Tulip Test...

This flower isn't really going to move much, but I found that very boring and decided to look into something I've never tried before. I decided to use dynamic curves and play around with the forces and I have found the effect it gives lovely, but hard to control. I realised after spending hours on rendering that the curves don't animate the same in the real-time view as they do when they are rendered, so I had to playblast my way to this. All in all it came out lovely and the petals or tentacles look almost alive. I plan to use this technique on a few more things to turn my set more alive and interesting. I will add most of it when I've finished animation though so you wont see any of it any time soon. 

I feel that I have learnt an awful lot this year through pushing myself to the look I want for my major project. I am definitely getting closer too the look I have in my mind every day, and I feel a bit more confident in my work as well. So confident that I can actually see myself working with this soon. It feels good. Still so much to learn though. 

Mushroom Animation Test...

And I very simple and quick test on  the mushrooms. They aren't really going to move much so I did this mostly for fun, and thought it'd be more interesting than just a still picture. So here are the mushrooms. Hope you like!

Flower Animation Test...

Finished all the blend shapes and the rig and thought I'd try it all out to see that everything is working, and so it does. I should be ready too start the whole animation process this weekend if everything goes to plan. I am in a bit of a rush now since I plan to have most things finished before I go to Sweden for 8 days. I only have 4 day to clean things up and prepare for my presentation when I come home so it is probably for the best to have everything ready to go. This was the plant that needed most work so now that that is done the rest should be fairly easy to finish of. More updates tomorrow hopefully.

Woop woop some updates!!!

Yes I know it has been like forever since I did any updates. I have been majorly sidetracked the past few weeks but am back on track with things now and it is working very well so far. Plants are more or less ready and the set is not far from finished either. Did a little animation test today to see how blendshapes would work for the leaves on the plants, and since my typology is very clean and simple it was super easy to create the blendshapes. Here is a little test:

And a little test render of the environment, not finished just yet. Just wanted to check that the matte painting and stuff worked. The matte painting will be on three different image planes by the way, just to give it more depth and make the mountains move independently.

Turntable Bomb...

Some of the turntables I haven't shown you yet. These were included in my presentation as well as most of the other ones you have seen from earlier. There is another two videos that I just cant be bothered showing. One of the lotus with textures (that I have decided to change), and one with all the plants in AO. I rather show the plants when they are textured and rigged, a bit more interesting that way.

The presentation went great by the way. Managed to take home a first (75%) and I am very proud of myself. Normally I am very nervous speaking in front of people, but lately we have had so much training that it is actually starting to feel pretty natural. Yes, I was nervous of course, but as soon as I started talking it slowly disappeared.

I had a few pointers in my feedback that I will definitely take into account. The camera angles are weak in my pre-vis and so is the story line. "Like a mix of a poem and a love story" it was said, and that I have to choose which path to take. I am not great when it comes to sorting out stories so I will need some help on these bits. And hopefully together with my supervisor I can make A's speakers work with the music as well. I didn't say, but I ended up scrapping them after rigging A, when they decided that no constraint, no parenting, and no binding would make them follow my rig as he moved, and after spending nearly a day trying to sort them out I finally gave up. But I was told that I'd be able to get some help on that part.

Anyway, I will have to re-visit quite a few parts of my animation, and bring even more to it. On my list for after Christmas is, obviously the animation, but I am working on some nice mate-painting for the background to bring more depth and to push the mood. I will look in to some tutorials that I got to create growing flowers in maya ( thanks Toby ), and other things to fill out my environment with, since it seems pretty plain at the moment.

But for now I am going to enjoy a long and relaxing Christmas with tuns of gingerbread, glögg and presents. Oh and a haircut!!!

See you after Christmas!

Pre-visualisation...

My 3D pre-vis is finished. I think I sorted the camera movement out exactly as I wanted and really put some thought into it. I really appreciated the pre-vis part this time, unlike last year. I think mainly because I didn't understand what purpose it served. This time it's really helped though and I think when it comes to the final piece I will have saved allot of time by sorting out my camera movement this early. It also gave me the chance to time my film a bit better since it was running or by 13 seconds before.

Tomorrow I will focus on my presentation completely. Rehearse and go through everything and write down answers to the questions that might be thrown at me, just so I don't forget what I'm doing or what I'm talking about. My nerves aren't the best so I better have some support notes.

That is that for now. Wish me luck for Monday! I will make a little entry when finished on Monday to tell you how it went. 

A and the lotus...

The animation test is finished. Had to re-render today since the first render made A way to glossy and cause of that he lost allot of his facial expressions. So I set down the reflectivity and he looks much better... Hope you like!