seen it?

Saw this the other day on the TV and absolutely loving it...ok...nothing to do with our project (although the ice smashing at the end...flower pot....maybe!?!but another brilliant animation to keep you inspired and guess whose it by? ya-huh studio aka...

Im in pure admiration of the compositing used in this advert for Peugeot. Cant find out who made it, but its got great use of camera, shadow and transformer esque construction.....soundtracks not bad too!

Peugeot Ad / Anuncio Peugeot Motion & Emotion from vaffer22 on Vimeo.

mother of all updates

me: "ah man...thank god that dissertation formative is allllll handed in *pheeeeeww*"

alec: "sarah *sniff*.....update your blog"

me: stoney face of pain...

reminds me of..........

SOOOOO not because alec told me, i was planning a massive update anyway but here it is...now whats been going on?

well....mainly the last week or so i've been trying to press on with dissertation which is painful to say the least but hey ho...we move on.

well thanks to the help of Tom i've been awakened to the bevel tool and although wanted to keep a graphically sharp look to the models, i have to admit the bevel tool just adds more depth to the designs when in 3d.

So its decided...what needs to be beveled will be and what wont....wont. Not everything will, but it does add a nice edge to the wheelbarrow handles, pots etc as you can see from the comparison shots below:

Left model: initial model. Right: after bevel....answer....we're using the dam bevel tool!

Stumped? so the stump had a "patchwork quilt" effect look going on, myself and matt set about experimenting with removing the horizontal geometry in order to see if it would free up the model....answer below....

the bark and right root has had its horizontal edges removed which gives us this hard vertical edging which matt likes but I'm not completely sold on at the moment. OPINIONS?!??! At any rate...it looks a dam sight better than before so it can only get better right?

Nice hair piece...so heres the levels of working on Lady Gnomes hair. Far left is the original model made from extruding a cube....next left is the geometry duplicated over and a lattice was added and rotated, twisted into its new position which gave it more dimensions. The next is the geometry copied over and - scaled for the opposite side, i've then altered it to make it longer and look different so there's not perfect symmetry. Right is the finished hair piece and flower all smoothed:
Closer inspection: occlusion render from the side shows you the nice curves added to the model via the lattice, nice face framing shape now determined.
and from the front to show the difference in sides...

experimenting with the foot...this is why (to a certain extent) FLAT DOENST CUT IT!

During a midnight break from dissertation I decided modeling isn't as painful compared to the written document of doom. BREAK THROUGH! so strange...i've been having issues with modeling for a few weeks now (ultimate brain block) but suddenly it clicked what to do.

the old face...completely flat and unreadable! showed this to JB and Edgely and they suggested removing some of the edges to free up the space for more successful blend-shapes...her face has been annoying me since i was originally trying to connect it to her hood....it was a mess believe me.

but at midnight and i cracked it by simply pushing the eye geometry back into the head which instantly gave her rounder cheeks and the brow i was after! huzzar! Left side is the new version compared the the right....you can also see where ive removed some of the edges which free up the geometry more.
smooth test...not too bad, the left side certainly has more detail than the right.
geometry is mirrored over
from the side, we can see the curves of the face a bit better, much more interesting to look at that a completely flat face.
quick duplicate and smooth test to see what shes looking like atm....nose looks a bit strange, needs more work. The hair needs further lattice shaping as it looks stuck on...size around the top areas possibly needs reducing, flowers fine, suit and face obv require more work, teeth and tongue need slotting in, sleeve needs more subtly...test frill on the bottom of the dress NOT sorted yet...
ahh....its when you suddenly pose her like this you realise the real proportions of things and MAN are her hands massive...gonna scale them down a bit.
testing out the length of her arms...think i'll change the hidden inside bit of the arm back to a cylinder so she can get the most from her movement....her hair may be a possible issue for being in the way of her arms....will need to sort this too.

ah in the name that is good and evil...shes disgusting...think its the face...big guppy mouth with no teeth. little test occlusion to see how the shadows etc will be forming and those brows are waaaaay too defined...she needs some more edges round the eyes to soften. Scaled down the hands now which is goooood and scaled up the legs to match the width of the arms a bit more. Im concerned about the following

a. the brows - will we be able to read the shapes they make if they're that close to the fringe?

b. what the heck happens to the frill of her dress when she sits down?!?!? we dont want that pushing through the mushroom geometry?! plus when she needs to run/bound etc her legs are gonna go through the frill geometry.

c. im really thinking overly too much about every single bloody thing at this stage!

Help is at hand...Tom

Thanks to Tom for helping out with the modelling on the project, yesterday he started working on the fences which i checked today and after a few tweaks is looking brilliant! cheers mate :)

So i set him some more work...Tom has all the background garden props and a few props for the main scene to model. He's been given all my sketches for reference images to model to so hopefully we should be well on the way now.

Thanks Tom :)

the worlds gone mad...

a gnome brooch...are u mental?!

leaves & trees

made this quickly the other day...just a quick test. One to the right is the original, one to the left has been duplicated and bent upwards to give a bit more dynamics...this is based on my designs and would be 1 out of 5 varieties...just want to get opinion on it.
the trees....trying to keep them squared off but wondering if there needs to be some extra geometry?





Anyways...thoughts people...thoughts

Hero's Watering Can

the manliest watering can you'll ever see :)

Paint by Numbers

The catalogue of photo shop brushes. Thanks to Grigs :)
Heres a look at them all for easy reference when it comes to texture creation, please let me know if you need a copy of the brushes:

flower....

lady gnome goes slowly...very slowly...so slowly im embarrassed to say the least BUT dissertation distracts me so i find my character modeling goes splat....but i want to push things further SO LOOK AT THIS FLOWER! yes the original flower model now has all indentations AND more curves and twists thanks to a bit of lattice tool useage...thanks to Simon for the pin points :) now looking 100x more excellent.

left: lattice flower which was curled round to give right...the more 3 dimensional looking piece for lady gnome.

p.s 43 seconds in...this is my influence for lady gnomes run...unexplainable NON human running...were a long way off from animating tho guys BUT let this inspire us to go go go!

wheel-e-mc-barrow

original model...looks good
some slight alterations: spokes have more extreme shape, front bracket of the barrow is wider to contrast its slender handles, the handles themselves have more definition to connect them to the poles, top of the barrow is taller than the back. Oh and the screws have been exaggerated bigger.

bask in the detail.....basking done

i don't care miss steele...

...i live in the sticks

props

pots ahoy - the one to the left needs some additional work as you can quite clearly see the faces etc what have you but im liking this squared off look to the piece. As you can see, i've tried to create a variety of models that will help break up the scene/keep it interesting/show off the design ettttttcccc!

Another watering can...what was wrong with the first one i hear you add? NOTHING...I've made a spare incase we need to dot extra items around the garden or indeed give Hero his own little watering can which could be a nice touch just seen in the corner of shots? maybe not...in any case theres another watering can now.
yeah damit its ANOTHER watering can...but after i made the last one i thought it wasnt exactly a Hero esque design if he's gonna have one so i went through my designs and found this squat straight one which i think suits his character A LOT more...p.s im the queen of making watering cans!

first fork...not overly impressed to be honest...just something not right about it...seems a bit flat but hey i'll include it on here anyway and then you can see the final cohort of props used for the film later on.

Machos Stump: im loving squared off objects as i feel it really adds to the old look of the film. This in particular works well as it adds to the damaged effect of the stump which will in turn add to Macho's area of the garden. I created a base log and extruded faces to created these twisted curly roots. I then duplicated the model and began extruding certain faces, either in lines of 2,3 or 4 and re-stitched them together to created a sort of jacket for the log which gives more depth to the object as it looks like all its bark is splitting away from it from wear and tear. I've started to add some cuts and chips to also add to the aged look.