final sean and evaluation

the footage i contributed to the final goup project
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final video

Evaluation

How it went:
Not as well as I hoped. We started off well enough with me leading. I set two people to each scene. Two were assigned the outside and the other two were dealt the inside of the windmill. I would later take 1/3 of the shots inside the windmill because the inside team said it was too much work and couldn’t handle it.


Research:
The research and development was based around a simple story and plot we made up prior to the handout of the project. This was during the summer holidays where Arran, Russel and myself started early to make a good start.


Modeling
My side of modeling was simple. Early on when Joe seemed more competent in the project, he had managed to start the basic windmill shape so others can work off it. I had to take that windmill shape and construct objects, such as the gears and cogs, inside so it would match the rest of the video later on in the film.

I also made crates, wooden pillars, hanging light bulbs and canisters from the early concept work. I would have liked to add more but I was running out of time and needed to start the UV texturing I learnt earlier in Alex’s project.

But knowing what I know now in Maya, I would have done things a lot different. The gears would definitely have been replaced and I would have added different textures to parts of the wall and floors. I would have tried to do draped fabrics like Arran as well as rope and other miscellaneous objects I thought of in the concept.


Texturing
A big problem was that not everyone knew what the textures looked like. I was the only one with a clear idea of what was needed so that didn’t help.
Russell managed to get the right idea.

Lighting
Dave showed me how to make lights in Maya and different ways they can affect a scene. I found lighting and shadows easier than expected.

A few ambient lights with colour and point lights for casting shadows can change a shot dramatically.

Most lights were behind the cameras, giving the basic light and tone to the model. Other lights were used in the swinging light bulb and window to create a sense of atmosphere and realism.

Rendering
The render dident take long with my scenes. It only took half an hour to bach render and I managed to import the images to after effects and exsport it as footage with ease.
But with Arran’s scene we each had to take a camera and render by ourselves. I don’t see why the rest of my team didn’t use the render farm at college for the lager scenes, I think the rest of the team had miss trust about it even thought it would have saved a lot of time and even managed to finish shot that were not finished by the end.

Next time I think it would be best to encourage my team more to utilize the college facilities at hand.
I took camra two and started render 18 hours befor I had to go to college. It only got three seconds done. I had to exsend the footage by four in order to fit in the final video. All in all only about 4 seem to be to the right speed with 24 fames a second.

Lighting

This post is about the different lights and shadows I am using in my environment project.
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I went over lighting with Dave. He showed me a few tricks with the bulb and how light works differently with textures and plain colour.

Texturing and Bump Mapping

This is the post showing the texturing tecniques I used in the environment project.
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I used a basic wood texture to start off with and changed the tone, light, size and shape to give a more eralistic sense of depth.

shots of the bump mapping

UV Mapping

This post is about the UV mapping i made in my environment project.
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Swinging Light and ...

I've been thinking about secondary animation in the environment. I've been testing and I've got one working so far. I'm going to get help with the second but I'll update that later when I have it working
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The light swing is simple but I think adds a sense of moment to the project apart form the gears in the background. Again they are animated too :D

I would like to sort it out so it actually shines but I haven't been very successful with lighting so far.

Significant Changes

In this post I will go though my model and explain a few changes and point out why I made them.
While looking at other peoples post I noticed images that are very useful to my own work. I got permission to use these but since some of them are images form other websites I don't know how to really reference them.
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The images below are strong references to the image above.

These images were from Russell Pointers blog page

Image on the left is from Sarah's blog page. The one on the right is from the Internet.

The image below was also from Russell Pointers blog. I took a lot of interest in this, I haven't seen anything like this before and I plane to incorporate it with in the work.

update coming soon.

3d Camera Shots

This post is mostly looking at the cameras and animation that will be used in the final animation.

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I should have really had uploaded a lot more 3d by now but I've been working on trying to explain how it should look both to my group and in a way to myself.

First shot was basic. No animation or texturing.

This is saved for the 3d animatic that still waiting to be finished.

Shows the up to date version of the gears. Animation added but only keyframes.

Showing the same shot as the previous video but from just a normal perspective. I left the cameras in to show their paths.

Concept Work

The concept art for the environment project
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I done the sketches in my A3 sketchbook so I had to scan in different parts and put them back together in photoshop.

First full sketch of the windmill.

Skeches of the inside of the windmill

Finish off Research

The last post on research would be about Leonardo Da Vinci and Windmills themselves.

Sorry for putting this off for so long I have been keeping busy with the practical work.
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Leonardo Da Vinci

The style and complexity with such simple materials of wood, cloth and rope.

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Windmills

Storyboards and Sound

Hi there, it's been a while. I've been working closley with my group and haven't had time updating but here something nice that I think you will enjoy. We're got the storyboards done as well as the animatic.
As always tell me if there are any spelling mistakes
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Drawing took a few hours and the animatic took just as much. Russell helped export it correctly.

I drew up the storyboards and Russell cut them up


Song Is turce by Andrew L Mendelson.

Again this is just to get an idea of were we need detail and moment for the final peace.

Day out in London.

Spent today at a few London Museums; the Science Museum, the V&A and another one that I can't remember the name of.

I'll add more text later but right now i'm annoyed because only 15 out of about 60 images were not blurred. Stupid camera.

Enjoy what i've got while I rage and think of what to do next.

click to view full size

Research post 2

In this post I will be looking at Bioshock and Pixar's 'Mosters inc'.

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Bioshock
In Bioshock (a video game) we see a more insane and darker side of steampunk. The game tells how people are trapped under the sea in the city of rapture and that forced into fighting each other for survival has made them ugly and mutated. The city hadn’t fared better it’s self; under kept, large chunks had collapsed or flooded.
I own a copy of the ‘Bioshock 2 special edition’ art book. In the book it has the lead environment artist ‘Hogarth De La Plante’ talking about the work and what they had to consider when drawing and deigning the city and game levels.

“We were trying to find a way early on in the game to tell the player about the objectivist ideology behind rapture, but have it be interesting. We came up with the idea of this place being like pirates of the Caribbean for kids. It’s telling kids in the really didactic way about Ryan’s [one of the characters in the game] ideologies but we also learn about the city too”. - Page 75 – Hogarth de la Plante.

So the team behind Bioshock got some of its inspiration from outside the normal gaming field.
The fact that they looked at a Disney ride for inspiration is intriguing; I am hoping to look at Pixar’s ‘Monsters inc.’ for the method in which they collect screams.

The video addresses the characters more than the environment but still get the idea of the sort of work that goes in to a project like this.

Image of the full bioshock special edition.

some of the pages taken form the art book of bioshock 2

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Mosters inc

i want to look at the canisters in mosters inc. they collect screams like fuel and it reminded me of large battery's

the canisters can be used as rechargeable personal battery's. For example, steampunk vehicles, machinery would take a battery that would be plugged in fully but something like a flash light would have a long cored protruding from the canister that is strapped to a persons back.