1 year to go!

My final year of my degree in animation is coming up.....so im attempting to produce something special a 3rd year film in the regions of 2.45 to around 3 mins worth of footage..
im currently working on the cgi version of the animatic for timing and acting purposes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax30aEZj5mQ&feature=youtu.be

Conclusion (learning exp)

Well i did it got the opening shot fully textured and modelled and even got some small little trailer teasure going on,
I did make an entire set built on the idea of my animatic however i did not texture it all do to the time restraints and the fact i wanted the look for the opening shot to look as good as it possibly could.

What have i learned throughout this entire experience???
first of all the better the concept the easier it is for me to work without thinking whats gonna here or there, so planning is an instrumental piece of getting anything to a successful level.
Know your limits, i decided to do an massive enviroment....what a problem i found was texturing and uv mapping and all the skills that required to do this all take time.
Rendering was slow and nearly cost me so more forward planning in the future....
So all in all a great learning experience one from which i will only improve upon, i was never gonna be a natural at the first attemp but now i have the opportunity to learn and make my work better from the entirer experience.

Hand in

well hand in is upon us and this is what has been handed in.......

sorry the quality is a little bad on this cause ive had to compress it sadly.

But here is the modelling showreel which shows the different layers that the model has gone through to get the final image.

Why not more?
this was the best shot of my work and i believe if i put work of a lower quality into my showreel it would only come back and hinder any chance of me getting a job in the future.
Im happy what most people havnt taken into account is the amount of props and little suttle things that make a enviroment unique...
But now its time for me to get on with my own little self set project over the holidays.

Modelling

Now below we have my mini trailer just trying to get the style sorted
Trailer

yeah there is quite a few problems with this but that why i did it now instead of going through these problems next year.
for something that isnt on the screen for that long it take an insane amount of time, title, then it needs to fade, animating paper making and planning, takes an extreme amount of time, but i will only get faster at this as my skills develop.

renders....almost done...

Last time we had a few renders with the work coming along and now its time to see it almost finished. A few posters of some of the people who have helped or will be helping in the near future on my short film idea :),
i must point out that the water has been done my vfx genius of a friend who will be helping me on my project next year a link to his blogger is http://rharkness1717.blogspot.co.uk/
 

 

Lots and lots of renders, just a view shots of my enviroment from certain angles, to give you an idea of what is in the opening set. I would of loved to have the entire opening set textured but i didnt have time to go around the rest of the set and make indivudal props so that it has more character just for the sake of rushing. I know have the chance to take what we have here and develop it to a higher level for maxium results. 

renders....work in progress

since i havnt uploaded anything for a while its not that im being lazy.....(i wish for half a chance) but i have been busy painting texturing modelling tweaking things... i also came across a problem which i was not anticipating...insufficent memory on the university computers which means my file will not even open so i have had t go home open the file modify the layout and cut it down quite a bit so that i may operate on those computers....ive bored you all enough now so renders of work in progress

 hey wait a second this is done......ok thought you wouldnt buy it :)

 ze roll ring anybells??? (prob not check the animatic :)   )

 This all part of set 1 of 3...maybe 4 havnt decided yet but if you have no idea why i have this check the animatic...

Tonnes to do still arrabia is a sandy place so your proberly asking wheres the sand....that is in the capable hands of a visual effects genius but affraid fokes you wont see that till next year....once i have all the textures on i can work on details like bump mapping and displacements and tweaking the lighing.....but i wanted the model painted first before i started making it look finished, so i had something to hand in incase worse scenerio i have a mental breakdown and start screaming when i see maya on a computer.

Texturing.....

This was at least more fun then uv mapping since my idea was becoming more real and you got a visual out of it....still took a very long time since i didnt wanna make my enviroment look plain and had lots and lots of props which all require texturing. so just a few pictures of my textures to apply to my models

 Again these are personal and a nice touch i wanted a art store with props that looked interesting so i thought to myself what could i have that has a large variety....pictures, all of these pictures are my own which i took when away and just threw them on photoshop and applied a filter making them look a bit arty

 This is what ive promised anyone who works on my animated short for next year will have a poster of themself somewhere in the scene, makes the film feel more personal and beleived it would be a nice touch for those who worked on it with me for next year.

UV Mapping.....yay

Proberly the most time consuming part of my time has been spent on this.....wait i lie texturing would win.Its like joining a puzzle together which can be frustrating when you have complex objects, so im gonna be first to admit ive not enjoyed this part at all

With a few of the objects i could of done more with the joins but when you have such a massive enviroment and you plan on getting so much done i had to resort to simplifying the uv maps and just start throwing textures on when i know that object is in the distance and the detail wont effect the otherall quality.

Update what will i have as a finished article

HAND IN
The opening shot will be turned into a small teaser for what i wish to achieve for my 3rd year film so it will be texture and have a small title sequence being blown in the wind.
I will have the first set completly modelled, however i will be only texturing the opening shot this so when i get my feedback i can adjust the colours without having to work on the entire set.
  
I will have a trailer of the opening scene with a camera slowly panning forward with the title being blown away in the breeze, we also will hav the a piece of paper blow into the camera revealing the wanted theif (dead or alive),
The opening shot is a little different to what i had planned but its a trailer so thats acceptable, i wanted something people could watch as a finished article. In a ideal world i would of had a short short done, but i cant do all the tasks required by myself. But this has allowed me to focus all my attention on a short film for next year.

The opening set will be built, but only the opening shot will be textured. 

So i will have the opening shot coloured and textured and the rest of the first set completly modelled. With this all done i will have good grounds to make my short film for next year.

 I have adjusted the lighting settings only slightly but already it looks more appealing and not too bright

 decided to add a few suttle pots around the well makes the center point look less empty and gives it more character.

Oh im gonna have fun uv mapping the entire scene

Just to show the other set is actually getting built here is a few shots to show that everything i have built is going with the animatic, the reason why i have built it all like this is so i can have consistant lighting throughtout the shots.

I built this set with full intent of using it to the max and that is why i will have more time to dedicate it to animation which is what i really hope to achieve.