How to renderlayers...

That last post was a bit wordy. Here's a .gif that makes life a little easier. If it doesn't play on this page, just try clicking it.



...or not... Doesn't look like blogger likes animated gifs...

Flex fail

Yep, well, I'd look kinda worried if this happened to me too...



This has occurred because somebody has removed (not unloaded... removed,) the shotgun reference from the Blue+shoutgun.mb file. Which is very not cool. More than that, the reference has been removed AND THE FILE HAS BEEN SAVED OVER.

VERY NOT COOL. This means that we have to re-reference the gun back in, which will make it seem to maya as a new object. So any work we've done with blue in the pre-vis shots with his gun has to be completely redone.

DO NOT work from v00 with anything, and ALWAYS keep a backup of the file before you save over a changed version. In this example, start work from blue_model_v106.mb, then save v107. When you're done making changes, save as v00 and test it. If it doesn't work, we just re-open v106 and save over v00 again...

...and while we're at it, don't work over the top of referenced objects. It just doesn't work.

Refer-a-Ninja

Remember Mini Ninjas? I can recall being quite excited about it, maybe some time last year. Then it was forgotten...

...Then I found it for $30. It is so freakin' awesome!! You should definitely play it, but more relevant to this - have a look at the art style. This is very much the rendering style I think we should be aiming for. I'll bring it in to uni some day, so we can play and have a good look at it.

Kitty Poop 1

Just in case you thought we had an original idea, it turns out someone's done it before us...

Anmimatronic Notation

Notes for changes to our animatic as follows:


Shot 2: reframe for continuity (move to right?)


Shot 3: ideas for making it more obvious why they're jumping out into an explosion ("CHAAAARGE!!" & vox effects?)
>>Hold shot longer, add more sfx.

Shot 4.5: Add close ups for tripping?
>>Trips over his own feet - close up

Shot 7ish: Frame for OS explosion to reveal of desolation (reframe better?)
>>Knock orange off to the left a little, then quick zip out to reveal desolation.

(remember to cut on action from this to next MCU shot)

Shot 9: Reconsider reveal of Blue guy (pan? POV?)
>>Look at pixar examples

Shot 10: Get more oppinion on slow pull to CU of blue

Fighting sequence: Do some awesome camera work
>>Blue's first shot cuts on action to... Many camera angles, fast moving shots, adding items getting hit, etc. etc.

Add tripping close up again (maybe?)
>>experiment with this.

Remember what was potentially wrong with the bird thing...
>>Maybe unneccessary? Add later.

Long shot of bird getting shot (frank) - falling into frame in later sequence (tune for comic timing)


>>Change 2nd tripping framing
-add quick shot of orange's gun bouncing away
-gun falls to place, cut on action to
-strong perspective shot of gun barrel
-slow pan around gun to reveal blue shaking holding gun
-cut to orange, closer, flinching away (bracing for impact)
-cut to CU of Blue hesitating, looking away
-emphasise gun misfiring animation
-click a few times while looking
-THEN turn gun around.
-orange tenatively looks up a little. (reaction shot)
-Blue still fiddling with gun.

Jumpy camera cuts when giving gun back. Reduce to 1 or 2.

Reconsider jumping back somehow. Flat framing is lame. WATCH KUNG FU AWESOMENESS WITH CAPS LOCK OF EPIC

Show photo flying out in long shot
-cut to CU of photo

Re-arrange reactions (blue react - photo CU - Blue re-react)

Flipping photo album (use cut on action as blue rotates photos [cut from external shot to pov])

Photos framed awesomely together at end.



And all that jazz.

The pic that started it all.......

Hey guys, just thought as reference to include the image that I pitched to Tom last year that gave the theme of the short film I wanted to make. Gonçalo Pereira created this image called "Rabbit Menace". You can find more of his awsum stuff on http://rawgon.blogspot.com/

And here is some more concepts of the same project

Au Francé

Here's a making of video of the first ever 3D TV series Insektors. Old classic.

Take note of the primitive technology, but really good animation principle. It's pretty broken, but cool non the less.

When Considering Storyboards Strip Comic

Found a hilarious strip comic on when first starting a storyboard by Dreamworks storyboard artist Rad Sechrist. It is funny and teaches you many things.

Monkeh.

Burning Safari.

More reference, this time mainly for animation style. I really like the pace and weight of the characters in this animation. Particularly the monkey. Looks freakin' amazing if you ask me.

Another inspiring short

Here's another short film I just saw. It also has a mix of 2D and 3D, but it's much more angled to the 2D side of things. Good reference for character animation and design none the less. It's got a good comical feel to it too, if there's some way we can encapsulate that somehow, that would be cool.

Knight Fever - Written, Directed and Animated by Christopher Minos.

Thinking style

So I saw Neil's (as always) brilliant work, and I was reminded of an animation style I was inspired by. Storm Hawks, I have both seasons if anyone wants to watch.

Meanwhile, have a gander at these screens next to Neil's arty stuff.





Note painted textures, especially the extreme example on the broom. Good artsy textures save time, space, renders and can still look good. Also see the semi-furry creature in the last image.

Thoughts?

Oh, and on an unrelated note, I've started a storyboard attempt.

Soldier concepts

I've had these drawn for a number of weeks, some for Brad's idea, some for mine, and some from brainstorming on the bus. There's some more on the way of some different stuff, but this is the first one I've finished with for today.



There's a little bit of experimenting with the strength and saturation of the colours for our look, but this page is pretty narrow minded and bright coloured. While I was drawing these, I was also very conscious of the general curves of the characters, which is a good way of showing different character designs (when done properly of course, these aren't great examples...)

These were just quick to get a few ideas out of my head. Feedback, please!

Rendering anyone?

So you guys know I'm a rendering nazi.
Couldn't help myself.
This is my Lizard dude from our last assignment, pulling a stupid face.

I was inspired by this podcast here to try out an unorthodox lighting technique, rather than just the plain old one we've used so far when everything is rendered out in one big block. This has some pros and cons, so I'm looking for your guys ideas on this.

He explains it in the video, but I wanted to show the test I did too:

First I did a simple shadow map with a directional light. This could be problematic if we can't find a quick and easy way to turn all the textures to white and back again. Solution pending.

Then I do another 2 renders: one with a bright ambient light:

...and a darker one for shadows.


Using the first shadow map as an alpha channel for the bright render, we can add them together to look something like this:

...which looks like any standard render you've ever seen. BUT! By having this little bit of extra effort behind us in the rendering stage, it makes it so much easier to tweak colours and change minor details later on.

For example, say we want to make the shadows a little more red:

... then add some blue to the highlights:

...yes, he is purple. Again, me accidentally making something purple.

I'm not sure how comparable the render times are for a full scene, but I may run some tests on this using the level for that game design assignment thingy. I'll keep you posted.

What do you guys think in the meanwhile?

It's got the possibility to make things difficult by tripling our number of renders, and making them a little more fiddly.
BUT
The renders may wind up shorter (think about it, one light per render!)
AND
We may be able to reduce re-renders
BUT
If we need to re-render, it will be a longer process.

Lemme know what you think! I've got some more rules of making things easier for ourselves, but I'm not going to spoil your creative drives by imposing techno-regulations so early on our designs and/or awesomenesses.

The Boss Concepts

These are just two quick drawings I did this morning well i had the time. Concepts for the boss character. It was mentioned that he was a mutant or experiment of some sort, and not just a big dude by chance. The first pic his a bit of an adaption of Brad's first boss concept. I through in some stitches to show he has been cut up a little. The second could be more of the mindless monster kinda mutant. If we wanted to go down that road here is an awesome Warhammer concept of a Rat Ogre: http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/images/newsletter/global/2006/CA_oct_2006_newsl27.jpg

"Rat Ogres are the masterpiece of Clan Moulder's mad research. They are massive hulking monsters, created from a warped mix of different creatures... little more than a mass of sinewy muscles and razor-sharp claws, moved only by their instinct to kill..."

Sounds kinda cool to me.

Inspiring Pidgeons

A brilliant short film called Pidgeon Impossible, plus some useful behind the scenes stuff.

http://www.pigeonimpossible.com/