The First Scene

The Top image... its getting there but I still need to tweak a little bit in After Effects which I'm happy to do as after this it will look IMENSE!!!! Very happy with the images coming out and we fixed the light inside the bell (as it looked like it was coming out OF the bell) after a days work we are now rendering over the weekend.  I'll let you all know how it goes.  By the way - the moon... its a cheap trick with two moons so that we could keep the detail in the front moon but add the Glow given off without losing the details.  Alec and I worked on this shot together but I sorted all the camera angles and the moon after a great deal of grief.  The flag waving.... Alec taught a cheap trick using a deformer (wave) which'll simulate wind flowing in one direction by just animating the Offset and putting the infinity on Linear so it just keeps going throughout the whole scene.

Either way... I hope shot one is done now .... I'm excited to head back to Uni (sad isn't it) as not only is there my render waiting but also Simon's Occlusion pan around our set will be waiting.  We got a brief taster of it at 4 before we left and it looks great so far.  Its a 180 degrees spin around the front of our docks.  Took a long time to render and perhaps now we should test the Render Farm next week!!! Monday Morning I aim to render another test (the First scene again) just to get a comparison to see what happens between the one done on the local pc and then the one on the Render Farm, and just how much hassle will be involved.

Roll on Monday!

Thank You Mr Jones

Me and MR.....MRrrrr JONNeeees. We chatted for a while about a number of different Maya related things - all of which were really useful to know.  He showed us things which we had never seen before in Maya and taught us so much in his four days he dedicated to us.  I honestly cannot thank the man enough for all the effort he went to for us in an attempt to get the best out of us no matter what situation we put him in - messy outliners and messy files.  I'm glad we had him in and I dread to think where I'd be in a year from now if he hadn't of come in to speak to us.  He taught us so much in such a short space of time I just hope our paths cross again in the future.

Thanks Rob Lee Jones, This Blog Post Is For You :D

The Moon, Boat, and Opening Shot

Just a quick playblast... if the guys are happy hopefully we'll be able to render this shot soon ... maybe even tomorrow :D excellent!!!  Tom did the animation on the boat and I'd been working on the moon as I've already mentioned... we all attempted to create a moon however we all decided that mine fitted the storyboard (and we really liked that originally anyway) the most.  Woo hoo! Its all coming together.  Today we also finally put all our scenes together and Simon being a Saint went through Alec and Tom's Hypergraph and really cleaned it up!! IT WAS NOT PRETTY! We, Team Authentic, have now started animating, Alec is doing the Crows nest as I was really struggling and he is Lead Animator for the group while I'm doing the bell and other such bits and bobs.  Tom has animated the guys on the ships however I feel they are hardly visable in this playblast... they will be later on in the final render for definate.  Simon has begun to work on shot 4 man tying up his boat ... Shot 2 is Alecs crows nest and Shot 3 is the Telescope view of EVERYTHING.  I really can't believe that its all come together so well.  We are now getting renders out and Simon, whilst tidying up the Hypergraphs and Outliners Created Layers and set the different sections into layers so now we can render different areas for different shots.  I'm so impressed I'm going to stop typing now.  Just two more words - Happy BUNNY!!!!

Rob The God

Another day passed today with Rob Lee Jones.  Was great.  We did some 'house keeping' as he called it.  Basically we went through all of our files and renamed, regrouped and just generally tidyed up all of our scenes so taht we can render easily in layers which is very good news obviously as now we don't have to have THE WHOLE BACKDROP that Simon's been making (which looks awesome don't get me wrong) in the background when it won't  be seen.  Why have something being rendered if its just going to be covered by something else in shot?? NO POINT.

Rob basically explained to me in depth about a number of things such as Alpha Maps, Adding and Multiplying layers in AE, the importance of working to a set project as well as the use of referencing well in order to work sufficiently in a team.  No doubt in it I will be taking all of this into consideration next time I start my group projects... another day with Rob tomorrow'll be another good one I'm sure.

I don't know how, or why but at the start of the day - we could'nt render, at the end of the day we were getting some Great results... Rob's magic touch obviously.  Unfortunately most of the class didn't benefit from Rob being there as not many turned up but hey... I'm not complaining, it just meant that he could see the groups that were in more and help us all out more.  Was brilliant and Team Authentic walked away with a set number of things to do tomorrow as well as a good feeling that we felt all around with the number of renders we got to work!!!

WHeyyyy!

Moon Experimentation

The development of a moon....obviously none of this is the final thing but it gives the impression of the moon we are aiming for which is cool.  I started with just a white blinn and then went ahead and added a glowing one behind - I found the Glow wasn't enough without losing the indents on the moon if I just had one ...I therefore put another behind and added the glow so it poked out around the edge :) 

In One Word - Describe Today

'Hell' be that word!  With almost no positive outcomes of today we really struggled to render out any good shots.  We did however have a chat with Dan Dalli (or was this Monday I can't recall) about sorting out our project and textures.  We have now all finished the textures and modeling now and all we did today was tweak and reset the file's textures when importing with one another.  We saved them to the Public drive which we no is risky as anyone can delete but we have a back up on the Vanguard (Render Farm)  We struggled to set this up with our textures on but we managed to after messing around for an hour or so.  Strange thing is we are having a serious problem with Rendering in that we set something to Render and NOTHING comes out... it fails.  I may try and Render out a shot from Tom's and Mine together and then a Shot from the scene with Alec and Simon's in (the backdrop) and see if I can somehow Render it like this in two files (exporting the camera movements from one to another) and then render it ... compile in photoshop as different layers and possibly using an Alpha Mask.  Would really like to ask Rob Lee Jones about this problem however I'm not too sure about when he's coming back.  I think thats what I'll be doing tomorrow if I'm not animating the Crows Nest Shot.

Tom has been finishing his texures and models today while Alec has been practising his animation skills on a horse which looks great :) of course it does - Alec is doing it :)  Simon's houses again, top notch and adding more and more detail for the backdrop... however it all adds to our render time which apparently even the render farm can't handle.  I'm determined to get it going properly though.  I will try to Render the large scene in one, one more time and then move on to the split idea I had and see if that works.

If all else fails... playblasts... deleting history and try again.  Possibly delete history before and see if that makes a difference.  Either way I got pretty annoyed at the rendering situation as I sat there for the majority of the day sorting out files and watching Maya crash and burn as I hit 6 and it attmpted to load textures - I can't even check they work properly as it crashes everytime.   Maya is a good thing when it works how you want it.  Its like Oil.... works in your car and keeps it running most the time but can set alight and blow up with the strike of a match!!!!  Weird analogy but hey... I'm pretty shattered and it's been a VERY long day full of bad renders.

Summed up - got a few layers out of Mine and Toms however need to perfect how I will add different sections to the layers (eg Toms and mine ADDED to Alec's and Simons work).

I sit here now waiting for yet another Render to test on my slow Mac ... and now I have to paint weights again as Tom unfortunately did something to his Rig to deform areas of him BADLY.  Luckily I have a saved copy where I started painting them and can work on that.... here we go again....

Face Of Me

Now Its TIME for the MATHS :-

This 

Plus THIS

PLUS THIS AS WELL!!!

Equals THIS....

Wasn't too impressed with today.  Lacking the idea and spur to go on to be honest.  Have work in a moment so that's nothing to look forward to either especially when my renders I'm attempting to get out just aren't happening.  This is what I got out above and as you can see nothing too great really... *sigh* - *Blank look slapped accross Dan's Face*

Hey....at least it might render....eventually....this wasn't done correctly Though

FishEye Test

Using After Effects I managed to create the feel of a Fish Eye and our Desired Telescope (Buldge AE) along with the darkness around the outside... might be quite nice to have a rim or something around the outside... as I havn't really looked down a telescope in a while I may have to do a little research - if time... and if the group wants it.  Shall discuss it tomorrow providing everyone is in..... We came up with this to distort the image to cheat on walk cycles a little bit and therefore save time animating it properly... not that we WONT not animate it properly... just this way we can make mistakes and get away with it haha. 

Ok...I'll upload it again....soon as that clearly hasnt worked HAHA! 

'Why Not Post It' said the chicken to the frankfurter?

Blend Shapes...working at it a little bit.  Only spent a quick 10mins on it mind you so its not THAT much different.  I think I understand the kind of shapes I need in the middle of the ones I have at the moment though so hopefully this will be able 2 fit inbetween and make it look LOVELY....  haha.  And I also added another texture...clearly not visible in the playblast but just thought I'd mention it.