Please, Wash Your Hands.

The End.

2008-05-12T01:02:00.001-07:00

C'est fini. I've finished the film! Woohoo! :-D

Will post more stills when I've had sleep.

Sacred Tissue of Cleanliness.

2008-05-09T16:32:00.000-07:00

Another pic:

Leading up until the climax of the film.

Quick Entry. Do not pass GO.

2008-05-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

Greets again, quick entry of what my title card is going to look like:

More images to follow. Getting closer to the finish line...

Friday it is then...

2008-05-06T08:29:00.001-07:00

Ok, well last Friday went a little better than expected. Even though my film wasn't finished in time for the presentation, the scenes I did have completed I got just amazing feedback from people. It made me feel that I was on to something - and I've now just got to keep going and get finished for the final final deadline which is this Friday, which is the DVD manufacturing day.

So while I hurry and try and finish all the shots I have to do left, I thought I would post up some more final rendered shots.

Here is a shot near the beginning of the film, which involves Doug finding a coin from his coin organiser.

The next is a shot when he discovers the dirty restroom.

The next two shots are him trying to find something to wipe his bum with.

So I have a production pack to get finished for Wednesday and the actual film to get finished for Friday. Lots to do, so I've got late access (again) for this week. Yayness \o/

Throwing them out there.

2008-04-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

So, here are some final render shots, without compositing.

Hope people like! I'm animating like a bitch right now - and rendering while I'm animating. Trying to get everything done for this Friday, then I have another week to polish things for the DVD hand-in. Joy.

Light. Oh, light. Ooooooh Light. Oh Light. Dodo, dododoooo.

2008-04-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

So, 've been working on lighting. I forgot how much of a bitch it was to get it spot on.

Now, I LOVE Final Gathering. Love it, love it, love it. It makes things pretty. I like pretty things.

Unfortunately, as with most pretty things in life (computers, women, cars) they cost a lot to use and maintain. Final Gathering as such, is one of these things. A single frame with my current light setup costs me 20mins a FRAME to render. This was totally unacceptable.

I decided to try and 'fake' Final Gathering with a well placed point light. It seems to have worked to a small degree, while only costing my 3mins to render. A HUGE discount.

Here are 2 examples so far.

I hope people like. It's a lot of insane Photoshop work.

Further Set WIP

2008-04-23T18:54:00.001-07:00

So, it's 3AM and I'm still working on my set.

Here is the update:

Working on the new and updated new cubicles, one of which you can see at the bottom right.

I should be finished it tomorrow. Hopefully. Maybe.

Game. Set. Match. Burn.

2008-04-22T17:07:00.000-07:00

So after having a bad day of Character Tech stuff, I've decided to work on the set.

Minus graffiti for now.

The Loo.

The 'Restroom' minus a lot of stuff.

I hope to finish it all tomorrow. Need more time.

Time please, gentlemen.

2008-04-21T05:01:00.000-07:00

Time right now, is not my friend.

I was ill in bed for over 2 days, due to food poisoning. This was about the worst thing that could happen at the worst possible time. Unable to work, all i could do was watch inspirational DVDs in bed.

I have been trying to catch up this week. I have almost finished the Character. I say almost, as I thought I was finished but during some testing found that there was still some weighing work to be done on the face (Maya decided to forget all the weighting I'd done previously).

To make me feel better, I've done a quick render. Not using mental ray, as it's playing up right now.

If I can fix all the niggling problems, I should be able to start animating very, very soon. Hopefully.

The Bane of my Existence. They Haunt my Dreams.

2008-04-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

We had our 1st cut review today. Surprisingly, despite a lack of animation so far, my new animatic went down quite well and even converted a lecturer who previously despised my film to actually liking it. Which I did find a bit odd, but in a good way.

So yes, back to Blendshapes. Yet more. And more. Even More. Halp!

What you see right there, are 40+ Blendshapes for the character's lips alone. All emotion and phonemes. I was up from 9AM till 4AM two days in a row to get them to where they are now.

Right now, I'm doing some others which should hopefully be easier as they are just for the eyebrows/forehead and some squash & stretch in the face.

I've taken time off work as holiday so that I can work on my film - so I plan to have Doug ready to animate Sunday/Monday.

O Blendshapes, Where Art Thou?

2008-04-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

So today I started on the dreaded Blendshapes. I have 43 to do of various sorts. Managed to get 11 done today, but speed should vastly increase from today onwards.

Here is an example of some of the Blendshapes within Maya itself.

Not too bad. I would love to do them better, but right now I must get cracking. The first cut hand-in is tomorrow...and I've managed to have 4 CG 'preview' scenes viewable. I'll most likely have a better version ready for the presentation on Friday.

Sleep is needed.

ClusterF**K.

2008-04-07T15:16:00.001-07:00

Greetings.

Today is the second day of working with clusters. Hate them. With a passion. They all seem fine but if you forget to freeze your transforms...GAH, so annoying.

His head is finally ready for Blendshapes. All 40+ of them. Joy. I love doing a decent job without cutting many corners.

One Two.....Awww, FREAK OUT!

2008-04-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

After fiddling around with yet more of his facial weights, I've been testing his face to see if it breaks.

So far, so good. But yet again, only after hours of testing and rebuilding and testing and rebuilding. Must keep going forward...

Ok, so, that went well.

2008-04-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Right. Update time. Things have not been going to plan recently. Not being able to have weekends off has been a HUGE bummer for me now, as I've lost literally weeks of work time.

I'm trying desperately to catch up while helping one or two people. Also, realising that I myself am not the best at certain aspects of Maya, I;ve enlisted the help of Aimee Hibberd. She basicly did a rig for Doug, which I have then modified to suit my own needs. This has saved me days and days of time and it's great being able to modify it for the animations my character will need.

I was going to use The Setup Machine, but tests with this program proved too much trouble getting it to blend with a facial setup. So I did lose a day of that. Not only that, I lost a day due to the Police not showing up at my place, and my PC at the same time deciding not to work for that day. Joy. That's 2 lost days I won't be getting back.

Right now I've got his head skinned. It can move. Joy. The only good thing recently, is that I have taken the last 3 weekends off work as paid holiday. That's about an extra week I wouldn't have had before, so that's good news. I've also been in contact with my sound guy which is good. I hope I can get Doug ready for animating by the end of Friday, otherwise it will be doubtful if I will be able to finish in time, never mind handing in a '1st Cut' this Wednesday.

Props are fun.

2008-03-03T14:30:00.000-08:00

I've decided to write down a full list of what probs need making. It's a fair amount. Not only do they need modeled but they need texturing too. Great. 8 weeks left. 6 weeks approx to animate the film......GAH!

As you can see above, I have made coins. Hopefully stylised coins that can fit within the world. I have also made the basic walls for the set using a blueprint drawing of the set I made a while ago. It will also need details and textured.

It's nice to see some colour on my check-off storyboard sheets at long last, but it's been a long time coming and I need more colour on there than I have now.

Music is another issue. I've send emails off to a number of musicians and composers. I've yet to hear back from them but I continue to hope for the best. I recon I could do the sound and effects myself, but the music is a big issue.

The first cut of the film is due Wednesday next week. It's now Monday. Joy.

Arms, Hands and Shoes oh my!

2008-02-28T05:07:00.000-08:00

That's right folks. I've re-modeled his shoes from being mickey-mouse clown shoes into something actually based off real shoes. And amazingly, it looks much better. Coincidence? Quite possibly.

Not only this I have modeled his hands and arms. Hand are a hard thing to model. Almost as hard as an ear. And that's saying something.

Now comes the fun of attaching it all together and finishing up the shirt. Then blendshapes, rigging...the list goes on.

T-Minus 9 weeks and counting....scary thought!

Shoes, Glorious Shoes!

2008-02-25T15:51:00.000-08:00

So today I set myself the task of modeling Doug's shoes. Simple you may think. Indeed. I'm sure to most modelers this would be. However, we're talking about stylised shoes here which must fit in with the rest of the character, while providing functional footware for our protagonist.

Not looking too shabby. They need work. On another note, I totally forgot people have ankles. This must be rectified in due course after a few hours of sleep.

Also posting as per request a wire frame view of him to show my 'ok' topology.

Hope you enjoy.

Doug continues...

2008-02-18T13:29:00.000-08:00

So, here is Doug with basic eyebrows and a tash. While this may not seem like a large update, I have had to re-build his entire mouth/cheek area from scratch to help aid with lip-sync and/or mouth phonemes.

I'm currently working on his hair, which is proving difficult. Damn him.

Modeling...why I'm an animator.

2008-02-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

Ok, so there is a reason I have chosen not to become a CG modeler. I'm slow. And not very good. I mean, I can do the job with decent amounts of time and normal stuff, but modeling characters.....something I should probably not do.

But seeing as I've not got a team of people behind me, I have to do things myself.

(Click images below to em-biggen)

As you can see from above, Doug has been started. He started as a simple small cube (aww) and has now grown into some of his upper half. With eyes.

Here we see his topology (wireframe mesh) of his head. Not looking too bad, one or two problems that need to be fixed.

And a quick render of him with a skin shader I may decide to use. It was very quick and would reduce texturing time if I applied it.

I'm currently well behind on my schedule. But seeing as I've never made a Maya Short Film before on my own, shall be interesting how I cope with the looming 1st cut.

Xmas, 2008 and Beyond...

2008-01-31T01:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, so the presentation I gave did not go so well (understatement of 2007). The animatic I had still had story problems. This was evident by the fact both lecturers present told me to start over. Joy.

Being in a predicament, I decided to work on the story over Xmas, but also produce a 'backup' idea just in case I did in fact have to start over.

I've since worked on the story and animatic heavily with the help of Matt Gravelle (who is about the nicest person ever). With his story help the latest animatic is working much better and is much stronger. I would love to work on it further but unfortunately time is very very pressing and my timetable I made before Xmas is now so out of time I would swear the Hippy movement is still going strong.

Here is my updated animatic. This is version 7. Yes, that's right. Seven. It pains me how many time's I've made this, but I believe it was worth it.

Currently I'm ACTUALLY starting production. Modeling is going slow but steady on the main character and I'm working in the studio late every night. So much so I'm spending more time there than my rented accommodation. Maybe I should ask for post to be delivered there.

Until next time.

Doug's Character Sheet

2007-11-27T04:31:00.001-08:00

Greetings.

In CG, in order to model a character you need decent Character Sheets. You can model without them, or with poor ones, but I've found that this takes a lot more time to get the character correct. Last night I have been mostly working on....character sheets. Doug's specifically. James drew me a Character Sheet that had certain elements that I liked, and others I didn't. I decided to rectify this in the wee hours of the morning using Photoshop.

Here is the original sketch:

Although construction lines were used, there are elements that were way off being symmetrical. I took Doug's right hand side of his face (on the left), duplicated and mirrored then blended over the top to his right, keeping his hair. The same was applied to his body and legs. His ears were then moved up and rotated, similar to his nose. His waist and shirt were altered to be the correct length, and his eye-brows were shrunk and rotated to match. His shoes were also slightly altered.

Here is the updated sketch after being photoshopped:

This character sheet can now be used for modeling in a CG program. It will make my life easier to model the character how the drawings line up in the 2 views.

If only modeling was so easy...

Feedback and Friends. A good combination.

2007-11-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

After showing my current character sheet and animatic to people, I felt that a few things needed changed. My good friend Peder Kallin (who owns his own CG animation company) told me that in it's current form, he would see me next year. The character and story were still too complicated to produce on time. Seeing as he has full proper production experience, I tend to agree with him.

Doug, was far too human and realistic. So, after going over a large number of designs of the character with James Cox, we eventually decided on this:

As you can see, the character has been greatly simplified. Using simple but great animation rigs as inspiration (Animation Mentor's Stu and Andrew Silkes Generi) the new 'Doug' should be a hell of a lot easier to animate and much more fun to use. Plus, his limbs are longer and more useful - great for character animation. Also of note are the eye-brows and forehead which will be great for expressing the character when he has no lines to deliver.

Here is a version of my animatic that is undergoing some changes. Enjoy.

Story is King...and Doug.

2007-11-20T05:20:00.000-08:00

So, I've been working on story now for quite a while. Which is a good thing, as the great minds say, "Story is King". However there comes a point where you're so wrapped up in story that you need other's opinions. I reached a 6th draft of the screenplay and showed it to many lecturers. It seemed strange, as I have received completely opposite feedback from nearly all of them, which contradicts many points they all make.

Thus, I decided to listen to all criticisms and take on board the ones that seemed to fit the main theme and story while disguarding the ones that distracted. This proved beneficial as I now seem to have a film that does actually have a meaning and yet has the potential to be quite humorous.

It's about time I started posting up some artwork and videos, so I'll start with the central main character of 'Doug'.

In a surreal and subconscious way, I seem to have created and named the main character of my film 'Doug' after my Dad Douglas, and even stranger seem to have developed him to look very very similar. I assume my Dad must have issues with going into Public toilets, and that is the reason I have decided to put him in this situation.

I have been developing my animatic recently. I am currently on my 4th revision and as soon as I have put sound in it I will upload for people to see. The first version was very basic and simply filmed storyboards, but the latest version includes some basic cutout animation to help with the feel and timing of shots. The feedback so far has been good - the story can easily be read. Which is nice.

Build it up, to tear it down, to build it up.

2007-10-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

One of the great things I learned from Annecy this year was from one of the many Pixar talks I went to. One piece of advice about story was that Pixar often had screenplay/script reviews. Often. Very often. This was so that problems could be ironed out and the story could be perfected as much as possible before going into full-steam-ahead production with millions of pounds worth of people and equipment. This is to help avoid any last minute changes to story and script while in production, which is both costly and time consuming.

I have decided to follow Pixar's example with my screenplay and animatics. After my third draft, I gave it to a number of people for review. Some classmates and friends and one lecturer who I thought knew a good story when they saw/read it. Amazingly, so far, positive reviews. But this is to not say there weren't critical. I asked for honest opinions and suggestions and I got them. Not only that, many of them seemed to voice the same opinions and problems. Which is a good thing. It means there is a problem, and it's now easier to fix.

The main great thing I've got out of this technique so far, is the ending of the screenplay. After hearing that people were not satisfied with the ending of the tale as it was slightly boring and a bit of a let-down from a large build up, (while being happy with the build up) I decided to re-write the ending completely. Now with my fourth draft of the screenplay in hand, I feel confident this was a good move as the ending now seems to fit better, be more funny and overall a better fit for the film.

We as animators and storytellers must listen to (most) people's opinions. They are after all, our target audience. We must also be open to critical review, as without criticism we cannot improve our art.

Ok, so that went well...

2007-09-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

Um, yeah. Summer went a bit different than expected. After I did my work experience at Arthur Cox, a few weeks later I got another work experience working at Calon in Cardiff. There I worked on a pilot of a children's TV show called Psi 5. So in the end, I didn't exactly get as much done as I had hoped over the summer.

However, things have now changed. I have just completed my second draft of my Screenplay for my short film tentatively entitled "Please, wash your hands". I will be working on the third draft shortly after I have presented this to a few select people for reading and constructive feedback.

Adiós.

Go go gadget 3rd Year Final Film!

2007-06-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, and so I have started a new Blog. Totally separate from my website blog which is mainly used for posting films I've worked on etc.

I now have a really different idea from what I proposed a few weeks ago. That idea I've been thinking about for ages, but would probably need a team of people to do. So, I may revisit it at a future point.

My idea right now...I'm keeping slightly under-wraps. I'm working on the story and throwing it up on story reels in a few weeks. Once I've shown it to really good story tellers and get good feedback I will post them all up. I plan to have the animatic online by the end of July. I'll start organising my timetable soon - as I want to get the story PERFECT before I get anything started on production.

I learned much from Annecy. One of the best examples of this is the great Pixar saying "Build it up to tear it down". I will build up the story and tear it down until the story is strong enough to stand on it's own. It just happens to be animated.

So....little will happen here util I finish up on Chupa Chups @ AthurCox. Once that is done, work shall commence! (after a few days rest....maybe).

Peace out.