CD

its done all my work is on the cd ready to hand in for 12, im happy with my result and learning new management software that will be useful for the third year. I feel my understanding of lighting has greatly improved as well as my texturing and modelling abilities. I think this project has pushed my abilities in all areas, which i am pleased with. It shows that i am willing to learn other aspects of cg and get on with the job.

I know im not the best out there, especially in some areas, but over the summer i feel i will harness my abilities in modelling, texturing and lighting, which will greatly help all in the third year as i may be a sort of free lancer helping groups who need me, but time will tell, if i get in!

Well the summer is here no rest though gona keep working! Lookout for a new blog!

Inspiration

Following on from looking at a number of adverts, games have also looked into snowboarding with amped, ssx, 1080 snowboarding, shawn wright... the list can easily go on. At the beginning i looked at amped mainly as it had a style which i felt was modern, alive, fresh and funky. I feel i have incorprated some of this in my project, but i realised most games back then were trying to look ultra realistic, obviously my characters arent humans, but i feel they are believable and the environment is believable. It has props that you would see in the mountains like rails, jumps and a few log cabins and homes, which is what i wanted in my piece. I wanted in to be believable and shows that i know what you would see near a ski resort.

A very late Animatic with poor quality

This video had been on my hard drive for a long time and didnt know how to upload it properly, but here it is in its full glory, it allowed me to understand the timings of each shot and what i could achieve.

Rendering and Animation

In previous posts i spoke about the troubles of my renders, i think it was due to a texture or a light in my project but it basicly mucked up my render, over the past week i refined one of the shorter shots animation as the previous one was pretty pants. So will be adding that to the existing advert.

Another thing i wanted to do was have tonnes of these lil characters doin ther thing in the environment this is another thing that failed. Again with the textures when importing them and looking at the render diagnostics ther was problems. I am happy though is more than one character.

As for the final day a lil bit of tweaking, that i have thought of and put some effects in it.

Frontier

Had a nice lecture from frontier it was mainly the same slideshow as last year, but it was still very useful to have a refresh from someone in the industry. It was particularly helpful to see some graduates work that they hired as it showed me what i needed to work to and also inspired me o get to that level or beyond in the next year. Just hope these companies are still recruiting :)

Time

Most of my time and effort recently has been put into finishing my dvd as i went back to it, to refine what i had already done as ther were some technical difficulties. My presentation that i felt went really well, so im happy with that. Then once that was done i went on to the essay and wanted to do well in that also. Leaving me with this week to refine the project, which i hope to do i may not be able to redo all the scenes, but i hope to look at one or two of them. Also the end sequence promoting burton isnt that good so i will be looking in to it.

Schedule and other information about the project

Below are some images of the final schedule, the cost and the amount of time it would take to complete this project in hours. Looking at the amount of time the total was 264 hours, i feel this is probably correct as some days i have got in at 8 and stayed till 4 or later. Also working from home has uped the hours. The amount payed would be nice for 7weeks work i would be happy with just over £3,000.

ROA

Well Rave on Air has past and it was a great success on the day, well done to Grigsby and his helpers organising it all and printing a lot of stuff for us. We got a lot of people in families and people from the industry who were all pleased and excited with our work.

Burton Advert, for some reason mine wasnt shown, im not sure why havent heard anything from the broadcasters it was a bit of shame as it would have been nice to have shown off my work.

Suzie from the mill was impressed with my texturing and lighting in my work and it was nice to have a compliment with someone in the industry as it meant that i knew i was getting to an industry standard. She game me some advice on presenting my work to companies, which i have taken into account.

For now though i am working on my presentation, dvd and essay. I have a final for burton that i am happy with and would like to complete my other projects before going back to that if i have time to re render and animate.

First Conclusion

Well... what a busy few weeks, but i finished all my work for ROA which is good as only a couple of us made it in. I am pleased with the work i produced in the amount of time i had, but now i have got a few weeks to refine the quality some of the animation or even add in a few extra bits! I am going to concintrate on my essay first though, because i do have something i can hand in for this project and nothing for the presentation or essay.

I am glad i stuck to my schedule and microsoft project is something i will definatly be using in future projects. Once again i was working on my own which i dont mind it gets a bit lonely as you cant bounce ideas off some one and friends cant really say if your work is looking epic as they dont really care as they arent in your team, so i only have myself to blame really.

The ROA broadcasters were happy to see another bit of animation, they did say that some of the color may need changing as it may be to bright or shiny, they were talking about the snow and there heads. But i think they will be changing that. I am really looking forward to ROA now and hope it will do the year some favours and people will look at our work. I hope for a good day!

Schedule change

Just realised that my schedule for compositing was ALL WRONG!!! It said that i had till the 3rd of June when it is actually Friday so have tweaked some stuff and it is now looking all good.

With what i said in the last post Music will be done tomorrow, today is rendering and compositing. Compositing will be done tomorrow as well. Then friday is making the last bit of the burton logo and rendering from after effects! Dont understand some of the stuff that needs to be done so hopefully i can just send it to one of the broadcast otherwise i may just be running round like a headless chicken. Well below is another update of the schedule!

Schedule, uh oh!

Well below is the latest schedule due to the render farm being a bit pants with my file, (must be something to do with the snow as that is the only thing that goes wrong) i am batch rendering, its done 3 out of the 5 scenes. I have put them into after effects and are ready for the last two shots. After that i need to think about sound otherwise it will be a silent movie which is never good, but it could still work as the story is so simple! And i need to do a little ident for burton at the end saying something like 'always wear protection'

So as for my schedule i do need to sort out the render time as it isnt going to take 2 days more like 4 which means compositing will be one day and sound will be one day, which will be tomorrow as my renders will be done by then.

Lighting Part 2

Well today just worked on one scene this lighting is suppose to represent dusk/dawn i think it works quite well once again it is using mentalrays sun light. but i have changed alot of render settings, gamma corrections and saturation i think it does its purpose of dusk, but could do with some tweaking in photoshop, well enjoy.

Lighting

As my work is now rendering, well i hope? I am starting to look into lighting a bit more as i feel in order for my environments to look the part i need to understand them a bit more so i have been doing some test playing around with the render settings and taking some useful hints of the internet and produced two images so far the first is a daytime scene the second is suppose to be at night i think some of the shadows look a bit wrong but for now i am pretty pleased with them and they didnt take to long to render either always good!

Reflection

Alot of the research below really would have helped me putting it in at the beginning and i could always see and use it for inspiration putting it in now has made me think a lot about my idea and little things i may have tweaked. But its to far ahead now to think about that. Sam also told me about an idea we had ages ago and it would have been nice to have done and we were both really excited about it. He said we could do it in the summer so maybe. He would have been a good project.

My work for now is rendering for ROA so that is exciting im hoping the college is open monday so i can check it and put the next shot on. By rendering it now it means i do have a video to show if all else fails after ROA if not then it means i can see it at ROA get criticisms and work on them after ROA, which would be nice.

Fanta Advert

This is a 2008 advert by a company i think called tokyoplastic it seems like a lot of work is based in this style which is simple and fresh. I like the use of black and white with an extra color in this case orange. It highlights what is being promoted in the advert. Once again i could have gone for this style and had the highlights maybe on his face and his bum pack. As it shows the two things i am promoting Burton and the new bum pack. The advert once again has a story to it with this guard gettin anoyed with the kid and putting up rules and in this case the fanta breaks these down and the boy can relax and do what he wants.

C'mon

So leading on from the lost post the Vauxhall corsa C'mon advert was a source of inspiration for my character, small, unlife like, yet has some sort of character to him. I feel my character does lack this at the moment but hopefully after ROA i can tweak the animation and show that this character is brave and mr.cool! I wanted my 30 second advert to be a bit like the corsa one a bit of story ther but then shows of the products unique selling point in the corsas point of view a bike rack. You can now buy the C'mon toys and ther is a variety this could be something my project could lead on to with a few extra characters.

Lips

This image is from an advert for a game called lips on the xbox 360 the character walks through different environments singing take on me he then ends up on a mans shoulders who is playing the game. This character is very nice and shows the audience that if you have lips you can play the game its very direct and straight to the point. You know what the character is all about. This is an approach i could have taken with my project, a simple pair of legs and a massive bum pack nothing else. I still feel my character has some advantages and can be a mascot for burton and goes along the lines of the vauxhall corsa com'on characters. Could be a cuddly toy, i would buy it! But i feel this approach would have made my character more direct and product focused.

Formative

Well this morning was good, we had a formative assessment. Spoke to Jared and some fellow peers about my project and i was pleased with the comments and the grading so far.

I need to look into other companies who have done adverts with a character representing the brand, i have a few that i know of that i can look into, these will be put on the blog. Jared also said i need to be more creative im very good at taking other peoples ideas and adapting them and molding them, but not with my own ideas. This is something i can look into over the long run as it is a on going process. I also spoke about my fears of animation, but in time this skill will hopefully get better.

Jared was impressed with my organisation skills and keeping my schedule up to date and putting this on my blog, he also said that my technical strengths were modelling and lighting which was nice to know. I still need to develop my texturing skills and how to get the best out of them.

So for now i will just continue what i have been doing but also show a bit more research and say where i have got my ideas from.

Animation, Me? Ha

Well its been along time since doing any serious animation and it was a struggle at first. I decided to ask Phil how he goes about animating as he is pretty good and thats the field he wants to go into. He animates by doing the key poses, so the startin position on frame1 then on frame 2 he does the end pose. Then stretching them out u can see what needs to change in order to give burton boy a bit of flair and character or if arms go through objects etc.

I have approached this style and the short sequence below shows what i have come up with so far for the last shot. The right arm definatly needs some work to it.

Schedule

This is the updated schedule, i have been doing this every week, but just havent put it on the blog till now, its going well. With most of the targets stuck to the course and giving myself extra time for some parts, i am still on schedule. Its just the animation that will take awhile as i havent done it for a while but after ROA i can refine it, for now i just want to make sure it is ready for ROA.

Burton Boy

Realised i hadnt shown any pictures of burton boy and the rig... Its a very basic rig i know if i had more time i would have spent more time on it and make some useful controls for it like a jiggle for his belly etc. Having the controls would have made it easier to control him however at the moment its working for me and the only person i can criticise the animation for is myself, instead of trying to blame someone else (the rigger). But yeah below is him in a few positions showing how he works and how i looked at the weights which are normally good, i think!

Update

Well started animation today i have decided to do around 10seconds of footage of just random burton boys in the environment and use them in the different shots. Im hopeing its going to look good and not look like i have just copied the same footage. If time obviously will change some of it and mix it up.

I tried doing a test render on qube and for some reason it doesnt like final gathering which is a bit upsetting as it gives the piece a fine quality and detail. So it may have to be the old batch render the whole of next week meaning everything needs to be done by friday, ther goes my schedule.

I will email hulse to see if he has any ideas on the render farm or ther is a cheaper way of rendering and still giving a good quality to the piece.

The End Shot

Ok the modelling as predicted as nearly been done i am currently working on the last shot where burton boy has crashed through the building. This should be completed tomorrow and textured.


Meaning i can start on the animation, which im not looking to forward to definatly my weakest area, but will give it my best shot with what i know. I have also organised my scene files so i have one for each shot and that ther isnt any warnings when it comes to rendering and have created the cameras for them.



Below is the concept for the last shot...

Today

Well today been working on the final modelling i think the majority of it is in ther a feel the shots will have enough in them and it will look like it belongs some where with objets in the background to make the whole environment feel huge.

Tomorrow i wil model the final shot of burton boy in the broken house this can be done in a seperate scene as ther is going to be a fade to black in between hitting the house and it crumbling. Below are some images from the first two shots.

Shot 2

Below is an initial idea of how shot 2 may look like, i think burton boy looks ok in the scene at the moment. Today i have worked on some secondary animation which are the chairlifts pretty pleased with how they look got to do the same for if they are coming down. Once again i have some problems with rendering had a look and it is to do with the textures its a bit anoying but i can get on with other things for now.

I really need to start thinking about these trees im not liking them at the moment they just dont fit i feel. But at least the majority of the modelling is done which i want to finish by friday.

Success

Well i thought it was going to be a good day and it has...


Firstly i spoke to Sultan a guest lecturer and he really helped me out and explained a lot of stuff for me about texturing and that i dont actually need a lot of detail in them to make an object look good. So i went into photoshop and decreased the amount of pixels in my textures.



With this done i went back into maya and changed them all and success i was able to render again, i now realise why some of my old projects wernt working properly.



With that done i started to model and try and finalise my scene. This now came to the second point of help from sultanand showed me how i can attach a file to a light to give it that shadow, this was going to be very useful for my trees as ther shadows had gone rectangular. This is something i may add to my project.



So for now i am pretty happy with the progress of my project.

Rendering and update

Well i think ther may not be many screenshots for a while i keep getting an error of low memory, textures and performance not working have emailed alex hulse, just waiting for a reply. But the project is going well have updated my plan and i feel i am still on track which is good considering i have just found out that the deadline has been pushed forward by 3 days so i will need to consider my schedule later on. The 29th of may.

For now i am carrying on with the final designs of the mountain and props, it is going well so far but this needs to be finished this week so i have a solid week of animating then editing and compositing. Should be fun as long as the renders work!

Concept Art

Below are some of the images i created using refrence from some of my earlier pictures, continuing with the theme of unrealistic and a bit crazy i wanted to add a lot of character to the mountain i have starterd this in 3d but think it needs a lot more to it.

Scene

Well apart from going to some of the adobe lectures i have done some small tweaking on the scene and played around with some of my old work and put it in as i felt they may fit the scene they are the houses from the authentic project.

BurtonBoy (BB)

Yeah have done a littlie bit of work on him tried doing a walk test and realised how hard it may be, but thinking about it i dont think ther is a shot wher he needs to walk so i should be ok it was only going to be if ther were other characters in the scene.

Inspiration

For the scene a lot of my inspiration has not come from a game, but from a theme park in florida called blizzard beach. its quite wacky abd crazy and has helped me alot in the concept stage and storyboarding. These just came out of google images.

Todays Events

Erm today was partly productive, i wanted to get to college early ended up getting in later than usual took an hour to get in not fun at all. But anyway...

Worked a bit on other projects first, and tried to get some work sorted for my show reel, that didnt go to well.

So i had another look at Burton Boy, and was pleased with my rigging and painting weights as it has been like a year since doing them. I once heard dave saying that he replaces weights and then goes over them with the smooth. I gave it a go and was very pleased with the results, will post some images tomorrow of his flexability. I have realised that the characters are going to find it very hard to walk as ther bodys are so low. But i think it will work may do a walk cycle tomorrow.

Apart from that did a few tweaks on the scenery got a lot more to model but should be fine if i crack on with that as well tomorrow or Friday.

Told Jared about the idea said it was ok to do, but could expand it. I think for now i will stick with the idea i have got otherwise im just going in all different directions.

Updated Project

The Idea

Yeah looking at the blog i realised i havent actually said the idea...

Well after talking to Jared and getting a bit of a boost for the project and an throwing some ideas around i have gone with a 30second short with a character i have created called burton boy.

The idea is basicly him being a slick and smooth snowboarder very laid back, bit like my self actually. Anyway thers a bid jump no one goes on it as global warming has made it the biggest jump in the world. He doesnt bother to read any of the signs to tell him to stop and goes for the ramp. Not realising his speed and the wind direction he is swept to the right!!!!

HIS COURSE IS NOW TAKING HIM STRAIGHT TO A NEARBY LODGE...

Luckily he is a quick thinker and he remembers he has his bum pack that he is testing for Burton he rotates to make the impact hit his bum.

Inside the wreckage he is safe and sound thanks to his bum pack.

Always wear protection.

Well thats the idea at the moment need to speak with Jared to see if thats ok.

Storyboard coming along

Today worked partly in maya and partly 2D below are some of the images of the storyboard i havent put the character in as i find it easier to put them in after but here they are for now.

Product Design

Well the product design people came over i did miss the burton presentation, wasnt told what time it started though, thanks! But looked at it afterwards and it looks like a bum bag... The presentation was the same as my idea of bright colours and a bit funky with this in mind my character may and may not fit as i feel an unrealistic character can add more funk and flair to the pice by doing unrealistic snowboard oves etc. so i created Burton boy! images below show him at his best! And showing his body part which will be used the most... his bottom!

Back to the idea

I had the thought of different parts of a shot to come on to the screen from different places i have tested it and the out come is below i also thought it would be nice if the pieces were paper and they were all coming together to make up the shot. Now with this it will be ok when the object isnt moving but with the character it may be a bit harder. And i dont think it looks as good as i thought.

Decision

The past couple of days i have been thinking if i shud scrap the burton idea and go for a 30second animation with my own character. After careful thinking i have decided to stick with Burton.

My idea will stick the same, im still waiting to see the product design students to see the product i should be advertising. I had been thinking of a character and thought of it to be realistic this will take a long time to model, after talking to Yaniv he told me that a stickman would be ok and fairly easy to animate, so with that i have made a sort of burton stickman! Needs tweaking but there he is.

Snow tutorial

Found this tutorial so may try it a bit later un less i find a better one.
http://www.modernmayhem.com/wordpress/?page_id=7

Schedule

This is planning at its best

No business like Snow business

Well this morning has been very productive, been looking at a lot of tutorials just sinking them in not even doing them, mainly cos i dont have the software at home. I have however followed a tutorial on the internet and created some nice snow i feel, for my first time of trying!