This week, Mike showed us some of the basics of lighting in Maya, with the use of the Arnold render. We learnt how important lighting was for animation, and how it can help your portfolio massively if you can light your models properly. Even if you are very confident in modelling and can have lots of amazing projects for your portfolio, they wont look perfect without the proper lighting to compliment them. We downloaded a Maya file previously created by Mike and with his help we each had a go at lighting the scene using the spotlight, the sky Dome Light and area lights. I found it quite hard to toggle with the different intensities and attributes to try and get the best lighting for the scene and make the shadows as realistic as possible. This is something I’m going to have to get more practice at as time goes on, but I feel like I have made a good start at it.
In relation to my progress with the swordfish animation, I feel like I have basically finished the shark sculpture. I spent some time today finishing the mouth and making sure it looked realistic and proportionate to the body. I looked at the mobile game ‘Hungry Shark’ for references on doing the shark mouth and learning how to model the shape of it properly. Now that I feel like I’m finished with the sculpt, I need to export it to Maya and work on the topology before I can start rigging.
