2 days to go and summary

there's 2 days to go. My folders are ready (pretty much). i really can't gage how well i'm going to do. usually i can guess what mark to expect but i really don't know what to think.

i feel like i have done as much work as i could have considering the time i've had. my first project being cancelled really didn't help. looking at how much i have managed to achieved by cracking the whip i feel like if the first project wasn't cancelled, we could have definitely had a good chance of getting the film done. but oh well, that's all in the past now.

i want to specialise in pre visual work but unfortunately i don't think i have been able to focus enough on that as i would have liked.

my main folder is artistic. i feel like i have a healthy chunk of work in there but i would have liked to have been able to spend a little more time on developing the pre vis work and developing my skills even further.

in terms of the film. i have 2 shots rendered and 4 more almost ready to render. then after that 3 more to go. i know i wont have it ready for hand in. thankfully we don't get marked on the film it's literally something to show for our grad exhibition. I think i have an alright chance to get things done in time for final hand in for the show which is 23rd June. if not then there is also another chance to exhibit work. this is the skill set exhibition which hopefully i will be chosen for then i can show my work there.

if i can get a rough version ready for the Ravensbourne show then a final rendered, polished version for the skill set show i would be really happy and feel like i have achieved soemthing this year.
at the moment i don't feel like i have achieved somethign too great when it comes to quality but i think i have done pretty well organisation wise. being able to have a project canceled then have half a year and no dedicated team to come this far with the amount of work and the quality i have been able to achieve in some areas i am very proud. against all odds i have managed to get a decent amount of work done.
in producer terms i am quite happy with this and proud of myself and the freelance members i have been able to get help from.

i am very thankful to all of those that have helped me, and my tutors not giving up on me (no Dan this isn't me sucking up). i owe my fellow students that have worked on this with me everything. without them i wouldn't be anywhere near as far on as i am. you guys are the best!

rendering rocket outside

so i recently finished this scene and i have waited till now to render it. so here it is.



i'm pretty happy with how it's come out. i mean with a bit more time i could tweak things till i was 100% happy with it but hey ho. time is of the essence!

rocket scene

so for exterior rocket shot it is flying through the sky. like i said a few posts ago after experimenting with clouds i dont want to go down the realistic route.

so i have decided to just do a simple matte painting.



hopefully this will work nicely.

only down side of this is when the ship moves the clouds will only be behind. so i will export the cloud layer from the mate painting and in premier when i put the frames together i will place the clouds over the top, turn the opacity down and set key frames so they move past in foreground.

E&E

SUCKS. wasting my time!

poster

cheeky little poster i knocked together.




the date is the date of the skill set exhibition. the deadline i think i will most likely be able to hit.

folders

just been concentrating on making my folders as strong as possible.

i really should have doen this from the start, getting a little tedious having to sift through all my files to find the ones i want to include.

it's actually quite time consuming.

some beauty shots

here are some beauty shots i rendered for joe to put in his portfolio/blog or something. look kinda nice.

3D animatic

hand in is approaching fast. still a lot of work to go!

actually getting nervous. not sure if i can get all this work done. Not having a fully dedicated team behind me it's really hard to do a lot of this work. it's not really my specialisms. starting to feel that maybe i bit off more than i can chew!

anyway here is the 3D animatic as i promised. )i actually got this done a couple of days ago just forgot to post it)





i gave it to george, he seems to think he can have the sound by 20th June.

i have recently found that final deadline for films is the 23rd. buys me a little bit more time but i think t's still going to be a struggle.

light test

here is a test i did of the light coming in through the door in one of the shots.



all i used was a ambient light with a vety low intensity and a spot light. pretty simple stuff.

p.s. i used simple ncloth to cover the rocket in this shot.

sound

so george asked me whether he should start sound from the 2D animatic i gave him i told him to hold out while i make a quick final edit for time etc because now i have all the animation playblasted i can make an edit to final timings.
should have this done today.

animation

so i've spent the last week or so on my animations.

and i havent found it too bad. i haven't done any character animation for about 2 years so was pretty nervous to see how it would turn out. But what i've done seems alright and im quite happy with it.

here are PB of my animations



ship with particles



you can see i've calmed the particles down since my last post. this is because i thought they looked a bit too crazy before in my other tests.

you can't really see the animation fully on the girl in this playblast
but i've included it so you get an idea of the camera movement etc.




here it is a little closer.



and here is my final bit of animation.



quite happy with these :)

some newer renders to give you an idea

so here are some render/ light tests.






quite happy with most of them though i think the shot of the museum can do with some small tweaks.

Particles!

so i have worked with particles a little bit prior to this so i kinda already no the basic principles.

i had done them for a rocket trail in my second year so opened that scene file and had a look at what i had done.

basically create an emitter, parent that to the back of the rocket. go into particle shape and create a life ramp so that the trail dies off at the end.
you then need to make sure the particles are set to a random lifespan.
once that is done, change the colour to a ramp, so the younger particles are lighter and the older ones are darker as they get further away from the thruster. after that set the radius to a ramp so the older the particle the larger it gets as it desperses then finally fades away.

by adding a turbulence field and messing around with the magnitude and threshold you can get really random flowing movement from the particles.

here are some tests i've done.



colour test



looking pretty good, might need to tweak the colours a little for the final thing.

Environment and animation

carlos has sent me the first draft of the model, then i asked him to change the solar panels and to add a slight bit more detail.
and he sent it back literally the next day so pretty chuffed about that.

1st draft



2nd draft



the second draft has shaders placed on it and is in the scene. rather happy with how its looking so far. a lot of work to go though.

here are some of the playblasts of animations done by nick and joe.
i have yet to start my animations yet.

Joe





only have one major problem with these and it's in the second one. the tongue is floating behind her. this is something to do with rig so im going to get sanjay on it asap.

nick





happy with nicks shots also, only problem is the face dissappearing on the video but he assures me on his machine its there. must be something going wrong when refencing from the drop box files.

as you can see some of the environments have been textured or had shaders applied. trying to chip away at this mountain of work where and when i can.

i've got to start work on my animations and start playing around with particles for the shot of the ship flying.

environments/blocking

the environments are almost finished!

just some props need to be finished and put in the scene. I've asked Carlos to do some prop modelling for me.
I've given him this.




this is the landing pod the girl will bang on in the scene.
i have blocked out where this will be.



he said it shouldn't take too long :)

i'm going to post up some environment stuff soon.

the project is going on alright so far. hopefully my animators should find it fairly easy to animate the scenes as they are only short bits.

the rocket

so here is the model for the rocket, inside and out.

inside 1



inside 2






outside 1




outside 2

colour boards

as i said before i haven't actually posted my colour boards up on here. must have slipped my mind, feels like im doing a million things at once at the moment.











I've used quite subtle colours for the majority of things. yes i do want it cartoony and stuff but by having clean/realistic colours it gives a simple feel while still resmbling realism in a way.

coloured and rigged

so the girl is finished, coloured and rigged.

i have just realised i havent included my colour boards for stuff yet so i will include them in there on post after this.

here are some shots of her.








So i have passed the rig onto my animators to play around with. im pretty happy with how she's looking.

Still got tons to do.

also i made this a while ago but here is the schedule. which came be found on shotgun

https://ravensbourne-l3.shotgunstudio.com/detail/Project/156

first shot

as promised

modelling

the outside is finished!
all modelled and put together, i have purposely only used pre built shaders (though they have been modified in some cases) this is because of the simple style i am trying to achieve and therefore saving time.

Ben lit this shot, he showed me then how to use physical sun and sky which gives you a really nice initial look and then how to manipulate it to get the look you want.

(first shot)




here is a playblast of the first shot, i had to change the camera movement, the shot coming in from the top just wasn't working even when editing the movement in the graph editor it was going to fast at the end. I have now decided to go for a slow movement toward the museum, i think this works just as well. in a way it also mirrors the first shot of the girl skiiping through the museum which when edited may look nice.



i want to do a render test of the first shot so once i do that i will post it up.

rocket girl!

ollie gave me the rig today and has done a great job, so chuffed he was able to help. forever greatful. that guy works horribly quick.

Sanjay is on holiday so will rig when he's back!

here's the model (not smoothed)

clouds

i have been looking into making clouds for the shot of the the rocket flying through the sky.

i followed an online tutorial. By using dynamics and fluids it is possible to get something very close to realistic clouds. after i made them i decided that maybe it was for this project. while everything looks quite simple and cartoony i think it would be too much of a contrast if these clouds were included.





the other thing putting me off using these types of clouds is the render time, it takes quite a while to render just one frame, i need to try and keep render time to a minimum.

I will probably end up using a matte painting or something.

Modelling

I've given Ollie my sketches of the girl for him to start modelling her.

While he does that I have started to model some of the environments.

here's a screen shot of the beginigns of the outside shot



and here is a screen of the inside of the museum



i have also started to model some of the props.

rocket chair



shuttle display



museum reception desk




starting this work it has really dawned on my how much work i have ahead of me. daunting! oh well i'm just gonna carry on and see what happens.

animatic

sorry its been a while, loads stuff going on at the moment

so here is the 2D animatic :)

Mission Control (working title) animatic - no sound from Rory Bryans on Vimeo.

Environments

I have been doing some doodles of the environments and have settled on some final designs.
I want to keep this film quite simple and clean, there's one main reason for this. TIME!
time is against me!

First Shot (outside museum)




second shot (inside museum)




Rocket Console



Rocket Chairs








I have also been working on an animatic and should be done in the next few days.

sound

I've managed to score myself a sound guy. i've heard George Chitty from the sound design course is pretty good so I found him and he has agreed to do the sound for my trailer. Stoked!

original storyboards

The whole point of making a trailer is to give the audience enough of the story/visual to wet their appetite and leave them wanting more. I

i still have my original storyboards from my pitch at the beginning of the year, so i have cut them together to create the new storyboard for this trailer, i think i have included the right parts to make people want more. but this is a rough storyboard, these were my first boards for my pitch so they will need to be developed.







I think i have included the minimum, but like i said i will go on to develop this.

the rocket

i've done a few sketches and designs for the main rocket that the girl climbs into.

a couple of sources influenced me when it came to the concepts.

wallace and gromit



Despicable me



thunderbirds







man i love thunderbirds!

here are some of my sketches.









i'm not sure which design i prefer. whether i wanna go for a more realistic/stylised rocket or for a full on cartoon style.

i think the realistic style might work nicely, but i'll see when it comes to designing the rest of the environments etc.