破舊機(jī)器人的制作

我很高興有這個(gè)極好的機(jī)會(huì)來(lái)分享我制作機(jī)器人的過(guò)程。在我開(kāi)始之前，我知道這不是一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的過(guò)程，我需要一個(gè)明確的行動(dòng)計(jì)劃，以及大量的辛勤工作！你必須對(duì)你所做的事情充滿熱情，以便把這大量的時(shí)間投入到一個(gè)項(xiàng)目中。事不宜遲，讓我們開(kāi)始吧。

I am very glad to have this wonderful opportunity to share my process for making APEX the Robot. I knew before I started that this would not be an easy process and that I would need a clear plan of action, as well as lots of hard work! You must be passionate about what you do in order to dedicate this much time to a project. What made APEX the Robot a huge accomplishment for me was that it taught me discipline and fed my hunger for learning. Without further ado, let's get started.

Step 1: Concept and references

This all started with me contacting Dan Jones, the artist who created the original sculpture. I asked him if I could digitally recreate his robot Apex to use for my demo reel. He agreed, so I flew to meet him in California, USA. I was incredibly lucky to be able to take photos and shoot a video of the original; this is a luxury you don't usually have when working in a big production.

I already knew that I needed the photos in order to create masks for projecting detail in MARI, so choosing the right lens was extremely important. I also gathered references for the different parts and materials to help me with the modeling and look dev.

步驟1：概念和參考

我開(kāi)始聯(lián)系創(chuàng)造了原始的雕塑的藝術(shù)家丹瓊斯。 我問(wèn)他是否可以用我的演示卷軸重現(xiàn)他的機(jī)器人Apex。 他同意了，所以我飛到美國(guó)加利福尼亞見(jiàn)他。 我非常幸運(yùn)能夠拍攝照片和拍攝原始視頻; 這是你在一個(gè)大生產(chǎn)中工作時(shí)通常不會(huì)擁有的奢侈品。

我已經(jīng)知道，我需要的照片，來(lái)創(chuàng)建掩模在MARI投影細(xì)節(jié)，所以選擇正確的鏡頭是非常重要的。 我也收集了不同零件和材料的參考，來(lái)幫助我建模和外觀開(kāi)發(fā)。

Step 2: Modeling

After gathering the reference material I was able to start modeling APEX. This part was fairly straight forward - trying to make sense of topology in every moment and keeping an eye on the volumes and shapes.

Every mesh should hold its shape and not change too much when it is subdivided, otherwise the textures will stretch when you apply them. This is a huge waste of valuable time when texturing because you will have to go back and correct it.

A quick tip: Use a gray Blinn shader with the specular bumped up while modeling, with this you can look for pinching points on the fly.

步驟2：建模

收集參考材料后，我能夠開(kāi)始建模APEX。 這部分是相當(dāng)簡(jiǎn)單的 - 試圖理解拓?fù)湓诿恳豢�，保持眼睛的體積和形狀。

每個(gè)網(wǎng)格應(yīng)該保持其形狀，并且在細(xì)分時(shí)不會(huì)改變太多，否則當(dāng)應(yīng)用它們時(shí)，紋理會(huì)拉伸。紋理是浪費(fèi)寶貴的時(shí)間，因?yàn)槟銓⒉坏貌换厝ゲ⒓m正它。

快速提示：在建模時(shí)使用灰色Blinn著色器與鏡面碰撞，這樣您可以在飛行中尋找?jiàn)A點(diǎn)。

Step 3: UVs

When working on the UVs I like to grab a cup of tea and listen to my favorite music. I like it because it is mostly a mechanical process but there is also a fair amount of problem solving. It takes some time, but it's a crucial step for getting the mesh ready for texturing. There are many things to consider, such as how much resolution you will need (this depends on the size on screen), proportion consistency among the meshes, and the orientation in the UV space. In my case I distributed all the parts across 63 UDIM tiles, ordering them in rows by material. All maps are in 4k.

A quick tip: If you double the resolution density for the small metal pieces such as the bolts and nuts, they will look crisper and more realistic in the final render.

步驟3：UVs

當(dāng)工作在UVs我喜歡拿一杯茶，聽(tīng)我最喜歡的音樂(lè)。 我喜歡它，因?yàn)樗�主要是一個(gè)機(jī)械過(guò)程，但也有相當(dāng)多的問(wèn)題要s解決。 這需要一些時(shí)間，但它是網(wǎng)格準(zhǔn)備紋理的關(guān)鍵步驟。 有很多事情需要考慮，例如你需要多少分辨率（這取決于屏幕上的大�。�，網(wǎng)格之間的比例一致性，以及UV空間中的方向。 在我的案例中，我分布了所有的部分，63個(gè)UDIM磁貼，按行按材料排序。 所有地圖都在4k。

快速提示：如果為小金屬件（例如螺栓和螺母）提高分辨率密度，它們將在最終渲染中看起來(lái)更清晰，更逼真。

Step 4: Texturing

Texturing is my favorite part of the whole process. I used MARI because it's the most widely used texturing software in the movie industry. Plus it works like magic and allows me to work in an organized and non destructive way.

My workflow involved creating multiple channels for each material including Diffuse, Specular, Glossiness, and Bump. Some of the objects in the scene, such as the main body piece, have four different layers: an aluminum base, black patina on top of it, and then two more paint layers - cream and red. It is very important to plan in advance for this! I had to create multiple black and white masks in Photoshop to achieve a layering similar to the reference.

A quick tip: If you don't have Photoshop you can use Gimp to play with the Levels and color select for creating masks. It's open code, works great, and it's free.

步驟4：紋理

紋理是我整個(gè)過(guò)程中最喜歡的部分。 我使用MARI，因?yàn)樗�是電影行業(yè)中使用最廣泛的紋理化軟件。 此外，它的工作原理像魔術(shù)，并允許我工作在一個(gè)有組織的和非破壞性的方式。

我的工作流涉及為每種材料創(chuàng)建多個(gè)通道，包括漫射，鏡面，光澤度和凹凸。 場(chǎng)景中的一些物體，例如主體部分，具有四個(gè)不同的層：鋁基底，在其頂部的黑色銅綠，然后兩個(gè)更多的油漆層 - 奶油和紅色。 這是非常重要的計(jì)劃提前為此！ 我不得不在Photoshop中創(chuàng)建多個(gè)黑白面具，以實(shí)現(xiàn)類似于參考的分層。

一個(gè)快速提示：如果你沒(méi)有Photoshop，你可以使用Gimp玩水平和顏色選擇創(chuàng)建面具。 它是開(kāi)放的代碼，工作偉大，它是免費(fèi)的。

Step 5: Look Development

For APEX the Robot, my renderer of choice was V-Ray, it's pretty heavy on the technical side, but the quality you can achieve makes it worthwhile. For the shaders I used both simple and blend V-Ray materials to plug my maps into. APEX has metals, wood, plastic, fabric, glass, and many other materials.

For lighting I used a classical set up: an HDRi very similar to the location where I took the photos, and a couple more area lights to highlight specific points ever so slightly. I also created a white backdrop to bounce light on the back of the figure, as I used a real one when I took the photos in San Diego.

A quick tip: Use GGX for the BRDF in the metals, as it's the most accurate micro facet model. It makes a whole world of difference compared with Blinn and Phong.

第5步：看發(fā)展

對(duì)于APEX機(jī)器人，我選擇的渲染器是V-Ray，它在技術(shù)方面相當(dāng)強(qiáng)大，質(zhì)量可以達(dá)到很很棒。 對(duì)于著色器，我使用簡(jiǎn)單的混合V-Ray材料將我的地圖插入。 APEX有金屬，木材，塑料，織物，玻璃和許多其他材料。

對(duì)于照明，我使用了一個(gè)經(jīng)典的設(shè)置：HDRi非常類似于我拍攝照片的位置，和幾個(gè)區(qū)域燈光，突出具體點(diǎn)。 我還創(chuàng)造了一個(gè)白色的背景，反彈的光線在圖的背面，因?yàn)槲沂褂昧艘粋�(gè)真正的一個(gè)圖片，當(dāng)我在圣地亞哥拍照。

快速提示：使用GGX作為金屬中的BRDF，因?yàn)樗�是最�?zhǔn)確的微面模型。 與Blinn和Phong相比，它使得一個(gè)整體世界有所不同。

Step 6: Rendering

As I needed the light to bounce from the backdrop onto the back of the robot I had to use GI (Global Illumination). For this, it was very handy to cache a fly-through pass on the very first frame of each camera and then load it for the rest of the sequence. It worked like a charm! For the image sampler I went with Adaptive and kept an eye on the subdivision threshold. I was lucky to count with more computers, so I used distributed rendering and lowered the render time from 70 to 10 minutes per frame.

A quick tip: Before doing the final render it's wise to playblast the cameras in the Maya scene, export them, and edit a first rough cut. This way you make sure what you are rendering is what you need.

步驟6：渲染

由于我需要光從背景反彈到機(jī)器人的背面，我不得不使用GI（全球照明）。 對(duì)于這一點(diǎn)，它是非常方便緩存飛越通行證在每個(gè)攝像機(jī)的第一幀，然后加載它的序列的其余部分。 它工作很有魅力！ 對(duì)于圖像采樣器，我用自適應(yīng)和保持眼睛的細(xì)分閾值。 我很幸運(yùn)地計(jì)數(shù)了更多的計(jì)算機(jī)，所以我使用分布式渲染，并將渲染時(shí)間從每幀70到10分鐘。

一個(gè)快速提示：在做最終渲染之前，明智的做法是在Maya場(chǎng)景中播放相機(jī)，導(dǎo)出它們，并編輯第一個(gè)粗略剪輯。 這樣，你確保你正在渲染的是你需要的。

Step 7: Comping

Once all the renders were finished it was time to comp all the passes in Nuke, one of my favorite pieces of software. A slight color adjustment, defocus, and a background did the trick perfectly. It's always a pleasure to work with nuke, as the possibilities are endless if you have the proper render passes. In my case I had the renders in multi map open .exr files. This way it's very easy to shuffle all the passes directly from the read node.

A quick tip: Remember to set up the distance in the ZDepth pass in the attribute editor before rendering, so you can properly use the ZDefocus node on Nuke.

步驟7：比較

一旦所有的渲染完成，是時(shí)候把所有的通行證在Nuk調(diào)整，我最喜歡的軟件之一。 輕微的顏色調(diào)整，散焦和背景完美的把戲。 使用nuke總是很高興，因?yàn)槿绻�你有正確的渲染通道，可能性是無(wú)窮無(wú)盡的。在我的情況下我已經(jīng)呈現(xiàn)多地圖打開(kāi)EXR文件。這樣就可以很容易地從讀取節(jié)點(diǎn)直接洗牌所有的通行證。

快速提示：記住在渲染之前在屬性編輯器中設(shè)置ZDepth通道中的距離，以便可以正確使用Nuke上的ZDefocus節(jié)點(diǎn)。

Step 8: Editing

After comping, I edited the video in Premiere - keeping an eye on timing and rhythm. I already had a couple of music pieces selected, so I used the one that best fit the theme. Finally, I added the titles and created a brief animation for the credits. It was so nice to see APEX come to life!

A quick tip: The last part of the creative process - how you present your work - is 50% of the whole project for me. Don't rush things at the end just because you want to deliver or post your work faster, take your time.

步驟8：編輯

完成后，我在Premiere中編輯了視頻 - 注意時(shí)間和節(jié)奏。 我已經(jīng)選擇了幾個(gè)音樂(lè)作品，所以我使用最適合的主題。 最后，我添加了標(biāo)題，并為學(xué)分創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)短的動(dòng)畫。 很高興看到APEX的生活！

快速提示：創(chuàng)意過(guò)程的最后一部分 - 如何呈現(xiàn)您的工作 - 是我整個(gè)項(xiàng)目的50％。 不要急于事情結(jié)束只是因?yàn)槟阆胩峁┗虬l(fā)布你的工作更快，花時(shí)間。

Step 9: Final thoughts

It's when we push ourselves to the limit that the best work happens and we grow both professionally and personally. All the hard work, long hours, troubleshooting, laughing, and struggling paid off big time. Having amazing friends and colleagues around also makes a huge impact on how you deal with the days spent in front of the computer.

Thanks to everyone that helped, supported, and believed in me, especially my mentors Justin Holt and Paul H. Paulino. 

第9步：最后的想法

這是當(dāng)我們把自己的極限，獲得最好的工作，讓我們成長(zhǎng)。 所有的辛勤工作，長(zhǎng)時(shí)間，故障排除，笑和奮斗得到回報(bào)。 有驚人的朋友和同事在周圍也對(duì)你如何處理在電腦前花費(fèi)的日子有巨大的影響。

感謝大家?guī)椭�，支持和相信我，特別是我的導(dǎo)師Justin Holt和Paul H. Paulino。