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).