Wednesday 31 March 2010

some stats...

Im trying to plan through the time we have left.

So the animation has a total of 36 shots.
Lets say the worst case scenario that we get no one else on board to help animate in either our year, 2nd or 1st year, that would leave myself and Matt 18 shots to animate each.
Lets say we both started animating 12th April (current time im predicting worse case scenario for Lady to be finished and ready) that would leave us 4 weeks to animate giving 2 weeks for rendering and compositing.

This would mean that we would need to complete 1 1/4 shots each day BETWEEN THE 2 OF US in order to fully complete the animation.

Sounds daunting?

maybe...maybe not.

Firstly, Matt has begun animating so were already ahead of the 4 week deadline...giving us 6 weeks instead of 4 (though its currently down to Matt at the moment) However Matt is a good animator and I'm confident he'll begin to reduce the work load for us. Also some of our shots are piddly in terms of their complexity such as shot 26 and 27...however some are definitely gonna require some extra attention, shot 35 is defo gonna be our priority for getting it to look kick ass.

Were gonna have to get clever about which shots are NECESSARY to deliver the story rather than just what we'd like to animate.

Im hoping we can get some 2nd years on board to animate and even possibly some 1st years but I'm going on the fact that we have no one else right now. I've notified the second years who were interested about animating, telling them about the rig and giving them a deadline for next week to provide us with a test. We also have Yaniv whose agreed to do some animation but i cant currently state how much this will be as i know he has commitments to Red Rock and both teams are gonna have to plan around each others schedules in order to get our work done.

Wednesday 31st March

So Maya time has been limited for me recently as I find myself strangely taking on a full time managers role by constant contact to our contributors on the project in sound, technical and continuing to try and more assistance from the second years. Its persistence thats required and whilst we have a few guys on board doing our UV Mapping (Fahren and Dan) there's still more people I want to get on board in terms of Animation and Lighting.

Sound meeting with Pip to check up on foley and atmosphere progress. Adam not present. Foley only requires a few more tweaks and additions and then it is complete. We'll soon be sending Pip our playblasts for her to time these sounds to. Arranged a meeting for next week to check these last alterations, but after that we'll just be giving her links to our playblasts to work to.

Checked through JBs testing for the pot smashing. the pot crack doesnt quite work for us and JB is gonna do some more testing so the soil looks more random within the scene. If worst comes to the worst we can reuse toms rocks and just have a few of these fly everywhere which would cut memory and render time. We'll have to be a bit clever with our shots.

learnt about UV sets with Yaniv which will be very useful for our repeted environment for the leaves and shrubs.

Emailed the second years about the rig being available to begin testing. I've given a deadline of next tuesday 6th April for them to submit their tests via link, showing us, or copying over playblasts to the folder with their name on.

Received test voices for Hero Gnome, John completed 3 different sets for me to say which was going in the right direction. Sent feedback via email regarding this character and the tweaks and necessary changes.

Emailed sound designer John regarding feedback to the style of the soundtrack and possibilities of hearing some tests soon as well as discussion about his work schedule for the next few weeks.

Emailed Yaniv Hero Gnomes expression sheet as well as detailed list which broke down the exact expressions for eyes, eyebrows, and mouth as generals as well as left and rights. waiting upon fishing rod model to email off to Dan to UV map.

Emailed Matt the Lady Gnome voices for his opinion. Might have to get our voice artist back on board as i haven't heard from the contact John Bell (other voice artist) gave us.

Emailed Roman our 2nd sound designer (because were covering all the avenues here with plan A, B and Z) to see what progress is being made with the sound design. He replied quickly and asked if he could be sent some visuals so he had an understanding of how the 3D would look in its design and colour. I sent over some images we used in our end of 2nd term presentation and noted the key design features we aimed to achieve in the project. He's going to be providing some scratch tests of the soundtrack hopefully by end of next week.

Friday 26 March 2010

Render Farm: testing it to the max

So me and Adam have been sending stuff off to the farm to see how its coping with frames and why certain issues are occuring.


After speaking with Simon from IT, its apparent there is no point using the farm for rendering off small jobs, rendering locally means it'll split the job better. Makes sense really. Anyway, the render farm copes better with jobs of 100 frames above, it seems to distribute the work better.


Adam is in the process of splitting the scene file in render layers and were testing the longest frame by rendering an occlusion pass of the initial pan shot. From this we can determine how much we need to split up the scene file into layers of props etc. Removing the shrurbs already cut 5 minutes off the render time but it might not be worth it.


After speaking to Alex Hulse he confirmed we'd have to get ultra smart about what needed rendering etc and sort out the layers now. Think we may need further discussions with him about what exact layers we want and will actually benefit the film...no point rendering what isn't necessary. Will speak to Dalli about potentially setting up a meeting for this, as it would be a good opportunity to ask some ques and sort ourselves out now for post.

Wednesday 24 March 2010

Pitch to the 2nd Years

So today I pitched to the second year animators, hoping to secure our film some UV mappers, textures, lighters and animators. I re-used our end of term 2 pitch presentation and added in a few slides for the task we decided to set the hopefuls who wanted to work on the film.

I used some of the basic scenes I created earlier in the year for the task, the Hero corner and Macho corner. These could be accessed in Public folders > Gnomes Texturing and Lighting Tests along with our sample textures as well as all the zip files for the paint brushes we use in photoshop to create the textures so they could make their own. We also included a render example so the guys can see the quality of the aesthetic were after.

I hope that this gives people something to jump on board and get on with as the files are all set up and ready to go. I didn't show the animatic...i acted it out instead which at the very least provided some entertainment for the guys. Right before a pitch, I'm nervous...and Im not even kidding there were a lot of 2nd years and their beady eyes of hope made me scream inside (just a feeling mind not reality) but once i get going Im away and frankly love the presentation and performance aspect. I love conveying the idea to people and finding ways to engage them and keep them interested in the presentation.

I could go on..but in short, this year has given me so much exposure to presentation I feel i could do it in my sleep (an interesting concept).

So heres the presentation slide were the tests were explained.


Collected 18 names from people who were interested and going to email them all individually to remind them of what we'd like. Hopefully between the 3 groups who pitched today, we'll all manage to get the help we deserve.


Man Im shattered...presenting is tiring but things will be on the up.

Gorillaz: Stylo

Just seen the brilliantly composited new video from Gorillaz for Stylo. Definitely worth a watch to take in the amazing work they've completed and some great expressions achieved through the characters...or even just to watch the random appearance of Bruce Willis!






Gorillaz - Stylo from mario ucci on Vimeo.

Rigging: Macho Gnome

The plan is to have a test rig complete and weighted by Friday so we can let loose some first and second years to try out some walk cycle tests/generally bullet proof test the rig for us. As Machos the furtherest along we decided to rig him. I haven't rigged since last Summer sometime so man was I rusty but got there eventually.


Matt sent through the skeleton layout for Macho Gnome. Unfortunalty the bones werent in the best positions and some of the orientations incorrect, so it was easier to start again (sorry Matt)
Whilst rigging I had to alter the rotation on the models legs in order for them to point directly forward so that IK handles would work properly. Thankfully not a problem since all our models elements such as arms and legs are separate components from the rest of the model.

The rig has reverse foot setup, foot attributes including heel roll, heel pivot, heel lean, ball roll and toe curl. Set driven keys in the fingers, IK legs, FK arms and a IK Spline in the spine.

ankle IK testing...pole vector contraint assigned and parented to the foot control.
testing out the spines advanced twist options...
final look at the rig...I'm sure we'll have some additions and changes to make (i've already realized the head control is unnecessary apart from being able to parent the eyes and teeth to in order to follow the rig. A master control is needed to but I'm gonna find Dave on this one cos man does it like to play up a good'un when I'm trying to do it.

bound...now over to matt for the painting weights...gd luck

Monday 22 March 2010

Monday 22nd March: Lesson Notes

For hand in your required to submit:

1 x DVD which contains...

3 x folders: artist, technical and animation (clearly labelled with what is your MAIN folder for marking) YOU NEED ALL 3 FOLDERS TO PASS THE COURSE.

1 x Document with link to your individual blog

What elements are covered in each of the folders?

artist - preproduction, texturing, camera work?? (not sure here) Animatic, storyboarding, character drawings - mostly pre production work.

technical -lighting, rigging, dynamics, UV mapping, textures, compositing and post production software, render layers, using the render farm.

animation - any animation, secondary, rain, nething that moves, clouds. Be warned...if you determine this is the folder you want to have for the bulk of your marks you will need some red hot character stuff in order to score well.

Any images submitted must be in a format that will open universally. NO PSDs or PDFs, Jpegs all the way.

Marking for the folders

60% for your main/focus folder
2 x 20% for your remaining folders


Don't leave anything to chance! Submit all your tests and experiments as this can make your mark go up! Take the opportunity to show simply everything you did.


About the blog

This is a more personal item, documenting the process/experience of the course/year of film making. Its you demonstrating your own input and how you've found the experience in its entirety. Make sure what you say you've done backs up actually what you've done otherwise bye bye marks.

Deadline

28th May - when the folders will be marked.

Anything after this is for the show - June 10th (bearing in mind it takes 3/4 days to transcode and compress all the films to final dvd)


Formats

NO HD renders for it 320:240

quicktime files/avis/jpegs

H.264 -high quality for good compression

Friday 12 March 2010

Term 2 Formative

This weeks been mental sorting out evvvvveeryyything so everyones aware of what to get on with whilst Im away for a week. "Its alright for some" i hear you say. Weeeeeeell dont cos I'm taking work with me, so enough of it!

Formative session on Thursday with Mike and Dan who'll be taking over next term so it was the chance to show him where were up to, what's been causing us issues and update him about the projects. Overall i think they were pleased with progress but inevitably agreed that the dissertation had prohibited where we would have liked to be on our schedule (by now we should have been animating...sigh) It was nice to get some really positive reactions to our models and texture tests which is a nice boost for us (general consensus would be to do an entire film around the snail now due to all the ooos and awwwws for him) We didn't play our 3d animatic as the shots weren't polished enough and it didn't really make sense without playing the other one along side it. We decided it would be best to really work at this in order to make it our final camera shots etc and overlay the music/sound effects on top to show Dalli next term.

SO...for MONDAY 22nd MARCH we need to show Dan..

3d Animatic with shots completely polished AND with the addition of musical score and term 1s voice overs/foley etc.

Friday was a headache of trying to sort out the STL files for Jared so our models can be made into sculptures. We has a few issues when trying to export files in 3DS Max and the college computers had a day of being rich tea biscuits and giving up. We got there...took longer than expected but we were there.

the final Lady Gnome figurine that comes with your 2nd issue of Gnomes weekly: almost everything you ever wanted to know about gnomes AND MORE! i kid of course...such a magazine would be awful...it would never divulge everything u wanted to know about gnomes...

im quite pleased with the expression achieved here, but its highlighted a few extra divisions are required in the face just so she can maintain the shape a bit better.

this is using the old suit point instead of the newly formed on which doesn't go to one vertex (i started posing before Alex highlighted this problem so no point starting again just for the sculpture) The fingers were the biggest pain and ended up using a basic hand rig just so i could bend them better, however not too far as it pulled on other geometry. With minimal time i just reshaped the verts instead of painting the weights. She looks pretty good though so it'll be interesting to see how they come out. Macho and Lady have been scaled to one another incase there are cut according to size. Yaniv will email Matt his version of Hero to scale on Monday 15th so all 3 will be made. The snail has also been sent off.
We then spent minimal time in comparison scaling our characters to the environment which has now highlighted a few things:

-because of the character size differences, the flower pot had to be even bigger so it seemed plausible Macho could fit in it. The change in size now meant that Hero when scaled could not reach to water the flower...we'll have to install a clever little set of pebble steps so that he can reach.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

Tuesday 9th March

todays been busy...a mixture of epic fails and sorting out music etc.

Our composer Greg has got amazing turn around delivery! A full score has been produced but were in the process of changes and tweaks. Currently have to match the soundtrack up to the youtube animatic which is a series of "play PLAY" quick clicks but takes a few listens for me to write all my notes and feedback of what needs altering. Emailed feedback and set another deadline this time for a week and a bit (Sat 20th March) for new version to be mailed as I'll be away.

Emailed our voice artists as well: Jon and Kim. Jon will begin recording asap for us but both will be fully working on the project in a week or so's time. This is not too worrying for me as both reassure me they can deliver fast and the voice overs are grunts, sighs, ooos and aaaaahhs.

Spent morning working on pose of Lady Gnome for the sculpture deadline this friday...now the main layout is set its down to the nitty gritty aaaarrrgh rraaah tear your hair out part of styling the fingers hands arms etc...which is pretty dammed hard without a rig. It may come to making a basic one just to get the final bends etc from the model.

I've begun UVing a few props....literally projections at this stage of the fork, pot and wheelbarrow but its amazingly NOT my fortay and i soon moved onto...

UVing Lady Gnome...about bloody time i know i know...and i have to say i have NO IDEA what im doing...gonna try n get as much done tonight and then Ive arranged UV master Yaniv to have a look see and gimme a few pointers tomorrow.

Monday 8 March 2010

strike a pose

Trying to get Lady posed and ready for friday so she can be sent off and made into a sculpture *hopefully*. posing her is a little more difficult than first anticipated (especially wen it comes to the hands/fingers however its been a good opportunity to see the models capabilites and how she can bend and stretch. Posing has mainly been done with the lattice tool in order to not shift about the characters verts too much....

please ignore her awful facial expression...it is pap

Hand posing is difficult! lots of chopping off...bending and twisting going on here as well as thinking how the character would be at rest in her pose...

yeah...the hair wouldn't duplicate over...thoroughly annoying when this happens...anyway pose starting to take shape now...from the front at least...again ignore the horrid facial expression.


How its looking so far....to be continued

Wednesday 3 March 2010

White is for Witching

books need trailers these days...sounds weird but think about it, more demand for animation. I love the collation of words to images here, the simplicity of the trailer with just the sound of the wind, creeks and heart beats...very haunting indeed. DO NOT WATCH WITHOUT SOUND!!

White Is For Witching from Treat on Vimeo.