THe ROA Show Looms

I'm not guna lie.... I've been not doing any of this Burton Project as its been put on hold for Rave On Air and Showreel Business which has very pressing deadlines which are a fair bit closer. My showreel I hope to have playing on a computer in Emerald I'm constantly working on and hoping that my third attempt will work better than the pixellated first two. The way I've got around this occuring is in fact using a different program altogehter. Originally using Dvd Studio Pro... which seemed REALLY easy and simple to use I found the resolution of the menus just seemed to mess up and the video transitions were as clear as day. So quite annoying after rendering it and burning it twice hoping it'll work. Third attempt will using in the process using Encore. Other than struggling with software myself and Phil have been aiding Dan Grigsby with the ROA Animation Exhibition. I think we've helped out a fair bit in trying to print posters and getting peoples work in and buying foam board etc for the show.

Pressure is on...

I'm sure that everyone is feeling the pressures of the deadlines this week. Not only do we have a Rave On Air Deadline to meet (which Matt and I are still pushing for but its looking more and more doubtful as problems keep cropping up) we also have a PPD submission for Friday which I spent my Bank Holiday and this evening doing. ALSO have to prepare stills for the exhibition and prepare a dvd showreel for the exhibition.... and on top of all that my showreel dvd is REALLY complex... so its going to be a LONG week for me I think. In other news we had a Lighting tutorial lecture with Sultan today which was quite benifical in some ways and in others he reiterated what I already knew. ... You win some you lose some. As for this Burton Project. I believe we could do it. I've been working on the transition again. Attempting a complete fade to white this time... Think it works better however I'll really have to see what camera angles and what animation I get to play with after Matt has rendered the finished run and snowboard away form the camera in the second shot.

Time is of the essence my dear Watson!



still only using masks though in After effects and a cheeky lens flare that isnt really visible lol

Try...Try....TRY AGAIN!

putting it bluntly... I was annoyed at the first attempt and couldn't stop thinking about it...so tried again!!! Here we are now... at another attempt I think this one is better than the first... coz the first just made me wanted to cry it was so appauling.... theres clearly room for improvement ... I definately know that...but I think something like this COULD work...COULD.....possibly tweak the footage earlier... slightly before the jump...but hey...we'll see how it goes :p

Really not too happy with this...

Yeah so this is by far one of the worst things I've tried to do so far... It could easily be better..but I'm nakrd to tell the truth... been working on my work for the year 2 show at ROA... Eugh. I think I might give it a rest for tonight. Going to have a fair bit to show at the show though I think it all goes to plan :D

Transition....

As you can see it SORT of nearly works without anywork....well....not really....it'll look 10x better if I can achieve the look I'm going for ... lol

Newer....Slightly Improved Render...Maybe?

So this time I added the extra light... and pushed the camera back a bit so it TURNS...otherwise we'll be looking upside down...and it just wouldn't have worked AT ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! lol But yeah...looks vaguely better I feel...will work with this for now to do a couple of examples of transitions for Matt.

Lighting Bad...Animation Bad.... PUrrrrFect

Yeah.....Bad animation done here so I can play around with the idea of a transition before Matt gets there with the animation (please note I really wasn't trying to animate... so it is AWEFUL! haha.... I've decided to re-render with an extra light to light the character slightly more as this is SOOOOoooo Bad..... yeah...ahem. New render coming up soon.

Jump 02

This is the second to last shot of our animation. Quite happy the way its turned out actually. Just need a bit of animation on it... might put some snow on it providing there is time... also don't pay any attention to the trees as these will be sorted out in 'post' providing there is time. If there is not any time before ROA I will definately do it for the final submission of this piece :D

Ms Project Update

As you can see from the project I've cut a number of things such as Approval from Burton etc as we are seriously lacking time. Matt and I have been having ups and downs throughout the day so far.... a loss of a file as Matt saved over a walk cycle... wasn't a major loss but obviously nothing great. The environment is getting better and better as I continue to work on shots. Still more to do though on both our parts unfortunately... will be glad when RAVE ON AIR is gone and done.

Final Jump Image

Alley Render

Ok...not sure if this will work considering its only 2MB apparently .... or maybe my Mac is being a bit special in its old age.... think I might get a new bad boy soon ...over summer maybe? yeahhhhh :p

Bigger Shot

Its getting there....still.... slowly. More to be done still though. Ach!

IronSky

Just loving the concept work of Ironsky right now..Cheers Sam....
Iron Sky.net :D

Matt Finished? HARDLY

Matt finished the Rig today... means hes done right.... HA...yeah right... now he's animating... we both are here and there from now on. Looks as though he's done a good job on the rig though which will help us when animating our DUUUUUDE. Time is of the essence however I believe Matt and I are beginning to doubt meeting the Rave On Air deadline as are many of the groups what with the other project for Dan Dalli going on as well and different renders taking up time!!! We'll have to see how the end of this week pans out. Think its going to have to be a late one on Friday for me as I have work all evening Thursday - UBER LAME! Eugh....

Getting There

Yet another Image for the Blog

Been playing around with the light fog etc for a while now and getting the lighting in the back right... this is what I've got so far.

Shot is getting there

Its taking a while but I think its worth it. Been tweaking the lights this morning along with some tweaks of the set.... barely noticeable but the subtle things are what always makes a good render :D

Not TOTALLY Related

Ok so this isn't exactly to do with this project but I just thought I'd mention it - today we had a really good lecture from Peter about how to use Studio Pro to create a DVD and I think we are all set to make a showreel DVD for Double D's Unit. I'm happy. The morning probably would have been enough but I'm glad we had the afternoon as well with him to chuck a few questions on how to do a few other bits and bobs such as slideshows etc. Took a lot of notes and BOY am I glad :D

New Character for BG scenes

Just altered all of Matts hard work in an attempt to create some background characters to cheer him on. Not entirely sure on if we'll use him but it would be nice if I could do a few more (as they will be so small it won't matter too much as long as the silhouette isn't too samey.

Another Test .Mov

Annnnnnnd with the smoke I created in After Effects.



Put this together in about 30 mins however its not perfect but hopefully if I have time I could get a nice render out for the final thing :)

ps...textures etc missing as I sent it to vanguard and just wanted a quick result to see if the AE was possible how I thought it was.... it was apparently but still quite difficult.

Schedule Update

So we are falling behind a little but I think we can manage. We'll step up the effort a little bit and try a bit harder. Efforts MUST BE DOUBLED FOR THE FINAL WEEKS!!! COME ON MATT, LETS DO IT!!!

Most Recent Render

More Images... I-Ka-Rummmba!

Research really is on going:

I might try and model this type of landscape using maya... then it won't look so fake fake... trees in the right density in the right places :p

Forest

Just slapped a few trees in there....just a few :p Building a rail to grind along and a few 'stands' maybe a couple of fences to put in to keep people back etc... we'll see how it goes :)

Snow?

Its....Snow... for our close up shots :) and the snow lighting obviously!

Deadline Moved

More pressure has been put on us now as the deadline has been moved forward to the 29th of May... That really doesn't leave long and it means Matt and I are going to have to pull our socks up considerably to get all the animation and effects we want - hopefully it'll look good for Rave on Air however I know a lot of the students are thinking that the Rave on Air Version won't even pass QC in fear of strobing of not being title safe. Matt and I want it a very high quality if possible however may not get this for Rave on Air... even though we don't want to settle for ... well.... for presenting ourselves as a lesser version than ourselves almost.

Soft Modification Tool

Using the Soft Modification tool today and creating a quick sample/snow scene for our boarder from Burtons to have some fun and tricks with :)

The Latest

Slowly...working.... must do..... ok just a quick break :p

Hey Matt,

Just so you know I haven't done too much to the work you've already seen on the blog. As you know I'm playing dodgeball 2night and staying out so will be in tomorrow probably around lunch time. I am definately coming in tomorrow so I will see you then.
Cheers mate.
Keep up the work.
Don't forget to shoot into the sky (don't shoot at us .... or we'll dodge) anway see you tomorrow.
Dan

Not happy with this.

Texture really needs more work as I'm attempting to create my own its a bit of a hassle.. but I will prevail. I obviously turned up the lights a lil bit considering I noticed most my posts you can't actually see... Gar!

Tuesday Morning - Blue Zoo

Tuesdy morning we had a pretty decent lecture from Blue-Zoo Animation studios who came in to talk about their work for a few hours. They seemed a lot more ... 'Student' esq with a style of professionalism that you don't get too often. Only a few other companies that have come to give lectures have had this quality and I really do think that this different approach to the lecture helps to communicate to the students on a ground level which they can all understand. Instead of rabbiting on about what they've done and how BRILLIANT they are just showing us piece of piece of work they actually broke apart their shots and spoke about the different passes they used to create their desired effects - the different layers etc. I found this very useful and slightly inspiring also. I'm glad Matt and I have allowed time for this in our rendering stage. Layers included, shadow, diffuse, dirt, colour and occlusion obviously. Some examples of their work can be seen on their website:

http://www.blue-zoo.co.uk/animation/video/show/80 (thats just a video of Stitch up Show Down. Which they spoke about a lot. I think I'm glad they focused on these characters as they were enjoyable to watch and no one had really anything negative to say. All good fun (not for the characters though getting torn apart)

All in all I think nearly everyone enjoyed the lecture. :D great stuff and more of the same please!

MS Project

Try Again...

Just realised that previous post didn't have a bike...so...thereeee we go!

Occlusion and Development

Bank Holiday

Unfortunately I had to work most of it at work... so didn't get too much done. Sigh... so I'm doing a little bit now to make up for it. This is how much I've got done so far... I think I might start texturing soon. Will attempt to gather my own textures this time which'll be good rather than using downloads off the internet (this is of course if time permits.

Just a little bit...

Heres a quick look at what I've been up to today.
Its taking its time but its getting done. The images are all very similar to be honest. Been playing around with lighting the scene. Not much luck yet as it really does depend on the textures. I may keep the last setting as it is to get the general feel. Also am considering making it slightly smaller in terms of width of the alley - this'll give the feel of a cramped environment in the urban city to emphasize the point of escaping!

Progress Update

The fence I've scrapped but the idea is still there. Going to have a good solid fence...possibly not as 'free' and natural looking considering this is an urban environment and we want to break free of this world to get into the next... the idea in a nutshell!

Product Design Students

Today I went into Rave after having a very busy morning to ... at lunch we had Product Design students pitching their products they had been working on however as we were late starting and overrunning after the first presentation it was never going to happen. We saw three in total, Burton (which was useful as we were supposedily advertising this unknown product), Red Bull, and Avon I believe. All three presentations were pretty good however the product Burton was selling was ... 'arse pads' put planely. I wouldn't mind attempting to work this in somewhere however its a bit of a strange product to have an advert for as its not really teh essential equiptment and it would be more for the elite snowboarders and pros who own their gear/do it for a living/as a sport. I think its this reason why Matt and I have probably taken a step back from the Product Design students attempting to sell it to us. The presentation was fairly good... its just a shame its such a niche market they are selling to considering you can't really imagine popping up on your tv set.... unlike the Avon and Red Bull products. I think its safe to say that Matt and I are now will be advertising Burton from our own perspective - next job is to contact Burton themselves to see if they are interested in having any influence in our animations at all.