its all finished....... well not quite yet

so yesterday i handed all my work in and the same with everyone else in my class. it was ok doing my folders i just wish i had worked harder in the first term to do some more decent concept work. but i knew that the first term was always going to be my weakest as i prefer doing the 3d parts of the project rather then 2d. i also wished i could have had more compositing for my technical folder, and let me just be honest..... i would have if we got some renderd shots out that i animated!. because the only ones that got renderd was lewis, toms, and that was it so they will get higher marks becuase they got some of theres renderd.

if i had managed to get some of mine renderd then it would have helped my folder alot. this is not just me tho same with ash, muli neil and also second years aswell. Ive had some ups and downs this year with some minor personal problems which was a huge shame for it to have to happen in my final year lol..... wish it happened in the first year. however i did to be honest step up my game in the the second part. i updated my blog alot like dan told me to do. i did lots of animateing and i also made sure i was doing something at college.

i do still enjoy animating and would like to maybe go into that possibly now that i have finished, same with moddeling maybe but its still rather weakish. others in class are alot better then me at that.

i loved working with the team was great fun. i never worked with lewis or tom or muli and they but in so much effort into this project its un true. lewis always keeps going muli is like a work horse same with tom they just keep going! no matter what.

oh yeah forgot to mention the dummy project.......... well lets just say that it was a comeplete waste of my time and i could of done more work in that time for pirates project, dummy was a complete waste of time but well that history now so never mind.

jb is a lovely funny guy. just wish he stop jabbering on and just get down with whats needed and stop asking questions lol. but yes he did in the end get some work done for the pirates project.

ash did sooooo much texturing he did the entire dummy room and did alot of pirates aswell. neil did some of the best animation he has done while at ravensbourne

others needed to show up more and let the entire pirates team down which could have helped us get done for mark in but never mind i wont name names, they know who they are. but no fuss its over now..

but......... we still need to finish for the degree show. i will not stop coming into college until this project is all renderd out. the music sound story is fantastic and the shots that are lighted and renderd just show this film is to good not to finish. so hopefully people will help us in the next weeks to get it all done. we need to render our 10 shots a day to do it and we will all this time need to help light some shots.

oh yeah for my animation folder i renderd out one of my shots the bread fire one just to show what it might of looked like renderd out rather then a playblast. the final render will look alot better with all the texttures.

pirates is still easily one of the best films in the class. i havnt seen any others all fully comeplete yet however. we where the underdog group with the least strongest people and have rised above all.

i have had a great and fun 3 years at ravensbourne will be sad to see it go and not walk down its paths no more soon but its not time for me to start my next chapter in life and see where i go next.

oh and whacked team helped us aswell with advice and after effects rendering and stuff too which was nice

anyway see you all next week and hopefully this pirates will be seen in its full glory at the rsa degree show very soon.....

a bit of composoting

this week i helped mu li add in the bottles into the super market environment. the bottles will be renderd on a separate layer from the main animation. once the bottle layer is renderd we can add it onto the blank shelves in aftereffects. I have seen some initial tests of this from mu li and it does work and looks quite good i must say.

How ever when you had to many levels of bottles into a scene it just crashes maya, even on my mac it goes really slow and crashes out. I think it is because of the environment we have is really big and with so many bottles maya just cant handle it. So with this problem what i have to do is export the bottles out on there own and render them separate so that it don't crash.

hopefully today i can render out one of my final animated shots and composite it fully in after effects for one of my folders for hand in. But i cant render one of my shots until Mu li or someone..... has done the lighting. maybe ill give it a try today???

shot 22 final version

some more tweeked shots

did some slight tweeking to these shots on the friday just passed.

more animation tweaking

the breadbeard fire shot i just wanted to change his sword a bit, as i didnt like the old one where it kinda twists at the end. other then that i did not change anything else.




changed this shot a little. with his head and arms making them flutter a bit more.



changed the way his head rotates in this shot, i think it looks better now so im happy.

overall all its strange going back to my shots. and its hard making them better as im the one who did them anyway. so its sometimes hard for me to spot areas that need to be changed. when someone comes over tho like lewis or tom and tell me what needs to be adjusted then that helps a lot in making my animations better for this film.

tweeking shots 2 and patches in the air shot

today i spent my day mainly tweaking shot 2 where the guard drinks his can and throws it behind him. i think its better then what i had done originally at least. after i did that i re worked patches flying in air. i got rid of all the old mouth key frames and kept it more simple and changed the way his head moved so that it was not such massive movements but more subtle . i also flapped his feet to as hes flying through the air.

new animatic playblast done today

Lewis today spent his time making the new animatic with all the new scene playblasts. it was really good when i watched it gave me and the others in the group alot of new hope that his film has the potential to be really good and one of the best no doubt. We just need to fix some minor stuff in some of the shots, like polish of some animation mainly and it will be fine but that needs to be done this week max. we also still need to render of which we still havnt got one shot renderd out yet.

muli sent a render yesterday but it failed as the texture resolution is to high i think and that is why the render farm is crashing. i have to fix my sip shot scene which i will do Wednesday. i still dont think this film will be renderd for marking maybe half of it maybe...... But for the show we should get it all done i hope. the sound guy has the final animatic now so he can do all the sounds for it now which is really good.


i would upload the animatic on here but its in a mp4 file type so it wont work =( i could change its format but it will loose even more quality so theres no point. when the final one is renderd ill post it up here asap

shot 14

did this shot today really quickly for lewis for the sound guy. took me around 3 hours i think. its pretty good and im happy with it. so ive put it on a drive now for lewis. i am getting better with animation i think becuase ive done so many shots for this project which i am really happy about.

guard sip shot (2)

started this shot friday. its not finished tho. will try finish it of today and do shot 14 as well which was ment for pual bates to do, but hes no longer working on this project so i will do it.

I think in total i will have done 9 or 10 shots for this project. i am happy with the amount i did. they all ranged in hardness, but i think i coped well with them and got them all done in a good time frame for lewis. lewis needs all the playblasts and maya files so that he can put them all together in premier for the sound guy for monday.

How ever i have a horrid feeling that not everyone will upload all there complete shots for lewis today and will put the project over schedule and the sound guy wont have all the work needed to make the most of his work. We still havnt really renderd any of our shots. i think weve renderd one shot lol which might need to be renderd again i think.

other groups are realiseing that other groups are all rendering now for the marking and other people around college are using render farm and clogging it up. i not sure if we can render all work for marking but maybe we can before the final show in june. would of been nice to have an extra month or two on this project and it would of been alot better and not rushed like its going now. but we must!! start rendering some shots next week.

i not even sure jb has done the melon dodge shot with his dynamics and that needs to be ready as its an important shot. dean aswell we need him to finish the pull out shot from the cardboard :s

shot 22 guard drive off

Did this work yesterday, it makes me laugh and i am happy with it and lewis has ok'd it which is good.

NOTE- TOM did all the first part of this shot, i only did the last bit when the guard turns around and drives of out of scene. tom has this shot again and is gunna add in his other part when hes jiggling a bit on the chair after being electrocuted. also tom will hopefully polish of some of my work with the hands and maybe face

patches flying out from cannon

did this shot yesterday. I am leaving this for the moment how it is. Lewis can sort out the final camera angle and stuff. This was not a hard shot to do just annoying because my graph editor kept bugging out so i couldn't edit the curves =(

patches shooting out of the cannon

started this shot on monday. its way to fast. but this is just an early test so far. i gave lewis all my animation play blasts so far so that he could put it together with the rest of the play blasts, so that lewis could send it to the sound guy to get the final sounds done. All this week i am finishing of my animation shots, not sure how many i have left i might have to check. but i would like to go back to some of my shots and possibly polish them of a bit. Or so some other work to fil up my 3 folders.

Breadbeard fire finished

finished this on friday at the end of the day. i am happy with this now and so is lewis and the rest. if i get time to come back to this shot before we render i might change the path of the sword. but at this time i just dont have enough time.

This week coming i am working on more shots. patches coming out of the cannon is my next shot, so i will update the blog on monday on how i am getting on with this shot.

breadbeard_fire final

finished this shot today. its taken me two college working days. I am happy with it, just need to see what Lewis thinks of it. With a bigger resolution this looks a lot better!.

New guard animation

^^ this shot is finished now and final



this shot is work in progress

progress update

well its bank holiday Monday today today and the college is closed. =(. But work continues on, so its the 3rd of may. only a few weeks left now i think its just under 4 weeks left til the deadline. all characters have been textured now. breadbeard is rigged and all that is left to rig now is walker. Tom and mu li left him last as hes not in many shots so was a good idea to leave him last. Now ill be honest with people looking on my blog. we honestly need to have this project renderd out by the 22nd of may at the latest!!! other wise we wont get enough time to make his film look good in after effects or get all the sounds at the best they can be. I am honestly so worried that we wont get this renderd out til the last minute and the final look of the film suffers because of it. No people are working very hard on this project at the moment and i am sure in these final weeks people will be fireing on all guns. lewis has been working exremely hard and has been doing parts of the project that he was never ment to have done. Some people still have not been turning up which is a shame as we really need everyone to be in to give all there input. we have the advantage that we have most people working on this project yet we dont utalise our group properly and its not well organized. Tom has done some really nice animation tho aswell as neil, hes working very hard. I just really dont want to his this project fall flat on its face. The story and characters and artwork is so nice and easily the best by no means. I said to lewis that we sould just make this film really fun and make the audience that watched it really happy. And lets be honest if our project never gets finished then its going to make the show even more boring. Gnomes project and red rock also im worried that they might finish but not up to the stanard that they also wanted. so it wont be nice if no one gets the projects looking ready and finished for the show as it would be such a shame. =(. So hopefully the pirates team can pull together these last weeks and really make this film good. also forgot to add jb has been doing a nice job with the electrocution shots.

new work

This is the shot after the first guard reach. he trying to reach the cerail box on top of the plinth. But he cant reach it without his grabber which is in the next shot. I am fairly pleased with this just need to add in a slight pause when he first reached out.




this is more or less the final version of this shot. might add some movement in his shoulders tho but might add that in when the rest of my shots are completed for this project.

Next up this week is finish of my shots still hopefully will start the breadbeard shots as they are very important to this film and so i will need to work on it well and to a high standard of finish.

Guard Reach shot

ok did this yesterday, will be working on it more today to fix his left hand maybe. Lewis seems happy with it more or less. After this shot is done today i will move onto one of my other shots. Hopefully will do a breadbeard one next.

MASSIVE UPDATE

^ this is shot 37 ( guard jets of down the isle and looks back quick scared lol. did this shot yesterday. i am pleased with it i timed it exactly to the animatic like i do with all my shots so it makes it easier for lewis when he puts it all together.




this is the shot were the guard looks up towards the cerial in shock at the cerial. hes so excited that hes seen it he must go to get it. This shot was done this week on monday i think. enjoy

more work coming

Patches in the air shot

I did this last week there are two different versions. i like the top one best. not sure if much will be changed in this shot now and i need to get on with the other shots.

weekly news

This week i got bad news that the dummy project had folded. Cant say i did not see this happening but was a big surpise to me when we are so close to the finish line. Some Members of the dummy team put in a lot of effort into that project, so it wasn't nice to hear it had been folded. How ever JB the Dummy team leader did say he might want to finish it over the summer which i wont want any part of because i will need to get my life in gear for its next stage and i just wont have time i don't think.

So now that's been cleared up all i have left to work on now is the pirates project, which is ok as i do have a lot of work still do on it mainly animation. I have also asked sarah varall if i can work on the gnomes project as well to do some character animation on a few shots. So hopefully i might get some work if they really get stuck for time.

Now back to the pirates project...................OHHH DEAR. lets be honest its the 23rd of april and i still have not seen one decent final renderd shot of this project yet. Other projects have been working on the look of the project for weeks now and have it perfectly set up with the lighting and stuff. We are not even at that stage yet and we should be by now as it would be nice if the pirates project looked as good as some of the other projects. We havnt even done tests in after effects yet to get the final look. its such a shame as this is going to hit us hard if we dont have this sorted out in the next 3 weeks!!. Other projects are all set now and just need to animate and render and thats it. oH and com-posit aswell.

Also lets not forget that we still have not got all the rigs ready yet or even tested them. patches is ok and works so thats fine. but the guard i dont think is done yet its close tho. breadbead is being done now but i dont no how long that will take. walker is not even rigged and weighted yet wtf?

ok the Micheal quirk situation is a shame we would have been miles ahead if the guy turned up into college and did what he was supposed to do....... which was rig the characters???? i think. One of the other main issues with the group is most days not all of us are in together. So only lewis really knows whats going on. Mu li and tom know a bit but confuse me sometimes with that is going on. there is a lack of communication between us all as everyone shows up on different days. Everyone is working on seperate things so we can sit together and see where we are all at. i think this is enough rant from me but this project will not get finished to its full potential unless things are sorted out next week before may. This project can get finished just not sure if we will get the time to get it how lewis may of wanted it to look.

patches wall hit finished!

Ok this shot is done now. I am happy with it Lewis wanted to change a few things. Such as removing the feet wiggle and I made his hands go up more when he slips down and make his head turn at the bottom and not at the top. I also added patches hair giggle when he flys through the air to give a sense of speed.

did some more on this shot today

i added some facial expression to patches today as he looks back at the camera quick. I Changed the arms slightly i think not sure tho. I am happy with this shot now and i will probably move onto one of patches other shots Wednesday. When this has the sound with it and the camera shake when he hits the wall i'm sure the viewer will like it =)

weekly progess report and next week tasks

so this week i started animating one of my shots for the pirates project which was going to be a final and finished version. I also started some of the Dummy project block out shots. Today i am starting a essay for one of our other projects called PPD so i must do that today as it needs to be in by Monday!.

Next week i have to show Lewis one of my finished shots which is when patches hits the wall so see if hes happy with it for me to move onto my next shot which will be when patches is flying in the air. I also next week will be working on more of the block out shots for the dummy project. When all my block out shots are done and jb is happy with them i can move on to getting them properly done and animated.

Overall i am fairly happy with the work that i have done this week. I don't think time has been wasted and next week i hope to get more work done at a good quality level =)

patches wall hit (final)

Ok same 3 shots, but each slightly different with the legs and head, tell me what one you prefer. I like the last one best as his head don't turn til much later.

Dummy block out shots (scene 3)

ok so these are some of the block out shots for the Dummy film. I did these yesterday and they are fine for what we need so far. Everyone is also working on there block out shots in the group. Once Jb is happy with them we can move onto the next part of the animation phase

tasks for this week.

ok so this week i need to finish of the shot of patches hitting the wall for a final version for Lewis. Then sometime this week hopefully Thursday i can do some animation for the dummy project to yay =)

everything so far is more or less going well. Just need to put my foot down and get the work done and to a standard that will do my peers and college proud!

Patches hitting wall new

ok so i started this today after lunch. This will be the final time i do this shot. all i have done it patches hitting the wall nothing else yet. No slide or anything. Please tell me what you think so far.

patch flying shot (test)

did this today, another test lol. In the final version i would change the mouth so it don't change so early. I would also probably make the arms spaz out more up and down. Hopefully will start the final shots beginning next week if all the chars are ready.

patches hitting the wall shot. (test)

same shot but 3 different angles for you to see. I did this yesterday took me 3 hours i think. This was the first time i used this rig. It's pretty good there are some problems of course such as you cant stretch out his arms and legs much or the models skin goes funny. Lewis said when you key frame this blendshapes you cant see the keyframes on the time-line which is annoying when we come to lip sync this character. Tom said he would try fix this and also add a wobble deform-er for patches hair.

new lip sync test for pirates

heres another test i did today in college which took 2 hours-ish. i am fairly happy with it. but again this is just a test to help give me the training again for when i do the final real thing with the proper characters. This again had no work done on the line graph just like the one i did before. not bad tho....

tomorrow i am using the finished patches rig for pirates to start 2 of the final scenes.

1. patches hitting wall ahead of him
2. patches flying through the air.

First lip sync test for pirates project

ok so i managed to do this test in just over 2 hours!!! not bad i rekon. Ive still got it!!!! well i think i do if i get a few days to polish of a shot like this. Please note this test was just to test my skills again at lip sync!. This was not a test to show of character animation skills!!!. Lewis seemed fairly happy with it for the time i did it in and was more impressed with it then what the second years did and they had like 4 days i think and were still not up to the standard which lewis is wanting which is fair enough. This is breadbeard talking anyway i really like the voices in this film and cannot wait to do some more tests for my folder. On the final one i do i will obviously spend alot more time on the movement and actions of the character in this scene to make it really special for the film. But at least this test has shown me that im still not a bad animator and can defently bring something to the table. =)

assets complete for pirates!

ok i have finished the last 2 assets that i was assigned to do. i am very pleased with them both. the small bottle took me a while to master as i have never modeled one before. The big bottle did not take that long tho because i was much quicker at it which was good. the red bottle hasnt been smoothed yet but it looks good when it's smooth. i left it UN smoothed so it would be easier for ash to uv map as that is what he asked me to do.

so now what im doing next is using the max rig to start lip sync test's for the pirates project. i have my shots ready to animate for dummy just need to start that next week so all is ok at the moment.....

targets for this week!

had a meeting with Dan Dali yesterday which really helped me a lot and gave me some focus towards what i need to do if i want to see myself get through this last year at college. i have set my self a deadline for this Wednesday which is:

COMPLETE ASSETS FOR PIRATES PROJECT

And for next Tuesday i need to have done a lip sync test for pirate project using another rig such as the max rig which lewis will give me. but i will be lipsyncing an actual shot in the film so i can to test my skills again as its been a while since i last did lipsync.

i will also need to talk to jb this week to see what he wants me to do over this week and next week. for the dummy project

Dummy walk cycles

ok so here is 3 quick play blast tests of the dummy in a walk cycle. Ash did the female walk cycle and i did the male one. now the first one is the worst one that was my first attempt the second one is better and the 3rd one is a more sad depressed one which is what jb wanted. Now i wouldnt say im really happy with these walk cycles but i did the best of what i could with jb's rig which has its problems and restrictions. Now jb has improved the rig since the first test walk i did, but its still far from being really nice to use. for example the elbows always pop out when you move them around which is really anoying. the legs where on an ik handle i think and when moving them about you couldnt really do much with them or put them into many poses as it messed up the rest of the body position. Also the foot it self could not bend but jb has since fixed these issues that i brung up but i need to test his new rig to see what its like.

cola bottle for pirates project

this is the cola bottle so far. i still need to do the cap at the top and finish the bottom. but so far so good. will finish this today i hope =)

more pirate assets

Here is the high poly apple i modeled which i am really pleased about it looks really good i think. The other object is a stand that might be used for the fruit to sit in but that is not been fully decided yet i dont think.

pirate assets continued

This is a table stand that i also did. this will have items sitting on top or what ever else lewis has in mind for it.

Assets modeled for the pirate project

here are some of the assets i have modeled for lewis project. I wont be texturing these as they will be send to ashley for that. Im just helping the group get some assets done for the supermarket enviorment. as you can see i have modeled.

Pear & Banana
Police guard Grabber (JB has done the final one though)

and finally a chain that will be used to hang the signs in the supermarket. ash has modeled the signs and has them textured

some news

i know i havnt updated my blog in well over a month. But progress this term has been very strange. I have been focusing all my time on my dissertation as i want to make it the best i can possibly do. Both the dummy project and pirate one have taken a long back seat, and i really need to do some stuff for them both. i have modeled some 2 small objects for pirates project but nothing on the dummy one. But i hope to have my dissertation finished for this week, so that i can then focus my time on the other 2 projects. i will start animating for the dummy project very soon. we have the dummy rig all ready for it to be started. We have the final story boards done just need to get the dissertation finished.

Asset models for pirates of the produce asile

started modeling some small assets for Lewis project. its just a box one open and one closed. the other object is a poster rod. these objects will look much better once they have been textured.