Terrain Test in Maya

Finally, a new milestone reached. I've always wanted to know how to create some nice procedural terrain directly in Maya, without using any additional software or plugins. Now I finally got around to testing a few ways to do that and the results blew my mind. So easy and so many possibilities. I'll definitely use it for the terrain in Armies of the Fallen.

First to create a height map.

Close-up test.

Adding texture.

Can't go much closer, but the details hold relatively well.

Testing light.

Environment lighting.

And a finished shot.

Next stop: volumetric clouds.

- MK

AotF: Invasion Pods

So, I'm back, even sooner than I promised. I spent several weeks honing my CG environment creation skills and the result is this AotF test render.


The sky for Akuss still aint finished, I'll have to develop that typical dark atmosphere with thick clouds. Other than that, I think it came out pretty well. Stay tuned for more. I will soon start working on a first teaser.

- MK

AotF: Digital Double

I didn't have time to work on AotF this week, but at least I managed to comp this first image of Fallen's digital double I'm going to use in a lot of scenes where it'd be otherwise impossible to film the actor.
I think it's about 95% of the film quality, I finally tried out all the techniques I wanted and am fairly sure about the pipeline. Now it's just about finishing and then animating it - which will be another huge milestone in the whole process.

I made some changes to Travis' design, mainly to make the mask more different from Revan's.

Fallen's digital double CG test

- MK

AotF: Archon

Archon is the second largest ship of the Fallen's fleet. It is usually used to guard conquered territories, serving as a mobile baseship. It can carry several smaller battleships and is equipped with heavy blaster cannons able to tear through the shields of even the mightiest starships. Its speed, reliability and strength is the very reason why it's also called "The Scourge of the Sith". 

Archon

This is a second preview frame. I tested the newest model and also decided to make the overall look less funky, more gritty. It's still not quite where I want it, but I'm getting there...

I'm fairly happy with the detail on the back of the ship, but the front definitely needs more work. However since Archon will be mostly seen from the back, the goal is probably completed with this one. And it takes only 1 minute to render one frame at 1920*1080. Definitely less than I'd expected.

- MK

Got a Deal, Partner?

What was originally meant to be just a quick ZBrush test to practice my skills, somehow ended up...this way. The original idea was to create a lizard head, but when I saw his expression, I just had to make him a gangster :-D Created in Zbrush and Photoshop.

- MK

AotF: First CG Visual Test

This is a first full CG test, introducing a new type of ship - the Heron, light frigate class. The model is in a very early WIP stage, the whole concept was created mainly to figure out the overall CG look. I decided to use the same style as I did in SotP - a very rich color palette with flares and glow. Some people might say it's just laziness, trying to cover poor CG with shiny spots and glow everywhere, but I simply like it. And the CG won't be poor :-)

Heron CG test

- MK

Lilly Final Model

I think I achieved what I wanted with Lilly - learning how to model and texture stylized human models. Last step is to bind her skin to the rig and pose her a little.

- MK

Lilly Eyes

Coming along...Now it's just the hair to deal with and then some final posing, rendering and compositing.

- MK

Lilly First Textures

Alright, Lilly's got some colors now. The clothing is mostly textured, the skin is too but it looks bad so I'm going to find some tutorial on how to do a believable skin and do it properly. Anyway, this is another big 'first time' for me - organic model texturing. Much harder than hard surface imho.

Next: more textures and the eyes. I'm looking forward to the eyes.

P.S. I must say, it's really great watching her come alive.

- MK

Lilly Cont'd

The base model of Lilly is finished.

Also I decided to create Lilly's rig before texturing her. It's done now, ready to bind it to her mesh. Hopefully everything will work out just fine. Wouldn't want to find her built in a wrong way, unable to move properly.

Oh and by the way, here is the original concept for her. Yeah, she turned out to be quite different... :-D

- MK

Lilly

Finally. I was trying to model a good-enough looking female head for weeks now and failed many times. I started this model with a really tough looking female concept, but somehow (since I still don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to pushing and pulling vertices) she ended up looking pretty soft and gentle. Which means I'm making her a priest of some sort. In fact I couldn't really model proper hair so I added cape instead...Well, anyway, I like the model so far, even though it's still missing the hands :-).

Star Wars Shadows of the Past ONLINE

Here we go. After 9 months of work Shadows of the Past is done and online. I hope you like it. More info coming soon!



Big thanks goes to everyone mentioned in the credits and Dailymotion for its great support!

- MK

DailyMotion becomes official partner for SotP!

Dailymotion has become our official partner. This means we won't be releasing our film on Youtube but exclusively on DM.
If you're looking forward to it, just check http://www.dailymotion.com/MartinKlekner on April 30.


Star Wars Shadows of the Past Teaser
Uploaded by MartinKlekner. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

Oh and by the way, the film might be done in a week. Stay tuned!

- MK

Ancient Towers

Inspired by Mass Effect. All the models created in Maya, composited in After Effects. The lens angles and shot width is all wrong but it was just for fun. And what the hell, maybe the towers aren't standing straight! :-D Theyere ancient after all.



- MK

Personal Lighting&Rendering Study

This time detailed environment wasn't the aim. I just wanted to try out some new techniques for texturing, lighting, rendering and compositing a shot. For the first time I used additional render layers for Depth of Field (even though I didn't use it) and Ambient Occlusion, as well as some environmental effects. I'm pleased with the result, even thought the modeling part is trivial.



- MK

Fallout-like Environment

I tried this game called Fallout 3 few days ago and I got really inspired by its postapocalyptic look. So I decided to create some similar environment. This is a result of one loong night full of modeling, texturing and lighting. I'll probably revisit it when I'll have some more time though...



I used just a simple Area and Directional light setup and then I rendered out Ambient Occlusion pass which I comped in by using the Overlay mode. Textures come from CGTextures.com. All the models are just very simple shapes, cylinders and boxes mostly.

- Martin

Shadows of the Past Teaser 2!

This a second teaser for our upcoming Star Wars fanfilm Shadows of the Past, full of new and updated shots.
For the first time in the history of our studio we have our own music track, created by Tomas "Meridius" Zemler. If you like it, be sure to visit his web http://meridius.ic.cz/
The film is about to be released on January 2010.



- M.

SotP Work in Progress...again

Ive been doing a lot of freelance work lately, but now I'm finally back on track with Shadows of the Past. And I decided to revisit some space shots and improve them. Just watch the pictures...

Version 2:



Version 1:


I think its a step forward :-)
- M.

Monster & Factory Updates

I've done some improvements on my Monster. Still not final though. I need to learn texture painting in Zbrush.



I also advanced on the factory model. Added some lens blur, film grain, color corrected and overall improved the models.



- M.

Fooling Around in ZBrush

I've started using a lot of new software recently. Interesting thing is the more tools I know, the easier it gets to learn new ones. And one of those I fell in love with at first sight is the famous Zbrush. This is the first model I'm currently working on...

Render:





Yeah, it's a monster. And hell yeah - it's so much fun! So long, organical modeling in Maya...

- M.