Week Fourteen

Where to begin...

This week was one heck of a stress filled one for myself. I was in complete panic mode when I turn up to uni only to be informed five minutes prior to class starting that my group wasn't coming in. I was left with very little to do as I had all these plans to sort out what we needed to render. And I wanted to get started on that. This did not happen. Instead I got laughed at by our 'technical support' for assuming my team would do work. (which they do) I also got a lot of negative feedback from him about our characters and how I have textured them. I could go on all day...but I won't.

Sooo.... I decided to work on the lighting and textures (yey) again this week. I have two of three sets perfectly lit and ready to roll. I also have all set textures complete and almost all character textures finished. I should have them all done by the end of week fifteen.

I also did some render tests with Tammy (our lovely elf) in the lit scene to see how well the skin shader works out. And I like the results. My curiosity has paid off, and well so has all my Google searching. 

Take a look.

I rendered a close up first to see how the textures look before doing a full view of the scene. I was told that she looks dead in the skin area, I don't agree. I think she has nice porcelain skin, Which goes with her red locks. 

The set was being a pain in the butt as you can see the trunk sticking out of the leafy section on the trees. This is just a minor problem which I am 90% sure I have fixed. I shall find out once I start rendering tomorrow. Drazen has given me all of Tammy's intro scenes to render which is great as that is almost 20 secs of our animation. Even if we don't get it all done we will at least have a cute animation of a girl fishing and then running off after crazy birds. 

Set 2 is only shown for maybe 3 secs but it is my fave. I wanted to make a really cool fantasy fairy tale looking environment and I believe I have created one. I am hoping to put some awesome sun rays through the trees into it, Just not sure if it will be with Maya or After Effects. I'll figure it out over the next couple of days.

I was told by a fellow student that there should be a bump map on the trees, this was a good point but my group and I feel that it would take away from the simplicity of the sets and textures. The only thing that has any for of Bump/Normals is the dragon. As he needs to look scaly and such. I also managed to place the dragons textures onto a skin shader and it looks great. He has nice sub surface scattering instead of a flat Lambert. 

I will have more on him later. Today we worked on what the matte painting will look like behind our scene. I was happy with just simple mountains, but Drazen said we need a tad more detail. This is no problem for me, also we decided last minute on a slight colour change. It's still in the works abut here is what we have come up with so far.

This is the painting that was created by Ed Deasey, I didn't want him to do anything elaborate as he is a busy man. But it's a solid base for me to work off.

We are thinking a nice orange tint towards the top of the mountains would be nice. More sunset looking. With a few more details we will have an awesome comp. 

We will also be using a MEL script which turns a camera into a depth of field rig (made by Stuart Charlton) to get a more natural look to our scenes. this will also make blending the back drops easier.

Well only 2 weeks left of production and things are looking up. I'm trying to maintain a positive attitude and be a supportive member and leader for my team. Though I know I never want to be in charge again. Too much responsibility for one such as myself.

Til next time...