Art by Lily Yiu

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lilio — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:00:57 +0000

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
–G.K. Chesterton

May this little candle light helps embrace the pain in one’s heart from the misfortunes exist the world.

why I prefer shades over colour …

lilio — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:03:26 +0000

Argh! Colour ~~~ Same picture file, multiple colours (I only have two monitors myself to test with)
Top: View on my MacBook Pro
Bottom: View on my xxy brand slave monitor

Lesson learned:
Don’t move picture between monitors of different colour settings simultaneously when working on rendering and colour correction. Only move the image to other monitor when it looks right in one of them…

Nice to have:
A VERY awesome monitor, a decent monitor acknowledged by the general public, and a VERY crappy monitor to work with at the same time.

Colour setting to use:
Unfortunately, sRGB is the big bully by default for most applications, so most of the time, I work with sRGB.

And for the web:
Probably best to use ‘save for the web’ option in Photoshop, since it has a rather complicated module under this option when it convert the colour information to a web-friendly version without overkill the actual colour on your raw file.

This is what I have accumulated while working with images. Let me know if you have better tips for me when working with colour!

(Side note: If you really want to know about the science behind colour in applications, I recommend the book The Art and Science of Digital Compositing 2nd Edition by Ron Brinkmann. It has a whole section on this topic.)

Samsung 3D Projection on Building in Amsterdam

lilio — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 06:10:19 +0000

Thanks Jason for spreading the coolness of gadgets and the love of art and science!

This is by far the best one I have seen so far. I think it is more realistic than the one by Sony in Madrid and the BMW one in Singapore.

NuFormer – Samsung, Amsterdam, May 2010 – One take from NuFormer Projection on Vimeo.

Mental Ray Resources

lilio — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:28:11 +0000

A place where I keep track of where I can find resources in Mental Ray.

Jamie Cardoso Mental Ray Blog
German Mental Ray Forum
Mental Images

Opening older version of Maya files

lilio — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:13:31 +0000

If for whatever reason you need to open a file saved from a newer version of Maya than yours, just do the following:

1. Open Maya
2. File Open –> Option box
3. check ‘Ignore Version’

blow the pages

lilio — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:59:26 +0000

So I was thinking about RPG theme where magician would carry a book and cast magic with a spell. Then I sudden have the idea of doing a flipping book animation just for the curiosity of how people would do it.

I settled down with the Maya nCloth system.

[troubleshoot] Maya 2011 Transfer Maps Window

lilio — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:23:51 +0000

If you encounter problems similar to the 2nd and 3rd entry of this post:

just do this:
1. Preferences -> Edit -> Restore Default Settings
2. Restart Maya

It *should* work (well, at least it works for me :p) without having to reinstall the software.

Rendering Wireframe with Mental Ray in Maya

lilio — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:35:58 +0000

There are many ways to render wireframes, and here is the easiest way I find doing it. I got the tips off CGTalk.

1. In the Hypershade, choose a shader (any shader would do). I am using the Use Background.
2. Assign the shader material to the object you want a wireframe of.
3. use the following setting in the shader.

     Specular color: black
     Reflectivity: 0.000
     Reflection limit: 0
     Shadow mask: 0
     Matte opacity mode: solid matte
     Matte opacity: 1

4. Go the the Shading GROUP, and in the Attribution Editor, expand the mental ray section, then expand the Contours section and adjust your setting to fit your need.

5. Open the Render Settings window, change the Rendering Using to mental ray

6. Go the the Features tab, and expand the Contours section:

check Enable Contour Rendering

7. Set to the following setting:

8. Render!

Progress p.1.2.2010: clean up the salon

lilio — Wed, 05 May 2010 07:21:02 +0000

Back from two months vacations by the beaches ~ and before I can get serious to start anything, I feel a need to give this salon project I started back in January a closure.

Rendered in passes in Maya 2009:

confession of her laziness

lilio — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:15:42 +0000

So much with trying to blog once every week … I think it ended up with update once every month-ish.

Here is a scene I was working on couple months ago but haven’t gotten the chance to go back to do some fixes and render out a HD version …

And because it’s Spring and the World Cup is near, I feel like making spherical icons (the football ones are coming soon …)

~~~ Happy doodling ~~~