Friday, 29 July 2011

I have finished the sequence 119-129. A very hefty sequence and the last of the majors. Just one more shot to do.. well two but I am combining them again to finish off. Also began rendering off the sequence just created, and should be ready in another week.
The last sequence was very enjoyable to do, the last of the lip sync on the characters, i struggled with some parts, such as the movement of Ian’s earphones, but they work well eventually. Some distortion on his arm as it rotates but it works well enough.
First person views work well and the final poses of Darren as he enters the white.
After compiling the film for testing I noticed a few more problems, such as Darren’s hair flickering again for a frame in one shot. I have added it to the to do list, its nothing major and now I have figured out the sim better I can easily rectify the problem by rendering off the sequences again on just one camera shot. It’s the sequence where the office then Audrey then Darren fades out before the elm appears. I wanted to play more with that shot anyway since I felt he needed to disappear to black a little bit sooner.

Saturday, 23 July 2011

I have finished Darren’s body movements and will begin on Audrey tomorrow and Ian’s. Darren’s walk cycle I repeated a number of times to get it just right. Also his interactions with the door. In the end I relied on the curve editor more than hand animating in certain parts, and added a path control to the walk cycle so I could get his speed just right for that final sequence as he exits the building.
I have not added the elm moth star effect as yet since I am planning on taking all that as added affects latter. No doubt blackening off the scene so I can just work with the moth pathways, and add then as a screened layer.
Its near the end and this marks the final body movements of Darren, except for a very small sequence which I will tackle last.
Anyways Audrey tomorrow. I have a good idea of the body movements she will accomplish, and I expect it will take less than a day to create them, so I am hopeful I could have Audrey and Ian’s body movements wrapped by tomorrow night and then on with the facial.

Anyways….. onward

Thursday, 21 July 2011

I have blocked out the walk cycle for Darren toward the door, the door movement and set up the rest of the cameras today. Also I have been playing with the white effect at the end of the sequence. Using a cylinder linked to the door, it distorts as the door opens, encompassing Darren and the door with white. The effect is such that u can still see outside the windows yet Darren himself is in a white area. I am trying to portray the sense of achievement, of fulfilling the dream and a question, is he fading out to his dream world. The shot is only for 2 seconds but it leaves those questions there until Darren rides off on his bike and the Moth follows, a bond between the dreams and reality of his life.

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

With Darren moving off his chair to walk, there is a movement hierarchy between the chair and Darren, and then Darren will walk off and stand independent to the chair. To solve this I have rebuilt parts of Darren’s rig to allow for the chair interaction and for the walk also.
It’s running smoothly and I have animated George and began animating Darren. With his stand from the chair and movement towards the “it’s not about money” shot.

Tuesday, 19 July 2011

Sequence 119-122 I have decided to combine with the next sequence, so it runs till 129. Its just 30 seconds with a lot going on in the sequence. Darren walking of to his life adventure and opening the doors to white was a problem. In the end I have decided to add a sell illuminating half cylinder, (so Darren still has an area to walk outside) that is connected by a box to scale when the doors open, yet keep the same shape. Therefore I can add layers of white latter to add more glow. Creating a nice affect.
Apart from that I am taking this sequence a little slower. It’s the pinnacle point of the animation, where Darren says his “it’s not about money” bit. All that emotion and thought of the characters I wish to do justice to the action and reaction of Ian’s confusion and Audrey’s slip of anger as Darren walks out.
I guess this is the final main sequence, with just a few small fillers to add after. So I will be saying goodbye to my characters as I animate them.

Saturday, 16 July 2011

So far the render problem seems to be resolved by rendering off the shots per shot through the render instead of videopost. I have not checked them yet but looking at individual renders there doesn’t appear to be any major faults where the hair jumps. I should have that sequence finished for tonight so I am really only 3 batches of sequences behind from the actual animation.
For the animation I have finished shot 94-97 and am very happy with the results. Animating Audrey’s walk turned out well and gave me more practise in accents in walks. Hmmm also I noticed when animating Darren’s sigh it might have been better if I had a morph to bulge the cheeks. I didn’t and with the way the rig is setup I can’t add morphs this far in, so made do, but it would have been better if I had a morph for cheek bulge also.
I am learning so much with working with Visemes and am tempted to go back over a few sequences to clean up the animation after viewing it again now. Audrey’s first speech and Darren’s Elms shocked expression when the moth flies at him, and the moths angry expression as it nears. Apart from that and general adjustments to the lighting and effects, I should have the sequences animated by the end of July. Only 4 sequences to go :)

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

The patching process of editing rendered frames when the skin looked wrong worked fine. It was a little bit time consuming with about 30 or 40 frames in the sequence having the skin flicker problem. But I fixed it by patching up the frames using renders where the hair didn’t work correctly. I had yesterday off for my birthday and today and getting back into animating tomorrow the final four sequences. Next is 94-97 a quite complicated shot that I don’t think I have given myself enough time for. But I will work on it solidly for the week and try and cut the time it takes down so I can hopefully have the film animated by the end of July. This sequence involves again some character interaction between Ian and Darren plus Audrey working away supervising in the background. A nice shot but I can see the animation will be a little bit painstaking. But still as always very enjoyable.
The sequence I am rendering at present is George’s mad wake up moment… “our sub was like a ghost” etc. It’s a big shot, with over 30 seconds of animation to render and close up shots of faces plus reflections from Georges glasses. Consequently it is estimated at 370 hours at present. I am quite hopeful that it will drop as the camera pans of George. It is taking about 15 minutes per frame at present. It’s not a concern but it will be if there are any hair problems in the sequence, or shader problems. I think I could just re render frames for a skin problem, but if hair problems occur I will have to render off the sequence again.
On that note I have a thought that maybe, if instead of using videopost and rendering off each camera after each other, I could render it off using the standard render a camera at a time. This may fix the problem with the hair. If this sequence doesn’t work and there is a hair problem then I will choose this method to patch up problem areas.

Anyway heres a render of the shot as is

Friday, 08 July 2011

I am progressing smoothly with sequence 30-34. I have animate Darren, George and half way through Ian. Render wise I have managed to get through 3 more sequences but then ran into a problem with sequence 30-34. Firstly an animation problem where Ian’s arm clips through the box when shaking hands. It was easily fixable. But the second problem is Darren’s skin shader sometimes changes colour between frames. Almost like a shadow round the mouth area. I am thinking this may be caused by my reducing the spec weight of the teeth and gums. But it only occurs on odd frames. Possibly a reaction between the normal skin and the teeth inside that skin. I am going to attempt altering the settings of the renders (increasing the mem limit to 1500 from 650 and ticking placeholder objects) and see if that helps resolve the problem. If not I am hoping it would occur again on different frames. Therefore I can patch them together with the sequence rendered before.
Also another hair problem. However I believe this is due to the simulation having to recalculate when I up the percentage of the sim when he leans on his hands. I have lowered the sim values to compensate and it should work fine. If it turns out I again have the skin problem I can patch frames from the skin problem renders so it hopefully will work out ok. I am more concerned right now in getting the hair right between the renders and zdepth,

Tuesday, 05 July 2011

Finally finished shot 44 rendered only to find out I had set up videopost wrong so one of the shots was speed up to fit all the time of the sequence into one camera shot. A mistake by me but easily rectified. I am now beginning shot 80-86. One of the last shots when all the characters chat together. Also Audrey moth appears in the scene. The best way I can think to do this because of the size difference between the characters is to enlarge the background for the shot. Render it off, render off Audrey moth with the same lighting and compose them together after. Initially Audrey would speak and Darren would turn, but I am thinking if Audrey moth speaks half the sentence it would look a lot better and more amusing.
Looking back on 44 again. I had set up layers for lighting effects of the ceiling lights. Giving it more blur etc. But it just detracts from the sequence with the eyes automatically looking at the brightest areas. Sooo I wont be doing anymore ceiling light effects. It just doesn’t work well. For such a subtle effect I don’t think its worth the extra days rendering to get it right.
Here’s an image to show what I mean



My eyes look straight at the ceiling


Its only very subtle but I do think the lights with out that blur works better.

Hmmm OH!
My film so far
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BbY3LNAgN0

Saturday, 02 July 2011

I am half way through sequence 115-118. Only 6 more sequences to go, but it is taking a lot longer to render due to mistakes than I believed it would. Mainly the hair simulation errors. So with the last sequence which has taken over 3 weeks to render so far due to mistakes, I still need to re-render one of the camera shots. 200 frames. Probably another day to 2 and a latter frame where the simulation jumps. Just one frame but it is noticeable. I am thinking of trying to patch these up from the exact time the simulation has problems. The simulation seems buggy like this. Why it doesn’t recalculate from the start when rendering off another sequence I am not sure. However if the sim resets after these jumps I can go back and render the areas of problems, without having to redo the zdepth. Luckily with the same settings it does render the same sequence after being reset. I noticed some of these jumps in the hair in other areas of the animation that I will have to re render but taking out just the areas of the problem and patching up with new renders works well. Either way I decided just to re-render one of the camera shots and hope it is the same simulation as the Darren and Audrey shots I have already rendered so I can put them together.

Also I had to up the memory limit for the sequences and using placeholder objects since the scenes would crash due to memory errors.
Anyway I am currently rather worried about the render times. Realistically I need the sequences wrapped and rendered soon so the sound professional can mix and edit the levels and fit it all accordingly.

On this sequence I have animated Georges facial features a number of times now. I am just trying to get a look of just waken and saying his words of wisdom. I tended to keep his eyes and brows to closed which caused him to look annoyed. Hopefully I have changed it enough to portray the emotions I want him to convey. Also added a little twitchiness to his mouth during speech. It looks good therefore am going back over the previous George sequence to incorporate the same things (they have not been rendered yet).