The beat goes on

So I asked for a few more shots and I was answered. Oh hell was I answered lol. I've taken on 2 of Stu's shots since he has a tonne of pretty challenging shots to get through. The two I got were probably some of the easier ones of his bunch but to me they are still pretty hardcore.

The first is shot 18, in which we see the Target in his chair taking a swig of beer while watching TV, It's going to run roughly 8-9 seconds. That's what it came to when I acted it out. Fortunately I was born to play the part of sitting on my arse swigging beer.

In any case I did a little block out above to get the timing down, plenty of details to add in but something I have trouble with is timing, in all walks of life as it happens not just animation. But I digress. Anyway I'm pretty pleased with the timing so far. List of details I want to get in there:

-The first 3 seconds where nothing is happening will be the Target drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair.

-Make him actually pick up the beer can lol, gotta figure out the constrain parent tool.

-Add a little glug at the end once he raises the beer up.

Aside from that the initial movement of him reaching for it and raising it up is good, at least I think so. Once I add the rest of the details in I shall upload it to the team blog for critique. that should be ready tomorrow. Then I can spend Saturday fixing that shizz before moving on to the next shot.

Roll on, Roll out

Just been tweaking another shot today, added some movement to the tie, jacket and legs of the Hitman in this shot. Also extended it a good second and a half so that those details can be seen better.

Waiting on the ninja rig now so that I can work on some little shots from the end of the film.

Tweaking

About time for an update methinks. Rolled into college yesterday where we went over some stuff related to the animation. Our self imposed deadline is in 3 weeks for the majority of the animation to get done leaving us about 2 weeks for rendering/after effects etc.

Stu has got a tough time of it since he has the most shots, Dan has quite a lot to do as well on top of sorting stuff for the degree show. I don't envy him. I'm not built for multi-management like him. We discussed maybe breaking up a few shots from Stu's workload among the rest of us if he won't finish. We're gonna explore that possibility on Friday. I'd rather not take on any more animation, since everytime I touch animation my skin starts to sizzle like a Vampire stepping in to the daylight lol, but of course I will if that's what it comes to.

In any case it's doable and it will get done, Dan's a bloody soldier so he'd probly finish the film himself if the rest of us where taken out of commision. Hopefully it won't come to that though (touch wood).

So far today I've been tweaking one of my shots to make it a lot more suitable for our final film. Dan gave me some handy critique yesterday so I've tried to sort out some of the issues he pointed out. Posted it over at the team blog for some critique and once I get that I shall go back on it and tweak it again! In the mean time I'm going to go back on the other shot I've produced for the final film and make some tweaks on that. This way I can have something on the go everytime I'm waiting for critique on something else. :)

On a lesser note I had a brief chinwag with Double D about my folders for final hand in, so I'm probably gonna start organising stuff for that over the next few days so I'm not rushing it at the last minute. My artist folder is pretty much full with all the concept/storyboards from the first term and my character models from Term 2. Technical folder is looking alright now since I UV'd the whole environment and everything in it (outside that is) While it's not all getting textured I still did it lol so in the folder it goes. Might jump on a bit of composoting too once we are rendering stuff. Animation is of course going to be my weakest folder but I've got a couple of tests and of course 4 final shots to slip in there so it at least shows I had a crack at it despite my aversion to it.

Assembly line

Scope attachment as it stands. I had a zillion problems with this one and I'm still trying to overcome one.

After he clicks it on he's sposed to slide it back into place but because the wrist is an IK or whatever and at a weird angle when i move it back it slightly rotates as well, hence, so does the scope. So I've been trying to position the wrist and rotation so that there is no noticeable deformation, no luck yet but I'll have another play around with it tomorrow though.

I know Dan needs these two shots for tomorrow so this is what he's getting if I can't sort the slide out tomorrow morning. Of couse I should be able to sort it by final deadline but for the purposes of the teaser this is where it stands.

Another weird thing is that the pinky finger resets back to some fubar position everytime I open the file, I can easily solve it by keying it at a certain frame where it should be, but stange none the less.

Click Click Boom

Barrel attachment as it stands. I tried to move the fingers a bit more but the problem I had before with keying them still stands. It seems to only affect the fingers though.

It was initially quicker than this because i figured he's a pro it's gonna be like CLICK! CLACK! BLAU! but it was just too fast since it's such a short shot so I slowed it down a bit. Speed can be messed with in after effects I guess.

It ain't perfect but it does what it's sposed to.

Yay problems.

So here for an example I have keyed the thumb up at frame 14.



Then I key it down at frame 24 or 23 I can't see the thumbnail is too small :P Anyway it's keyed there and there is no other movement at this stage.



Now when I go back to frame 14 the thumb is keyed in the same position as I moved it to in frame 24? I seem to remember having this problem before but I forgot what the problem was.

Anyway it's just one of multiple stupid problems I've encountered trying to do what should be a relatively easy shot. In any case I'm off to google why this is happening. If anyone reads this and knows why it's going down leave a quick message. I probably just have something toggled which shouldn't be.

I just wanna go back to bed, I wonder if chicken soup actually does help you when your ill? Well at least I can pour it over my computer if maya keeps being a nuisance.

Testing 1-2

This was the first test I did for the rifle attachment, I forgot to upload it the other day. Meh. The principles are right but I can't get a convincing feel to the way he sort of wriggles it into place.

Game Plan

Lets recap our game plan!

With the UVs finally behind me I can move on to something else. Unfortunately that something else happens to be animation *shudder*, still I only have a few shots to do since it's far from my speciality and I gotta pad out them folders a little.

For now I'll be working on some tests and then getting my finished shots ready to be put into the film. I'm also on standby in case Sam is taking too long or just plain needs some help texturing the environment.

After that I guess composoting which will probably be a group effort, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Sleepwalking

I just put the last touches on the UVs for the environment so that with the exception of the telephone wires which are nurbs and kicking up a stink every object is UV mapped. I will probably do a more in-depth post on it tomorrow because I don't even want to think about it right now.

I will say that at the end I got pretty lazy and auto-mapped quite a few things. These were mostly parts that don't, to the best of my knowledge show up in any shots or if they do it is like one side of them or real far in the distance. i.e. the crane in the background.

Anyway all the buildings are mapped properly along with most of the smaller assets like gas pumps and such.

Touching Base

So very nearly done with the UVs I can taste it. I literally have one building left and a couple of the smaller assets like dumpsters. My deadline for this is next Monday but I should be done by tomorrow or Saturday at the latest. So I'll be done 2-3 days in advance. Score. If this works out then I may see if Sam needs any help applying textures to the environment...not that I know how to create convincing textures but alls I can do is try :P

I'll definately take one of those days out to sort out the PPD project so I don't have to worry about that anymore. Holy hell I forgot what it feels like to be ahead of schedule...well on my individual job that is, not the film as a whole. Still there's always more to do.

I only have 4 shots to animate for the final film which rocks since I'm neither confident or enthusiastic about it but of course I'll do my best. Besides the Animation is Stu's time to shine.

Well that's where I stand right now, I'll update again once I finish these UVs once and for good.

JC.

E-gads!

Busy weekend of Family related rambunctiousness but I managed to continue to chip away at the UVs. I got my ass-kicked by Kick-Ass on Saturday evening, it was surprisingly entertaining so much so that I may have to invest in the comic. It was on my list anyway.

Back to business though, today I've been trying to concentrate on the smaller assets that litter the environment such as doors, brickwork, dumpsters and boarding etc...Bloody Hell. Quite a few things, a lot of it is duplicating one UV'd object though. It just takes time to make sure everything goes exactly where it's meant to. Incredibly monotonous though.

So far I've done all the brickwork and boarded up windows and I'm trying to get those balconies out of the way next.

Increase the Peace.

JC

Arrows in my sleep...

Some screenshots to show my progress with the unwrapping so far. It's taking ages but I'm making fairly good progress. there are tonnes of little objects to UV still like some dumpsters and telephone poles, however, they are a lot easier to do than the buildings which have tonnes of faces to map and sew.

I'm trying to get most of the complex buildings done first since that's the biggest challenge.

I finished the main apartment building today with all the boarded up windows which I was chuffed with since it took forever. Some unavoidable seems on there but definately workable :P

Tomorrow I can hopefully get 2 more of those main buildings done since they are not as complex and make a start on some of the smaller assets.

Keep on truckin!

Release me from this mortal coil!

buildings take a lot longer to unwrap than I thought....

So many different bits to unwrap and then sew back together. This one alone which wasn't finished then the screenshot was taken took like 3 hours o.O!

Well it can't be avoided, at least I have work to do now.