Summary

Well then, here we are. 2 days to go and I am officially done with BA Animation. With that in mind I have been putting my folders together for marking today, making sure it's all there. Compiled into little jpegs and avi's it doesn't look like a years work lol. Hopefully my blog speaks to the work I've done.

Speaking of which I have been reviewing my blog and I'm pretty sure it illustrates what I've been up to quite well. I really hope whoever marks it has a little gander at our group blog as well though since I posted stuff there that isn't on my personal blog. It also shows how good our group communication has been which I think is part of the marking criteria.

In any case I guess I will quickly recap the main things I have done on the project:

Storyboards
Concept work
Character Models
UV Mapping
Animation

In the past few weeks I have also been helping with rendering and composoting. I tried my hand at a little texturing but could not get the hang of it so it's not really important. All of the above things should be covered in my blog and also in my folders for hand in but I figured a quick list here for whoever be marking this would be helpful.

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So onto my feelings regarding how the project has gone. I'll try and keep this short since I have a tendency to ramble on in these posts.

In regards to the film, I think it's great that we have a nearly completed film and will almost certainly finish it for the degree show however I think it shows that we have had to rush things out at the end. Dan mentioned something the other day about just having 10 shots that look amazing being better than a whole film that is rushed. I'm inclined to agree and it kind of bums me out that the film doesn't look as we thought it was going to at the start or even mid-way through the project. Still we have worked to a production pipeline and this is the first time that any of us have done this, so to meet the deadline is an achievment in itself. Despite not being as polished as we would have liked I think there is still a lot of good stuff in this film.

In regards to the group, I'm proud to have had the oppertunity to work with everyone in team Whack'd, they are talented, dedicated individuals and it has been my pleasure to work with them. I think that our communication has been pretty awesome, even with someone like myself who works from home a lot. Our team blog is a testament to this clocking in over 500 posts and shows constant progress updates for fellow team members. In particular though I think Dan S deserves a big shout out, he has had a finger in every pie throughout production, not to mention his work for the degree show and website. The mans a machine.

In regards to me, coming into this year I was not very confident in my own abilities. I almost left the course at the end of the 2nd year and was still unsure if I should be here. While I still think I have a long way to go, I think that I have grown a lot in this past year strengthening my 3D and drawn skills and learning a few new ones. In the end I'm glad I stayed on but now I'm ready to move on. Whether I make it into the industry or not hopefully I will be walking away from this course with a degree and proof to myself that I could do it. I also have a new found resolve to keep at my drawing since it can only get better.

Well I think that's the last of me on this here blog.

Increase the Peace.

Josh Cook.

Return to form

Ugh I can't even be bothered to type. I got dog stink all over me and I wanna go and wash it off.

I was away all weekend house sitting and looking after the dogs of some people while they were away which means I've been absent from blogging my usual amount since they don't have a wireless connection. Yadda Yadda, it was a hastle. However I did finish off two more shots since last I posted which brings me to the end of my animating career. Thank Christ. I think that was my last contracted task, so technically anything I do from here on is pro bono. Well actually it's all been pro bono...I shouldn't have signed that contract.

Still I wanna see this flipping film finished so from here on out I'm going to be setting up renders I think. I don't know how to sort out vanguard but I'll whizz in to college tomorrow to find the answer and thus will begin the tedium. I'm kind of in the mood for some monotonous work though. Just clicking a bunch of crap, not sketching something or getting the timing right on some animation.

On another note I got my bill for my studies at Ravensbourne over the weekend reminding me that I am 14 grand in debt, Huraay! In spite of that, I actually can't wait to be done with this course and education as a whole. It's sort of scary that I'm going to have to go and get a job but at the same time I just want to move on, regardless of what I end up doing I need a new chapter. I can't wait to see the back of Ravensbourne and I mean that in the nicest way possible :P

Gravity

Trying to remember to update stuff here since I get graded on it. Might have to do a big huge re-cap post to make sure that I cover everything I did. I forget if I posted everything I did or not. It seems trivial to have to prove what is already proven. hopefully the examiners will check our team blog because we've all been mega active on that. clocked over 500 posts I think lol.

Anyway, the above playblast is a shot I did yesterday. One of Spence's that I picked up. Turned out ok, just a quick close up. I already put it on the team blog but I figured I'd stick it up here as well. I have since moved on to the next shot on my list.

So far it's going a bit shit. Having some trouble with it but I shall perservere. Considering I initially wanted as little animation as possible I seem to have taken on quite a bit :/ them's the breaks I suppose. It fills my folders which is good, but at the same time I can't help but think that our film will suffer for having my pooptastic animation all over it lol. I'd rather have a wicked looking film than fill a folder which I care nothing about.

Getting a bit heavy up in here. Better lighten the mood.

What's white and can't climb trees?...A fridge

What's white and blue and can't climb trees?...A fridge in a denim jacket

There. All better? Good. See y'as next time.

reCAP in your ass!

Now to explain that lower post a little for my benefit and yours. Came in to college today, gotta show up once in a while, right?

Anyway we ran through the shot list, hopefully for a final time. Since animation to spence is like garlic to a vampire we had to dish out his shots to make sure they get done. Since I just finished up 4 other shots and only have one more to do I jumped on two of those. One should be cakeage and the other is a bit harder but I can hopefully get it done.

My deadline is this weekend, meaning if I finish by like Saturday then I may have to jump on another shot afterwards, block it out maybe. We'll see where I'm at come Saturday.

If we're lucky then Ferhan might be able to get a friend of his to animate some shots for us, which shall lighten the load for all.

mo updates to come.

Reminder

Shot 32: Side view of target- crouching looking through the blinds
Shot 37: Close up on gun-CLICK-out of bullets
Shot 48: Ninja Details-Cracking Knuckles

(Ignore this, just a reminder for me)

Shoot off screen to reload

Little update over here. Just put the finishing touches on this other shot, finally! This isn't a great version to watch since it's pretty small and there are a bunch of little details which make this, like the gun cocking when he reloads or the secondary animation on the tie. It's still pretty ameteur stuff but it's better than what I usually put out in terms of actul animation so I'm a little proud.

If someone better than me went in and cleaned it up a little I reckon it would look pretty cool. In any case I'm kind of happy about it and I think I've improved a little. However I still have pretty much no interest in actually animating.

I wanna draw gawdamnit! I keep saying that but I havn't been drawing enough recently, I keep putting off finishing pictures and just doodling rather than drawing any keepers. When I'm not working on the project though I just wanna chill and play some games. While I enjoy drawing, it's still sort of work to me as I'm doing it to better myself and further my employability prospects. Can't wait to be done with this course so I can hit the sketchbook again.

Anyway, for now I have to play around with the Ninja rig and get down some short but sweet animations for that.

pop a cap

block-out of this next shot so far. Been having some troubles with it. Walking for one, made it a mid-shot to avoid focus on feet :P needed to keep it kind of slow because this part of the film is quite tense and the pace slows down a bit.

I havn't got any movement in the upper body really because I need to make him reload his gun, so I didn't want to wave his arms all about only to have to change it up afterwards. Him levelling the gun is just to test the angle, which I quite like so I'll probly leave it the same.

boozahol

Finished this shot off on Saturday but I only uploaded it to the team-blog. Got a bit sidetracked since so I'm just uploading it here now. I think it turned out alright, for me anyway :)

Moved onto the next shot today.

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!