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Maya XGen Colored Cubes and Spheres Rendered with Arnold

Some more tests with XGen archives and spheres. This time with a bit more color. I basically use a texture map to ‘drive’ the length and color of an XGen primitive. These primitives can range from spheres, splines or as in most of the examples below, cube geometry that has been exported as an archive. I then use expressions with XGen in Maya to modify the length, size and orientation of the archives.

Finally, I use the Arnold software renderer to create the final image. Arnold is able to realistically render millions of these pieces of geometry very quickly at high resolutions without any problem.

A tutorial that goes through the process can be found here.  All of the images are rendered with Arnold for Maya. Click here to view my initial tests without color. Click here to view more XGen tutorials.

Many thanks to Pedro F. Gómez for his assistance with XGen. Featured on: Daily Planet Show, COLOSSAL, GIZMODO, THE VERGEtheCreatorsproject, CREATIVE BLOQ, 3dtotalBEHANCE, SPLOID, LESTERBANKSCG RECORD, ronenbekermanCGFeedback, DIGITAL PRODUCTION.xgen-thumbs

Its nice to see that my work has inspired other artists to also have a go. Please share your results with me!

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/BWX06

http://cgterminal.com/2014/09/01/cinema-4d-colorful-abstract-x-particles-tutorial/ http://paessel.com/blog/2014/08/24/converting-pixels-to-voxels-in-blender-with-pythong.html http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/2014/08/07/griggles/ https://www.facebook.com/beeple/photos/a.10150428845566781.356955.95211636780/10152255873401781/?type=1&theater http://vimeo.com/104469156 http://paulsheehy3d.blogspot.com.es/2014/08/xgen-primitives-in-maya.html http://vimeo.com/103107232 http://www.ronenbekerman.com/forest-pack-texture-distribution/ http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/making-colorful-abstract-with-x-particle-in-cinema-4d/ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152449739139775&set=gm.680935698642325&type=1&theater http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=8&t=92074 http://lwtoa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33&sid=bdcd15e55399adb78bc5af6b96a8e346 https://www.behance.net/gallery/38001119/Chroma-Landscapes

http://www.lovbomb.com/ https://www.behance.net/gallery/19418997/Texture-Distribution http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/tutorials/fast-3d-topographies-in-cinema-4d-tutorial/ http://2014.blendermonth.com/?p=1607 http://forums.newtek.com/showthread.php?143497-mutated-ladscapes http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=8&t=92074 http://www.3rd-floor.org/portfolio/abstract-landscapes https://www.behance.net/gallery/20212217/Abstract-Scapes-I https://www.behance.net/gallery/19971111/3D-Topography-Design https://www.behance.net/gallery/19853135/Tiny-World-Pt2

Landscape (Scattered) | High-Res

http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=8&t=93404

http://vimeo.com/110462511

http://henri-hebeisen.com/article14/abstract-landscape

http://dominikraskin.com/2014/09/28/digital-landscapes/

http://www.cutsquash.com/2014/08/abstract-landscapes-blender/

HOME

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?346181-Colored-primitives

http://www.swirlypillow.com/sparkly/

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Crater-481208172

http://davidjohnrobertson.co.uk/343541/4658061/gallery/lee-griggschris-schmidt-enspired-blocks

Topographic Logocube Animation

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuGmgXdWcAAGwNW.jpg:large

http://www.maximeroz.com/abstract#2

https://scontent-mad1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10606202_299526486902035_6809322541291735273_n.jpg?oh=f73743b921a6b3a89e8eb152bdafbf7c&oe=5615E212

http://1drv.ms/1fHivoS

https://scontent-mad1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12036572_1671279826428322_5886910495280060713_n.jpg?oh=7df25f7037fa5b186fd5853df93ed7aa&oe=569BD51D

http://mareyuspictures.com/nebula-cinema-4d-arnold/

http://www.judebi.sg/

http://www.clintrea.com/

http://www.fubiz.net/2015/12/05/abstract-landscapes-digital-manipulations/

https://www.behance.net/gallery/50671661/HoudiniMantra-Renders-inspired-by-Lee-Griggs

http://armieri.deviantart.com/art/Lee-Griggs-Tribute-537141643

http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15488/creating-a-scene-with-huge-amount-of-geometry

https://www.instagram.com/legible/

https://www.behance.net/gallery/20605983/CGI-CG-PHOTOGRAPHY-CG-EXPERIMENTING

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CstMbmBXEAAajXE.jpg:large

Google – Cubes

http://paulsheehy3d.blogspot.com.es/2014/08/xgen-primitives-in-maya.html?m=1

http://www.davidcurtis.co.uk/pflow-world-map/

https://www.instagram.com/_waarp_/

http://www.maximeroz.com/#/new-page/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKGlmOyh–o/

https://vimeo.com/channels/1106239/176340596?ref=tw-share

Skin Deformer

Here is an animation I did a while back. I decided to re-render it as a gif using the latest Arnold Skin shader for Maya.

  • The mesh is called Diatom and was exported from Xenodream as an .obj.

  • I then applied a bend deformer to the mesh and keyframed the rotation.

 The interesting thing that occurs when deforming geometry in Maya is that the normals get flipped. This creates quite an interesting effect when combined with the Arnold Skin shader which requires normals to be facing outwards. I used the default Skin settings except I increased the radius multiplier to get a softer ‘jelly’ look to the SSS and increased the Shallow Scatter to 1.

Rolling shutter experiments

I was having some fun playing with the rolling shutter camera effect. Its typically used to replicate the rolling shutter effect used in footage shot with digital cameras that use CMOS-based sensors such as airplane propellors and electric fans. I keyframed the head rotation in multiple directions (whilst animating the camera along the x axis) and got something that wouldn’t look out of place in the disturbing film Society (which would make an interesting cgi remake btw).rolling-shutter-1k roling-shutter-heads2-3k head-rolling-shutter-3k rolling-shutter-2k