Better late than never...

Im glad we're finished, this last term has been absolutly manic and i think we all need a rest. Rave on air and Contextual studies i found to be major distactions from this project and i think there was a period of about 2 weeks where nothing for CVA205 got touched cause everyone was trying to get other projects finished. Me and Dan really pulled it together in the last fortnight i feel and got our final renders done midday on friday. Am really pleased with the outcome and enjoyed working with Dan but cant help but wonder what we could have produced if we had the time to solely work on Burtons. Dans knowldege of Aftereffects really helped he project along allowing us to add whole new elements to our project that i would have no idea how to do by myself and after seeing some of the stuff he produced fr burtons im goning to strive to learn more aftereffects over the summer, nice1 Dan. So thats the second year done and dusted, onwards and upwards and onto the BA (hopefully).

Cameras

Started Playing with the cameras so just thought i'd chuck something up on the blog.

Not sure whether i like this yet. Am not gonna finalize anything till the animation is done.

Not Going Well

Cant say this weekend has been to brilliant workwise and im not gonna meet the deadlines i set myself on friday. The scene i was hoping to have done by tues morning is only 1/3 of the way done and the animation that is done isnt finalized. This taking alot longer than i thought it would mainly because i really struggled to get Jim running in a way that i find acceptable. Origionally i had him running on 6s but that looked really fast and cartoony and didnt look right, so ive slowed him down to 9s. This looks slow but i figured we could speed it up slightly in Premier if we felt it necessary.

And yes i know it looks terrible at the moment, but it still needs loads done to it before i even think about saying its finished.

Rigged

As Dan has already reported i've got the rigging done and I now feel mega confident when it comes to painting weights. Also got a walk cycle done with him to test it all and make sure it was working (the hands are all fixed now.)

Ended up spending the day on this when i had only intended to spend a couple of hours on it (its still far too stiff but i cant afford to spend anymore time on it), and im begining to think we may not make the ROA deadline and if we do it will be to an appaling state, not giving up though we'll just have to see how it goes.

Due another Schedule update, so far things have been going well but with rave on air PPd and Contextual Studies looming ominously i dunno how they're gonna effect this project.

Dan

Just a heads up, been playing with the rig today and am getting some major Hand issues. "Should" be a pretty quick fix so i'll give you an update version of Jim tommorow.

Modelling Done

He's made, Just added a few things and sorted out his textures, wouldnt be surprised if i find errors with it as im rigging and animating but as it satnds im not going to add any more to him.

Another Progress Report

Hes gettin there, still got loads of stuff to do on him but hes gettin there. Im gonna call this stage ROA standard...
Stuff i still gotta do - Texture his gloves properly, texture his hair properly, texture his hat, clean up the textures on his combos, boots. Finish his jacket add a bump to everything. And get him rigged and weighted - and all done by monday, and i gotta send a copy of it to dan before i start rigging so we can make sure the scaleing hasnt gone horribly wrong....Bah

Snowboarding Jim

Will quickly chuck this up as well to show how complete Jim is at the mo'

Jims Head Modelling

Just a progress update, spent a couple of hours today on the head and just wanna show how its coming on.

Still need quite alot of work especially the lips and ears. Not sure whether to have a lip area painted on the texture like is shown in the last pic or just have the model and lighting do the work like in the middle one... will see what dan says, i might see if i can move the lips down a bit too.

Origionally it was just going to have the lips as a simple line painted onto the model but it looks really weird so theyve now taken on much more form.

Ignore the hat and goggles, i know they're crap and am probs gonna remodel them from scratch. And i need to add more hair to the back of the head (give him a small mullet).

Boots, Boots Glorious Boots!

I knew the boots was gonna be tricky but i really didn't expect them to take a day to do... I got bored of just modeling so i decided i might as well get the whole boot done and out of the way. Having had the lecture with Sultan(sp?) last week i was relativly confident only to make a start on these and find out that everything i had learnt seems to have dribbeled out of my ear over night and i barely remember anything about it. But nonperplussed i continued and here is the outcome. Dunno why but the bump map is all screwy, Kinda grainy and i see no reason for it to be will have a sit down with Dan tommorow and see if hes got any ideas. And no it isnt a "Perfect" copy of the boot we chose but its pretty damn close... i think...

As it stands.

This is how its looking at the moment, Had to restart it a coupla times till i had something i thought had potential. Im struggling a bit with the coat and am thinking that any pockets will have to be done in texturing. I feel that im rushing it a bit but with the strict time restrictions we've been set its kinda a requirement.

Avalanche!!!

See you don't need expensive equipment and a trip to a foriegn country to go snowboarding all you need is photoshop a plank of wood and some bricks.

In other news...

Jared has shown us some magic scheduling software that should knock us all into shape and keep us all on track (yeh right). Heres my version of our work schedule for the next coupla weeks, i'm intending to update it every fri and keep on top of it. Our production is appartently gonna cost just over 8 grand so im guessin im gonna have to dip into the penny jar.

Animatic

Really I did this to turn our thunmbnail storyboard into something a bit more solid and understandable so we can plan our shots properly and have a rough idea of timings.

Relativly happy with it. Forgot a couple of things about layering in premier so it didnt turn out perfect, but it does the job its supposed to do.

Those thats came before us.

Just spent a little bit looking for how we're going to achieve the spray of snow behind the board. Really like how this vid looks (the spray, ignore the ice sheet that forms after) and is kinda how i would want it to look.

http://www.digitaltutors.com/free_tutorials/video_d.php?vid=76&cat=5
And just found this really good tut on particle collisions which may be a concievable anwer, we'll have to have a play and see what we can achieve. (You have to give a email address and they mail you a password, and theres quite a few good vid tutorials on there.)

Introduction Test

We wern't sure of the timings for what we've got planned for the opening for the advert. So we went out into the carpark with Dans mobile and quickly filmed the shots and then ive just edited them together.

11 seconds is a bit steep i think but i can see anything in it than we can cut down, so i think we'll keep at it and make more of a decision at a later date.

To be done

Stuff that i think we should have got done/started by monday.

Storyboard/Animatic - done
Character design - Started, should be finished by tues/weds.
Enviroment floorplan - done
Any additional reaserch...

At the rate we're getting this done this should be easy to complete. Anything you think we should add to this or anything you think needs reworking?

Alley Stuff

Just some pics of some alleys, for the opening sequence we got in planning showing how i'm imagining the scene looking.

Beginings - and already its not working

Righty... Welcome to another term and another 6-8 weeks of massive stress, strict deadlines, a copius amount of weeping and hopefully a good deal of fun.

I'm gonna be working on the Burtons Snowboarding advert with Dan Shufflebotham. This is a bit out of context for me (and probs dan) but i think i really need to do a project with quite alot of limitations within its context, when it comes to getting a job im not going to be able to pick and choose what i do so a project and so far im finding this subject to be very limiting.
(I think i need to point out at this stage that my expieriance with winter sports consists of sledging down a dry ramp and nearly skinning my arm) So all in all this should be interesting.

I am supposed to be doing a quick test with Max atm to show tommorow but have just got home to find my laptop riddled with viruses so i gotta sort that out first (only at 8% and its found 86 viruses ((thats 10.75 viruses for every 1% of my hardrive)) Hopefully i can get that fixed and get on with it later, so in the meantime i decided to blog (look im doing it now)

Other than that we're just waiting to meet the Product design Students so we can see what they already have and what they want from us...

And ive run out of things to say...Sayonara

So Cold...