands in the jungle, u must stroke your animal affectionately...slowly...until their breathing becomes slow and relaxed....then they twist the head off in one gesture.)

I know cos I am vegetarian

then sharp sound of cleaver slash

CUT TO: aftermath of slaughter etc 

basically the dog didn't see it coming, and neither shud the audience

u dun even need to show butcher eating fattened pet (that's stating the obvious + there's unspoken screen taboo abt death of animals and children in film, ie it evokes v strong neg aud reactions. implied is gd enuff.)

mebbe the last shot shud be a recipe book open to the page on How to Make Christmas MeatLoaf? I dunno 

subtle but clear enuff 

More butcher Concepts

Some more concepts...Subconsciously I think I'm influenced heavy from Starwars.. Had a comment that one looks like an evil Yoda while the other a cross between a Rancor and Boss Nass...