Maya - Continuing Work

So although my sabbatical is officially over, I am still working in Maya, albeit at a slower pace.

The last couple of Saturdays, I have been working with boat.  Nothing visual to put up since I am doing the UVW work.  Slow and steady, but I am getting better.

I will be working more on the Western scene as well, but right now getting back into the swing of classes is taking the lion's share of my time.

Endings and Beginnings.

So today is my "last" day of sabbatical.  

I am happy with what I have accomplished and learned.

I continue to tweak my western scene, though it is very subtle stuff now, and I continue to work in Maya.  Today I spent it working with different mental ray shaders and some more detail modeling of my boat.

Although my sabbatical is complete I will continue to update this as I fix things and learn things.

Old West - Minor Adjustments

I just modified a few things for comparison:

Increased the indoor saloon lights a little
Added some heat distortion in the distance
Added a bit more reflection in the saloon windows on the second floor

Western Scene Update

Updated scene:

• adjusted the lighting a little and composited it together.
• Moved a few objects around in the background - mainly to avoid making the cowboy have stuff sticking out of his head.
• Adjusted the displacement a bit on the ground
• Did some comp painting for shadows and such
• Added a bit of glare glow around bell tower
• bunch of other stuff I can't remember.. HA!

Maya Work - Boat

Did some learning today and some work on the boat.

Added a mesh of rope, and played with the canopy tent.  I also added little details here and there.

Most of the rope and cloth stuff was done with NCloth.

Threw on basic materials just so I could see the different objects better.

Minor Western Fixes

Just a few updates today.

• I updated the tree for a few more branches.  I also added some segments and roughness to some of the larger branches.  I added a bump map to the bark as well.
• I angled some of the branches more toward the focus of the scene.
• Adjusted the Final Gather lighting a little.
• Adjusted the ground plane texture a little.
• Changed the texture of the mid-ground wagon.  I made it grayer and older looking so it did not blend with the buildings behind it.
• Added a few extra shrubs in the background.

An Old Dusty Road

What a day... Today was one of those days that I felt I worked and worked and barely accomplished anything.   I worked on re-making the ground plane wagon tracks today.   Still not sure I am happy with what I ended up with.  Will have to wait for some critique.  I need fresh eyes on it.