Render Farm Down!

Render Farm is down at the moment but should be back on tomorrow. I should be able to get some Hi Res Footage.

I have learnt SO MUCH! (Conclusion)

I think that the project has been successful and I feel that we managed to communicate our story through our animation in a way that can be understood. We kept the idea simple but tried to do something different by compositing our animation on Live Action. I think that this was a good idea as we only had 30 seconds to tell a story.

We did not meet the Rave on Air Quality Control, but we are still happy with the results. During the beginning I modeled some corel reef for the fish tank. The Corel Reef had a bit of particle animation which allowed some of the plants to sway and bring the enviroment to life. Ferhan introduced me to Dynamic and Particles as he specialises in that along with modeling. In the end we couldn't use the Corel Reef because it was too much for it to rendered with Real Flow Water. Instead we just went for a simple glass Fish Bowl which gave us a chance to concerntrate more on the animation. This was good because our project was more of an animation piece than an enviroment piece.

I learnt a lot from Ferhan's Dynamics and I was able to teach Ferhan how to UV Map and Texture as well as compositing and the Render Farm.

We had technical problem with rendering water and glass, but I don't think it took anything away from the animation, which I think is the strongest part of this project.

Overall, this was a good project but was made differcult by the essays and Rave on Air which set us back on our schedule. We had to sacrifice quality for Rendering Speed in the end but it shouldn't affect the whole animation.

Compare The Market, created by marketing agency VCCP.

This is one of the most annoying adverts I've heard but the compositing and rendering that VCC has achieved in this advert is something to aim for in the future. It was always going to be differcult to composite our animation to the level that they do in industry but I think we did a good job with lighting. I don't know how long it took VCC to make this advert, but I presume that they had a short space of time to do it but they had a lot of 3D and VFX Artists to make it. I think the key to creating a realist render is having a good eye the colour and light and time.

Citroen Advert and Lighting

The of composite that we were trying to aim for was some thing similar to this image. The Robot has been well lit and blends into the scene. One of our ideas was to have interaction between the fish and the people in the live action. We decided not to do have the fish interacting with because it would be too complicated to time it with the aniation in maya because of the lag in the time line.

This advert was Directed by Neil Blomkamp.

I tried to make the Fish animation as realistic as possible by creating a cylindrical lambert which would represent the table and then placing reflective attributes to it so that you could see the Fishes reflections on the Table. For the Final render I took away the visiblity of the lambert table by selecting "Use as Background" which keeps the shadows and the reflections from the lights and puts them on the live action table. The Shadows and reflections were finally done with Raytracing because we wanted realistic and accurate shadows. All of our lights were Area lights that were positioned to mimic the artificial lighting in the canteen and the natural light from the windows. Area Lights take longer to render that any other lights but the results give you lush and soft shadows and specular highlights. Another advantage of the area lights is that we could change the shape of them but it wasn't necassary. We rendered out our scene in layers which helped make the rendering times faster and the Compositing in After Effects easier.

We had a lot of problems with rendering the glass because of the angle of the lights. This was corrected through trial and error with moving the lights and changing reflection settings.

Overall, the lighting was successful but I had to turn off setting such as Final Gather and Global Illumination to improve the render speed.

Storyboard Summary

We have 2 fish that blow bubbles set in composited on live action. The bubbles will change shape and sound as they both try and out do each other. The final bubble will explode leaving both the fish dead.

Storyboard

Testing

A bit of testing with the lighting but need to look at Paint effects bubbles and water foam. Ifeel this will add to the realism.

Need to torrent
Maya Dyanamics: Underwater Environments

Testing

Update

So far, alot has been happening with Rave on Air and Contextual Studies. I've managed to finish the essay for contexual studies but I still need to prepare for the presentation. I have had feedback from the Formative Assesment which has been very useful in terms of what I need to achieve to gain a good grade. The Production Schedule is a key element for improvement and Ferhan and myself are going to spend Wednesday Cracking on with that. From the Formative Assesment I have learnt that I need to compare my work to the work of other 3D modellers and compositors in the industry. I'm going to look at Love Studio's who did the Renault advert where the car turns into a transformer. I think adverts in general and the post Production house's who make them are going to be my source of research. I need to put more 2D work and experiments on my blog as well.

The areas that are going well is the actual production of the project itself and the quality that we are producing is at a high standard. We are looking to finish this project with in the deadline given to us 19th June 2009. We tried our hardest to get the project finished for Rave on Air but came to a decision on Monday 25th June that it was not going to be feasable to finish the project to a high standard for the Quality Control. On the same week as the Quality Control, we had to hand in the PPD essay as well. The scheduling during this section of the project for myself was improvised slightly and had to change priority's between Rave on Air and PPD. I think our 30 second film would have been a Big Hit on Rave on Air but it wasn't going to happen in a short space of time.

Overall, setting up for Rave on Air was quite an "Eye opener" for me, especially with Dan Dalli's Show Reel Project. I was scavenging through every Maya scene that I had for a decent print to put up. I learnt that you have to change the dpi to at least 300 pixels in the render settings if you are printing out a render on A3 or higher. I have also learnt that Ii need to do some more modelling in my own time so that I have enough work for my final show reel next year. I'm looking into buying or *cogh*downloading*cogh* Zbrush or Mudbux as they are currently being used in the Gaming industry and could take my modelling to a new level. Dynamics and paint Effects really appeal to me and I thnak Ferhan for introducing me to them from VFX point of view.

At the moment we are have come across a problem with the Real Flow water. I got a text from Ferhan saying that it was impossible to add the water because of the scale of the fish tank. I replied back saying that I would be researching in ways to mimic water with lighting and paint effects. The Animating Stage of the process will be completly finished by Tomorrow 9th June where I will take a copy of the playblast and sync together the sound and music.

Presentation for Contextual is on Wednesday, so I'll be ready to take that on when it comes. As for now I'm Testing out Paint Effects bubbles with Particles and simulating water with lights. I messaged this Student on Youtube who has manged to successfully simulate surface water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isXNkTiiAYQ

Hope they reply back (fingers crossed).

Rough Storyboard

Concept for the New Tropical

Some more concept will be on the way. This is a digital painting done in Photoshop. I wanted to mimic the tradition painting style to give it a unique look. My first influence was the art work for Street Fighter 4 and how they stylized their to look as if it had been painted with inks. I feel that by making the brush strokes visible give the image more energy and life.

I like Monet's painting because of the way the he conveys movement.

Final Reef

The reed was finished 2 weeks ago but the grreen plants on the left and right use alot of polys so we have to take them out because Ferhan's computer will take take alon time to render both the plants and the RealFlow water.

Oh Yeah, Got the Bubbles!!

These Bubbles are rendered out on my computer in Maya Software.  They look very realistic which is what we want for the look of our animation.  They can be modeled to any shape.  I'll put the link up to where I downloaded them from.

Blend Shapes so Far

Starting Blend Shapes

I have the main Blend Shapes in. I'm creating more Blend Shapes at teh moment to give the Fish as much character as possible. The Blend Shapes in the image above are mainly Blowing motions.

Putting in Squash and Stetch

I had to look back at an old Bouncing Ball tutorial for this. I'll post it! Mesh is still good.

High Poly Tropical Fish

I'm very happy with the result. Looks like a funny fish so it's time to give it some character!

Low Poly and Textured

Low Poly Tropical Fish

I'm happy with the low poly geometry. It looks flexible so I will be looking into Squash Stretch and Bend Deformers as well as a Fish Rig.

Tropical Fish Idea

I didn't like the previous Fish that I modeled because it doesn't look like a fish that you would find in a fish tank. I'm going to base my Fish character on this style of Tropical Fish. It looks really vibrant and colourful which will attract the attention of the audience.

Production Plan

At the moment we have just finished texturing the enviroment and fishes. We are going to be Rigging over the weekend so we can animate on the Monday. We have heard shocking News about the new deadline which has cut our production for Rave on Air by 3 weeks. We should be able to get our aniamtion done for Rave on Air and Maybe have time to do the Quality Control a Day earlier if everything goes well. This Production Plan is a new one which has been designed for the New Deadline.

This Week and Beyond

AIMS FOR THIS WEEK

1. Finish Modeling Completely (Very Doable)

2. Make a start Texturing (Enviroment and Fish)

3. Final Storyboard

Overall this has been a good week so far.  Both fish models have been done and the enviroment is starting to take shape as well.  Our main challenge will be the rendering times and whether the computers can handle all the high textures and particle effects.  Ferghan was having trouble with creating bubbles in RealFlow, so I did some research on the internet for other ways of doing this.  I found a guide on creating soapy bubbles in maya which showed me what was possible.  The guide was useless because it never actual tells you Step-by-Step how he does any of it.  I figured that you could model the bubbles in Maya and then just create bubble shader.  The benefits of modeling the bubbles in Maya as opposed to creating them in After Effects is that we can have more control over the shape and movement of the bubbles.

Earlier on during the week, Ferghan was experimenting with Maya shatter.  This gave me an idea on how to make the bubbles burst.  If we use place an Alpha Channeled plane over the top of the fish tank, we could make the bubbles shatter when they hit it.  We can then put the bubbles on a seperate layer in After Effects and slowly decrease the Opacity of the bubble fragments until they disappear. 

Okay thats it for now, back to work to the Modeling! 

Plant Test

We have decided to look into the water plants and reefs.  This is a rough plant test to see if I can get them swaying in the water.  The reef is going to be bump mapped to give it a rough and rocky surface while I'll place various plants on top.

Fish Tank Enviroment

Ferghan and myself decided to for the aquarien fish tank.  I like the aquarien fish tank because it tries to replicate the natural envirement that fish live in.  I also find that it looks aesthetic and calming which would contradict the characters of the 2 loud burping fish.  

With the aquarien, we will be playing the the audiences perception.  

Fish Model

The fish has started to take shape and is looking good so far.  I'm going to go back in to the model and add more features on it like cheeks and gills.  I' going to make the eyes slightly larger as well to give the fish a cartoony feel.  

I think that blend shapes will work for for the puffing of the cheeks and depending on how close the camera is on the fish I'll will either bump map or sculpt the gills.

Fish Scales

Thinking about colourizing these scales for the texturing. We are going for cartoon styled fish, so I amy need to ctreate textures from scratch.

Fish Scales

Time Plan

Today we have learnt to use Microsoft Project to manage our time with the various tasks that we have to do to get this project finished by Rave on Air. I need to get a copy of the software from Jared so I can use it from home as well as at college. I have found Microsoft Project very useful for organising time because it is visually easy to look at and it has a calender on it as well so we can keep trakc with how long jobs are taking.

Fish Idea

Ferghan and myself are doing a 30 second animation on 2 fish that have a burping contest. The 2 fish will try and out do each other with the most weirdest and wackiest burps. In the end both fish will be destroyed by the final burp which the animation ends on.

We came up with this idea after a discussion with Jared about our 2 other ideas. We both agreed that this "Burping Fish" idea would be feasable to finish in 6 weeks for Rave on Air.

We have a list of Burp sounds that we want to add in and a storyboards are on the way. Once we have the final storyboard, we can push on in to the Animatic and Production process. Ferghan has modelled a Fish already which has put us ahead of schedule. I have also modelled a Fish and started to layout the UV's. I'll be doing some concept art to work out the what textures I'll be putting onto the model.

Project Brief

For this brief you will be required to work upon 30 second animation pieces to either broadcast on Rave On Air, or used in the associated animation exhibtion at the end of term.

You have the choice of working towards one of the following outputs:

1. An advert or promotion of the that Level 2 Product Design students have been working on.

2. A character based animation piece to take advantage of the Musion setup that will be in place for Rave On Air.

3. An Animation piece of your own design.

4. Additionally, there may be the possibility to produce animated content for CCB students if their programmes require it, this will depend upon demand, and will subject to negotiation with your tutor.


You will be free to work in whatever way you choose, so long as it meets the following stipulation:

A 30 second running time
(if you are working towards option 2) It promoted the value of the brand chosen by the Product students.
It meets the formatting requirements for ROA