Project 303

Final Word

2008-06-13T23:48:00.000-07:00

As a final word on this blog, i just want to recognise the whole team;

Jonathan Pryce [Director]
Jenny Morgan [3d Artist]
Giles Pease [Technician]
Dan Hayes [Lead Animator]
Ben Griffin [Concept Artist]
(...not to forget Yemi Adelekan, Rebecca Morgan, and Alistair Primrose)

for their outstanding commitment and dedication to the film. As a team we worked well, effectively and professionally together, and not forgetting the fun we managed have along the way. This film for me has been and character building experience to say the least, and not only have i enjoyed making the film but the company i've shared whilst doing so. Its been fun and clearly rewarding and we should all be really proud.

Well done guys once again and all the best.

Rob
[Producer]

Final Output

2008-06-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

The film has finally been completed and all that is left to do is output the movie with sound from premiere. I did this for hand in today and found that an uncompressed Quicktime movie with stereo sound was 6.33GB!!

So i decided to compress with the soreson3 compressor available and stuck with stereo sound (as i believe it plays a massive part int he movies feel, and therefore must remain as higher quality as possible) and the file size dropped to 455MB, perfect for hand in.

The Edit

2008-06-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

The edit has been progressing since January, and finalized about a month ago. All i had to do this evening was take the final renders of the film and place them over the top of the playblasts we had done prior to rendering in the edit and ensure they we're all the same as the previous edit; this was to avoid any discrepancies with the sound. It went pretty well other then a few issues with a couple of render notes we had taken when rendering out our playblasts were not quite accurate. but a bit of clipping and we were there.

Organizing and creating the credits, with Alistairs music also

2008-06-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

A slightly frustrating task I have to say, since everyone wants to be credited for what they have done. Which is fair enough, however, as advised by the tutors not a good idea regarding that we want our viewers to leave the film feeling excited and remember it for its good points; as apposed to the long drawn out affair of some boring rolling credits. Therefore, after looking at the word of Saul Bass and some good advice from our tutor Jared Taylor, we decided to shorten the Credits to specifics as much we could and come up with some designs for them.

Reciept of Alistairs adjustments, and final output

2008-06-11T21:39:00.000-07:00

Today we received the final draft of Alistair's score, and it was fine. we still had to adjust a few levels in favor of Beci's sound effects, but other then that it fit perfectly on top of the film. The music certainly does create a exciting mood about the film and aids the fast paced tempo we were aiming to achieve in this film. Nicely done Alistair, really nice work.

Received sounds from Becky and from Alistair

2008-06-08T23:45:00.000-07:00

Today we received all the music back from both Beci and Alistair and placed it on top of the final edit with all the renders already inserted ( a quick and easy job that was finished yesterday morning). Although both sounded fantastic on their own, I suspected that they wouldn’t sound as brilliant together and some levels would have to played with. Therefore, Jenny, Jono and myself, once again sat down and played it over and over and over again until our heads went numb trying to find the right levels for both tracks at their significant parts of the film. This was a long process, and one part of this film where opinions seemed to be more varied then ever. But non the less, we nailed it and in the end were all happy with the final out put of sound.

However, one more thing needed to be sorted by Alistair, as once again he hadn’t quite timed one section correctly. Therefore a quick phone call got him back on it and we hope to receive the file tomorrow. Which as before the levels (which we now know where the changes need to be made) need to be adjusted and a final out put can be assembled.

Organizing Renders

2008-06-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Whilst the files were being rendered, I used the time I needed to organize the renders that had been completed into scenes and shots, to make the transfer to the edit smoother and quicker. I found that by doing this doing this the task of dropping them into premiere was such an easy task and I am very glad I took that small amount of time to organize myself as a result.

Meeting with soundtrack composer

2008-06-06T23:11:00.000-07:00

Today me and Jono went to see our score artist as a result of the audio file we received last night. The music, although very good and clearly right for the film, had no sign of timing or understanding of what was in shot. The music seemed to be out of sync and after talking with Alistair it was some what deliberate. Therefore Jono and myself saw fit to spend a good few hours with him in order to give some direction on the what went wanted the audience to feel at certain points. Although our presences probably frustrated Alistair, from a creative prospective, we certainly new what we wanted and once the piece had been out together Alistair agreed that it sounded better and made more sense. Therefore we left him with the rest of the film and a better understanding of what we wanted, with somewhat of an excited feeling inside.

Rendering was started and order was organised.

2008-06-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

The rendering proved to be somewhat frustrating where once again we were restricted due to hardware. The only pc that seemed to be able to render was Giles’ and therefore to ensure it was all done, we had to man the PC all day, everyday for the last week, rendering each scene end on end. Other then that the rendering went well and only a few problems arose like random missing textures, which mostly were sorted in Adobe Premiere by my self and the defects were not visible at all.

Since the temple was all being rendered on Giles’ pc, I thought I utilize my own to finalize and render the Kitchen scenes. It seemed that neither Jenny nor Jono’s laptop could handle the Maya file either which was enormously frustrating, but irresolvable at this point. Therefore, my time was now spent manning the both my own and Giles’ PC’s to ensure both of them were rendering constantly. Albeit not the most taxing task, but a very boring one, and I spent a lot of time watching numbers ticking over on screen.

Spent an evening lighting the main chamber

2008-06-05T12:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a continuation on from the weekend, where once again I found my self with Jono and Dan finishing up during the early hours of the morning after a long attempt to try and light the main chamber within the temple. We took some time concentrating on the lights themselves, but realized that we needed the accompaniment of fog to acquire that dingy dark chamber feel.

This however made todays work a hell of a lot easier as we had decided to keep a similar style running throughout the whole interior. The problem we had was the lighting of the corridors. The justification of light source is hard enough in a large chamber, but in corridors with no light holes it was hard. We decided to place spot lights at either end of the corridors to simulate light flooding from the chambers either side. Furthermore we used a series of low intensity ambient lights to soften the harsh shadows we were getting on our character, which was restricting our view of the characters face and body. The fog node worked throughout and created some pleasing results.

Organizing drop in files and animations

2008-06-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days have a been rather stressful due to the size of the files I’ve been dealing with, which has resulted in multiple computers crashing on the event of opening the files. My aim was to take all of the animations out of their environments and place them into the textured/lit sets, along with the cameras, but was seeming an impossible task, since it was only Giles’ PC that would open any files (due to its immense hardware specification). However, the problem of months of Maya binary and data being copied and pasted and exported and imported meant that a large amount of baggage was being held within these files. Although un-necessary history was being deleted along the way if not by me by everyone else, and the geometry that wasn’t being used was deleted, a lot of data still remained in the outliner. Only during the last couple of days have I realized this. Therefore, whilst preparing the files, I found myself deleting shed loads of history and data that wasn’t needed from these files, which not only time consuming but very demanding on the computers being used to do it. Never the less, it was sorted and I was able to open the files a lot quicker and they appear to run smoother now.

Receipt of texturing

2008-06-04T16:31:00.000-07:00

Today, Jenny, Dan, Jono and my self brought all our textures to see if they matched in style and fit nicely into the environment. The sets were primarily meant to be dark and the style of Jono’s walls along with my floors really helped get that feel across. Although I felt that maybe the chamber had more of a somewhat medieval feel to it, I loved the way the stone walls and the dingy floors set an eerie ambiance in the set. Can’t wait to see it lit.

Final Bllitz on texturing

2008-06-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

Today we started the texturing of the temple interior. We knew this would be a long job, however, with Dan free from animation and Jenny always at hand, Jono, Jenny, Dan and my self all took a section; along with a selection of colour swatches and a few methods we all agreed on to produce a consistent style throughout. The jobs had to be organised first and then delegated to each one of use. Jono for example did all of the walls for the two chambers. Jenny took on the assets, such as stones rocks and plants (which had already been done) and the Dan took on the walls for both corridors. He also took time to texture the assets in his area which really helped Jenny meet her deadline for her textures. I my self textured the floors throughout along with the altar and the statues either side.

Lighting on the house left to Giles

2008-06-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, Giles found himself at a loose end during the texturing process so I asked him to finalise the lighting for the house interior. This went well and we were happy with the work. However, today when I came to prepping the set for rendering, the lighting had strangely changed and half the lights were turned off. Therefore Jono took on the task of finalising the lighting for this set. This took a while and the results were not bad.

Colouring the rest of the explorers

2008-06-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

Using the colouring method we decided to use for the explorer the other day, Jono and my self sat down to colour all the files that had been animated prior to the realization of the wrap problem. This took some time due to the tedious nature of the process, however it only took half an evening and by making it a race between the two of us, it got done quicker then we thought.

Reciept of Animation

2008-05-31T23:34:00.000-07:00

On Friday I received all the animation files, from Yemi, Dan and Ben. The animations were spot on and I proceeded to produce all the play blasts needed in the final cameras in order to produce a final and timed edit for our sounds designers. I did this with the hep of both Dan and Jono, who both helped me decide on the absolute final cameras and timings for the final edit. Dan’s persistence and effort was much appreciated here, as he lives far away and stayed with us all through the night; something that a lot of the group members haven’t done with me and Jono on our many VERY late nights. Thanks Dan.

We started Saturday morning and finished tonight (Sunday). It didn’t take a large amount of time due to Dan’s experience film his film studies A-level and the advice we got from Kev a couple of weeks before. Tomorrow I will be meeting with Beci (Jennys sister and our sound designer) and will email the file to Alistair tomorrow afternoon.

Rendering the jungle shot

2008-05-31T22:34:00.000-07:00

The rendering went pretty well on Giles’ PC and it only took two days. There was a slight problem with one of the cameras where one key frame that shouldn’t have been there was jolting the camera; consequently the shot had to be re-rendered and replaced. Fortunately, the edit allowed for a break in the middle of this shot and therefore we only had to render half the amount of frames. As annoying as it was at the time, we managed to get the renders re-done and into the edit with no problems at all. Fortunately all the animation hasn’t been done for the explorer character yet. So new Coloured rigs can be issued to Dan to save time later on.

Finalising the pan shot

2008-05-31T14:11:00.000-07:00

The jungle production had been left entirely up to Jenny and Jono who have both done a fantastic job on the layout, textures and modeling. However it seemed that the final shot of panning up through the canopy to reveal the landscape above was proving difficult to achieve. I joined the two of them to try and make it work. It didn’t take much more then a pair of fresh eyes to help them realize they were pretty much there. I suggested that the fog planes that they had put be taken away and we used Photoshop to achieve a similar appearance. All in all, the canopy shot was pretty much done and with a little tweaking we pulled off something we didn’t think we’d be able to do. Well done guys.

Canopy (Daytime)
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Canopy (Dusk)
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Lighting the pan up set. Was quite hard to get it right, even though it was just a spot light; placement seemed vital in this shot, to not justify the source, but to create a pleasant image.
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Shot of canopy pass
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Wrap Problems

2008-05-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

Today has been really stressful. I spent a lot of the day with Giles trying to organise some of the jungle files that needed to be rendered. However it started to become apparent that the files containing the Explorer character would not open on any pc other than Giles’! The problem seemed occurred when the calculation of the rig was taking place and the whole file would crash. After a little bit of discussion and some realisation of time available and the work load still to achieve, it was somewhat an impossibility to go back to the drawing board and ask Dan to animate them again once the rig was rectified. Therefore we decided to open all the files that had been animated under a wrap and delete the wrap. The only problem that derived from this idea was that the character had not be UV-ed; a consequence it seemed of the dissertation, where Jono lost a lot of time. The only solution to this problem was the character had to be coloured by selecting faces and applying lamberts to them. Albeit a little primitive method, it worked better then we thought.

Finalising the lighting for the Jungle shots

2008-05-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight Jono, Dan and myself sat down and did some of the lighting for the first jungle shot, which although took an hour or two to complete, was well worth it and the results were great. Jono had previously come up with the idea of light rays coming down through the scene and having spots of intense light hitting the floor and leafs etc around our character sitting down. The holes in the canopy were lined with plants to give the light patches a realistic feel rather then a random round patch.

The best thing about last night however was the realization that rendering was less then 24 hours away and we are planning on spending tomorrow tidying the set and preparing it for the render.

Texturing the Floors

2008-05-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

This week I’ve started the textures for the temple. I’m a little shocked at how long it is taking me to do some of them, however I believe that I’m being a little to picky on what it looks like, so I’m taking a more laid back approach and stop being such a perfectionist. The floors have almost been done and then I can start on the walls.

Exterior House Creation

2008-05-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

After looking at the “to do list” I saw that a fair few of the jobs (ones in grey) were quick to do and some of those surround the exterior shot of the house. I agreed to allow no more then two days to this shot with the consideration that it was a static 8 seconds shot. The only issue I ran into was the trees behind the house and the hedge in the foreground. It seemed that to match our style I was unable to complete before the second day was out. Therefore this has been left for a later date and those things have remained unchecked on the to do list.

Note: if anyone is looking for a skydome texture this website is awesome…
http://mpan3.homeip.net/earth

Animation deadline finalisation

2008-05-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

After this delegation of work, Jono and I had to make it very clear that in order to have the sound ready and perfect for deadline, not to mention render time, we would need the animation by the 30th of May. This went down well with the guys and I am confident we will receive it all back for rendering by that weekend.

Animation Workload Problem

2008-05-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

It became apparent to us today that animation was becoming very tight, and almost not doable with one person. We took some time to discus with Dan what was still needed to be animated and how long he proposed it would take. We decided on his judgment that we would need at least another animator to make our animation deadline, two to make it a comfortably. It was by chance really that two days ago we had a call from Yemi (another friend and animator on our course) saying he was finished on his own film and was happy to help if we needed him for animation. Our other group member, Ben Griffin, recently decided he also wants to specialize in animation, and although a lack of confidence in his ability, we gave him a section to.

Rendering Scene1Shot1

2008-05-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

The render was set back a week due to Ben tardiness with a few of the asset textures, however, once delivered were good and fitted nicely into textures already there. The set was then ready and using a spare laptop we set it rendering over night. The renders came out well and only took one night to process. Having said that once placed into Adobe Premiere the shot seemed extremely dark and lacked contrast. However using a few colour correction nodes available in the program I was able to create the initial look of the shot and it has been consider a finished shot…1 down 9 more to go…aarrrggghhh!

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Texturing the Sleeping Guy

2008-05-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

The sleep walking character was pretty easy to texture due to the original design. The design consisted of a sky blue top with white and blue stripy bottoms. Bare feet and hands and that were it. The trousers although started off as a chore to do, but did not take to long in the end. All the textures were hand painted using a graphics tablet.

Normal Texture map for guy
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The Burnt Texture map
(only half textured as not all the body was seen in shot)
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Screen Shots of the mesh textured
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Rethinking of Schedule

2008-05-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

Over one sleepless night (possibly due to the slow diminishing organization of the timetable) I decided to make a list of all things that needed to be completed in order to finish each individual shot. This seemed to help clears heads immediately and helped me sleep that night very soundly. Although there seemed a lot to do, it is to say the least doable and all that was needed was a little consideration of not only the important jobs, but more so the tiny ones that fill the holes.

Texturing the walls and floor

2008-05-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

The wall and carpet textures weren’t a problem and with the lighting already in place it was easy to know what was needed in the textures and could place it in and test with a render shot to get an idea of what it would look like.

Creating the pause menu screen and the map

2008-05-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

I used Tomb Raider as my main influence and mimicked the design for our own paused game menu. I produced the background in Photoshop and created a 3D render of the golden cake spinning, with the intention of playing an AVI on the screen, to give the set a more animated feel.

It seemed however that some technical issues with Maya and lack of knowledge on how to solve it created a barrier. After a little deliberation and time thinning, I decided that it wasn’t overly important to the story that it moved and was own in the interest of aesthetics; therefore I created a static 2D texture in Photoshop using one of the render stills as an alternative.

The map was a simple job and took an hour or so to make, with pleasing results. The aim was to produce an indication of some kind as to what the explorer or perhaps the game character in the TV would need to motivate him to race through and explorer an ancient temple.

The map didn’t take long and to be honest I really enjoy it. I’ve always enjoyed using Photoshop and this sort of work is more like light relief from the 3D work.

The Game Menu with new logo
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The new Aztec Escape logo
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Golden Cake Render
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Background image
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Tidying the house set

2008-05-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

The next task I felt was important, not only for the progression of the project, but also for the moral of everyone on the team. Questions were arising of when the rendering will start and although very clear within the schedule, the general worry was the render time itself. I took some time with Jenny to set up some basic lighting in the set and placed in all the available assets in order to get some render time estimates.

The next task for me was to create a texture for the walls and the carpet and finally the screen and paper map that will be resting on the sleeping character.

Camera Angle Adjustment

2008-05-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

The other day I received an email from Gareth Munden (a tutor whose specialism is cinematography) with a brief comment on the animatic I had uploaded onto my Facebook page. He stated “there are a lot of shots from behind” and suggested that we should take a second look at the entire initial shot. Gareth wasn’t working with us this term and therefore wasn’t at our disposal. I then branched out to a contact and good friend of mine who graduated from Ravensbourne last year, and now works as a camera man for various companies. Kev spent an evening with me to help determine the main issues with our cameras and furthermore rectify. It seemed to be a slow process in some cases due to his in-experience with 3D software and the communication of visual ideas became a slight barrier. Nevertheless the issues were clear and from the knowledge picked up from tutors and a book I value highly (called Shot-by-Shot) Jono and myself spent an evening finalising cameras the following day. Kev reviewed the camera adjustments later on and confirmed for us that they we’re much better and created a much more dramatic and brisk tone to run sequence.

During the camera adjustments Jono and I felt it would be helpful to get an idea of some lighting as this would enable us to film the set in accordance to this (an idea deriving from some information on the live action processes that Kev took me through). Some idea renders are shown below.

Old Cameras...

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New Cameras...

Dressing the main chamber

2008-05-10T02:15:00.000-07:00

Today I spent most of my time dressing the chamber with the plants that Jenny made for the jungle set. Due to there not being many initial concept designs for this I just had place them where it looked right and build up the feeling that it had been vacant for a long time. The altar set was what I found most difficult as I wanted to create a close environment of plants etc to eliminate large areas of space around the altar. I had to be careful due to the cameras we had set up and the animation that we are going to receive from Dan later on (the animation was only an issue because we didn’t know exactly where he would be stepping, so a large area in front had to be kept clear).

Had a quick jab at lighting the set to see what the lighting we wanted would look like...I think it works really well
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UVing the main chamber.…how boring!!

2008-04-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

Once the modelling was complete I used an evening to tidy the entire set, and get it ready to be UVied. Jono and I took a little while that same evening to consolidate the other parts of the interior environment in the interest of keeping the sets organised and up to date.

Once the files had been merged and we had finalised the sets model, I took a copy and started to create the UV maps for the chamber. Albeit a tedious task, creating UV maps isn’t to taxing (probably half the reason for its tedious nature) when dealing with static, generic objects. However, it seemed the amount I had to UV was going to take me days. In totally it has taken me the entire week (Monday to Friday) to completely UV the consolidated file we set up. Although not my initial goal was to only do the chamber, I had to take on the rest of the file and and UV Jono’s section due a set back on his end of things.

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UV map examples

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Screen Grabs of UV's

Jungle Lighting Tests

2008-04-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Today Jenny, Jono and myself sat down with the intention of pinning down a lighting style for the jungle set. I sat in as a tech for this and operated the mouse. The lighting Jono and Jenny took much consideration over and together the 3 of us figured out how we could get a nicely lit, convincing scene with a low render time. Maya Software was our only option and due to the busy nature of the set the render times we’re expected to be high. However, much to our surprise it was only taking a minimum of 2 minutes and maximum of 3.

First attempt!! one ambient and a spot light...how primitive!

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The floor was to dark so we changed that and added shadows to the spot light we had and then added another one as a fill light.

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Added some environment fog...

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We seriously lowered the ambient to place emphasis on the spot light and give the jungle a more enclose feeling.

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Finally we placed some spot lights in the back of the set to light up some areas and give some depth to the scene.

Statue Modeling

2008-04-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

For the last two days I've been working on the Statues that rest either side of the altar. The original designs i produced were interesting and matched the style. I have my concerns however that after seeing the 3D visualization of the designs, i don't feel it fits very well into the environment. I hold confidence however that once textured the models will blend together and create an interesting scene that without being to distracting. The second statue was a variation of the first statue. The only reason i thought this was necessary was to save some time, plus it kept the consistency between the two models. I then changed the second model to match the initial design. Other then some hanging moss and vines the models are complete ready to be UV-ed.

This is the end result of the first model
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This is a screen grab to show how the statues compare in 3D next to their respective designs
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This a screen grab of the two statues in the environment; the image gives a good understanding of spacing and scale, and fits the original design nicely.

Altar Modeling

2008-04-22T06:21:00.000-07:00

The Altar was a model i started to attempt back in January, but decided to step back and plan before i just spontaneously modeled just anything. Then it seemed not necessary to work on assets at that time. Friday 18th i spent the day on it and modeled it in a total of 6-8hours. I was not only impressed with the time it took but more so the outcome. Although not being the highest poly model, it holds a lot of vital detail and once the normals are sorted out the model will have a more pleasant visual appearance.

Although not totally UV-ed yet, the model is almost ready for texturing and has been placed in the environment and fits nicely as you can see in the images below. The final touches to this set will include dressing the set with plants and clutter such as rock etc.

This was a stage where i was testing the differant arrangements of the stones under the altar.
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Here is a few examples of the Altar after the cracks had been modeled
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This was the finished article without a texture, and all parented to the control curve at the base, which later hold the animation controls for the buttons and knobs.
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This was a quick screen grab of the Altar in the environment.

Render Timings

2008-04-18T04:49:00.001-07:00

With the deadline in mind, i took some time today to consider the possible render times of each frame for differant lighting and rendering techniques. Although not an experienced lighter, i decided to take three basic techniques that were easy to set up in Maya and note the times it takes to render them. In total we have anywhere up to 5000 frames in the film and whilst understanding that some frames could take anything up to 8mins to render, i started to pull my hair out.

A provisional look at some Maya Software render options, i noticed that i would be looking at a maximum of 1 minute per frame, due to the shadows only relying on depth maps rather then Ray tracing etc. However the renders had an albeit crisp, but very CG side look about them and seemed to be missing, for lack of a better word, substance and depth (Fig.1)

(Fig.1)

The final Gather pass that i did (Fig.2) looked pretty good, although in my opinion wouldn't be much good unless we used object lighting, due to the environment being enclosed (still need to do some tests for that). Never the less, i thought i should consider the option for time management and get a rough, intial, idea of how long that may take. The quality, i felt wasnt what we wanted, however, without textures in the scene and it being only one light, its difficult to judge. Personally, this type of rendering is a big no no!! The Final Gather renders took an average of 2 minutes per frame.

(Fig.2)

Another test i did with a new technique i found out from Jenny, was Sun and Sky simulation; a mental ray node that uses a directional light and preset settings, utalising a combination of final gather ray tracing and possibly abient occlusion to simulate an exterior atmosphere. Although refinement would be needed, the below render (Fig.3) gives an idea of quality and style. One which i think is a potential for our jungle environment lighting. However a much more ambient style of lighting is going to be needed for the inside of the temple. The Physical Sun and Sky renders took an average of 3 minutes per frame; when noting thats without textures, i'm not to optimistic that we'll have enough time to render these frames, but we'll see.

(Fig.3)

Animatic

2008-04-17T17:00:00.001-07:00

This week Jono and myself made a point of sitting down and finalizing the animatic for the sake of Dans schedule and the general flow and understanding of the edit for the group. We spent considerable time looking at camera angles, and the allowed for the camera to dolly in and out, and track and bank etc. We really wanted to take an approach where the camera could contribute a large amount to the action and excitement instead of just relying on the music and pace. Although in my opinion, the edit could have a much more choppy style, with faster cuts etc, the edit works well. A copy of this has been sent to our Score artist and our sound designer to experiment with sound and music. When these return we will have a much better idea of the feel of the final short.

Direction

2008-04-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

With the Dissertation out of the way and the easter break hanging over us, we have had a lot of time to catch up on what we missed or left behind during February. I would say we have comfortably caught up, however with a lot things hanging over our heads. Modelling according to our intial schedule showed that it should have been completed and texturing well underway. Therefore, Jon and myself have deemed in important that we have all the modelling done by the end of this week. Although slightly ambitious, the concept is doable and we have all hands on deck with a "seemingly" eager crew this term.

The Schedule for this term looks as follows:

This shows a very basic version and all our group members have been encouraged to create and comunicate their own personal schedule. This will take pressure away from Jono and Myself so far that we can concentrate on meeting our own personal deadlines.

Shot Composites

2008-04-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

After the story was reworked, me and Jono had carried on with our dissertation, during which we revisited the film regularly and decided on some provisional shot compositions etc. The shots below were just a few that had changed at the start of the animatic and the transition shot itself. Below is also a locator for where the transition will occur (this sketch was the first thing we drew when coming up with the idea for this transition.

Final Chamber Layout

2008-04-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

Birds eye view of the final model layout

Start of Chamber Modelling

2008-04-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

Once we had established the new story and the schedule was organised, we had a group meeting to make sure that everyone knew what they were doing. We dicussed what everone wanted and tried to distribute some work to fit it best.

With my intention of entering the industry as a 3D artist, i took on a strong modelling role and decided to attack the temple chamber. The modelling started off slow due to insufficient concept designs, but with alittle of my own creativity i worked with what i had (the birdseye view shots) and created the style that will most probably control the entire look of the interior of the temple.

Dissi handed in...Whoop! Whoop!

2008-03-05T16:32:00.000-08:00

Handed in our dissertations today. A massive weight off my mind and off the shoulders of my group. We can finally concentrate solely on the film and really knuckle down without the worry of any other projects...no excuses now guys, the work has to be done!! lol

Story Reworked...

2008-02-11T06:35:00.000-08:00

This week was pretty crazy, and in some ways very unproductive; much to my disgust. Me and jono spent some time with Gareth Munden on the animatic, and from his advice started to rethink about shot composition and the way we would incorporated that into the general flow of the story. For example, how the camera could tell the story rather then the character alone.

So after a long session with Gareth and some deliberation amongst ourselves me and jono spent some considerable time thinking about what was essentila to not only the story, but what we personally wanted to take away from the film. Our desire for a good visual piece drove us change the "gag reel" style piece we had originally intended to produce.
We ended up dismissing alot of small gags and trimming the fat in some places we didnt really want to but ended up with a slightly bland but working story line.

The main change in the story was the "transition" stage and the way we aimed to show a clear and understandable change in environment and character wardrobe in one shot without loosing the audience along the way. This was proving to be hard to produce, but with Gareth Mundens help, jono and myself came up with a shot that was closest to what we wanted but still had room for some creative cameras (shots of the transition idea are shown above).

The new story we realised need to be supported with some "revised" environments that meant that the character and camera could be animated effectively and smoothly. So we spent some time editing the map layouts, specifically the interior of the temple etc. The Jungle also changed due to the introduction of the film which meant that the layout had to be altered.

All in all, the story didnt sway much from the orignial line, however with the a few parts taken out the story flowed nicely, albeit not particularly funny or comic, but nevertheless interesting to watch. The filmic language we realise will however end up playing a massive part in the overall style of the film; our main influence for style being the Indiana Jones Films.

Schedule Rework...

2008-02-10T04:56:00.000-08:00

Today, me and Jono sat down to attempt the tedious task of restructuring the schedule to fit the tasks pending completion. lol. It took alot of time and there wasnt much to shimmy around. The worry we have is the ease of cushioning the work load onto the last term and for some of the group members i believe the temptation will be difficult to resist. However, judging by the comunication of our group i am confident that we can keep an eye on each other and have a good level of ecouragement to boast motivation.

UV's

2008-02-10T04:08:00.000-08:00

Straight after the character was finalised and approved by Jono, i decided to spend a night and get the UVing done to a resonable level so when texturing comes around i have one less thing to worr about. More so, i wanted to concentrate on the one thing at that time in order to ensure the quality was higher.

Final Model (Untextured)

2008-02-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

This was some final renders of the model finished and ready for texturing.

Modeling Snapshots

2008-02-09T17:19:00.000-08:00

Not many issues arose during the modeling process and it went smoothly most of the way. The hair was a bit of a stress to do, but the body as a whole was simple and just needed a bit of observation to get it right. Below are a few other snapshots i took during modeling.

Modelling the head

2008-02-09T17:07:00.000-08:00

The head was one of the first things i attempted, and although the designs looked amazing on paper (well done Ben, nice work mate), they didnt quite add up in 3D. As you can see below, however with a little artistic license me and Jono decided on a few adjustments in the chin and the jaw shape.

(When compared to the final model of the head, you can see the design change clearly)

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(First attempt at mapping the basic shape of the face)

Modeling technique

2008-02-09T16:12:00.000-08:00

The technique i adopted for the model was to keep it low poly and simple. This way, i could get the main detail in and use the proxy smooth to average everything out. this meant that the model had to look very square and primitive. Ive used an example below, the low poly shows just how primitive, and the smoothed shows the results after proxy smooth has been applied.

High Poly Foot
(The model, although looking slightly to rounded, still holds the character needed for this model)
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Low Poly Foot
(Notice how the toes are virtually just cubes)

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First step to the character modeling....

2008-02-09T15:51:00.000-08:00

As any modeler knows, specially when it comes to modeling characters, that the referance images used must be high resolution and very accurate; whether that be a photograph or a drawing. However, the drawings produced by Ben were somewhat lacking in those areas. Never the less, it didn't slow down the already lagging process and i started modeling as best i could with the reference i had. I spent some time initially editing and the model sheet in order to have both side and front of the head matching in all the important places (eyes, mouth nose eyes etc) and did the same with the body. As u can see below, the drawings also featured the character with his arm down by his side, which also needed to be adjust; i did this in photo shop also.

[PLEASE NOTE THE 5 DRAWINGS BELOW IN THIS POST ARE CREDITED TO BEN GRIFFIN]

...we're still alive!

2008-02-09T15:38:00.000-08:00

OK, first post in a while, which i hope emphasizes how much work has been going on?! Never the less, the proof lays ahead. the past month has been crazy. both Jono and myself have spent a lot of time trying to finalize the 3D visual of the main character in both his PJ's and Explorer persona. Although finishing slightly earlier then Jono, we have both worked well together by helping with modeling and technical issues (which may i add, have been minimal).
furthermore, concerns about the story have rose and Jono and myself once again, intend to spend a fair amount of time working on the 3D animatic (blockout) to try and get a better understanding and flow to the story.

Altar, Final Design

2007-11-23T10:02:00.001-08:00

2007-11-22T18:01:00.000-08:00

Week Ending 18th November

2007-11-22T17:59:00.000-08:00

This week Jono Delegated in order to improve productivity and told me to centre my interest on the Temple interior concept. We both spent time talking about the layout and many scribbles were made that show layouts and the logic of our set. Then we seperated and started to design the assets and the rooms that would populate our jungle sets. Then with an attempt to birng a bit more life to the drawings i digitally painted them. the logic here was to also suggest colour schemes for the interior and lay out some guide lines for next weeks finalisation of the style.

Interior Temple Concept

2007-11-22T17:44:00.000-08:00

Week Ending 11th November

2007-11-21T05:50:00.000-08:00

This week was spent mainly finnishing the thumbnails. Ive been reading a book suggested by Mike Hirsh called "Shot by Shot" A very interesting read, and the storyboarding section has played a massive part in this section of my contribution to the project.
The final draft of the story, shown here on the blog was editted by Jono, Giles and myself. Although the pressure of the presentation for other projects ahead, and the lengthy process of visuallising the edit, i managed to finish the thumbnails and submit them to Ben Griffin by Thursday. There after i started to work on concept designs for the house, starting with the Fridge.

House Concept

2007-11-09T08:55:00.001-08:00

Second Story Thumbnails

2007-11-08T16:37:00.000-08:00

Second Story

2007-11-08T16:27:00.001-08:00

Week Ending 4th Nov

2007-11-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

This week has been a disaster!!! we started off the week with a positive mind that our story was fine, and developed. however, we took it to Dan Dalli for our first lot of advice and we realised that alot of it didnt make sense, and most importantly it didnt have a strong ending.

so although i started the week off by starting the thumbnails reading for the first draft of our story board, i had to stop and revise the story.

Again, jono, giles and myself were left with that and worked throughout the night on tuesday to develope a story that had a strong ending. the work paid off alot and the next day we rushed in for advice on the new story, and the feed back was very positive. it was for this reason that we decided to go with the new screne play.

First Story Thumbnails

2007-11-08T15:58:00.000-08:00

Week Ending 28th

2007-11-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

This week has been very story orientated. Jono, Giles and myself have been working on the development of the story line, and ironing out any kinks!! so other then, re-write after re-write, i've spent the extra time on developing the assets for the inside of the temple. I did some designs for the altar and also some trap ideas also.

The work so far, i have to say is progressing slower then i would have liked, but we're all happy with the idea, and its starting to come to a conclusive point.

2007-11-08T15:52:00.001-08:00

2007-11-08T15:29:00.000-08:00

2007-11-08T15:28:00.001-08:00

2007-11-08T15:16:00.001-08:00

Week Ending 21

2007-10-21T15:38:00.001-07:00

This week has been very story intensive, and we have been working hard and long hours to get the story how we like it, and so it works. After having come to that conclusion, we realized that some environment issues needed to be resolved, so we spent the last two days on mapping out the layout and location of assets with in the temple. The sketches show the conclusion of a series of rough sketches done during this period.

2007-10-21T15:34:00.001-07:00

This is the final of many quick sketches, aimed at establishing a layout for the temple and its traps.

2007-10-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

This is a page from my sketch book showing some of my establishing ideas.
(Im on very rough sketchs atm)

2007-10-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

This is an idea for an artifact or even large statue.

Coloured Interior Concept

2007-10-18T18:19:00.001-07:00

This is the final coloured version of an interior concept

Concept Line Drawing

2007-10-18T18:16:00.001-07:00

This is the line drawing of an interior concept

Supporting Sketches

2007-10-18T18:07:00.002-07:00

These are some drawings to support a final draft of a concept
piece for an interior shot of the temple.

Week One (Ending 14th October 2007)

2007-10-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

This week has been a little hectic as we've all being trying to find our feet as a group. It didn't take us long to settle however and i feel positive that we're going to work effectively and efficiently together. the organization hasn't been there right from the start, however, at the end of the week we've finally laid down some milestones for the term.
We have managed to pin down a plausible ending to the narrative with only the dialogue to establish, and some convincing character profiles. Happy with this, I feel I'll be able to sleep knowing that next week we can hit the ground running on the concept and dialogue front.