Demo reels for maya/lightwave.....making textures in photoshop?

okay peeps....its time for dyne to start to learn the 3-d stuff and texturing stuff. all the jobs ive seen want a demo tape or the 3-d stuff you make....so how exactly does one get a VHS tape of whats on the pc? do you need to hook a video card with tv out up to your VCR i assume? also.....how exactly does one make textures in photoshop. i cant find any online resources or books at all.

and finally i remember a loooong time ago (might have been hero) posted a link of how to ink stuff in photoshop. the site had really great walk-thru's. any help? never mind...found it http://www.polykarbon.com/tutorials/html/channels2.html :D

Get a videocard with a TV out, newer ATI and nVidia cards come with this standard. You can buy an svideo to rca cable and just run the video feed to a vcr with a tape in it.

There are other ways of doing it, but unless your current videocard is excellent, just replacing it with one of the newer ones is the best way to go.

You can use this thing called "Toaster" or Speedrazor to output to tape. Once you have your Maya scenes rendered you put them in order in After Effects, and add sound and music or whatever. Then you render out the After Effects file as individual Targas (.tga) or another high quality image file. Import the sound then use the software to put it to to tape.

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Originally posted by cigsthecat
You can use this thing called "Toaster" or Speedrazor to output to tape. Once you have your Maya scenes rendered you put them in order in After Effects, and add sound and music or whatever. Then you render out the After Effects file as individual Targas (.tga) or another high quality image file. Import the sound then use the software to put it to to tape.

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Problem with using Toaster or Speedrazor is that both of them cost an exorbitant amount of money to set up. Unless he has a digital video editing lab he can rent by the hour, that's not really an option.

As for using the TV outs on your vid card, part of the problem is that the video output is iffy at best. The picture is somewhat blurry and really not up to par for generating demo reels. Another problem is finding a way to effectively and easily output full screen video.

What about the Pinnacle Video Output kits ? I think those are probably the best option for the least amount of money.

If your just now getting into 3d I'd say go with burning it to dvd. Most places like Pixar and Capcom say they only want VHS, but with just starting out, a tape that'll get you into Pixar and Capcom is a lofty goal. I recommend sending out demos on dvd-r because they're the most compatible format. Get some experience working for a smaller CG plant (check monster.com or yahoo jobs to find them), then take your cash and experience to make a demo tape (or probably by then They'll except DVD) that'll land you any job. You can get an quad format DVD burner from sony for $330. Much easier way to go.

For tutorials on Photoshop texturing check out future publications' magazines, Computer Arts and 3D World. They give tutorials in like every issue. But I'd personally recommend skipping textures altogether for your first reel (unless textures is something your interested in for a job) stick to bump mapping and cell or Toon shading.

OriginalJester :

I actually disagree. There's still too much 'tradition' attached to the 3D creative industry. Having the demo reel available on DVD is great BUT the traditional method is still using VHS and a great number of people will not take anything but. The industry has just barely allowed applicants to submit their demo reels on CD-ROM...

I do agree that getting to a big company (especially from scratch and without industry references) is unlikely but even the small companies may refuse to review a non-VHS reel. It's somewhat 'arrogant' (for lack of a better word) to assume that they have a process in place for reviewing DVDs unless specifically stated.

My point is thta while your suggestions for DVD are good (especially for an interview), I wouldn't risk my chances of getting an interview on a reel that wouldn't be reviewed. It's a great option but VHS should be the first and primary concern for reel submission -- everything else is gravy.

Whether or not it's smiled or frowned upon to have it on DVD, I can't say for sure, but if you really want to do a 3D demo reel there's a couple major things you have to decide.

First who are you showing it to, if you're going to smaller houses where you have to be a jack-of-all-trades then it really has to be tight.

If you're sending it to larger companies or even video game companies, focus on one specific thing. If you want to do models, make the models very nice and don't worry about the textures. If you want to be a texturer, do the reverse, if you want to be an animator...ect...

Trying to have everything perfect is very difficult, especially if you're going to be working for a place that will only have you doing 1 thing (modeling, animating or texturing). So all the extra effort in the other areas, although it's counter-intuitive, is a waste.

As far as texturing in Photoshop goes, the best advice I can give you is learn the program. Really learn it. And I don't mean 6 months learn it, I mean every day for a year or two. Inside and out until you know exactly what to do in any situation.

It's really like painting, lots of layering, using different brushes, colors, blends, very detailed work.

In addition to that another big rule is avoid faked lighting. That's harder than it sounds, everything reacts to light, but you can't have big hot spots and big shadows because that will destroy the illusion if the lighting in the texture doesn't match the lighting in the model.

So straight on lighting or very soft lighting.

It's an entire art in and of itself, compound it with really knowing materials (if your planning on doing CGI work), knowing how to make good materials may be more important, and knowing how to apply UVW coordinates, and how to get the most out of them with proper texture creation.

But that's at least a start.

Negitoro:

I suggested DVD because it is by far cheaper to produce a quality DVD as opposed to a quality VHS. It isn't at all arrogant to send a common place object like a dvd with a Dossier when 95% of the entry level places except them, and just about everyone in the industry has a DVD player easily accesible. It's obviously foolish to send it to a place that requires VHS but I've encountered very few of these traditionalist outside of big boy places like Capcom and Pixar. Even Dreamworks reviewed my DVD when I applied for an internship, they said they liked the dvd menu more than the rest of my work.

Advice from David Perry:

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Get your best work together and put it on a video tape (NTSC or PAL, depending on where you’re sending it). Document what you’ve done on the tape, which models you made, what animation you did or did not do, etc. Usually, we can tell within the first 30 seconds whether to keep watching or not, so put your best stuff up front. We don’t care if there’s a soundtrack or not, I would prefer to hear you talking about what you are most proud of.

Our general rule of thumb is the bigger the presentation materials or packaging, the poorer the actual contents. (Unique box + cool folder + nifty stickers with your ‘logo’ on it + tons of sketches = lousy reel, go figure.) Of the people we’ve hired, most were just a simply labeled video tape, resume, cover letter, and another sheet detailing what they did on the reel. No fancy folders, boxes, or other little stuff.

Now render up some demo art (best thing to do is to render a screen that you think looks like a great game).

One trick I always suggest to artists is not to build what you see in current games. (I'm sick and tired of seeing Quake stone walls!) - Create something inspirational, a room that contains interesting architecture, static and moving objects, interesting textures, atmosphere and lighting.

A good example I give is when you walk along a street, if you past a boring old wooden park bench, you barely notice it... but if you were to walk past some interesting fresh new funky/cool park bench it would grab your attention. (That's what you want people to do with your demo...)

Personally, I rate artists by the WOW factor I hear from others when they see their work. If they all say "that looks weird" or "it's colorful" or "nice door handle" then that artist is not gonna be winning any awards.

Classy, inspired artwork is of HUGE value in getting people to show interest in your game.

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Check out his website for more info:
http://www.dperry.com/

Also as a side note, that Photoshop tutorial was a bit liked opening a bag of potato chips with a steamroller.

Channels are a very powerful technique to learn, but in this case...thoroughly unnecessary.

Two easy ways to color, as upposed to the way suggested.

Get your line art. Import it, draw it, whatever.

Set up a Photoshop image like this.

_LineArt
_ColorLayer
_Background

Pretty much the way he has it, instead of creating an alpha channel and all that stuff, just set the blending mode (avaliable on the Layer's pallete, should be set to 'normal' initially), set the blending mode of the LineArt layer to "Multiply".

Then color on the color layer.

Multiply, when used with a black and white image, will allow all the white on that layer to be transparant.

In fact, you could even do it like...

_ColorLayer
_LineArt
_Background

and set the Color Layer to Multiply instead of the LineArt layer.

Note that, that will only work if your line art is B/W. Multiplying one non-b/w color with another non-b/w color produces different results.

Hell...here's one more, ULTRA simple (but, really easy to mess up your pic) way. Just have your line art and set the blending mode of the tool you're painting with (paintbrush, airbrush, whatever) to Multiply.

I would NOT reccomend that though, it's too easy to screw up...but theorhetically it works.