2010-02-28

Have created the first Animatic for the piece. I have cut out a number of shots that slowed down the pace too much and were detrimental to the story, which in the storyboard seemed to fit but once seeing it Animatic I realise they do not. Such as shots that cross the line or birds eye shots that I thought would look cool but just take away from the story. Still a lot of work to do editing it down and trying to get the timing right. Also a little worried that the piece will make sense in the final animation. That the cross between the factory and the Elmy world will just be far to much and confusing to watch. Edit on and see what I can do!

2010-02-25

Website finished and uploaded.

www.sameolthing.com

Will keep it up to date with news and pics when I come to it. Will concentrate on the Animatic over the weekend. Hopefully have it wrapped up in another week or so.

2010-02-24

A short 7 minute video on the making of George (about 10 to 12 hours in 7 minutes)

http://vimeo.com/9679446

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjS3RCiGyOE

Creating the website right now and purchased some more web space specifically for the site. (I have moved thevicker.com and sameolthing.com to the same server and paid for another half gig of memory and bandwidth). I have blocked it all out in Photoshop which I will cut up tomorrow and hopefully have the site up by Friday.
I wanted something fairly simplistic but smart and slick in design, so opted for just a white background with black text.



I also reedited all the character bios so they follow the script better. Since the bios were developed before the script to help in character design, some things, such as it being Darren’s first day, and the plant that the Elmies live in used to be a tree outside, I have altered.

2010-02-18

Finished the voice acting sessions today with Chris Goddard. It went really well. He took on the role and applied a number of different tones to the dialogue to try and give a good variations that I can use when editing the sound down. However I think if I had a budget for the piece I would have liked to have all the actors in for a day to run through the lines one more time. To feed of one another and feel each other character. Plus would have made a great video!!!
Anyhow I am currently rendering an edit of the making of George which I will post on youtube in a few hours if it looks ok rendered. Also getting my work together for a seminar tomorrow (which I am dreading).

2010-02-14

Over the last few days I have been cutting up the storyboard for the creation of the Animatic. I decided to change the resolution to widescreen mainly since I felt it looked better, even though it will be featured on the internet I still feel the widescreen format suits. A few notable changes from the storyboard to the creation of George is the ESD badge, that I originally decided to be a triangle instead due to copyright issues, however now I decided to stick with the original square ESD badge, since I cant see ESD badges as a copy right problem. Also the pens and things in Georges pockets I decided to take out due to the size of the pocket they wouldn’t actually fit (ic an still use these on the nearest tables). Just little discrepancies and decisions that although unnoticeable in the final composition still have to be made.

Anyhow I also met Chris Goddard today and was very happy with his voice. Looking forward to the voice session on Thursday. He seems to really suit the part of Darren. Also I have been rendering short animations of my best models for my show reel. The lack of show reel is becoming more of a problem recently, and I really need to remedy it.

2010-02-12

Added more edge loops to the feet and reworked the topology around the pockets of the jacket. Here’s renders of the wire frame full, textured and close up of the face, with fixed normal map around the nose and cranium.

2010-02-11 (night)

Edited down all the sound of Dorothy playing Audrey.

First took the 6 master files of the whole session and cut them to the lines of dialogue, then edited them down further to the lines that portrayed the emotion from Audrey and the best of Dorothy. Also received a email from Craig Dukes who said I can use his recording of him playing Moonlight Sonata for the classical piece.

Craig Dukes work is at
http://www.youtube.com/LVB1770
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/craigdukes

Therefore I have asked Rida if he might be interested in composing for the ambience of the piece, tying it in with the song We all belong here. All in all at the moment everything is going well. Got to try and get a lot done on the Animatic over the weekend though.

2010-02-11

Voice acting day two done! Dee Sanders was really great. Really brought to life the character of Audrey. The sound equipment worked without problem this time and recorded the session about 6 times so have plenty to edit and work with. Also recording Dee on camera so I have great reference for the lipsync and facial expressions. Really enjoyed it. Tonight I will cut it down to just each line of dialogue. Kind of daunting thinking how much I have to do but I am really glad I worked out a schedule for the animation that I am currently sticking to (was slightly behind but pretty much caught back up). Really it would be great if I can get a bit ahead so I can have more time for the actual animation work, currently its 6 months, but with working part time that really is not that much time. I was planning to create all the morphs and animate using the morpher tool for the lipsync, but decided over the last few days it will be allot easier to create a UI. I can create one UI and test it out on George before editing it for the other characters. Also worried that the work will be of high enough standard to gain good marks and generate some interest to further my career. All i can do is hope and work hard!
Anyhow one more voice acting session to go next week with Christopher Goddard. Were meeting over the weekend to discuss the part before next Thursdays session.

2010-02-10

Had the idea today of asking a great musician and friend Rida Mukhtar to compose a piece of music and play it on piano for the first scene when classical music is played through the tannoy. He has agreed so I am really happy.

2010-02-09 – Sound editing

Began working on editing the sound down to manageable portions today using John Howarth’s sound clips. I began with about 3 master files that I choose the best accents, choosing one and cutting that up to just the lines, which I edited again choosing the best lines for each section.

I cut it all up using Audacity, which I will import into premiere latter in the week. I also began the Animatic, which I am quite happy with the progress of so far. Just really need to learn some of the features of Premiere.

Anyhow will be Dorothy’s voice recording session on Thursday and the week after Christopher Goddard will be finishing the voice acting by playing the main protagonist Darren. I am hoping I can cut the sound and edit it all together while working on the Animatic over the next two weeks, so It can be all finished by the end of February. Then I am back on schedule…:)

2010-02-07

Here’s a turn table of George uploaded to youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNkpvibnhFA

And a wire frame.



Also a very quick concept for the bike. It will only be seen in the distance and wanted a slightly old, but yellow bike simply cause of the song Yellow Tricycle by Saez. Good song. The bike will be quite rusty, passed down from father to son.

2010-02-07

Worked on the mouth area of George again today so the mouth area was separate and easier to animate and also edited all the generic mouths so it is easier latter when I add them.
Created a set of stationary for George and the factory. However after placing them in his pockets like in the concept it just didn’t look right. So stuck with just keeping the cutters and wires in his pockets and latter will add the stationary to the scene in the background, on the tables etc.


Currently rendering a turn table of George which I will post latter. Next I need to create a concept for Darren’s Bicycle which I forgot when creating the initial concepts, then onto the Animatic. I am recording Dorothy on Thursday, hopefully the equipment will be working correctly then, and continue chopping up the sound for the Animatic which I will post once complete. I believe I have someone else to play the part of Darren, however they have not emailed me back yet so its unconfirmed.

Here’s some final renders of George.

2010-02-04 (little latter)

Fixed some artefacts in the normal map texture on George (bottom of nose, crinkles in head and artefacts on coat) and began modelling the objects. Very quick modelling (2 hours from model to texture), not to much detail and fairly low polygon using the same texture map. They will just be in the background, sticking out of pockets and on the table tops. Trying to keep it as simple as possible and not go to far.

2010-02-04 – Voice acting session with John Howarth

The session went really well. John was a true professional, he seemed to breath life to the characters of Ian and George right before my eyes. It only took two hours to have everything recorded and he also allowed me to film him after the voices were recorded so I can use the data to help with the facial animation latter. I really enjoyed it but I hit the first “don’t know what I don’t know” problems, which was I should have edited the script down to just have the lines of George or Ian on one or two pages, and a stand for the paper! But I will for the next session with Dorothy who I must thank for setting this up. She has been a great help with organising the voice talent when the arrangements I had planned fell short. Another problem was the voice recording software kept crashing with a strange error message. I will bring it up with the tutor tomorrow and hopefully have it sorted for the next session. I am still short of a actor to play the boy Darren, however a friend said he knows someone who practises drama and could be interested, so will give him a ring latter. I also have another friend in backup.
Anyhow John nailed both parts, managing to sound as two completely different people and also said I am welcome to email him if I need any more and he can record it from home. All Sorted! Voice acting day 1. Sorted.

2010-02-03

Reworked the eye shader for the Cornea to give it a more wet look, a little more reflection and more spec after some crit that it didn’t look right, almost like glass eyes rather than real eyes. I latter toned down the reflection a little after taking these renders, but you can see the wet look etc.




Apart from that began getting prepared for the voice acting session tomorrow, scripts printed, concepts , bios and chocolate and drink for the actors! However its now snowing and I am rather worried that we may have to cancel. At least I have the sound recording room booked for the month, so hopefully can reschedule if it comes down to it.
Going to take in a couple of external hard drives and my usb for backup also.
Also re rendered George full body and face. Mainly so the actors have some visual reference to what the animation will hopefully look like in the end.



I was supposed to have finished George today. However I still have the objects that he has in his pockets to make. So really I am a day behind. However the actual character is pretty much finished. Taken a week and a half, hopefully I can get it down to a week for the rest since I had to create the eyes, teeth and shader’s from scratch this time.
Really enjoyed how he has turned out and really helps to clarify on paper the look of the animation.

2010-02-03 (early morning and time for bed)

Ok I have created some of the objects for George. Earphones and glasses. The earphones Ian also wears and Audrey also wears glasses so I can reuse them latter. Anyhow was worried about how the earphones turned out, was a very quick colour map for the texture, very clean no dirt, just a more detailed normal map, and the glasses were created using procedurals on the frame and on the glasses a scratch texture plus a nice glass refraction. The colour of the frame I can easily adjust for Audrey. Anyhow here’s the renders.

2010-02-02 (even latter)

Adjusted the eyes slightly around the corners since from feedback it appears the edge goes far to far back. Don’t want to take it to far forward though otherwise will stretch the normal and texture maps to much

2010-02-02 (a little latter)

Finished the hair now, quite happy. All in alphas so its not to much hassle to animate. Also added more edge loops round the arms and legs.
Next step is the objects and that’s it. Just earphones, pens, wire cutters, glasses. I can reuse the objects in the scene and with the other characters so it will save more time latter.



And the new texture map for the hair - Hair Diffuse, Hair Specular and Hair Opacity

2010-02-02

Began working on the hair yesterday. This is my first time working with alphas on hair so was a little bit concerned abut how it will turn out. I used a lot of planes to get it to look right from a few angles but as you can see from other angles it just doesn’t work right. The eyebrows look great but I think the beard has just far to many planes for rendering plus not as effect as it could be. The solution I think is to redo the hair texture map to be more clumpy and dense. Or perhaps create a new map with more variations of the hair texture.





Anyhow heres the hair texture maps so far – Hair Diffuse, Hair Specular and Hair Opacity


Here are some shots of all the textures used on the character.

First the uv map, then the normal map and last the diffuse (colour map)



And here are the last 4. Diffuse sub surface for the skin shader, Diffuse unscattered again for the skin shader the pour map (a simple noise map to create pours on the skin rather than painting them in on the normal/bump (which would look better, but not necessary for the piece) and finally the Specular.

I am going to take another go at the hair over the next few hours, and post back once its done. Also some criticism of the model was to add more edge loops around the arms and legs to allow for better twisting, so will add them latter.

2010-02-01

Created all the textures and shaders for the character. Great thing is I can re use all shaders for each characters and just change the base textures. Really happy with it so far and still on schedule, slightly worried about hair creation, will be the first time I have tried this method, using alphas, but I will be easier than worrying about hair simulations latter, and I can always rig the hair for secondary motion if I wish. Anyhow I wll add the teeth to the model then work on the hair. Happy with how the model has turned out so far. Exactly how I had hoped, and adding a normal map allowed me not to worry to much about the colour map.