Week 45: Life in an Animated bubble.

Where the hell have I been... feel like ages since my last update. ha. Well also life is still non-existent and all sleep and waking hours appear to revolve around finishing this project... which I can happily say is 80% done with just under 2 weeks to go.

Considering i've been away the last few days the extra 4 days will definitely make all the difference. But i'm still working towards the date of the 7th. i'm aiming to have compositing finally finished by Friday, with the weekend for final edits :) then the last few days will be my credits hopefully!

I've been looking at a few tutorials to help with a couple of things like using my ID passes to emit glows (this I was unable to find in the way that I needed, but I managed to work out my own way). I was mos nervous about creating a breath for shot 6/7, which turned out to be pretty damn easy -_-


The ID passes have been sooo sooo useful for some of the unexpected masking that i've had to use - mainly with the landscape and my character blocking each other out on shots - things I hadn't really considered before (mainly time when the landscape has been in the fore ground to look like a mountain/ rock...if that even make sense).

OH and this has happened for promoting the Masters show...(a very good idea from Ritchie and Kaitlin)

In terms of the other other projects...

Hell Well
I've still been colouring and doing some minor clean up for Yannis's shots, and he's been really really helpful in giving me some After Effects tips, as well as some TV Paint short cuts in terms of colour. I wish I was able to do more but this compositing malarkey has taken a bit longer than i'd initially hoped (mainly due to my slowness I think) - but hoping to colour a couple more shots next week

Once Bitten
I've been colouring a few shots for Slava, and again I wish I was able to do more :( Butttt what I like about this project is that Slava has animated it in Photoshop, which is something i'd like to try at some point, so it's been really cool to see how she has structured this.

Lets Find Them Together
I've been doing quite a bit for this the last few weeks (in terms of various tasks), I've provided the script as well as the narration hahaha. All the animation on my side is finished and because I was going away I provided the group with a document for setting up renders (based on knowledge from Sean and my own learnings). I think it will also be really really useful for me (and others hopefully) to have at a later date if I ever forget how to render lol.

Week 44: Compositing, Critiques and Can Dragonball BE any funnier?

So after a day of avoidance and blaming the world, i've finally come to terms with compositing, and decided that I actually do understand it and I actually can do it.. especially if Dragonball is playing in the background.

In order to hit my own personal deadline (all compositing finished by 29th) I need to be doing 3 shots a day - this might seem a bit much / long, but ima way for 2 days so I need to make sure I make up for that lost time and have time to complete my credits!

I've already had a 'minor' setback / realisation - this being that my Matte Paintings are kinda no good haaaa. Putting together my initial shots with colour corrections, effects etc i've seen that they just don't fit anymore.. and this is mainly due to me finalising my landscape textures a few weeks after completing my backgrounds, so they 2 don't gel. 

I'm gonna tweak them so they fit my current style / Borderlands-esque look.

Here's the current look...:(

And after doing a quick test in Photoshop by throwing my landscape texture on as an overlay i'm already getting much better results, so i'm gonna tweak them all tonight and get back on track with compositing tomorrow.

Need to add a bit more depth/ variation so it doesn't look flat but I think they'll be ok.

In terms of effects so far i've added in a slight star twinkle and some dust/gases type things! I don't want to overload it to much as I still need it to look 2D-esque





I'm also finding that i'm getting slightly better results by using my painted colour corrections and adding those into AE. I' trying to keep on track with the 2D ness of it all, and thats also given me the idea of adding any extra lines /out lines that I might need on the landscape or my character by creating them in PS, importing into AE and just animating the translates to follow my character. This will be more useful with the helmet I think!

Back to Dragonball... the motivation is real.




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UPDATE:
A few of the updated textures! This is a lot more similar to the initial background design that I did - mainly in terms of lines and textures (but definitely better ha)

I wanted an eerie effect for the first half hence the red and green, and then lighter / happier for the end - but i'll probably still do some more colour correction in AE.

That Time When...

ALL ANIMATION IS FINISHED HAR HAR HAR INCLUDING MY DANCE AND ANIMATION FOR RITCHIE!!

Week 43: Walking Cats and Dogs

It was all going so well until it wasn't... -_-

Still having issues with the dance again, although i've made it easier on myself b cutting it up into different camera shots so I can work on less animation an make changes on animation layers - its also given me the chance to cut out key frames. 

I'm pretty much working the routine out from scratch now to get it to work properly and I really need to have it finished by the end of the week. So I can direct my full attention to compositing (and other projects O_O)

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I've also been animating again for Ritchie doing a walk cycle for Peanut (the little cat). I initially looked at a typical quadruped cycle (Some very useful Walk Cycles: Here)...

... only to then fail and remember that this isn't your typical quad - the legs are really short and kinda modelled like a humans.. not the character needs be more in the face and I need to be a bit smarter with the strides.
First test: Walk 1 - too much happening here in the upper body.. make it all look very unfluid and like the body ad legs come from different things.


Second walk: Walk 2 - much better follow through, although a bit too much baby walk-ish! And need to get the translate to match up better which is proving rather tricky due to the leg length and stride pattern.


I've cleaned that walk up a bit more and have applied it to Peanut walking across the road... again more to clean up and I was having a couple of deformation issues with the global control, but animation layers have helped me cheat it slightly.
Aiming to have this cleaned and finished by tomorrow / Friday latest! 

Peanuts, Practice and Predicitions

Ahhhh yes soooo all rendering is DONE (bar Shot 15's dance and Shot 18 which will include some of the dance -_-). I've also added in an extra reaction Shot after Shot 10 when she see's the music box.

Soooo compositing starts next week as I wanted to give myself the weekend to work on the dance, colouring for Yannis and animating for Ritchie's project which is due by next Friday.

I'm working on a couple of Shots for his project - including a walk cycle and sad reaction shot for the cat character Peanut.

Look how sad she is D=


I've also finished working on the narration, but there will probably be a couple of tweaks after the animating is done!

The last few weeks have been so project filed that I haven't had much of a chance to practice art wise, bit i'm gonna start working this back into my daily routine, so i'll be ready for when I start my credits sequence.
I'm currently a week a head of schedule, but i'm hoping to have compositing finished by the 27th (O_O) - even if the dance isn't rendered out by then that means I only have to focus on that shot then slot it all in the sequence and what not.

Week 42: A Dancing Decision

Sooooo i've been working on my final few shots these last few days - mainly 14 and 16 - where she dances out of the cave and when she lands back on the planet. For 14 in partcular I wanted to at least give keying the dance a go and i'm rather happy with the result...

I imported the track as a reference so I can get the timing correct annnddd I've been using photos as a reference via Bodies In Motion, not only because i've found this to be easier to block to, buttt I was silly and didn't actually capture the footage with Cristina as photos/video as my iPad wouldn't let me save anything.. definitely an oversight on my part.

It's finished now but i'm to lazy to playblast again sooo this is the dance blocked to the music.


Annndddd the jump for Shot 16 - there's a new version that's slightly tweaked to incorporate Sushma's feedback

Now... the serious bit.... a few days ago I was ready to write that I was having major issues with transferring my MoCap data onto my custom rig and controls in Maya..and was potentially considering keying the dance in the few weeks I have left... I still might for specific bits. BUT...

I have been VERY VERY lucky to stumble upon something glorious... the way to get my rig to all attach :D

HERE

Literally stupidly happy about this. I can now make all the tweaks I really needed to make, and fix the shoulders - which seem to have fixed themselves kinda now that they're on the rig :) Obviously the only downside is that there are now hundreds of keys baked onto my controls but im gonna take the week to clean this all up and fix things like the head and hands.

In terms of camera angles I want to play it smart and firstly by avoiding any major problem areas like dodgey twists that can't be fixed etc. But I also want to at least try and work with more angle and camera's than I have done in the rest of the film. So i'm looking at Final Fantasy X again for a lot of reference points for their dance / instrumental scenes... cause they're bloody awesome.

(7 mins in)





If I can do this this week that brings me a week ahead of schedule as rendering is now almost one - only this shot to put in and 14 and 16 to come out.

I need to start animating for Ritchie's project this week and get back on the coloring for Yannis.

Renders, Renderfarms and Really Wishing Dragonball Z was real..

RENDERING HAS BEGUN!! And seems to be happening quick-ish mainly because I seem to be the only person using the Renderfarm at the moment (besides Olly) :D and i've got until at least next week until other people jump on.

I've put all my scenes through now, and i'm hoping they'll all be rendered by Monday!!

Dodgy Diffuse Pass

AO Pass

I've got 3 Shots left to complete - 14 (dancing out of the cave - blocked), 15 (dance sequence), and 18 - this is done / set up but I need to add her dancing off into the 'sunset'.

Just finished working on 16 - where she lands back on the planet, and decided to add a bit more drama to it with a DBZ-esque landing ha. I emulates Shot 4/5 where she lands in her space pod, but this time is just her... if that makes sense, an I think that's a nice bit of mirroring.

Got some feedback on it from Sushma and she reminded me to add a bit more squash and stretch and make sure there's more follow through in parts of the body like the arms.

I find animating oddly relaxing...

Render Me This...

Yet another updated pre-vis with lighting (kinda) and all textures (I think). I still need to tweak the timings for a few shots...oh and its obviously missing the dance stuff.


To remind myself of things to come I did another thing in photoshop har har

Speaking of dance - this is all coming along nicely! Had another trouble shooting session with Chris and he's helped me work out a few issues, and i've pretty much put the parts together, I'm hoping to have it in Maya and cleaned up by the end of the week!! lolllll

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I take it back, rendering is ridiculous (well the set up is atleast), mainly because there are so many to set up and i'm doing it on my own -_-. I'm doing a full multipass render using a lovely array of passes. I basically started out by using the same setting that we used for Going Live but was getting a few dodgey results...

Mainly the shadows not working properly and the glowing lights - so again I had to enlist Sean for some feedback and i've pretty much changed the entire set up for 2 shots, along with check and rechecking how the lighting looks which is probably why this has taken longer thanks to slow render previews

Here I am setting up render passes with incorrect inputs (I now know I need to use 16 bit Float for Affect Effects purposes and set the channel to sRGB)

Managed to get the shadows to play ball by increasing the light intensity and tweaking the shadow settings! Annnnddd in terms of glowing i'm now gonna do this all in post as it was causing far to much hassle for me in Maya, and i'm hopin it will cut down my render time a bit!

I've been having a think about the helmet and i've decided to completely strip it of its shinyness so to speak. It will still obviously be transparent but i'm also gonna apply a transparent layer with 2D toon lines to emulate light and shade.
It will fit more with the overall look annndd it cuts out any refraction /reflection problems I might have.

Also figured out a good quick way to set a depth pass thanks to Olly and Sean by simply adding all objects to a render layer - tweaking the layers presets (in attributes) and breaking the max connection and setting it to what I need it to be (if that makes sense)

I'm hoping to officially kick off rendering tomorrow and get a few tests through by Friday - so by next Tuesday i'll have at least half my shots rendered. 

lolllllll