After thinking about the idea & discussing with classmates I've decided to focus on the technical sides of the sports where there are specific movements to be made in sequence in order to perform an action.
Things such as tricks or runs where each and every movement must be precise/planned in order to come together to complete the movements.
Feedback:
I talked to Dane about this idea, working to my strengths & interests, Dane suggested I look at portraying movement within static frames. Or look at the mathematical side of procedural generation, or even the maths involved within sport. The idea that appeals the most to me out of the two is definitely portraying movement within static frames. I will begin refining this idea shortly, and seeing if I can find anything similar to what I could potentially achieve.
Showing posts with label Feedback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feedback. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 August 2016
Sunday, 12 June 2016
A lot of work
Since the last post I have been very busy, I've since;
- Adjusted Jacob's Eye glow to make it smoother, I just played around with a few effects and settings in After Effects. This still needs to be updated before it's final.
- Adjusted the Matte Painting, Thaw spoke to me & Rhys about the Matte Painting and ways to improve it, so I'm currently implementing his ideas into the Matte Painting.
- Re textured the body, arm and hands for X22 (The UV Map needed to be changed for these pieces).
[This involved adjusting the normal map in Photoshop to fit the new UV, as well as the original textures.]
- Started the Motion Tracking in After Effects, this was done really roughly I mainly did it as a starting point so whoever takes up this task can copy what I've done so far.
- Rigged the breathing motion for the Overlord, this was done using clusters and cluster-weight painting.
- Imported the Matte Painting into After Effects and Masked the window panels in the footage, I still need to adjust the perspective slightly but this is nearly finished since I'm able to reload the Matte Painting every time it's changed. I've started motion tracking Matt in front of the Matte Painting but this will hopefully be finished by another group member.
- I got everything ready to render for our feedback session, then rendered our entire scene. This was a big task that wasn't even assigned to me, I just did it because nobody else from my group were making an effort to do it.
- Adjusted the levels for all the footage in After Effects, this is something Dane kept mentioning for us to adjust, I didn't think it was overly important and was a low priority task. I eventually ended up doing it just so that it wouldn't be left until the last minute.
- Added the tint effect to create the infrared look in After Effects, this is the effect I'd planned on using for this shot from the very early stages of the project, this can do with a bit of touching up, but the tutors were happy with it in it's current state.
- Adjusted the Normal Map Rhys made for the Overlord, like I'd done previously with the Normal Maps for X22, I adjusted these in Photoshop to make them softer and less obvious.
- Animated the Overlord, I wanted to animate really subtle movements for the character to show he was alive and breathing, rather than over exaggerating the movements he'd make while he spoke. Gabe suggested I animate him similar to a news reporter, where their head stays centred in the camera while they speak.
- Imported the Overlord into After Effects, I'd already done a test for this so it wasn't too difficult, I used the Corner-Pin effect to correct the perspective of the shot. I also added this into a pre-composition so I'll be able to add the other assets quickly and painlessly.
- Once again I got everything ready to render, then rendered it all out for my group, as nobody else seemed to be making an effort. This ended up being late for the feedback session since I'd already spent the morning getting my own stuff rendered out and adding final touches to several things in the After Effects compositions.
- Textured the Overlord's face plate in Mudbox, this is something I started on a while ago but I decided to scrap it and texture it the same way we'd done the X22's armour, this way they'd share the same likeness and would look like they came from the same origin.
- Adjusted the Animation for the Overlord, after I received feedback on my animation I changed it to fit what Dane had recommended. He said that he understood I was trying to make the animation subtle, but it was far too subtle. His feedback was nearly identical to what Hamish had told me prior to the feedback session, so I feel like the animation for it is quite strong now- if no other faults were found with it.
- Animated the Pipes for the Overlord, I did this over the weekend as it was very tedious moving each control for the pipe, since there were 8 pipes and each pipe had 4 controllers, it left me a lot of work to do.
- Textured the Overlord, I did this using the same textures I'd used for X22, like the reason listed for the Mudbox texture, this was just to make them look as close to the same race as possible. It also meant less work for me, as I was able to reuse the work i'd done previously. I'll need to check with Gabe how the materials should be setup in Maya, as to match the attributes used with the X22 textures.
- Adjusted Jacob's Eye glow to make it smoother, I just played around with a few effects and settings in After Effects. This still needs to be updated before it's final.
- Adjusted the Matte Painting, Thaw spoke to me & Rhys about the Matte Painting and ways to improve it, so I'm currently implementing his ideas into the Matte Painting.
- Re textured the body, arm and hands for X22 (The UV Map needed to be changed for these pieces).
[This involved adjusting the normal map in Photoshop to fit the new UV, as well as the original textures.]
- Started the Motion Tracking in After Effects, this was done really roughly I mainly did it as a starting point so whoever takes up this task can copy what I've done so far.
- Rigged the breathing motion for the Overlord, this was done using clusters and cluster-weight painting.
- Imported the Matte Painting into After Effects and Masked the window panels in the footage, I still need to adjust the perspective slightly but this is nearly finished since I'm able to reload the Matte Painting every time it's changed. I've started motion tracking Matt in front of the Matte Painting but this will hopefully be finished by another group member.
- I got everything ready to render for our feedback session, then rendered our entire scene. This was a big task that wasn't even assigned to me, I just did it because nobody else from my group were making an effort to do it.
- Adjusted the levels for all the footage in After Effects, this is something Dane kept mentioning for us to adjust, I didn't think it was overly important and was a low priority task. I eventually ended up doing it just so that it wouldn't be left until the last minute.
- Added the tint effect to create the infrared look in After Effects, this is the effect I'd planned on using for this shot from the very early stages of the project, this can do with a bit of touching up, but the tutors were happy with it in it's current state.
- Adjusted the Normal Map Rhys made for the Overlord, like I'd done previously with the Normal Maps for X22, I adjusted these in Photoshop to make them softer and less obvious.
- Animated the Overlord, I wanted to animate really subtle movements for the character to show he was alive and breathing, rather than over exaggerating the movements he'd make while he spoke. Gabe suggested I animate him similar to a news reporter, where their head stays centred in the camera while they speak.
- Imported the Overlord into After Effects, I'd already done a test for this so it wasn't too difficult, I used the Corner-Pin effect to correct the perspective of the shot. I also added this into a pre-composition so I'll be able to add the other assets quickly and painlessly.
- Once again I got everything ready to render, then rendered it all out for my group, as nobody else seemed to be making an effort. This ended up being late for the feedback session since I'd already spent the morning getting my own stuff rendered out and adding final touches to several things in the After Effects compositions.
- Textured the Overlord's face plate in Mudbox, this is something I started on a while ago but I decided to scrap it and texture it the same way we'd done the X22's armour, this way they'd share the same likeness and would look like they came from the same origin.
- Adjusted the Animation for the Overlord, after I received feedback on my animation I changed it to fit what Dane had recommended. He said that he understood I was trying to make the animation subtle, but it was far too subtle. His feedback was nearly identical to what Hamish had told me prior to the feedback session, so I feel like the animation for it is quite strong now- if no other faults were found with it.
- Animated the Pipes for the Overlord, I did this over the weekend as it was very tedious moving each control for the pipe, since there were 8 pipes and each pipe had 4 controllers, it left me a lot of work to do.
- Textured the Overlord, I did this using the same textures I'd used for X22, like the reason listed for the Mudbox texture, this was just to make them look as close to the same race as possible. It also meant less work for me, as I was able to reuse the work i'd done previously. I'll need to check with Gabe how the materials should be setup in Maya, as to match the attributes used with the X22 textures.
To summarise, I've been very busy this past week, especially with the fact that I've somewhat taken over managing all of the After Effects work, I felt like I needed to do this because the way it was being done prior to my changes was a recipe for disaster, it was very likely to cause major issues when we began adding things to it, as we'd already had several problems regarding lost files from within the project.
I feel like I may have taken on too much work since I've had so many different tasks that I've needed to being working on simultaneously. I'm still quite annoyed that it came down to me to get everything ready for the feedback session, especially when the producer- nor anybody else, had made an effort to organise anything for the feedback session. I ended up having to work through our morning class getting everything ready on time (for both weeks), meaning I had to do work for this project rather than my own work for that class, which has now left me with even more work to do in order to catch up. Fortunately, I've managed to stay on top of the work load for this project at least, and have become very efficient at completing most of the tasks I've listed above. I was also able to find a few shortcuts, even reusing previous assets to save time.
Thursday, 3 March 2016
Production Schedule V3
Dane & Keat went over our schedules & changed our roles around a bit. I'm no longer the producer for our group, I am now instead the director. They also pointed out that we hadn't allocated any time for the background painting, so they cut out 2 weeks of animation to allow for that.
The updated schedule is:
My final act as producer was to post an in-depth schedule for the week showing what everyone needs to be focusing on. Hopefully Jacob will be able to continue my legacy.
The updated schedule is:
My final act as producer was to post an in-depth schedule for the week showing what everyone needs to be focusing on. Hopefully Jacob will be able to continue my legacy.
Saturday, 27 February 2016
Idea Generation & Thought Process
One thing I really struggle with & need to work on is putting my thoughts into writing, so here they are, albeit a few days later;
After being given the brief for the semester I began to run through different ideas in my head. Rather than seeing the live action requirement as a limitation, I tried to come up with something that made the most of the media type instead. The mediums are infinitely different and have their own strengths & weaknesses, so I tried to utilise this in my scene (even though Dane said story then technique, sorry). I've always found perspective cameras really engaging, probably due to my favouritism towards games over movies, but I felt like this would truly make the most of the live action medium.
Last year I made my short 3D animation using a perspective camera, there were some parts of this technique that I really liked the results of & others I didn't. I spent a lot of time working on the camera for that animation, but towards the end of the project I just had to settle for what I'd managed to do. I feel that the biggest challenge for me was making the camera seem realistic as it was either too smooth or disorienting & very difficult to find a middle ground. I then thought that If this were to be done in live action I wouldn't face that problem, as there's nothing more realistic than a real camera!!
With that thought in mind I checked with the tutors to make sure we would in fact be able to use the camera this way. After asking, Dane said it would be fine to use as long as the scene would benefit from the technique & it wasn't just used for the sake of it. I went back to brooding over the ideas I'd had but one stuck out above the rest. I wanted to make a short film in which a UFO or something similar fell from the sky & this was all captured in 'home video' style, the character operating the camera would then investigate & find a human in the wreckage, the camera would then cut to a reaction shot & show the character behind the camera was an alien. Kind of like a typical alien story except with the roles reversed.
When it came to group brainstorming I already had this idea for what I wanted the animation to be but still had no idea on what the lead up to it would be, only really the ending. Although I didn't really progress my story during the group brainstorming, as a group, we came up with some really interesting ideas. An idea we'd discussed previously (Gabe or Rhys' originally) was to have a character inside of a video game, I found it would be an interesting take on this using the same plot twist as my idea, possibly having the live action character inside of the game & having it pan out to reveal an animated character playing the game or something similar to that.
Another idea we'd settled on as our 'if nothing else is better' plan was a similar scenario but with a horror theme. The live action character would be watching TV whilst an animated character inside of the TV began to distort the program & cause the TV to glitch. The character would manage to get the TV off but then when they looked around the room they found the animated character there with them. After discussing these ideas & almost deciding just to go with this one we instead decided one person from the group should refine the idea whilst we all worked on our own, which was without a doubt the best decision to make because after hearing all of the refined ideas this one is no longer the stand out idea as the others have progressed to a similar standard.
After thinking over my groups ideas late at night, whilst I was trying desperately to fall sleep, I began to think over what they were missing & how they could be improved. At the time, none of them really seemed to have any story line to it, just kind of a 'It'd be cool to have this setting'. So that's when I decided to plan out some dialogue to take my idea from an idea to a story. I quickly jotted down some ideas so I could work on them in the morning. Come to class time I'd already planned out my script and it was super easy to write & visualise.
I wanted to make it so the humans were invaders, they were somewhere they shouldn't be at a time they shouldn't be. In it's current form the UFO has crash landed right in the middle of a farmer's field ruining his seasons produce. I really liked this idea because it really made the handheld camera make sense. Without it the unseen character wouldn't be in the scene & that wouldn't provide us with the dialogue required to establish the scene. The dialogue is needed to add to the suspense & to lighten the mood making the final reveal somewhat comedic..
As far as feedback goes I haven't really received any negative criticism, although I know I will still need to change a lot to come up with a final script.
The feedback I received from the tutors was very positive as they both seemed to like the idea. The main thing I need to keep in mind is to make sure it fits into the time limit, making sure to utilise each and every second allocated & make the most of secondary actions (make sure something is happening whilst they are talking). But overall I'm really pleased with my script in it's current state & am looking forward to seeing what the rest of my group have come up with.
After being given the brief for the semester I began to run through different ideas in my head. Rather than seeing the live action requirement as a limitation, I tried to come up with something that made the most of the media type instead. The mediums are infinitely different and have their own strengths & weaknesses, so I tried to utilise this in my scene (even though Dane said story then technique, sorry). I've always found perspective cameras really engaging, probably due to my favouritism towards games over movies, but I felt like this would truly make the most of the live action medium.
Last year I made my short 3D animation using a perspective camera, there were some parts of this technique that I really liked the results of & others I didn't. I spent a lot of time working on the camera for that animation, but towards the end of the project I just had to settle for what I'd managed to do. I feel that the biggest challenge for me was making the camera seem realistic as it was either too smooth or disorienting & very difficult to find a middle ground. I then thought that If this were to be done in live action I wouldn't face that problem, as there's nothing more realistic than a real camera!!
With that thought in mind I checked with the tutors to make sure we would in fact be able to use the camera this way. After asking, Dane said it would be fine to use as long as the scene would benefit from the technique & it wasn't just used for the sake of it. I went back to brooding over the ideas I'd had but one stuck out above the rest. I wanted to make a short film in which a UFO or something similar fell from the sky & this was all captured in 'home video' style, the character operating the camera would then investigate & find a human in the wreckage, the camera would then cut to a reaction shot & show the character behind the camera was an alien. Kind of like a typical alien story except with the roles reversed.
When it came to group brainstorming I already had this idea for what I wanted the animation to be but still had no idea on what the lead up to it would be, only really the ending. Although I didn't really progress my story during the group brainstorming, as a group, we came up with some really interesting ideas. An idea we'd discussed previously (Gabe or Rhys' originally) was to have a character inside of a video game, I found it would be an interesting take on this using the same plot twist as my idea, possibly having the live action character inside of the game & having it pan out to reveal an animated character playing the game or something similar to that.
Another idea we'd settled on as our 'if nothing else is better' plan was a similar scenario but with a horror theme. The live action character would be watching TV whilst an animated character inside of the TV began to distort the program & cause the TV to glitch. The character would manage to get the TV off but then when they looked around the room they found the animated character there with them. After discussing these ideas & almost deciding just to go with this one we instead decided one person from the group should refine the idea whilst we all worked on our own, which was without a doubt the best decision to make because after hearing all of the refined ideas this one is no longer the stand out idea as the others have progressed to a similar standard.
After thinking over my groups ideas late at night, whilst I was trying desperately to fall sleep, I began to think over what they were missing & how they could be improved. At the time, none of them really seemed to have any story line to it, just kind of a 'It'd be cool to have this setting'. So that's when I decided to plan out some dialogue to take my idea from an idea to a story. I quickly jotted down some ideas so I could work on them in the morning. Come to class time I'd already planned out my script and it was super easy to write & visualise.
I wanted to make it so the humans were invaders, they were somewhere they shouldn't be at a time they shouldn't be. In it's current form the UFO has crash landed right in the middle of a farmer's field ruining his seasons produce. I really liked this idea because it really made the handheld camera make sense. Without it the unseen character wouldn't be in the scene & that wouldn't provide us with the dialogue required to establish the scene. The dialogue is needed to add to the suspense & to lighten the mood making the final reveal somewhat comedic..
As far as feedback goes I haven't really received any negative criticism, although I know I will still need to change a lot to come up with a final script.
The feedback I received from the tutors was very positive as they both seemed to like the idea. The main thing I need to keep in mind is to make sure it fits into the time limit, making sure to utilise each and every second allocated & make the most of secondary actions (make sure something is happening whilst they are talking). But overall I'm really pleased with my script in it's current state & am looking forward to seeing what the rest of my group have come up with.
Monday, 27 July 2015
Storyboard Rough
Rough draft of storyboard (No hate pls):
First Storyboard; Will make another one detailing the last 3 frames.
Feedback:
Rhys: To create a jump scare moment have him so he doesn't disappear, because people would be expecting him to reappear if he vanishes, since this is overdone in horrors.
Keat: Start to think about time & duration, make a decision as to which way the character will be turning/ the path will be.
First Storyboard; Will make another one detailing the last 3 frames.
Feedback:
Rhys: To create a jump scare moment have him so he doesn't disappear, because people would be expecting him to reappear if he vanishes, since this is overdone in horrors.
Keat: Start to think about time & duration, make a decision as to which way the character will be turning/ the path will be.
Concept Development Completed!
Finished with concept development!
The feedback I received from my lecturer was overwhelmingly positive & the only element he suggested I change is to simplify the Chicago typewriter prop to make it easier to model.
The feedback I received from my lecturer was overwhelmingly positive & the only element he suggested I change is to simplify the Chicago typewriter prop to make it easier to model.
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
Point Break to Horror - Initial Research
Today I've finalized which scene I will be using & am currently brainstorming different ideas to do within this scene.
I've decided to go with the idea of Point Break - Horror as it's the one I'm most interested in + I feel like the character is a lot clearer and more achievable than the alternatives.
My character design will be based on the Ronald Raegan masked figure as I feel this is one of the less comical masks in the movie, making it more suitable for use in the horror genre I'm planning on modifying it to.
I'm currently unsure as to how I will be adapting the mask however these are several examples of horror masks similar to what I had in mind.
Monday, 13 July 2015
Day 1
Today I made my blog.
I've also brainstormed a few scene ideas with my classmates and am currently deciding over 4 ideas;
Point Break - Horror, Shining - Comedy, Say Anything - Western/Comedy & The Big Lebowski - Romance.
Narrowed the ideas down to Point Break ~ Horror & Say Anything ~ Western.
I've also brainstormed a few scene ideas with my classmates and am currently deciding over 4 ideas;
Point Break - Horror, Shining - Comedy, Say Anything - Western/Comedy & The Big Lebowski - Romance.
Narrowed the ideas down to Point Break ~ Horror & Say Anything ~ Western.
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