Just about there

So we spent 40hours straight in finalising renders, compositing and mastering the film.

And teh end result...well, lets just say it could be better.

There is simple stupid mistakes like flowers missing from one scene, charlies eyebrows moving from caryns paint job and the colour continuity issue which I argued with damien for ages over...he now finally sees, when its too late ahah.

Anyway...alot has been learnt by me from this experience of this film.

I can see now that we had taken on a very ambitious project in one hand IM so very grateful as there is stuff I have learnt about maya such as shaders, lighting, camera, special fx and dynamics and then there is also the compositing aspect - that I have learnt and I believe my animating skills have come so far in just this last year too.

Titles and Credits

Friday, October 10, 2008

Titles - section where the caterpillar is going down the line...{Fade in}The Griffith Film School presentsA Team Composure film{Fade Out/in}Down the line...Credits -A film bySascha FournelCaryn GirardiDamien WongOriginal Concept by Damien WongCharacter Modelling, Rigging, Shaders & Lighting
Sascha Fournel
Creature Modelling, Rigging & nCloth simulationCaryn GirardiEnivornment Modelling Sascha FournelEnvironment LightingSascha FournelCaryn GirardiAsset ModellingDamien WongSpecial Effects & DynamicsSascha FournelEditing & CompostingSascha FournelDamien WongMusic and SoundAndrew McLellanAnimationSascha FournelCaryn GirardiDamien wongAsset TexturesDamien WongAsset ShadersCaryn GirardiWe would like to give big squishy hugs for thanks toAndrew Martin, Liam Hoskins & Chris Dai for Technical helpOur Mums, Families, Friends and GF/BF for their patience and encouragement.GFS logo etc

Monday, October 6, 2008 - The groups aim for the week

Today Damien and I discussed what we as a group really need to complete by the end of this week being Sunday 12th of October...

Find a fix for the hair - Sascha
Remember to set keys on the aim locator for the DOF camera (check that Caryn has this camera)
Do test renders on the DOF to see its not too blurry
Complete the sprites, flowers and black goo, cut clothesline for scene 9&10 - Sascha
Textures to complete - Damien
- Interior and Exterior Walls
- roof - windows - use shader form CGI assignment (Sascha has one)- balcony- potplant - Sascha- cockroache - Sascha- Fix Charlie texture
Buildings for final scene and textures - Damien
HDRI or environment sphere - Caryn is doing this we think?
Day Lighting to be finalised hopefully by Wednesday - Caryn
Finalise Scene 3 with lighting and textures and render out
Give Fog Scene rest of group - Sascha
We are hoping to meet Wednesday after life drawing to finalise:-
Scene 3 with fish, lights, textures and render layers
Damien to give Sascha Buildings for final scene
Sascha to give Caryn & Damien Cockroache, Fog and dynamic Clothesline
Caryn to give us - Lights for environments and show us how to do the ncloth with fish
Check that misenscene for all scenes is the same for everyone

WE can do it!

Saturday night with Andrew

Well this was the most interesting day of my year so far...a freaky caller at work, followed by a fire alarm at uni, followed by my scooter getting stolen...was nothing compared to seeing Andrew in action in front of the big mixing table thing.He is good...he is real good and patient with us raucous animators...I had just as much fun gathering all my junky bits and peices together for our night of recording as I did actually being able to make sounds with them. We had a rather very successful evening between the hours of 8pm and 4am the next morning...being able to record majority of the foley and also the music tracks.It was way cool to see how Andrew works...its definately an art form in itself...and was alot more full on than i ever imagined.

Friday, October 3, 2008 - eye CTRL issue

ok so i may have come across an issue with the eye CTRL...but all sorted...If you look in the attribute editor for translate and rotate you'll see they are highlighted in green.select all Translate X, Y, Z and Rotate X, Y, z and then right click once selected > break connections.Voila...you will find you can now key and CTRL the eyes as per normal...not sure why that happened...All im glad about is I was able to fix it...Damien next time you get that Head CTRL issue, see if its doin the same thing...and see if the above remedy works for it too...out for now...OH yeah...

Saturday, September 27, 2008 - Idea for climax scene

I was thinking while animating tonight that just as the rope gets cut we could have like a vingette of images to show what's happening rather than animate it out. For example we could have a cut to Charlie shocked and then a cut to her in a running pose, hand outstretched with same look on her face, then another cut of her hand trying to grab the rope and then fade to black. Then fade in to her sitting on balcony with rope in her hand upset.
This is a cheat yes but it will cut the time of the film down as well as render time being single frames etc.

I have pretty much finished Scene 9 - just need to do some final refining of the animation and turn the clothesline into a dynamic to simulate it falling when cut. Oh and decide on what would be the best resolution for the goo at the door.
I also did a test batch render today of 74 frames of teh camera truckin in to the balcony through the fog. I haven't composited it yet... but did 3 render layers - Occlusion, software and mental ray, so will hopefully get around to that tomorrow.
Also tomorrow I want to:-
Start animating Scene 8
find a resolution for the music sprites and soft clothesline
do flowers for scene 8
model flower pot and cockroache
Titles
Moon cutaway

Thursday, September 25, 2008 - We have foginess

Using 3D fluid containers I managed to get a hazy, cloudy, foggy sort of look. The cloud containers can be animated and colours can be changed.