Tidying the house set

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

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

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!!

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

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

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

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.