My Final - Iris

I almost forgot to post this. I know it's been months since I finished this but better late than never.

While I had to do a lot to cover mistakes made during rendering from Maya, I think it came out quite nicely, so I hope you enjoy a year in the making, from original idea to scripting to... everything, this is my final animation.

Running Comp 05

So. Here is my most up to date running comp. There are some issues with it, and there is still some rendering to be done. I think it looks good for the most part but I just hope I can finish the damn rendering.

Update... with only a few days left

With animation basically done I'm heading into my house mates Uni today to get a heap of rendering done (hopefully) so that I don't have to worry about it. I know I can easily get the diffuse and ambient occlusion passes done but I'm still a little unsure on how to properly do the beauty pass with only the hair, and if I have enough time, the ambient occlusion pass too.
I have one photo to go, they have been a royal pain in the ass but I've found faster ways of doing them so with each new one it's taking less time.
I guess that's it for now. I'll post how my rendering goes today with a running comp update (hopefully).

RunningComp04

So today I went back to the little things that were annoying me and fixed them up, did another shot, and readied another for animating. Since things here and there have changed throughout doing each shot, like the attributes on the dynamics, I also went back and fixed the master scene in the hopes to avoid anything screwing up when I move onto the other shots. I have also decided to not do a master camera in one scene and instead break them up into shot by shot scenes. I had to do this because having to cache the hair and the cloth takes a while per test, if something doesn't work I have to go back and fix it, so it figured it was better to cache 100 frames at a time for each scene rather than try and cache 1000.
Also, I have decided to ditch one shot and replace it with another. I think it'll not only help things flow a little better but also make things a little easier on me. I'm going to remove the hug between the two characters and replace it with the Old Man sitting on the end of the bed.

Running Comp 03

Getting there slowly now. Here's where I'm basically up to. There are some small things I went and fixed, like there are actually photos in the photo album, but it's damn near 4am and I can't be bothered going back and re-playblasting. Hopefully I'll have another update on here soon.
Some little things that have bogged me down though are the dynamics. While I am getting better at controlling them it's time I don't have so my days are getting longer and my nights shorter.

Also, I plan on beginning rendering while I sleep starting tomorrow night so hopefully I can keep on top of that rather than trying to do it last minute but hey, things are already pretty last minute hey.

Running Comp 02

Another early morning and so here's a little update. I've been working on the fourth shot at the moment. There have been a few issues but all manageable. The photo album I did needed to be scaled down to fit but because I did blend shapes, rather than trying to control it with joints it squashed it, so when the album was opened the cover and pages on one side shortened and looked stupid. So I fixed that. More importantly though, the Little Girls character set isn't working properly any more which is a pain in the ass but I'm working around that for the time being and keying everything manually. Not exactly fun but I'm hoping that when I start the next shot I can re-import the Little Girl and hopefully it'll fix that issue.

Running Comp... I guess

While it still needs some tweaking and it's not actually rendered, obviously, here's my opening.

Oh and the teddy bear is missing but... let's not worry about that.

Old Man Rigging

Today has been... interesting to say the least with trying to rig the Old Man. Too many times I thought that I had everything ready to go to just rig and move on but I don't know when it happened but the rig was (trying not to swear here) buggered. The join orientation was all wrong for the legs and feet, I didn't realise this until I had skinned him (ok so there were some minor hints, like the foot controller was a different shape to what it should have looked like, but anyway...) so I had to go in and manually re-orient the joints basing it off the Little Girls rig which was a pain but I eventually got it done.
I'm currently weight painting the at the moment, all is currently going well (knock on wood), but I stopped for a moment to post this. I found an AMAZING script/tool for helping with weight painting. It worked perfectly with the Little Girl and at the moment it's working for the Old Man. Basically I can simply mirror the weight paints across (sure Maya has some stuff in built but this just works).
It came in handy with the Little Girl as some of the weight paints I did just seemed impossible/ridiculously tedious to try and replicate to the other side. I contemplated doing it all in Photoshop but I had already spent SO MUCH DAMN TIME playing in Photoshop with exporting and importing, and custom painting weight maps that I could no longer think properly. I decided to look around on the internet and yeah, here we are, happy that things are progressing at the much nicer pace.

Anyway, with all that said, I feel like I am so damn close to having everything in a scene soon, like Sunday even. I doubt it will take longer but hey, if I'm not there by then I'm going to email Jack like crazy with advice... or just cry.

Little Girl Rig

So. From what it seems the rig for the Little Girl is done. The hair works and so does the cloth, oh and the blend shapes (thanks again Jack). Sure it takes a little while to render but it looks so pretty. I could tweak the cloth a little but I've spent so damn long on this damn thing (holy balls did weight painting take a while but I think I have it down to a fine art now haha) that I'm sick of looking at it. The Old Man shouldn't take all that long to put together as I knew this was going to take ages, and I've learnt a lot doing this so yeah, he should be up a running in no time.

P.S. Yes the hair is just curves but it shows how they're dynamic and move when her head moves, the paint effects don't show in play blasts.

Update: Blend Shapes

Finally got my blend shapes working for the Little Girl. While they aren't fully implemented, no eyes and no eyebrows, I think it looks quite cool. Thanks to Jack for helping my tired self to remember just how to do this.

I should be posting here again soon with more little updates as things are just about ready (finally) to start animating.

Another Freaking Update

The Little Girl now has the skeleton and influences in, the hair parented into where it'll move with everything else, all that needs to be done to this is the auto rigger. I know it's not where I should be but it's ready to go.
Also, little side note, this one is for nCloth. I only want to use it for one scene, I've read about how to implement it easily enough BUT I do have another option. I've put a separate rig aside that won't have nCloth, it's just the mesh.
By Tuesdays class I won't have the rigs finished, they will be ready to go though, I just want Jack to check over everything first, mainly the influences cos I'm not feeling too great about the placement at the moment.

Updates Updates Updates.

So, here we are, coming into week 11. I am behind where I'd like to be but I am trying to get up to speed.
I've got some blend shapes together for the Little Girl, and her hair is basically done. Her rig is basically ready to go too, same with the Old Man.
As for the bedroom it's almost all coloured/textured which is nice.
Before the next production class I'd like to have my scenes all broken up and ready to go. I have all the cameras in one scene at the moment locked down. It would be really handy to have all the scenes referencing the models because I need to start animating but things haven't been finished so that would make it so much easier to go back and finish things up later on and not have to import things into 10 different scenes.
I'd also like to have my characters done. I'm so close to that but I keep getting distracted by the little things that it's just not getting done.

Anyway. Better get back to it.

Update Week 9

I figured while I was here I'd just update ya'll with where I'm at.

The Old Man has some basic colour on him, the rig is almost ready (just needs some influences), the mesh is basically where I want it (just need to zBrush the UV layouts).

The Little Girl is in the same spot as the Old Man, basically ready to go.

The environment (room) has some colours on it, nothing special, but I does need more things in it to make it more of a room, something I'll either do when I get sick of animating and need a break or after the animating is done. Same goes for what I'd like to do in Mudbox, and proper texturing the characters and room.

Jack was nice enough to help me on Tuesday with some little things I was having problems with (I didn't know what I was doing basically). The hair system now moves with the skeleton for the Little Girl so when I skin everything she should have some nice dynamic hair. The (well I think it is) fancy looking rug I made has been implemented nicely. All in all the little issues I did have have been fixed, anything new that pops up (we all know they will) I'll make sure to put on here or at least keep note of for when we return from "holidays".

Untill next time. To infinity and beyond!

Showreel

I'd say that the title speaks for itself.

Little Girl Hair Update

Put this together today, well not all of today, and I think it's promising. From what I understand I should be able to get the hair to brush behind her ear fairly simply.
If this all fails then I have backup ideas but I'd like to have actual hair.

Also, just chucked some colour on, didn't even manage to get the hair colours right... dang it again.

Old Man update

Aside from the shoes, still trying to find a free model to use, the model is finished. I slapped some colour on him real quick cos I could. I'm fairly happy with him but I need to move on and catch up to where I need to be, animating. Hopefully by Tuesday I'll be at a point where Jack won't be wanting to throttle me anymore.
The little girl model is all but done too, just gotta stick on her new ears. Again it's not perfect but yeah, gotta get moving with more important things.

...just realised he still doesn't have buttons, or a fly it seems. Dang it.

Updates and the like.

I'm about done with the Old Man, not in that I've almost finished (I kinda have really) more that I'm over modeling him. All I'm missing is his shoes, and some small detail on his top like buttons, and I need to stitch the ear I made onto him, then I think that's it really.

Also, not too sure but I have a pretty strong feeling, that he may have too many polygons on his head.

Double also, I would like to take him into Mudbox or something and get some detail on his head and clothing but I guess that needs to wait really as it's something that can wait and if I have time do it then.

Today I researched nCloth and hair in Maya, I think I found some good and somewhat simple tutorials. Both aren't huge on the list of things to do, and yeah, I now have a list which I'm keeping track of every day, but they are things that I would like to add if I get the chance.
I only did this because I thought I lost some work and tried to do something else before I went home, luckily I had a backup at home.

Some other things that came up today were the photos in the photo album and how I'm going to go about doing those. Originally I was going to do them in 3D but I'm thinking now that I could photoshop, or something similar, the pictures and use something like the After Effects puppet tool to do a small amount of animation like what was in the animatic.

Darren also talked to me about my titles, I realise they are still a ways away seeing as how I haven't begun animating but it was something to think about. Some good ideas were thrown around by Darren and Josie which was helpful.

Just another update

Retypologysing the Old Mans head has been... fun. Clearly he is missing a lot of form but I needed to get all the loops in order and flowing correctly before continuing. It's still not quite right but it's close.

Also today, I decided to take a bit of a break from doing my characters and look at the rooms assets again. This time I looked at the rug that will be on the floor under the photo album. I think it looks kinda neat at the moment. I just threw a cube in there as a place holder for the photo album so it has some clipping issues, that and the rug is currently round which isn't what it's meant to be but hey, I'm just trying to see how quickly I can put some things together to make the room look a little nicer.

Assets Update... and other shizz

The Little Girls room is getting there, slowly. I'm starting to find it hard to come up with junk to fill it with to make it look lived in.
Aside from doing this I've been working on my characters. Been having trouble with the Little Girls face and trying to get it to where I don't dislike the look of it. I've made a start on the Old Mans face but his eyes have proven to be annoying with trying to get the typology looking nice.

Maya Character Update

Just an update on how my characters are going.
After talking to Jack I've changed how the Old Mans clothes are going to be. Instead of being cloth they simply won't be, this is to save time, and it's really not necessary as his clothes won't be hanging off him.
I'll be starting to add more detail now, like the faces, I'm expecting to put this into Mudbox/Zbrush at some point soon. Bounnong offered to do that for me, not too sure if I'll take him up that offer just yet though.
While I like what I've done so far I think I'm a little behind in terms of where I want to be. I was hoping to have had the characters modelled before we got back from holidays.