Scultping A Business Logo in Maya

[Savnac]

Hello Again Classmates-


My apologise for this post again, however I should have been a little bit clear regarding "building" out type in Maya 5.0.

What I want to do is build out my business logo. With-in the design of the fonts that used - I changed some things around to make it different from the typical fonts that you find in most software packages.

I would like to see this in 3-D using Maya.

This way if I wanted to animate it in Maya, I may want to import the files into Final Cut Pro or Flash, maybe.

So in-between my learning from DT tutorails, I woulld like to challenge this also.

I am sure someone out there might consider doing this in the fuure as well, so think of this as "knowing ahead of time" so when we all get too the end - learning from these great tutorials of Maya and it's real power - It would make a really good presentation along wih the 3D files that's generated.


Again Thanks- and my apologies for double posting.

Laxman, thanks for the thread.


Savnac :dance

[DjVoyager]

I'd suggest making the logo in Adobe Illustrator, and then exporting it to Maya. That's much easier than modeling in Maya, depending how complicated your logo is.
Check out this video of importing an Illustrator object in Maya.
http://www.digitaltutors.com/chit_chat/showthread.php?t=487&highlight=illustrator

And here's how you'd use a pen tool;
http://www.digitaltutors.com/chit_chat/showthread.php?t=121&highlight=illustrator

Hope that helps.

[Savnac]

DjVoyager-

This can not be that simple, Oh my God ")

Thanks for this helpful tip. I will test it out today, However there's one thing- I am on a Mac and things from the Mac look a lot different then things on a PC, but this is a great lead to what I asked for - Thanks Again.


Savnac

[DjVoyager]

Yeah, but Illustrator is the same on both OS, so you'll be fine :)

[Savnac]

DjVoyager-

So when I get things together here in Maya. Create a small animation using Characters and Type maybe. Which would you import to: Final Cut Pro or Affter Effects to render out a Movie. Is there a specif pipline I should use for doing this. Is there a tutorial that DT have there that I do not know about?

Savnac

[DjVoyager]

DT has great tutorials on After Effects, Encore (http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/tutorials.php?cat=dv), and Apple Motion (http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/tutorials.php?cat=apple), but they're targeted towards teaching the software and not the integration of Maya pipeline.

I personally use After Effects, just because I'm on Windows and also it's more manual. If you're good in Final Cut, you can definitely use that. What you would do is export your animation as image sequence, tiff or targa, so that it has the alpha channel.
Import the image sequence to After Effects or Final Cut, and compose the video. Here, you can apply different effects or layers to the animation that you didn't do in Maya (sometimes due to major render time). When you're happy with your video, just export to whatever format.
Hope that helps.

[Savnac]

DjVoyager-

Are you one of the techs at DT? Do you think that DT will consider doing a pipline version for people like myself and others that will challenge there talents after getting to a point.

To Start in Maya, build the character rig it and animate it in Maya. Create the 3-D environments here in Maya - then take the two and import into Affter Effects or Final Cut to make a small movie to play in a DVD player for viewing.

There has to be a path for us to follow for such things. I get confused at times, thinking that you have to shoot live footage of a sene then import the character into it.

I remember shows like Toy Story, man they created the background environments and characters in Maya I think, That way it all looked great. So my question is does DT have this kind of Info for us future film dudes,?
If not maybe this could be a great tutorial to add too the library of tutorials.

Thanks,

Savnac

[laxman]

Making a movie in after effects is very easy, thats why there no specific tutorial here on how to do it. All you do is use maya to render out 1 picture for each frame you animated. So you will have:

filename01.jpg
filename02.jpg
filename03.jpg
...

Then in after effect you go to file->import footage, select the first file (filename01.jpg) and the check off import sequence.

After effect will automaticaly display 30 pictures per second, which is what a movie is. Then you just choose export and selct what type of file you want to make (ie. .avi, .mov, ...).

Because maya really isn't involved, the tuts for after effects show you how to do all this, but don't include maya. There are separate tuts for maya that show you how to render and get the image sequence.

[Savnac]

Laxman-

Thanks for that tip, man I have more stuff to buy I see- meaning tut from DT.

So which Maya tut I should get then? I will order it as soon as possible.
Al so for the Affter Effects, can you please send me the info?

Thanks,

Savnac

[laxman]

Watch this free vid on using the render globals:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/video_details.php?v=100

for after effect you want the naming format to be filename0001.tga

or the name followed by the number dot the extension. (That will make sense after you watch the vid). Also AE sometimes has trouble with .iffs so use .tga.

This kit will teach you all you need to know about after effects to create some beginner to intermediate level compositions:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/product.php?productid=15&cat=26&page=1#tabs

Click on the outline tab to see the details.

[Savnac]

Laxman-


Hey thanks again for the tip. So that I give you bit of my history- I am from the 2-d world and what I would like to do is translate all what I know and be able to create in the 3-d world as well.

I have a long way to go but with the right set of learning tools I should get there - in my understanding of what I am doing In Maya with no problems I hope.

I have purchased 4 DVD traing kits here and there but I am sure that I am missing some things. I want to show you my list of things that I have and things that I plan to get to get me through this learning curve.

I have purchased: [A]-Introduction to Maya, Polygon/Sub-D Modeling, Female Andriod Modeling in Maya and Introduction to ZBrush.

[B]- I plan on getting these Next: Character Set-Up in Maya, Facial Rigging in Maya, Facial Animation and Lips Sync in Maya, Body Mechanics and Animation In Maya Lifting Heavy Objects, Introduction to Maya Animation Walk Cycle, Non Linear Animation with Maya Trax and The After Effects.

Now as for the "Render Globals", there are several ones on the site to choose from. Do I get "Render Man Training DVD" and then purchase the Render Man software. Or is there another one that I should consider getting that will suit my purpose better in the long run for what it is that I am try to do here.

My longterm plan is to do short stories some day. And to be able to do all of this, I as a director needs to know how to creat the characters and how they move and speak in such worlds that I build and also create the environment that they live in as well.

I know this is a big order but I am here to challeng the possibilties- afte all the sky is the limit right, besides - Like Chuck Jones did it with the "Road Runner & Wile Coyote", Man he did it the simple way But! it was so effective - maybe that's what I might try, just maybe,, but in my own way. Again I do not claim to know it all but I am sho gone try and my best at it. And keep my learning fun.

I have After Effects & Final Cut Pro, so I think that I could choose from the two-however it sounds like I should maybe stick with After Effects becasue DT has traning for it. Besides I am still learning Final Cut so Until I am up and running that , there will be an option for me there in the future.

Thanks Again Laxman,


Savnac

[vdubplate]

I'd suggest making the logo in Adobe Illustrator, and then exporting it to Maya. That's much easier than modeling in Maya, depending how complicated your logo is. Check out this video of importing an Illustrator object in Maya. http://www.digitaltutors.com/chit_c...ght=illustrator And here's how you'd use a pen tool; http://www.digitaltutors.com/chit_c...ght=illustrator Hope that helps. Reply With Quote

I'm coming from a background in Cinema 4D where you hit the render btn and you get a nice solid and quick render. How was the render in the above tutorial achieved so fast? When I hit render in Maya I get a very low res image. You will have to excuse me as I am a noob to Maya. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I know I am a little off topic. Here is a screen grab from the tut above:

www.lrgstudios.com/john/mayaa_render_screen_grab.png

[DjVoyager]

Welcome to DT, vdubplate :)

In the Render Globals, go to Mental Ray tab (or whichever rendered you are using) and change the "Quality Presets" from Draft to either Preview, Preview: Final Gather, or Production, depending on what kind of a render you are looking for.

Hope this helps.
Please check out DT's free tutorials on Maya rendering;
http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/home.php?cat=41