update~

After coming back from FMX, I had to knuckle down on revision for Computing and Maths exam.
I've already had my computing exam and I must say the preparation and revision for these exams are pretty straight forward... I could say if you have good memory you can easily pass these tests but doing these exams gave me a much better understanding and knowledge of GPU, OpenGL and C++.
Maths is just all matrices, vectors, dot products and cross products, then applying it in the right way to solve different things.
All that's left is specialist which I haven't really properly started yet apart from gathering materials on PSD and reference. I'm focusing purely on the deformation of the shoulder using PSD.
I am currently writing up notes so if you want to follow it or have some useful links then feel free.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1toLOK1gFcqVk9ZMlcwixWQrYtkX8wEZSjGJENeS9QMc/edit?usp=sharing

I kind of got sidetracked as I recently purchased myself a "chrome" ball (or a garden mirror ball which is cheaper !) I always wanted to do some HDR Images with my camera to figure out the workflow of getting an IBL into Maya and integrate CG object onto live plate. I haven't applied any texture on the hand apart from the mia material x passes. I'm too lazy to texture. Also the shadow hasn't been applied. These images probably cringe the compositors and lighters out there but whatever haha. There are marks on the mirror ball and I should ideally be taking more than one angle of the ball.
I've learnt a bit more about Colour Management and creating a CG set. In the end I'm just learning this so I can render my own stuff prettier :P
I came across this guy and he managed to create a tool that previews HDRI and create light rigs in 3D according to the HDRI. It's pretty cool.
http://magicalpixel.blogspot.co.uk/p/tool-auto-hdri-light-gen-v1_22.html

Recently I downloaded "Magic Lantern Firmware" for my Canon 550D. It's amazing because it's given me even more control over my camera. The main reason I got it in the first place is to do HDR bracketing.
If you have a camera that can use this firmware (check their website if they support your cam) then I recommend checking it out for any features that would be useful to you. However I do advise to be very careful as it can ultimately destroy your camera if not carefully installed..... thankfully I did mine without trouble and it was straightforward.
Also there's HDR video which is cool as it records in two different ISOs simultaneously. But you have to do some video decoding into frames which separates the ISOs so you have two sets of sequenced frames. Then you encode these two sequences into one sequence that merges the two ISOs.
http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wiki

Apart from uni work, I went to the annual sport ball and had fun dressing up (thanks to momin for the bow tie!) Also early birthday present from Chun which is Django Unchained OST in vinyl ! So happy with it !!

Now that I am chilling a lot more I feel like the cat that keeps coming to our house. That is sleeping.

FMX Germany

Three weeks ago I went to Germany for a conference called FMX. It's kind of like SIGGRAPH but on a smaller scale however it still did not disappoint. About 30 of my coursemates came along to this and it was almost like a little uni trip. We all had fun and enjoyed the time to finally have some time to relax and not think about uni work.

I got to see WETA talk about Iron Man 3, Saschka Unseld of Pixar on "The Blue Umbrella" short, Disney's Brave Simulations talk, and many others.... I pretty much engaged and enjoyed the talks that I went to. One talk I really wanted to go to was Assassin's creed 3 : procedural animation. Really wanted to see how they went about coding the animation and the A.I. behind it. My friend told me all about it and I still feel sad that I didn't go....

pose space deformation

testing pose space deformation using Chad Vernon's "CVShapeInverter" python script.
It's essentially the same as Michael's Comet PSD script but for Maya.
Shapes are driven by joint rotations. Works smoothly but some extreme poses is still questionable.
I learnt a bit more about aim constraints and vectors (yet again). Getting the up vectors right to ensure the rotation of the wrist does not flip the forearm joints.

I read up this guy's work : http://circecharacterworks.wordpress.com/
He looks into quaternions and it's quite interesting how he manages to get a really nicely deformed wrist rotation. Looking into cartoon characters he realised that he needs to push his poses and really stretch them out.

Other good ideas he commented on was cleverly scaling the mesh abound to the joint when volume is slowly being lost. Also maybe even using colliders to stop candy wrapping however I have still need to find the right collide deformer to push out the mesh from the inside.

edit : turns out I didn't use pose space deformation but just corrective blendshapes. I am looking into using Comet PSD tool.

METAL GEAR SOLID : PHANTOM PAIN

Ohhhh yyeeah !!!! This trailer gets me excited about MGS again. Hideo Kojima is really a talent to the gaming industry with his cinematic and story driven games. I absolutely love the way they made this trailer.
It's got so much going on and the soundtrack gives it this eery feel. It's a new approach and I like it.
Kojima has made 10 games in the same franchise and still manage to keep it strong. Now that is something.
MGS 5 is split into two. Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain. The former is the prologue to Phantom Pain.
Apparently it talks about how these people called XOF destroyed their base, "Militaires Sans Frontieres". The name that Big Boss gave his army. An army without borders. This was in the game "Peace Walker", which was also a good game for the PSP. I guess Phantom Pain is where the real deal happens in which I have no clue what goes on in it. Anyway in this trailer it shows how Big Boss went into this coma after a traumatic event. Then he wakes up after 9 years to see all this chaos. It looks like actual villains but after some reading I heard that it's the past events haunting him and how everyone is after him. So it seems that he could be dreaming or hallucinating. You see people that looks similar to characters from MGS3.

This article gives some interesting thoughts and if it's all true then Kojima has definitely thought through his plans..... He says he is truly retiring after this game. Which I guess is fair enough however I think he will still be producing and overseeing big projects :)

The song used in this trailer that had an eery melancholy feel to it.

big update!

It is now a day after I handed in my last assignment for 2nd term. I feel so free and liberated and not needing to think what I need to do next! This term has been crazy and busy for me so I haven't really been posting much on here.
So what happened in these past few months?

Group project finished, badminton uni team picture taken, random snowing, awesome orchestra symphony, character design, cinematography, fellow classmates doing all nighters, assassin creed addiction, hardcore programming in C++ and OpenGL, more random snowing, the vfx industry slapped in the face during oscars, long hours of mathematics lectures, django unchained, eating sushi every week, fellow classmates getting angry about our course, and now Easter!

 

In January and February things got a bit hectic with group project, we had a lot more work cut out but I'm glad we all pulled together in the end. It was definitely worth it. We still think that the piece needs more improvements but I guess with the given timescale we did as much as we can. Check out the video below :) 

This was really fun and awkward at the same time haha. Jay organised a fund raising event for red nose day by allowing us to throw sponges at the demonstrators and staff. Definitely made my day but I felt so bad for jay and cos because they were the only two doing it. Also it was a really cold and windy day.... Aaron had pleasure throwing it at Cos aswell haha.

Lastly, I finish with my programming assignment, which is a Flocking System done with OpenGL, C++, NGL and QtCreator. I actually didn't think I would finish this on time because I had so many problems a long the way. Somehow I pulled through and this is the result ! I still think I can improve it as I have the n^2 complexity problem and some variables need tweaking.

I have Specialist project and two exams in computing and maths coming up. Also I need to start developing my showreel for a possible placement next year. But for now I am in dire need of a proper break from uni.

A whole week of doing nothing :)

beyond two souls

So me and my friends found out about "Beyond Two Souls" a game developed by David Cage of Quantic Dream, coming out in October this year. I played Heavy Rain a couple of years back and I really enjoyed it. It was a different pace compared to other games that I've been playing.
Story and cinematic driven. It's almost like playing a movie and it seems like they really pushed the realism and the cinematics in their new upcoming game. Full on facial and body mocap unlike LA Noire where they had the head separate to the body. It seemed like the head did not fit the body sometimes haha. Like a mind of it's own. Also the detail in the skin, human and environment looks soo good. If the trailer is the real gameplay then I'm amazed :D
Anyway back to programming my flocking system :(

let the programming begin...

So even after finishing my group project I have a few more assignments to go.

After seeing the games presentation, it has really motivated me to work harder and to look more into C++. 

Some things I have picked up across the internet which has been pretty useful and intuitive.

CUDA is quite an interesting platform that NVIDIA has developed for the latest GPUs. It basically utilizes the GPU in a much more efficient way. Developers can send virtual instructions and store memory with a mindset of parallel programming to speed things up. The CPU and the GPU work differently. CPU has a few "workers" that process and computes in super speed. However the GPU has  thousands of "workers" that processes slower. Over the past few years there has been a change in the way we code our programs. By allowing the programmers to code in main languages such as C++ to have access to the GPU and implement functions in a parallel manner which can speed things up a lot.

The main thing about using GPU is obviously processing graphics however we can stream the same data all at once so things like particles and physics can be calculated many times over very quickly.

For those who are just starting out programming, python is definitely a language to be looking into as it is being implemented in many programs. It is quick to script with and it  manages memory for you. You don't have declare variables and there's a lot less syntax compared to other languages. 

I have actually found a good simple website that teaches into the basics of programming and graphics. I still need to actually test it out however from looking at the tutorials and the example programs, it is a good place to start testing things quickly.
http://www.processing.org/

https://www.udacity.com
This website is also very good at explaining computer programming in depth. Coming back to parallel programming. There are video lessons that are engaging and has quick quiz to answer. Definitely worth looking into.

http://glsl.heroku.com/e#6896.0
This is quite a fun website that people share their code and people can sort of dive in and change the code aswell. So everyone chips in. It is using c++ opengl shading language. A very good place to learn in-depth shaders.

So at the moment I have a programming assignment due at the end of March. I have to create a flocking system that is pretty much a low level artificial intelligence.
It is based off the famous Craig Reynold's flocking system back in around 1987.
http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
It is basically simulating birds flocking together and different kinds of flocking. I won't be modelling and rigging and bird but instead it will be replaced with simple triangle ships as a representative. Obviously this can be further developed but the main goal is to produce something in OpenGL using QT and NGL (uni graphics library).

group project

So what I have been working on these past couple of months is group project at my university.

my team mates were Daniel Jack, Michal Rutkowski, Freya Scott and Chloe Broadbent.

I'm pretty proud what my group has made and I can't believe what we have produced yet. But I believe it was the wonders of Michal's shading and rendering and Daniel's overly top sculptures really made this piece. They really put a lot of work into this piece and I'm glad I was part of it.

without further ado here is this video!

https://vimeo.com/61402844
password : firstlight

django unchained

amazing film and soundtrack !

highly trained monkeys

some seriously highly trained monkeys.