Throwing them out there.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

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.