Introduction to unit 4

I'm fed up of being an average student. I really want to achieve my maximum and try to prove to myself, tutors and classmates that I can create good work. I notice that I am making improvements which is all I can ask for, but I still need to tweak some of my skills.

Anyway, moving on swiftly. Unit 4 is going to be very interesting because its all about storytelling. We have been given three objects in which we are to pre-produce a one minute animation using the three objects which were selected from random envelopes.

My Creative Design Project must include:
  
-Finished three act story idea
-Concept and set design
-Final presented storyboards
-Animatic with sound and transitions
-A CG Pre-Visualization

Plus all of my research and development.

In the next few post I will have some research into my three objects; A genie, a Warehouse and a Skateboard. It will be these three items which I will be using to create my final piece. Wish me luck :)

Animation Short - Our Wonderful Nature

From the moment I set eyes on this short piece of brilliance I assumed it was going to be a very neat 'David Attinborough' Style documentary, but hey I've been wrong in the past. Once I got past the introduction I was hit with one character, the water shrew. If you haven't seen a water shrew in action before then let me tell you, you may not be impressed.
It wasn't up until the scene cut and started talking about mating that I really begun to see the fun side of the animation. My interest of the animation turned into utter excitement. Once the Shrew has had its introduction, the scene cuts onto two prime males determined to find a playmate. They fight to the death but it is over in seconds, but then the narrator cuts in and rewinds the tape rewinds the tape revealing in slow motion what really happened. I'm not going to spoil it but I will say its definitely worth the watch, something I enjoyed very much, Great story with a very funny twist.

Okay cannot get the clip up but will do later, but for now, heres the site -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aFKSvw4bjU

Tableux Vivant Painting references

for the Tableux Vivant painting I will be trying to create an entrapped effect. I want the house to be deep in a wooded area surrounded by a large amount of trees(vine like). I will be creating this night scene using a brush tool, changing the opacity and blurring the grayish night background to give me an effect which resembles night in the woods. Below are some of my reference images which I have found useful.

 

 

Appart from the middle image, these dark and dense foliage gives off an eerie effect which will go well with my scene. When I create my scene I hope to use a grayish nigh sky with almost black trees, a bit like the first image but with a bit more detail.

My Final Modelled Scene

Okay people, I have my final scene modelled in Maya ready to take into Photoshop. I can truley say I am very happy with my finasl Maya Scene. I have come across endless amounts of problems, mostly I have overcome them but some not. I made a teddy bear in Maya and applied Fur to it which made it look really good. However when I imported it into my final piece and I tried to de-scale it, the fur was way too big and looked like something out of a horror movie. I spent hours trying to make it right tweaking with the settings but in the end it really did not want to work.:(. In the end i will have to take the bear into photoshop and tryb and recover it. Wish me luck, and for tomorow because I do not like getting up in front of people. Hopefully this time I will get better comments because my effort has increased massively.

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Texturing(this will come in handy)

So here are the textures items from last week lesson

The left side left the book

 

The right side of the book

 

Both pages rendered 

 

Orthodontists X-Ray

 

Rain drops on the leaf

 

Inside the bloodstream

Pirates Cove 2

At last, I had to Re-do this tutorial because my coin kept being very unusual so I had to start the first tutorial again and add the textures back to the coins and to the sand. Lucky for me I still had the bump and color maps already to apply from photoshop, otherwise this would have taken major time.

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Another Update

Just thought I would add up one more image for the progress that I am on throughout the remains of the project.

I am reasonably happy so far, some things will not go the right way though which is beginning to become very frustrating lol :)

Final Scene Update

Okay, just a quick update on how im doing so far. It was very frustratiing because no matteer how hard I tried I could not get bump mapping to work on my Mya.; I thought I was doomed but finally after hours of confusion I got it to work ;).(second image)

At the moment I have only added a few items into my Scene. This was only a tester of placement which will be change in due course.

This second image I applied a bump map to my floorboards. They look much better and unlike before I have scaled down the floorboards.

Halloween

See Previous post :)

Lighting

As my Maya scene is going to be set in an old Victorian style house I thought For the rooms source of light could be candles. I was thinking of adding a light source from the room which suggests to the viewer that the house is still in use even though it appears to be abandoned.

Below are a few images of a candle model which I did using the sculpting tool which I found in a tutorial. I knew how to make a basic looking candle but I did not know how to make it look like it has been used. I have found the tool to be very useful and will definitely experiment with it again.

The shot above was just a quick render to see how the candle could look once it was fully smoothed and rendered. I think with the depth which was added using the sculpture tool allows it to look more impressive.

In the image above I added a couple of point lights to bring out the detail in the burnt out candle. I will be using this in my scene but still am not sure whether the color is right and whether I will mount it onto the wall with a holder. Overall though it has been a good experience using new tools.

StepFord Wives

The movie, Stepford wives was released in 1975 by a man called Bryan Forbes. Stepford wives, like the name is set in a little suburban town where women go about the everyday house work just to please their husbands.
Two of the women, Joanna and Bobby, start to notice that all seems unnatural amongst the little town. They get it into their heads that the women of Stepford are not in fact human, but android replicas of women who were once just like them. Although already a 'housewife' Joanna has taken up a hobby in photography which shows her intelligence and power above her inadequate husband Walter.

When I heard we was watching the movie 'Stepford Wives', I immediately assumed we would be watching the 2004 remake with 'Nicole Kidman'. Fortunately for me I was wrong. Going into the film I  had assumed that it was going to be slighty different to its predesesor still lacking an ability to keep me interested. However, since I started this course I always go into a film with an open mind which I say is a very good way of looking at things. Unlike the remake, which I found quite comical, Stepford Wives of 1975 proved to be one of the eeriest movies I have seen in recent years.

Maya Room Update

Just a few shots now I finally have the internet back. Just thought I would put them up to show my progress into creating the childs twisted nursery.

The image above was a quick tester just to make sure I knew what I was doing when texturing my room. I went into photoshop and placed down some Victorian looking wallpaper which I found. I then added a rotting plaster effect under the paper and used the lasso tool to cut back unveiling the plaster.

This next image from photoshop is a quick shot of me creating the texture, I may go back and change it a little later on.

 

Some adjustments needed but this is my scene so far. I may need to change the floorboard sizes, Then add a bit more lighting and finally add the last few items.

Santas Hat

Wow, Alan this hat looks amazing. well what I mean to say is your tutorials never cease to amaze me. I really liked this tutorial. I found it very easy to follow but at the same time I also found it a perfect way to round off week threes tutorials, especially with Christmas just gone. This was done a little while back but it is only going up today because of my current interenet situation which hopefully will be fixed by early next week.

This is first screen shot was a tester to make sure the textures were correctly applied to the hat.

Above is my first full render of the Santa hat, Low quality of course.

Above, the final render of the textured Father Christmas hat.

Fur Tutorials

Below are all of the fur tutorials which were set for week three, very good tutorials which are easy to follow and will come in usefull in the future.

           Bear Fur Light                                                    Dark

             Bear and Bison                                                 Bison

               Porcupine                                                      Sheep

                   Baldness                                        Global Density 5000

         Global Density 50000                                 Hybrid of Furs

Fur Complination

Part Two

          Low Density Render                             High Density Render

            Adding Scraggle                                    Baldness Render

                 Clumping                                             Inclination Render

                      Polar                                                     Roll Render

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pirate cove 2...

Fireplace and references

Okay, down the library getting some good old use out of the internet, thought I would post up some modelling for my room which I am in the process of making.

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Old Mans Nursery Room

Just adding some images for the basic layout of the room. I wanted to create an old fireplace in the centre of the back wall with a door on the left hand side of the room and a window on the right. have a look at the pictures, just the layouts at the moment.

The first three of these images are the basic layout of the room, A basic layout to help me understand what needs to go where.

I added a plane in the image above just to help me get a visual idea of how the room may look when closed in. The next two images are shots of me trying to create a fireplace.

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Back at Uni, Back to Work

Hey guys, hope you all had a nice christmas and new year, really quite lost at the moment. Just want to give a quick update on my progress so far throughout the holidays. Although my internet has completley failed, or BT need to get a move on a fix it, I still managed to make some progress into making steady progress into kick starting the project. I also now know never to trust specified instructions to installing Maya. Trust me on this one, if you dont know how to properly install a programme ask someone. For some reason my Maya does'nt recognise my license, and for this reason Maya is not working. So if anyone has a crack for Maya could they please let me know so that i can get mine kick started again, thank you :)

Okay, the real reason I started this post was to update you fellow bloggers on any changes of direfction in which my project was going. There has been a massive change, I have decided not to follow my idea about creating a train station scene, but to go back to my original idea, the childrens nursery.
Through my initial ideas I will be making an old room with newish victorian/tudor looking furniture. I want the focus to remain on the childs Cot in the centre of the room with a light source from an open window. I want to create an effect which suggests something about the room, something with the cot as the focus. A kidnapping maybe, or just an old room. we shall see, its good to be back.