Update on the work

Hay all in the internet's world. Did you miss me??? ha ha ha of course you did.

Now after a hectic amount of weeks at TAFE and hitting those nasty deadlines I finally have some spare moments to write on this blog. So over the past 5 weeks we have done a bunch of work.

First I have started to work on my extensions for the film and TV students project The Distant Future. Firstly I took the shots into photoshop and drew up my storyboard concepts and style guide.

I want to get a very clean an isolated feel to the shots I create as per my style guide.
 The shots were all taken on green screen which I then took into Nuke and have keyed them in nuke and tracked them in syntheyes. I exported the track and imported the script in max, to make my background shots. Some of the non-tracked shots I just drew the background up instead of modelling them, to give a better idea of how the background is going to look.  Its not a magical masterpiece of work, But it is just to demonstrate the concept and layout more.

Shot 1: I stabilised this shot in nuke and removed the green screen. Thu guy still looks a little odd in the scene since he seems to be moving around the shot, but he is in fact  just leaning in the shot. I still need to clean up the green screen keying work, make the background and remove the green from him (some grading).

Shot 2: This shot has the same changes too make with the first one with the keying of the green screening and the colour grading. The thing that I will need to concentrate on this is the particle effect in the comer. There is going to be a hologram thing on the table, which I want to play around with particle effects to create. 

   

Shot 3: This shot has to have some changes to the green screen and the colour, but also I need to work on making the clothes changer. I will need to work on making the machine on separate layers to integrate the scene into the footage. because the machine is made of glass and has a cylinder coming down when he changes clothes. I also want a flash of light, so I will have to work on some lighting effects. 

Shot 4: Not only do I have to key the green screen, but there are a few problems with this shot. The biggest problem is there is parts in the scene where one of the characters arm hangs off the green screen. I have to roto that bit out. Also there is a little problem with tracking it can't pick up the depth. so as a fix the for ground element the chair. I am going to render separately, place on a card and track in the scene.  

The second project I have being working on is rigging and skinning a character. I have had some issues with this project, since at first I just did a standard foot, but then was told to work on a reverse foot set-up. Then with doing the rigging I fixed it placed set driven keys on it and then found the knee out alignment due to an issue with the IK handle. So after a bit of frustration I fixed to to work properly. On the plus side I did get a lot of practice of set driven keys. 

So here after a bit of messing around I have a completed skinned rig. hurrah. 

The Completed rig.

The Bones and controllers

Heel roll using set driven keys 

Toe Pivot using set driven keys

Toe roll using set driven keys

Crouching

Hip movement

Back rotation 

a

head and neck movement 

The arms Bending 

Making a fist using set driven keys. 

I am happy the way he has turned out. 

Also over the last 5 weeks as you may already know I have being working on my animated short. I have updated recently about it and in the last 2 weeks haven't done much but I have added a fence and started to form the paths a little more. I have also started playing with the path a little more and moving the pedals around. In the next week I hope to complete this and my character. Also I am getting some really awesome sounds from the sound students. This animation is going to be awesome!!!

Lastly I have started work on this robot animation and after running up and down a chair for afternoon and looking like an idiot I got reference footage. The reference has really helped me make the animation look more believable. I am happy the way it is going. This is some of the blocked in animation.

He is dragging an invisible chair!!! at the moment I am just blocking the animation first and then I am going to add a constraint to the chair so It locks into position with his hands this way I can have it in the location that it would be in and then can change the positioning later. 

Also as a last note, I have currently seen the work that the film students have created and it looks amazing. Caitlin (my team mate) and I are currently working on the storyboards and animatic for it. So we should have something soon to show. 

Also EXPO prep has being under way. Being a mentor for it has proven an interesting task, but currently am collecting work for a showreel, which is going to be edited together for the website and some other places. 

Oh and I am hoping to have a website up soon, in prep for expo and also for jobs later, I haven't built one before but it is going to be an interesting experience and something extra to learn. So fingers crossed I hope it goes well. 

Sorry for the long blog, but hope you find it interesting 

to infinity and beyond 

animatornerd 

Abagail: MORE WORK

So a little of progression of yesterdays  afternoons work. After a look over from my lecturer there were some changes in the scene. I was looking for cobblestone textures nothing seemed to be working it was looking too flat, so I modelled them. they look a lot better now. I am still playing around with them a bit. Also The lecture suggested that perhaps I should add some walls, paths and grass. So I have being placing around some mock wall placements at the moment, to see where I would like to put my walls and also put some grass in. Using the hair and fur modifier tool, I wanted a stylised looking grass so I played with the settings and I think that came out well. I also pushed my houses back a bit more in camera to make more path space, but I am thinking about moving the camera over a bit more to cut out more of the road and show more of the houses. I think this is looking good.

I have gotten reference for what I want my wall to look like, I think that these looked awesome, so I want to model them. :) 

That is going to be one of tomorrows jobs. Also I have being working more on my character, after getting an analysis of my topology of my Abagail model I have had to revisit parts of it but it is working out better, and easier to model, I understand the importance of the topology more now. 

I have gotten a little behind schedule on this now since, I have being getting more suggestions for environment and technical problems (my computer is being evil Satan has possessed it), but I am looking to get on track in the next week or two, crossing my fingers on that one :) 

to be continued......

animator nerd       

Abagail: Abagail

So she comes into creation from the embryo of my mind to now coming into the world and growing from a small polygon, to bigger things. Oh sigh to see my baby grow up to be a big girl. oh the tears.

soon she will become her own person and there is only the time to teach her the lessons of her life and let her be on her way.

Animatornerzzz

Abagail: first shot lock off

So I have made my first shot and it has the cam movement locked off. This is the establishing sequence to my short. I have created it in 3ds max and have used some of the max trees.
collectively this scene took me 2-3 days to model.  It has everything from rubbish bins, to a fire hydrant in it.

next step is to start texturing the scene and the lighting of the scene. Its going to have a very English feel and is going to be all in black and white. I am hoping to finish this guy here this week so hopefully I should have it fully textured for you guys to see this week.

Also I have made my production guide, so far it looks like its keeping on track. Its looking bright and as long as I keep at it in the next few weeks hopefully I should have my main character modeled, the non main grey guys  and the next scene done ready for the animation next term.

Oh the long journey of no sleep and pale skin (paler in my case), from lack of sun is ahead. It will all be worth it for this epic adventure. So good bye light and the outside world. I shall see you on the other end.  

Animatornerd waz here.