I've been spending most of my time finishing the gun. But now we need to wrap it up. And i am happy with it anyway, so we should get moving on to the next steps...
Pete finished the tracking for one of the main shots.
The clip is where i pick up the gun and start shaking it ( shooting).
Witht the movement all tracked and put into maya, we could now see the first test of matchmoving.
This is what that looked like.
We are very happy with the result! It definately gave us a good chuckle, but to be serious it is what we wished for and we can actually see this all coming together and looking really cool.
Ive finished texturing the gun. To be honest it could have been a bit better and more realistic, but we need to move on to the next stage which is rendering.
Which means that we have to animate the gun (prescicion is crucial!!) and then render it. The rendering is, as always, gonna take a LOT of time, so we need to get that out of the way so that we can spend the remaining two weeks composoting, keying, maskin, tweaking, frustrating and maybe succeeding, all to make it look as good as possible.
Here is a little preview of the finished gun in action.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Greenscreen session and the first rough-cut!
We spent a whole day in the greenscreen studio, getting the footage we needed.
First we had an induction on how to use the greenscreen (its a big dangerous process to get it down from the ceiling). Then we got the rest of the day to spend in the studio.
Thankfully we were able to check the footage right away on my laptop, so we could do a couple of tries, adjust the camera and then try again until we got it right.
There were only 5-6 shots needed, but we have tons of bloopers that are quite funny (Pete actually falls over himself when he kicked me).
It was a lot of fun. And for the first time i have used a professional greenscreen. So hopefully the footage will be good and it will all look good in the end!
Here is the first rough cut we put together today.
First we had an induction on how to use the greenscreen (its a big dangerous process to get it down from the ceiling). Then we got the rest of the day to spend in the studio.
Thankfully we were able to check the footage right away on my laptop, so we could do a couple of tries, adjust the camera and then try again until we got it right.
There were only 5-6 shots needed, but we have tons of bloopers that are quite funny (Pete actually falls over himself when he kicked me).
It was a lot of fun. And for the first time i have used a professional greenscreen. So hopefully the footage will be good and it will all look good in the end!
Here is the first rough cut we put together today.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Special Effects project- Making guns!
This project is all about nice n glossy special effects. We Teamed up in groups of 2 to 3. I am in a group with Pete and Simon.
We spent some time beforehand to figure out what COULD be done in accordance to what we would LIKE to make.
In the morning meeting, where we all pitched our ideas, i realized that all of the groups had really good ideas and i cant wait to see them all come together!
Our idea was initially to have me and pete come in to a totally white environment, and then (in the video) gradually "create" everything around us. Sort of like a breakdown, but as part of whats happening.
Then we wanted to have me and pete turn against each other and start fighting with various cg created weapons. Im talking guns, bombs, throwing weapons, even vehicles!
The oucome of the fight was never planned though.
BUT since this would require WAAAAY to much work, we shortened the whole thing down to one clip each of the effects we wanted to show.
So there will be one major establishing shot to show mattepainting background with 3d objects (a big bridge), one shot of us fighting to show interaction between real footage and cg environment, and then a shot of me picking up a big cg gun from the ground and then shooting pete. This is probably the trickiest of the techniques were using, but with georg´s expertise, we´ll get there soon!
My job was to create the "box" which we were to use as a tracking reference for the cg gun. And also to make the actual cg gun in Maya.
The Box i first wanted to make out of cardboard boxes and spraypaint them in one solid color. But i figured a paper box would be too weak, so i made one out of shelves i bought.
So i hacked up the shelves and assembeled them with handy screws and spraypainted the whole shebang in florescant green.
The handles i created was covered in black tape so we could keep them instead of keying them ou and replacing them. That would add a lot of work.
But when the thing wa finished i got way to excited, picked it up and started shaking it ( i was pretending it was a machine gun ratatatatta), and then i broke one of the handles....
But it wasnt a big problem since we had one handle left. Still very stupid mistake...
We hve done a lot of testing with The Box, but havent quite gotten the results we need. So while Pete was struggling with that, i was working on the cg gun.
Its almost finished, but i have a very essential part of it left - texturing.
It may the most important part of convincing realism to the audience.
This is what it looks like so far...
We spent some time beforehand to figure out what COULD be done in accordance to what we would LIKE to make.
In the morning meeting, where we all pitched our ideas, i realized that all of the groups had really good ideas and i cant wait to see them all come together!
Our idea was initially to have me and pete come in to a totally white environment, and then (in the video) gradually "create" everything around us. Sort of like a breakdown, but as part of whats happening.
Then we wanted to have me and pete turn against each other and start fighting with various cg created weapons. Im talking guns, bombs, throwing weapons, even vehicles!
The oucome of the fight was never planned though.
BUT since this would require WAAAAY to much work, we shortened the whole thing down to one clip each of the effects we wanted to show.
So there will be one major establishing shot to show mattepainting background with 3d objects (a big bridge), one shot of us fighting to show interaction between real footage and cg environment, and then a shot of me picking up a big cg gun from the ground and then shooting pete. This is probably the trickiest of the techniques were using, but with georg´s expertise, we´ll get there soon!
My job was to create the "box" which we were to use as a tracking reference for the cg gun. And also to make the actual cg gun in Maya.
The Box i first wanted to make out of cardboard boxes and spraypaint them in one solid color. But i figured a paper box would be too weak, so i made one out of shelves i bought.
So i hacked up the shelves and assembeled them with handy screws and spraypainted the whole shebang in florescant green.
The handles i created was covered in black tape so we could keep them instead of keying them ou and replacing them. That would add a lot of work.
But when the thing wa finished i got way to excited, picked it up and started shaking it ( i was pretending it was a machine gun ratatatatta), and then i broke one of the handles....
But it wasnt a big problem since we had one handle left. Still very stupid mistake...
We hve done a lot of testing with The Box, but havent quite gotten the results we need. So while Pete was struggling with that, i was working on the cg gun.
Its almost finished, but i have a very essential part of it left - texturing.
It may the most important part of convincing realism to the audience.
This is what it looks like so far...
Friday, 22 January 2010
Writing collaboration project
This project was meant to bring us animation students together with Creative writing students and make something in a group where everyone has (and sticks to) a specific job within the team. For example Producer.
The idea was that the writers came up with the story, and we had to make it into an animated animatic suitable for a professional pitching.
The brief was basicly to make a promotional peice for The National Union of Fairies, Sprites, Elves and Druids (NUFSED). The animated peiece would be used to raise awareness of the organisation. And the whole thing would have to be based around an already existing fairytale.
My group for example, picked the story about Goldielocks and the three bears.
I was given the job as the Storyboard artist. Initially i thought i would only have to illustrate whatever the producer/writers envisioned. But since there were no director of photography or director at all, i figured it was my job to lay out the scenes cinematography-wise...
I like setting up scenes and playing around with how the camera should tell the story. I´ve never had any specific lessons on the subject, but i really enjoy doing it. It is almost like you make the whole film right there on paper, and then you just have to follow through.
When the writers started to form the story, i immideately saw the scenes in my head.
And when the time came to get them on paper, i thought it would be better if i went above and beyond in terms of camerause. And with a very "cartoony" approach to the animating of the characters. This way, i figured we could tone it down to the bare minimum if we needed. Its always better to have too much, than too little.
So when i finished the first half of the story in storyboards, we had way too many shots and the expressions and movements of the characters were over the top.
So we cut it down, and Jacob (animation supervisor) and i, figured out how we could cut the whole thing down. Cutting it down would of course make it easier to make (deadline was slowly approaching) and easier to watch for the audience.
The whole team was great. I felt we all worked together very good and everyone did their best on each specific task. And the result was way better than expected. Especially Holly (designer) who powered out some amazing illustrations of Goldielocks in a matter of minutes. And when the hours started rolling, it only became better. And that of course goes for the whole group. Everyone was working hard non stop for those three days.
Our producer Craig always had a good attitude and mood. But he still managed to keep control of the whole "pipeline" of work.
The writers brought a good vibe and humor to the piece. Our given genre was "Dramatic narrative". The writers pretty much layed it down from the very beginning. With various adjustments along the way of course. But they really know their stuff and how to play around with it.
The only critisicm i have is directed at the fact that even though the genre was "Dramatic narrative"(which i imagined would be scary or serious), we ended up with a houmorous story about big gay bears. But i told the writers sraight away, but they explained how that genre could be "bent" either way. So trusted their decision, after all they know this waaay better than any of us.
The moral of the original story is of course "Dont venture unknowingly into the forest"... or something like that...
But we sort of wanted this old moral to be more adjusted to the modern, friendly society.
Therefore we had Goldielocks become friends with the "meterosexual" bears, instead of fearing and running away from them.
As the days went and we could see the end coming, we had to continiously cut down on the work. So even more shots were cut, and so was the story and dialogue/narration.
Short projects like these always seem to sort of get tensed at the end. Everyone is stressing to meet the deadline and sometimes it helps to push us, and sometimes things get forgotten and the whole project crumbles and fails. But its all good experience!
That is why i thought this was a good idea right from the start. We get experience of how it is to power out a pretty decent pitch animatic. And of course working in "jobs" made sense as it will mos likely be like that in the "real world".
I dont remember what i expected of the writers, but i definately liked them and the way they work. I migh not have seen exactly what they were typing, but we all had a good time and thought the whole thing was pretty funny. And the whole team was both impressed and satisied with the end result.
It made me want to actually animate it and finish the whole thing.
The idea was that the writers came up with the story, and we had to make it into an animated animatic suitable for a professional pitching.
The brief was basicly to make a promotional peice for The National Union of Fairies, Sprites, Elves and Druids (NUFSED). The animated peiece would be used to raise awareness of the organisation. And the whole thing would have to be based around an already existing fairytale.
My group for example, picked the story about Goldielocks and the three bears.
I was given the job as the Storyboard artist. Initially i thought i would only have to illustrate whatever the producer/writers envisioned. But since there were no director of photography or director at all, i figured it was my job to lay out the scenes cinematography-wise...
I like setting up scenes and playing around with how the camera should tell the story. I´ve never had any specific lessons on the subject, but i really enjoy doing it. It is almost like you make the whole film right there on paper, and then you just have to follow through.
When the writers started to form the story, i immideately saw the scenes in my head.
And when the time came to get them on paper, i thought it would be better if i went above and beyond in terms of camerause. And with a very "cartoony" approach to the animating of the characters. This way, i figured we could tone it down to the bare minimum if we needed. Its always better to have too much, than too little.
So when i finished the first half of the story in storyboards, we had way too many shots and the expressions and movements of the characters were over the top.
So we cut it down, and Jacob (animation supervisor) and i, figured out how we could cut the whole thing down. Cutting it down would of course make it easier to make (deadline was slowly approaching) and easier to watch for the audience.
The whole team was great. I felt we all worked together very good and everyone did their best on each specific task. And the result was way better than expected. Especially Holly (designer) who powered out some amazing illustrations of Goldielocks in a matter of minutes. And when the hours started rolling, it only became better. And that of course goes for the whole group. Everyone was working hard non stop for those three days.
Our producer Craig always had a good attitude and mood. But he still managed to keep control of the whole "pipeline" of work.
The writers brought a good vibe and humor to the piece. Our given genre was "Dramatic narrative". The writers pretty much layed it down from the very beginning. With various adjustments along the way of course. But they really know their stuff and how to play around with it.
The only critisicm i have is directed at the fact that even though the genre was "Dramatic narrative"(which i imagined would be scary or serious), we ended up with a houmorous story about big gay bears. But i told the writers sraight away, but they explained how that genre could be "bent" either way. So trusted their decision, after all they know this waaay better than any of us.
The moral of the original story is of course "Dont venture unknowingly into the forest"... or something like that...
But we sort of wanted this old moral to be more adjusted to the modern, friendly society.
Therefore we had Goldielocks become friends with the "meterosexual" bears, instead of fearing and running away from them.
As the days went and we could see the end coming, we had to continiously cut down on the work. So even more shots were cut, and so was the story and dialogue/narration.
Short projects like these always seem to sort of get tensed at the end. Everyone is stressing to meet the deadline and sometimes it helps to push us, and sometimes things get forgotten and the whole project crumbles and fails. But its all good experience!
That is why i thought this was a good idea right from the start. We get experience of how it is to power out a pretty decent pitch animatic. And of course working in "jobs" made sense as it will mos likely be like that in the "real world".
I dont remember what i expected of the writers, but i definately liked them and the way they work. I migh not have seen exactly what they were typing, but we all had a good time and thought the whole thing was pretty funny. And the whole team was both impressed and satisied with the end result.
It made me want to actually animate it and finish the whole thing.
Friday, 4 December 2009
Experimental Animation
Pete and I teamed up for this one.
We decided to animate a skateboard going along the ground, doing flips and grinds like you would see in a skate video. Though we tried to make the tricks look somewhat realistic, we also wanted to take advantage of the fact that we could make it do anything. And that is why the skateboard is suddenly going along the wall and stuff like that.
I think we could have probably gone even further and done more "fantasy tricks", but once we had all the once we envisioned from listening to the soundtrack, we just left it at that. And we are happy with the variety of tricks.
The technique was clear from the beginning: to animate the board one frame at a time, with someone holding the board in position, and then in post key that person out. This sounds way easier than it is. Keying is a complex tedious process. With most of the clips, we would have been better off reshooting them, but we already worked a lot on them.
Things like fingers on the board and shadows especially, is something you know to keep aware of whilst shooting, but it is, like i sais, easier said than done.
We both agree that the end result meets our expectations, but it would be fun to get it even better.
The timing of the animation and things to be aware of while shooting, are the key elements of this project. And we feel we could have done that better. But all in all we are happy with the experience of the animating as well as the post production we did.
It makes us laugh and we had fun!
We decided to animate a skateboard going along the ground, doing flips and grinds like you would see in a skate video. Though we tried to make the tricks look somewhat realistic, we also wanted to take advantage of the fact that we could make it do anything. And that is why the skateboard is suddenly going along the wall and stuff like that.
I think we could have probably gone even further and done more "fantasy tricks", but once we had all the once we envisioned from listening to the soundtrack, we just left it at that. And we are happy with the variety of tricks.
The technique was clear from the beginning: to animate the board one frame at a time, with someone holding the board in position, and then in post key that person out. This sounds way easier than it is. Keying is a complex tedious process. With most of the clips, we would have been better off reshooting them, but we already worked a lot on them.
Things like fingers on the board and shadows especially, is something you know to keep aware of whilst shooting, but it is, like i sais, easier said than done.
We both agree that the end result meets our expectations, but it would be fun to get it even better.
The timing of the animation and things to be aware of while shooting, are the key elements of this project. And we feel we could have done that better. But all in all we are happy with the experience of the animating as well as the post production we did.
It makes us laugh and we had fun!
Monday, 30 November 2009
11 second club animation - FINISHED!!
I finaly finished my animation!!
I made some last minute changes to the camera before submitting this to the 11 second club site.
But now i wont change it any further. I am exhausted from this project. But i am really happy with the result.
Here it is:
I made some last minute changes to the camera before submitting this to the 11 second club site.
But now i wont change it any further. I am exhausted from this project. But i am really happy with the result.
Here it is:
Friday, 20 November 2009
11 second club animation - keepin´at it!
Im nearly finished with animating the body of my character.
Here it is. I am very tired after a couple hours straight of animating!
But this thing is starting to look good. Just some finishing touches and then its on to facial animation!
Here it is. I am very tired after a couple hours straight of animating!
But this thing is starting to look good. Just some finishing touches and then its on to facial animation!
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