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.