On the after effects project, go to Composition Settings

-Preset, choose NTSC DV
-Manually type in 720×480 px for the width and height. (what the instructions say the school wants)
-Pixel Aspect Ratio, is D1/DV NTSC (0.91)
-Frame Rate, manually type in 29.97 (which is what the instructions paper says)
-Duration, 30 seconds.

Once the project is ready to be rendered, Add to render Queue
-Click on Output Module
-Choose QuickTime for Format
-Click on Format Options
-Select DV25 NTSC for Video Codec

Since there is no audio, I didn’t click on the audio check box.
I hit OK
Then I hit Render.

The file rendered out

Most of the DV options on Adobe Media Encoder would force black horizontal margins on the top and bottom of the screen.

You can add it to the Media Encoder, and then render it out as QuickTime Format, then choose NTSC DV, but you pretty much end up with the same file regardless. I tried it and played back the file, and it was pretty much just a replica of what I had already rendered out in After Effects itself, so there was no alteration to that file. Using the H.264 format in the Media Encoder and then rendering it out with the NTSC DV High Definition preset just forces the file to render out as MPEG, so I don’t recommend that.

I hope I did it right – this render is what I’ll be submitting to your inbox.
If I did do it right, you should keep these instructions and teach it to your other presentation classes. Even better, if this is the correct format, you should add these instructions to the piece of paper that Grace gave us that instructs us about the 30 second reel.

There are already specific instructions there for students who submit still images, so why not add specific instructions to help GAD and MMA majors with their video reel submissions? Everyone in the class seemed to have issues, and this would make things so much easier.

Thanks for your time!

Use this compression setting to create videos that are small, and that look great once Vimeo is done compressing it.  You will be doing 1) In After Effects, exporting your file as an Animation, and 2) Using Adobe Media Encoder, render the final file as an H.264 file.

Thanks Brendon for sharing your numbers and process, its pretty easy and the results are great. Be sure to check out Brendon’s Reel when ya’ll get a chance.

Step 1: In After Effects or Premiere

1. Make Movie (contrl + m) > keep the avi setting (PC) and click save.

2. In Render Que > Drop down menu > choose Quicktime

3. In options > choose Animation

4. Render

Your final file will be big, but it will look pristine, all the darks will not be washed out (like when black areas becomes gray, this is not cool – some contrast is lost), and the colors will be vibrant. This type of compression is used a lot in broadcast. Once this is done, make note of how many MB’s this file is.

Step 2: In Adobe Media Encoder

1. Click Add > Choose your file

2. Click Settings > Change format to H.264

3. Choose your size (HD 720 if you roam the AiLV campus)

4. Click Start Que

Look at the file size once this is done rendering and compare how small this size is to the previous render using the Animation compression. This new file will be lean, but will look just as good. Now you are ready to upload to Vimeo.

For your demo reel, you way to use this to showcase your mesh, and edgeflow.Two Parts – This will make a render nice and clean (Mental Ray Style), but will also put the wireframe around the model.

First, give your object a white color.

Turn On Mental Ray (You may have to turn it on in your Plugins Manager)

• Open Rendering Preferences/Settings Window
• Features Tab > Contours Drop Down Menu > Click – Enable Contour Rendering
• Increase Over Sample to 3
• In “Draw by Property Differences” Drop Down > Click “Around all Poly Faces”
• Click “Close”

On your model….Choose one white material > RC Material Attributes

• Click 2nd Overtab > Mental Ray Drop Down > Contours > Click “enable contour rendering”
• Set color to black.
• Reduce width to .5 or whatever width you wish

Render Away.

Ambient Occlusion Pass

This is a simple way to create an ambient occlusion pass in Maya 2012. Ambient occlusion is best described as the dark subtle shaded regions where two or more forms meet. Its used to create realistic shadow detail in our models.

Duplicate your model.

Give your model a new Lambert material > Color it white.

In Render tab (below, next to bottom layer tab), make a new layer > name it Ambient Occlusion (ao).

Right C this layer > Select Attributes

Under Presets (at the top of attributes panel) – press this.

In dropdown menu > Select “occlusion”

under the “mb_amb_occlusion” tab

Set – Max Distance = 5

Go to the Ambient Occlusion Layer (ao)

> Look at Drop Down menu (above layers) and set to multiply

Check AO in master layer

In Render > Options Tab > Check “Render all layers”

Save as JPG

IN Photoshop

Scripts > Load files into stack.

Set this ambient occlusion pass to multiply and voila, you got it.

So, you know a little about the web, you know of its importance to your business and goals, you reserved your domain name, and it points to a website that you’ve designed in Dreamweaver and Photoshop. So far so good. But lately, you’ve been hearing a little bit, here and there, about Word Press, a free website system that enables people to post images, text and movies on a website. People who have used it love it and so you look into it too.

I was hesitant at first because my initial impression/image of Word Press were of boring single color blog templates. Not cool. Boy was I wrong. All it took for me was a ten minute demo from a student who was using it, and me taking the time to explore Word Press templates and I saw thousands of templates that were not only free to download, but some that were reasonably priced created by professional designers and design groups. A good place to look at some of these templates is…themeforest.net.

Many students, having graduated from my website class, were wanting to make the switch to a Word Press site. However, everyone is cautious at first, understandably so, so I show people what was shown to me and people eventually make the switch. To win people over, I show people how I logon, I show students the Word Press admin panel, how to change fonts, and how to create drop down menus, and they’re hooked. Everyone’s amazed at how easy it is to use, and how the edits can be done from any computer.

The main advice I give people in this situation is simple. The most important thing is to keep your current site running, but at the same time, install Word Press on your site, in a separate folder so you can build and add content at your leisrue, and get used to the Word Press admin panel. When I first started, this is exactly what I did, and after about a month, I was ready to make the switch and make my entire site a Word Press site. It also gave me the opportunity to compare my current site to the Word Press site I was developing.

Below are simple steps to get you started down this path. Its safe as it keeps your current site in tact, and as mentioned earlier, you’ll also be able to have a separate folder that contains your Word Press site so you can edit and update it whenever and wherever you like.

Step 1:

Create a folder in your main public folder of your server called “wordpress”.  You’ll have to logon to your server for this, and create the folder manually. Be aware however that when you proceed to step two below, that that your server might make a wordpress folder for you. Just be aware of it. To access your Word Press site in the future, simply type www.yoursite.com/wordpress.

Step 2:

Install Word Press. This is the part that was confusing for me, and if you are new, I wouldn’t recommend you do this because it requires that you setup a database on your site. This was confusing for me, but this one touch installation makes it way easy.

Instead, check to see if your server has a “one button / easy install” of Word Press. This is by far way easier and most servers are beginning to have it as an option.  When you press this Word Press install button, be sure to take notes, because you are going to have to remember two to three sets of passwords, one set for your data base, and the other for Word Press. You will need this Word Press login and password to connect to Word Press on your site.

Set up time, about an hour.

Step 3:

Once this is done, login to your new Word Press site through the backend, by typing the following:

www.yourwebsite.com/wordpress/wp-admin

This will bring you to a login page where you will need to type in the login and username you setup earlier.

And that’s about it, seriously.

Once you login to your Admin Page do the following tasks to begin personalizing your new Word Press site :

1. Explore the controls on the left ie. Posts, Links, Pages, Appearance, Settings, etc…
2. Create a bio page, contact page and demo reel page.
3. Create a menu system and connect the bio and contact menu items to the pages created above.
4. Change the logo to your own.
5. Change the main image to your own.

Keep this “wordpress” folder separate so you can begin to explore the many ways to create content for your Word Press site, and eventually it will look like what you want. Once you achieve this, and you are ready to make the move, check my other blogpost below that talks about how to make the wordpress folder, your main website.

Making Your Word Press Folder, Your Main Website >>

Thanks for reading. Hope this helps you out in getting things started.

This came in handy because I was new to Word Press, and having it in a separate folder would give me the opportunity to test my new Word Press site. More importantly, it was a safe place to experiment and get used to the Word Press interface.

After about three months, I found myself liking the new Word Press site more than my current website, and decided to make the switch, but I was nervous in moving the Word Press site out of the folder, and into my main public website directory.

The following tutorial was given to me by one of my students and it helped me move my Word Press site from the “wordpress” folder to be my main website – it worked like a charm. Be sure you have your site backed up before proceeding just in case. Good Luck. Below are the steps handed to me, I now pass them to you.

–

Hey Randolf,

Here is a short tutorial for moving your website –>

Please read everything before you proceed with the move…

I’m assuming you want to move the site from http://randolfdimalanta.com/wordpress/ to http://randolfdimalanta.com …

First, make sure you create a new folder in your root directory and call it old site or whatever and put all your files that pertain to your site in that folder…This way, you will have the old site to return to if you need to, plus, the old site will not interfere with the new files…

Ok, once you did that, login to your site and go to Settings > General panel. (on the left)

In the box for WordPress address (URL): change the address to the new location of your main WordPress core files. So, right now it should look something like: http://randolfdimalanta.com/wordpress but it should be http://randolfdimalanta.com

Click save settings.

Do not try to open/view your website just yet!!!

Move all your files from the WordPress folder into your root folder.

For any missing pictures, you have to go to the page for that picture and remove the /wordpress from the link…

That’s it…

It is important that you set the URL location BEFORE you move the files.

–

Just in case, here is more information: http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress

But I wouldn’t get too caught up in it, since they make it all sound so difficult. If you just do what I wrote, you should be good to go…

Hope this helps,

See you soon

The hardest thing to do with any project is getting started. Why do we stall? Maybe we think the task at hand is too daunting, has too many steps, too much uncertainty about how things will get done and how long things will take.

There are a couple of things that you could do to get things moving that are easy to remember. 1) Make a prioritized list of what you have to do (action list – check my post about that topic here >>), and 2 ) The 20 Minute Rule.

“The 20 Minute Rule” means that you work on any item in your action list, or any activity for that matter, for 20 minutes, no more – no less. 20 minutes and that’s it. It’s a good amount of time enough for you get started on just about anything. After the 20 minutes, you will find that you have moved forward on your project. If you do this two days in a row, then that’s 40 minutes of considerable progress. For you however, the 20 minutes is not such a big hit of time, and is quite doable.

My students who do this realize something amazing, and if you do it, you’ll experience this magical moment as well. They realized that after the 20 minutes, more often than not, they continue working on their project. This works  because 20 minutes is just enough time to get your creative juices going, almost like pushing a car until it begins to roll on its own.

So keep this number in your head, and use it daily for your important or difficult tasks. The 20 minutes will go by fast, who knows, you may even get started on a fantastic, important personal project.

This post covers the steps to installing images into the Striking Word Press image slider. It had been a while since I had uploaded a picture last, and for some reason it was not working. I followed the correct steps and I could see it in my Word Press Media Library but it was not showing up in the Slider, instead of the picture showing, the background would be gray – hmmm, kinda frustrating – but we eventually got it to work. Important note: The main thing I changed was in my naming convention (no numbers in the name of the file), and it was a jpg, perhaps it didn’t like the png 24 format, jpg however worked fine.

Here’s what I did in order to get this picture to load in the Slider.

• Begin by saving your image as a 960 x 440 jpg (and name it something like…picture.jpg).
• In WP Dashboard > Click – Media > Click – Add New >
• Click – Slider Items > Add New > Media Tab > Locate your picture
• Click Use as Featured Image and Insert Into Post > Save (Be sure you locate and click the Use Featured Image button everywhere you see it.)
• Click Publish
• It should appear in the Slider Items list.
• Use the Post Types Order Plugin by NSP so that you can move your images around by dragging and dropping. Click Update.
• Open up your homepage in a new tab or window to see if it worked.

Q4 – Q8 – Schedule

• Week 1:Discuss class purpose.  Schedule and requirements overview.
• Week 2: Compile and review your work. Begin creating a rough quicktime of your pieces. After Effects review.
• Week 3: Continue making the rough quicktime of your work. Sign up for your review times on Week 6. Q4 students present in groups of 4. Q8 students present in 1 hour blocks.
• Week 4: Career Services Visit
• Week 5: Review rough quicktime.
• Week 6: Review Day. Be sure you know when your presentation time is and where its located. Come 15 minutes early, come presentable.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Q4 – Requirements for GAD / MMA / VEMG

These students show in groups of 4. In some cases, if students haven’t taken the class yet, are still encouraged to put together a reel, which could also include pieces created independently outside of class. The majority of the portfolio however, is from this list below.

• 1 Example of “Color Theory”
•  2 Examples of “Digital Imaging” (Photoshop
•  1 Example of “Fundamentals of Design” (Demonstrate design and a clear focal point).
•  4 Examples of “Observational Drawing”.
•  5 Examples of “Life Drawing” (Gesture, proportion, form and general anatomy).
•  1 Example of “Storyboarding” (Demonstrate shot composition, selection and framing).
•  2 Examples of “Character and Object Design”.
•  2 Examples of “3D Work” (High quality renders, mechanical polygonal models).
•  2 Examples of “Animation” (This can be 2D or 3D, and you must have a walk cycle, and an example of at least one Animation Principle”.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Q8 MMA / Animation or Modeling

These reels should represent the specialty / field they want to get into. The student must come dressed as if they were getting ready for a professional interview

Reels must be presented in a Quicktime movie that is approximately 2 minutes. All pieces must be labeled accordingly, it must have sound, and it must play correctly. This may be a Quicktime file 40 MB or less, or is posted via Vimeo, Youtube, preferably embedded into your PUB (Portfolio Undergraduate Blog).

12 PIECES TOTAL

• 4 Lifedrawings
•  2 Storyboarding / Illustration  Examples / Character Design
•  6 CG pieces well underway or completed to showcase your direction (3D Modeling / Animation)
•  Animation, could be a mixture of CG, 2D, Flash or Motion Graphics.
• Modeling, should show a mixture of organic modeling, architectural, hard surface or environment modeling.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Q8 GAD (Game Art & Design) 

These reels should represent the specialty / field they want to get into. The student must come dressed as if they were getting ready for a professional interview

Reels must be presented in a Quicktime movie that is approximately 2 minutes. All pieces must be labeled accordingly, it must have sound, and it must play correctly. This may be a Quicktime file 40 MB or less, or is posted via Vimeo, Youtube, preferably embedded into your PUB (Portfolio Undergraduate Blog).

 12 PIECES TOTAL

1. 4 Lifedrawings
2.  2 Storyboarding / Illustration  Examples / Character Design
3.  6 CG pieces from 2 of the 4 categories listed below:

• Scripting (Puzzles, traps, scenes and animation).
• Level Design (Layout, checkpoints, theme, etc)
• Organic Modeling (characters, plants, rocks)
• Hard Surface (Architectual, interiors, vehicles, props, etc).

You must come dressed as if you getting ready for a professional interview.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Q8 MMA/GAD/VFX – Plan of Attack 

This section is two parts and it accompanies your reel presentation mentioned above. What you choose to share here should dictate and represent the direction of your reel. This will provide us a concrete plan of what you want, how it will be achieved, and from a faculty perspective, provide feedback and recommendation for the best possible outcome.

1) Submit a written a document detailing what you plan to do when you graduate.  Here are some questions to help you stay focused:

• Do you plan to move out of Las Vegas when you graduate?
• Are you currently working now?
• What jobs have you held that would help with your creative job search?
• If you plan to stay, how long, and who are some companies you would like to work for (be specific with company names)?
• What positions would you be applying for?
• If you plan to move to one of the larger game/entertainment hubs, when would you go?
• What companies would you approach and why?

This covers the basics of creating procedural textures and lights in Unity. Items covered also include the creation of normal and reflection maps to be used in the Unity engine, as well as a link to the Unity site that covers the many aspects of shaders found in the program.

BEFORE YOU START
Create a new project
Project Structure > Desktop
Dont check anything in this opening window.
Unity will relauch – Fnd the project folder
Find the assets folder.
Move the fbx, normal and diffuses into the asets folder
We could also in Unity drop items into the projects folder
Untiy will generate a materials folder because of the fbx file

LOADING FILES
Load the file by dragging the fbx into the viewport or the heriarchy view
When you drop an object in a scene, it uses the enter of the camera you are using right now. You might see that its in a weird spot. Its better to directly load it in the Heriarchy view.
This will placeed in center of world.

Same controls as Maya
F is to zoom in on object

In heirarchy view, when you click mesh twice, you select the object and the child.
For now, be sure you click Mesh1

material vs. shader.
shader is a realtime engine material
material is for rendering

LOADING SHADERS & LIGHTS
Connect click and control drag your jpg into the base square texture channel

Add a light. Game object > Create Other > Point Light
Move it around.

Change shader type, go to drop down material
Click bump diffuse

Let’s simulate surface tuecture

Grabe the dirty normal > Its a bw of the color

Go to Tuexture Type and choose normal map.
Click appy

Apply this to the crate
Click Mesh one and click and drag the normal into the normal map shader square input.

Tap space bar to maximimaze viewport

Move light around to see how normal map is affected.

If you look at the normal map, look for the “generate from grayscale”
In this setting, you can play and adjust the bumpinessa nd smooth > Click Apply

Make a new shader
Click shader drop down
Choose bump specular to add a  specular
use the slider for shininess to adjust the specular
In Preview you can choose light setup and shape
This specular and the bump diffuse is the workhorse in Unity

Now let’s add a reflective
Reflective Bumped Specular – so show the
Place picture in folder
To add the picture into
Grab file and turn it into a reflection > change map into spherical
Use the slider to control the reflection Black
Add this color to the bumped specular node/bump box.
You can turn this into normal map too.

RESOURCES

NDO – Pshop actions to create a map

Specular Map
In the material properties
set image to specular
The alpha channel is what makes the spcular map.
This can be painted by hand in the alpha channel in Photoshop. When you load this, Unity recognizes it. Pretty cool.

File formats in Unity for normals

Using this, gives you additional levels of details.

Unity shader guide
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Components/Built-in%20Shader%20Guide.html