Thursday, 30 September 2010

Some more objects today. Firstly a table hanger/holder thing that houses the pliers, cutters and stationary. Also the pipe, which is only seen for a second in the dark so I decided to just use a photo for the actual texture. Nothing major, just found a texture that looks like calved wood. And finally the light stick, which holds the star. I spent a while on this one, the majority of the day since it features prominently. I rigged it for sway, and added a nice sub scattering texture for the leaf rope and sculpted the wood to add finer details. I also tested it using video post for the glow, but I am not to happy with what came out, so may just keep it as is, it still looks good with just the white of the light emanating through the leaf rope… or may try something in post. I will also need some kind of effect for the smoke from the pipe.

Anyway the renders

Holder



Pipe

Rigged light stick

Wednesday, 29 September 2010

Another round of objects today. Some more containers to drop the green objects into, the bin , the actual green objects a box for the tables and mobile shelving. I didn’t spend to long on the texturing for the green objects or the bin. Very quick as yesterday, and even using a unfold auto mapping rather than doing it by hand for the Uvs of the green objects. Considering there size I didn’t see much need to add to much detail to these plastic 2cm in size boxes.

The bin



Mobile shelving units



Green square objects



Containers for green square objects

Tuesday, 28 September 2010

Another set of background objects created today. I originally intended in creating a number of different styles to objects to use around the factory, but with time scales short and needing to get on with animating have cut back a little. Instead of creating a number of different boxes, I created one box with different sides that can be rotated to look different, or mesh altered slightly etc. the same goes for the paint tube and the boxes that would be on the shelving. Anyway here is the renders of the day.

Container for green objects



Corner boxes



Shelving boxes



Tin of paint

Monday, 27 September 2010

I did a number of the background objects today. Creating diffuse, normal, spec and gloss for all. Very quick, two to three hour mesh’s, uvs and texture, keeping them at 512 to 1024 each. Here’s the renders

Outside parking guard and pillars



Street lamp




Tip



Staff wanted sign

Sunday, 26 September 2010

Created the main flower for the interior plant scenes today. About twice the size of an average elm and rigged so it can be manipulated into place, and manipulated by other Elmies. I had planned to create a number of flowers for it, yet really there would only be one type of flower on a plant, so cut back a little so I will have more time to animate. I also added simulators to the stem and stigmas so they bob and bounce in the wind.

Here’s a render


Tomorrow its onto the smaller objects, with a week long sprint of different few hour each objects. Now im about two weeks ahead of schedule.

Saturday, 25 September 2010

Created the foliage for the plant today. Will start the flower range latter. Currently rendering of a turntable of the plant to make sure it all fits together. I was concerned that the leaves may have to much colour, and may desaturate them slightly latter when in the final scene, but initially I wanted the plant to stand out in comparison to the environment. Just will pay it by ear and test it when the environments are finished. It wont take a sec to take out some of the green to the leaves. Really I want the elmy world to have bright colours, and the line desaturated colour. With just the plant standing out.

Here’s a render

Thursday, 23 September 2010

I have updated the main website sameolthing.com today

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

Finished the texture for the plant trunk and pot today. I sculpted a high poly version of the plant, using that for the normals and cavity maps, and imported that optimised back into max for a ao map using render to texture. Therefore there was not that much work creating the actual colour map which is quiet minimal. Again quite happy with the progress. Still a week ahead. I will be updating my website tomorrow for fridays class, so if I have time will be creating the foliage if not will be working on it over the weekend. Anyhow here is a few renders

High res mesh



Final textured model (bar the foliage)

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

Completed the mesh to the plant today and uv’s. Again very happy so far with the shape of it and now will move onto a high detailed version, before creating the texture for the bark, and then the foliage. For the foliage I think I will create some bushy elements using alphas and some individual leaves if necessary on the texture, just so I have more choice on what to position where. In the end it will be the same population as creating the hair maps and adding them where it looks right, so hopefully it will really shine and stand out from everything else in the factory for its green stark opposite to the factory environment.

Here’s the original concept with a clay and a wire.

Monday, 20 September 2010

Began on the plant exterior today. I also rescaled the factory block out for a second time since when adding the characters the roof and doors were far to small. Just tweaking slightly. Anyhow here’s a screen cap of the plant so far. Really happy with it, has a really nice character which I was hoping for, hope the texturing afterwards fits it just as well.



I am a little concerned with creating the foliage. My initial plan for the exterior would be to use alphas and groups of leaves and bark, and for the interior plant to use leaves with a skin shader. Just have to see if it looks good enough using alpha leaves and bark.

Oh here’s a turntable with some music of the caravan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsqz4CbLY1g

Sunday, 19 September 2010

I went on holiday this week to France, given I am a week ahead with the work at the moment. I reedited the mesh of the caravan one I got back, and after adding one level of turbo smooth edited the mesh some more, so that in the end it will work as a low polygon asset given its is never shown up close on the animation.

Next I created the textures. This was a combination of using render to texture for the Ambient occlusion, some high polygon work for normals and cavity maps, and a lot of Photoshop work. Its looking as I had hoped in the end. I am just rendering a turntable of the object, mainly to check for any faults I might have missed, I will post it up when done. Also here’s a render of the final model.



I also have complied a small compilation of the animation tests so I have something to show for next weeks university presentation.

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

That’s all for now. Tomorrow if all sits well with the caravan I will start the plant exterior, as seen from the factory floor.

Monday, 13 September 2010

Spent today working on Ian’s caravan. Enjoyable object to create, and should have it completed by the weekend since I am busy on other things the next few days.

Anyhow here is a render



A few problems with how it deforms on the corners when turbo smoothing it, and to be honest unsure if I will add a turbo smooth on it in the end, but if I do will have to rework some of the mesh on the corners afterwards.

Tuesday, 07 September 2010

Created the rig for the fly firstly today, skinned it and again decided to leave out a UI since its face movements are never shown. The rig has movement controls wired for the knee, wings and abdomen with a nice curvature, here’s a screen cap.



I also decided to finish of the rigging by rigging up the last two characters the silhouettes people. I used Max’s Biped for this with some trouble with the file size for the initial model ever expanding. So I reverted to a previous save and rest max, merging the file to a clean state, which seemed to fix the problem. Here’s some caps



The file size issue has made me more concerned about the final file size of the animation. When everything is merged into the scenes would the file size become a major problem? Anyhow its an issue for latter on. For the background objects I will keep the poly count as low as I can get away with without it becoming noticeable, and hopefully that will help. Also when merging in the main characters will take out the morphs and rely on the saved states of the morphs on the characters stack. Also I could take out characters that are not in the shot, as long as I am not getting any reflections from the windows etc.

Anyhow that’s about it, I want to spend a day or two working on that wheeler character and a few tutorials since I am nearly two weeks ahead now, before settling down for the object sprint.

Monday, 06 September 2010

I completed the Audrey Moth as planned and created a animation test of the movements, and everything works fine. Had a few days off before getting down to the last few characters to rig.

Today I worked on the centipede. It was rather time consuming, with 40 legs and a terribly long spine it took quite a while to rig it up, but its all working quiet smoothly now. I decided not to do a animation test on the creature simply because the 40 legs would take a few hours to animate and I want to crack on. In the end the character is only on screen for 3 seconds or so and only half the body, so I am not to concerned, as long as it moves smoothly without any hiccups it will be fine. Anyhow here’s a screen grab of the rig.



I wired up the legs so I can adjust the knee pivot just as a precaution and some bounce to the antenna, but nothing really fancy in this rig, Also I didn’t bother with any facial setup. Since the face is never actually shown in the animation.

Tomorrow will work on the fly and the day after the last two characters, then have the weekend free before the big object sprint. The Object sprint + environments will last me until near the end of December.