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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - Write Up Nearing End I'm nearing the end of my write up. It has taken a while but it's finally coming together. All I have left to do is check all the text, ensure all the links are working, ensure the references are correct and re-edit the last scene of the movie with a longer shot of the mushroom hill and hopefully that’s it! It's been a long journey but was well worth it, and I can honestly say I've learnt a lot and I have found an area I definitely want to continue to pursue. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, March 31, 2005 - Write Up After receiving positive feedback from the exhibition, I decided to only tighten the edit of the movie and not alter the content too drastically. I am now in the stage of writing up my whole project and this will be presented in the form of a website. I understand by doing this I am adding many extra hours bout I believe it is the best format to deliver my documentation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, March 25, 2005 - Exhibition Overview I had my exhibition on Tuesday and it went well. My movie, although not completely finished, was received well and I was surprised by the comments people made. Perhaps I've spent too long on the project to appreciate it. I will update the blog soon, I still need to finish writing up my documentation. I have around 5,000 words at the moment on the history of animation and some research, and I have finished the planning and introduction sections also. posted by Amir @ 11:59 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, March 10, 2005 - Concentrating on Final Year Project I have been so busy recently I haven't had time to post, but all is well. Well kind of. All other module assignments are complete and I’ve spent the last week and a bit solely on the final year project. I've rendered my movie to 360 x 288 so that I can ensure all the scenes are rendered. I have rendered 60% of the film, and there are many more scenes that I anticipated in my storyboard, so I had to redraw little mock-up storyboards for the end scene and the title sequence. I’m having a few problems with VideoPost but have completed the gun fight scene. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, February 18, 2005 - 3D Group Project Nearly Complete The 3D group project has taken a number of weeks on and off and is finally coming together. I have spent a lot of time on modelling the robot, building the room, using Video Post and Reactor, designing the titles, editing and fixing small problems such as rendering some of the larger scenes. One of the models, the city, is too large to render and is adorned with over 60 lights so I reduced the number of lights to about ten and relit the whole scene. This cut down the frame time from 25 minutes a frame to just 3. It has been very stressful but it's looking quite good. My final year project has been on hold for a week whilst this and my sound module are finished. Both are 70% done. To quote Finding Nemo I’ve got to ‘just keep swimming…’. posted by Amir @ 5:09 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 3D Project Underway & Dissertation Ideas I've been working on the 3D group project a lot lately. I've finished building the robot, the room and various bits and pieces as well as the title sequence. I haven't been able to update this blog much because I’ve been so busy, and don't want to update it everyday with little bits of progress. I would rather wait until a lot is done and I can document it. I have decided that my Dissertation will take the form of a short film. This will allow me to concentrate on modelling, lighting and camera movements. I will update soon, once all my render tests are complete. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, January 31, 2005 - Biped Problems and Render Tests I've been working on rendering my movie. I've experimented with using still Tiffs as well as exporting as movie files. I think a DV Pal or Sorensen 3 compression should be sufficient. I tried adding effects in AfterEffects but compressing the movie twice affected the quality. I have also been playing around with reactor and biped. I am having trouble connecting the mesh to the biped via the physique modifier. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, January 10, 2005 - Christmas 3D I haven't updated the blog for a while because I have been working from home and have no internet access, but I have been working a quite intensely and have finished almost all of my main modelling. I have decided to try and make an animated children's story book with a poem resembling Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, to use at the beginning. I will update later with more detail depending on how the book modelling goes. It could be difficult to create realistic page turns in 3D. posted by Amir @ 6:19 PM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, December 13, 2004 - Presentation Feedback The presentation went quite well, and the PowerPoint slides worked on the day so that was a good start. I got a lot of positive feedback and some interesting ideas from both Stuart Currie and Hossein Nili. It was suggested I rename the project to ‘Exploring 3D Techniques’ to focus on dark Tim Burton meets the Quay Brothers style 3D landscapes and interiors. I will see where I go with the title after I solve my rigging problem. I am close to ditching rigging altogether and favouring the stop-motion technique of animation similar to the puppet animation of the Quay Brothers and Burton. posted by Amir @ 12:46 PM Presentation at 11:30am I have my interim presentation today at 11:30am. I have created a PowerPoint slideshow to aid me. I spent yesterday fine tuning the slides and presented once to myself, and once to an audience of two. I found that by doing this I could see where my faults were and could work on improving them. I have roughly 42 slides I think, but most of which are pictures and movies. Hopefully, it should go well. posted by Amir @ 9:09 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, December 11, 2004 - Presentation I have spent the last couple of days gathering my work for the interim presentation. I think I have enough images and movies to show and a lot to discuss with the examiners. I am still having trouble with rigging and have been unable to rig a simple character, so instead I will spend a few hours designing a new organic character (not a robot) and try again. There are plenty of tutorials on the internet for this. I have started using the ‘Grass-O-Matic’ plug-in in my work but find it slows down the system so it has to be hidden when not in use. Also importing large objects with many polygons, such as the tower I built, also seems to cause problems. So I will have to get around this problem by keeping each scene relatively simple, and where possible, use images instead of 3D, for backgrounds for example. My aim is to finish rigging and learn alpha channel layer rendering before Christmas, this way I can spend the festive season in front of my computer animating my movie. Long long hours to look forward too! posted by Amir @ 10:17 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - Sound Project I have nearly completed half the soundtrack for the film. I did this using FL Studio 4 and Sonar 1.0. I used an orchestral plug - in to obtain the more traditional horror / epic film music style. I have decided on the idea for my sound module assignment which will use the same approach. This way the module can help with my final year project and perhaps I can brush up on my music writing skills whilst doing another module. I am going to attempt to rig up my character today and hopefully have him flying by early next week. I am organizing my notes as well for the interim presentation and using PowerPoint as the delivering mean. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, December 05, 2004 - New Computer I spent the last week transferring files to my new computer but there are still problems with files and allsorts. I have a rough idea of the name of the film, something like ‘Jed’s Tower', which is the story of a robot trying to kill another, named Jed who lives in a tower. Rendering the character (including effects) with the tower and clouds crashed the new computer, so not a good sign. But should be fixed soon, if not the tower will need to be changed. posted by Amir @ 4:00 PM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, December 02, 2004 - Snow, Glow and Fire I have been doing a lot with particle effects and Video Post recently. I decided to create a jetpack for the lead character and add a flame/glow. I’ve also been trying to create a snow / blizzard effect, but it’s not too convincing at the moment, but I’m still working on it. I have been watching Tim Burton's A Nightmare before Christmas for scenery ideas as well as Metropolis, Rustboy, JoJo in the Stars, and Edward Scissorhands. I’m trying to create a dark, twisted, sad film with an original soundtrack. posted by Amir @ 4:00 PM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - The Incredibles I watched The Incredibles tonight and it was great. The 3D animation is amazing. I have thought of a storyline for my movie which leans more towards modelling than animating but will also need many effects such as fog and animated clouds and stars. I figured out how to make and animate a propeller for one of the characters, using the curve editor and 'out of range' option then ping pong, it works quite well. posted by Amir @ 2:00 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, November 29, 2004 - Keep It Simple Stupid! Well after weeks of designing, I've decided to keep the characters simple. So I will go back to my very first design of a robot, that is basically made of primitive shapes like boxes and cylinders. This will allow me to concentrate on animation. Most of the others characters will still be used but not in main roles. The 'Transformer / Gundam' robots I have modelled will be far too difficult to rig and animate so I will either keep their movement to a minimum or not use them at all. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, November 28, 2004 - Metropolis I've been reading a lot about the history of Disney and Warner Bros and it's surprisingly interesting. I've been looking closely at Anime and Manga in more detail and shying away from conventional 3D movies, things like Rustboy that are very impressive but have a style that is widely seen on the 3D scene. I feel I have developed a unique style that will hopefully stand out amongst other 3D projects, and have decided to explore the use of ink and paint. I also experimented with a different method I worked out by creating two of the same object, making one black, and using the push modifier to create a thick black (or whichever colour) outline. I purchased a Japanese anime film named Metropolis off Play.com and will see if there is any ideas I can get from this movie. I have been researching a little whilst modelling and sketching possible new characters. There are a lot of sketches here so I will have to organize them for my final hand in. posted by Amir @ 1:35 PM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, November 26, 2004 - Blog Set Up I have chosen to set up this blog at the development stage of my project, so I can keep a record of my thoughts and ideas and to document the scale of my progress. I'm not going to update the blog every day, just when I feel I need to, or when something important happens. I am getting a new computer later this week and although I’m excited about it, there is going to be a lot of stress over reinstalling everything and so on. But anyway, at least it will let me work in 3ds Max without everything slowing down! At this stage my primary research has been completed and I have started modelling the different aspects of my movie. I have yet to understand character rigging but will try and figure it out before next week. My initial design ideas have been stored in a folder which I will hopefully include in the appendix of my project or in its own section (something like concept art or ideas). I will also need to start storyboarding very soon, but I’m not worried about this yet, as it's something I enjoy doing and once all the initial research for the characters are finished I shall start drawing it up. posted by Amir @ 8:46 PM
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