Going Live

Well I have carried on working on the assets and the mountain for the landscape. I had a little trouble with uv mapping one of the sweets, though I think I solved it ready to finish the extra fluff texturing once the bulk of the animation if done.

In the whole subject of modelling and working with 3D I have been having come difficulties, lots of problems I didn't foresee such as the uv map problems, odd inverting of edges and the time I used the sculpting tools for the mountain and every thing twisted on the top. So I have been asking for a lot of help from my team mates, though I think they are satisfied with my work. I would have liked to have tried to tackle a character, though knowing my own weaknesses and the time limit I think it was wise for me to stick with assets. Though I am still looking forward to texturing the landscape and dressing it with my rocks and Katlyin's plants.

We are a little delayed due to some problems with the rig that Katlyin was making for the little goat. So today was more of a catch up and a rig testing day to be sure that there would be no further problems. Then we can go ahead and start work on our shots. I also said I would take on the rough thumb nailing, just so the animators had a vague guide to help them get started. Also it was for me to question and figure out some of the walk cycles and story points at the beginning of the story.  

Crabs and Walks

So for the project with Olly I have tried to keep up with the crabs and getting the 3D elements ready for the hybrid object

I also did very quick walk cycles for the Boy character just so we could get an idea about his character. Though Olly commented on how he wanted it more realistic, though Phil our tutor said that it would be best to have a little exaggeration as 2D animation along side 3D can get lost. So once I finish up a little more work on the going live project, (namely the animation) I can dive more into animating for this project, though I really want to get the crabs finished, textured and tested asap. 

Lesson Round Up

I have been neglecting this blog so I decided it's best to round up what I've been up to as succinct as possible.

This post is mostly a quick update on the lessons in the maya and green rooms.

With Malcom we were taught how to create a 360 photo reference of a room and how to apply it in nuke or after effects, so to include a 3D object within the scene. It was a useful thing to learn for the future if I ever was on a live action project, though I can see it's usefulness in animated film as well. Though in our next lesson with Malcom which is going to be an after effects advanced lesson, I may ask how to apply the skills from last time and apply it with an animated feature.

Then with Sean we have been focusing on animation lessons. The first one being the bouncing ball (of course)

Along with the basic animation and keying we learned how to put the graph editor to best use, then how to apply squash and stretch to our ball. Which is going to be very useful for me as we go ahead with our animation in the going live project, as I am doing the walk cycles for two of the goats and I think applying the squash and stretch will add a lot to the sequences. 

Then the next week we did a walk and run cycle which was a lot of fun and very useful. I found I still had a slight robotic like jerkiness even with adjustments in the graph editor. Though with practise I think I can get a hang of it. 

But now that I have done it I feel more comfortable with animating in 3D but I know I will need a lot of practise before the year is over. 

Reflection on practise.

The last week or so I have been focused on the going live.

After completing the model sheet and beginning the modelling on the sweet and rock assets, I have found that I should try to draw out what I'm going to model, as I had great difficulty and spent more time than usual to model simple things like sweets, that need to be adjusted due to some comments from my team mates.

I tried to use my mood board to good use but not having the images on a plane within the program proved difficult. 

Meanwhile with Olly's project I have neglected to keep up to date with what I have been doing with that. I have been focused on the designs of the crabs, then for the next week or so to model 3D assets such as claws then to do 2D animated tests with the legs along side the claws. 

I also want to produce some more concept art though only if I get time to do so, I would rather keep focus on making assets for this semester and doing tests. Ready to launch into producing animation for the final product in the third semester. 

I also sat down with olly and we plotted out the crab action scene (with various props) to try and figure out the set/sizes and general movements of such titanic sized things.

It's good to know my figure collection and snacks could achieve so much along side Olly's empty lunch container.