I found this really nice Nimbus 2000 model on CGTrader. It wasn't UV'd but the polycount was low enough that I didn't mind UVing it. It about 30 mins to UV minus the bristles because there was no way that was happening. I painted in Substance painter and brought the maps into Maya to render using Arnold. I used a aiStandardShader on the bristles but in hindsight, I probably should have used a hair shader. It would have made render times a lot faster.

I have a bigger scene I want to work on with this Kayak. For now, the main asset (the kayak) is ready for the future world I'll build around it.

I found the model from this website called Open3DModel. I was so happy it was all polys but unfortunately, it did not come with UVs. Those didn't take too long to create, however. For the ropes, I wasn't insane enough to proper UV them so I used Maya's UV Automatic and called it a day.

This was pretty fun to texture. in Substance Painter. There is a new tool called: MatFX Water Drops. It just adds a layer of "water" to models. Maybe I went a little over with it, but I like it.

To get the cool Red - Yellow - Red coloring, I used a 3D Linear Gradient. To set up, on one layer, I have a red base color. On the layer above, I have yellow base color. On the yellow, I created a mask and added the generator 3D Linear Gradient. Using this generator was a little weird so I few easy things that help me were to Invert mask, set the 3d Position Start to white and the 3D Position End to black. I think the concept behind adjusting is supposed to be like moving on a UV map but with RGB. Either way, After I finish positioning the yellow, I added another red base color with another masked generator.

This project has gone through some amazing changes since the beginning. However, in this version, I am not quite satisfied. I most learn to grow from the mistakes I've made while creating this and continue on.

Let's not get too excited because this is starting to look good! I fixed the saturation on the grass. Currently, I am using a ramp to drive the color. In the last post, I used arbitrary shades of green. This time, I color picked the greens from the Ivy texture. Speaking of the ivy, that is still a huge work in progress! I'm still trying to figure out how to get them to look more filled in and creating branches, on top of adjusting the shader. I've also been adjusting the shader on the fence, adding depth of field and a camera move, and added the basket back in (Don't know if I'll still keep it). The bike is officially 100% fully UV'd. That took much longer than it needed to and I cannot guarantee that all the UV's are perfect, but I feel like a UV expert! I guess the worse part of this update is that the render time for this frame jumped from 5 minutes to 18 minutes.

No Basket. 17 min 49 second render time

This looks a little different... I am still moving forward with the bike. Unforunatly, do to time constraints and my main focus being on Doll Story, I have decided to scale down the project. No more Martha. No more Abbey Road. Just a bike next to a fence.

I painted in textures in Substance Painter. Brought the maps into Maya to render in Arnold. I am having some issues with a few of my specular roughness maps not working as expected and I'm getting a lot of noise/fireflies on the tires. They are just problems to solve. This frame had a local render time of 5:35.

This time around, I matched the shots with the music. Let me just say, this new animatic is like night and day! The first two shots are very slow in my option. Maybe when I start adding subtle motions, it won't feel as long. The shot where its just the dog in the basket, I'm want the dog to be looking around, sniffing the air, and wind blowing throw her fur.

• Apply any new feedback
• Replace dog model
• Start blocking out the shaders

Everything in this animatic is really rough and in its early stages. I'm sharing want to share with several people to get good feedback and to make this project even better. Between posts, I have made a number of updates. Here are some below.

• The final title of this piece is called 242 Abbey Road. The house numbers are a reference, but I'm not going to spoil them.
• There is more set blocking. I need to model the gate and figure out what to have on the other side.
• I'm still switching out parts of the bike to the new quad poly version. I'm having slight problems that. I angled the front wheel and handle bar to make the bike look like it's leaning on the kick stand more so than wall. I can't seem to get the new models in the correct position.
• I now have a basket with a pooch! More on that later.
• I'm testing out the ivy, but more on that later.

I've never used Maya's Paint Effects. In the past, people have told me never to use them because of how bad the end up looking.​ Which, those people were not wrong. So I never really bothered to learn until now. I know I  wanted plants in my scene and I wanted them animated. The only other option I could think of would be to use Speed Tree (A software that I don't have and my school doesn't have a license for). I started watching tutorials on paint effects. They are extremely easy to use and implement, but you have to put some work into them. Getting dynamics in the plants were fairly simple to add. I also learned how to save out the geometry so that I can apply my own textures to the leafs and stems. Paint Effects are going to be how I'm getting animated plants.

Paint Effects Tutorial
Martha, My Dear History
Basket Model

Wireframe in 3DS Max

I spent about a day in ZBrush trying to zRemesh parts of the bike. The thing about doing it that way is the bike becomes very high poly. It wasn't until much later in the day when I went back into 3DS Max to see if the model had really been modeled in tris. Turns out, no! I thought that maybe I've been exported out the model wrong and tried reexporting a few times before turning to google.
The first page I went to was an official 3DS Max to Maya page from autodesk. The article was had recently came out in mid-April. So this had to work. Unfournatley the post was very unclear on finding the right menus to go to. There were even screenshots of Max they added but the images are so small, that I can't tell what I'm looking for.
The second page I went is from Autodesk Forums posted way back in 2012. The first reply was what the first page wanted me to do, but the commenter actually said how to get to the menus. Immediately try again, but I still have the triangles. I go back to the post and see that the author comments back with the same problem. One more scroll down and Boom! The solution that solved everything!
Here are the steps:

• Right Click in Viewport > Convert to: > Convert to Editable Poly.
• In the Export settings, uncheck "Persevere Edge Orientation."

There's always a risk with using free models that come from the internet. The bike model I ended using looks nice based off the pictures. There are no textures, and no markings giving me a point of reference for the model. Even with just the shaders, it looks nice.
The original format I downloaded this in was a 3DS Max file. I've used this program several times before to quickly convert models to FBXs. I brought this into Maya and turns out that the model is not bad. The picture was accurate and the poly count wasn't insane. When the model was created, the pieces were merged together based on their shaders. But a quick Mesh > Separate broke everything apart. Some parts of the model, like the seat for example, was modeled in quads while other part, like the frame, were tris. The bike is angled on its kick stand so it doesn't stand up straight.

I'll go through and clean up the mesh. The bike, also, has no UV's so I'll be going through and adding those. I'll also go in and replace parts of the model that are not holding up. At first glance, the pedals and the gears are not what I am looking for.

​In my journal, I drew some thumbnail sketches and simple blocking. I am trying to figure out the best staging for the camera and I'm thinking about textures.