mixing up jobs

At first we had quite specific job roles but during the end of the project, everyone worked on everything. here is a breakdown shot for shot of what i worked on:

 I made the opening credits, with conceptual help from sanjay and ollie, I composited it in aftereffects.

  I made the opening credits, with conceptual help from sanjay and ollie, I composited it in aftereffects.

 For this shot i concepted and modeled and textured several objects, I created and ballanced the lighting and helped to render.

 I layed out this shot using the sword Ollie modelled and textured. I also reballanced my lighting to tweak this shot. I then rendered this shot.

 For this continued shot i did modelling and texturing. I also used the images of the map that Steph had made and animated an image sequence. I also rendered some of this scene.

 For the exterior of the boat i did several models including the masts and sails which i also textured

  For the exterior of the boat i did several models including the masts and sails which i also textured. I also rendered this shot with layers. the sky was composited by Ollie

 for this shot I modeled textured some objects I animated the camera, rendered did lighting and used render layers.

 for the interior shots i modeled the walls ceiling and floor, which were then textured by Ollie. For this specific shot I also made the door frame

 I was in charge of these shots in the living quaters. I made and layed out a lot of the models which i then textured and lit. I employed a technique for incorporating DOF. I also then helped conceptulising render layers which were done by Ollie and sanjay. I also re-animated the camera.

 I was in charge of these shots in the living quaters. I made and layed out a lot of the models which i then textured and lit. I employed a technique for incorporating DOF. I also then helped conceptulising render layers which were done by Ollie and sanjay. I also re-animated the camera.

For this shot I animated everything, then rendered and composited some effects on the sword trail. i set up the camera, lighting render layers and then passed it on to ollie for compositing.

 All i did for this shot was the lighting and a background model. all other credit to sanjay!!

 all i did in this shot was help conceptualize the lanterns through the fog.

 all i did for this shot was suggest to add shadows to the lighting sanjay made

 this was my shot shich i animated lit and rendered, then passed on to ollie for comping

With the help of sanjay we made this ending credits sequence using a rendered image set up by me including some of my models, along with text by sanjay, animated by me.

A Lack of Posting and DOF

Hey im really sorry i havnt posted in a while so im afraid it will have to be an essay like post now. Due to being extreemly busy, both with the two uni projects and I have now got myself a job as a runner at Framestore I have literally had no time to blog.

so after finishing my scene it was the first to be rendered. whilst doing this we decided to play with depth of field so I taught myself how to make a camera with a variable depth of field control. to do this:

-create a new camera
-create a distance tool
-parent locator1 to the camera
-go to the distance shape node and conect in 'distance' to the depth distance in the camera shape node.
-affect the fStop and Scale

the frames should now incorporate dof.

Living Quaters done and rendered

Ok so the living quaters came out really nicely. After finishing my modelling and texturing we came together and incorporated other peoples work. We then set about with render and lighting tests and finaly set it to batch render using three layers each with a seperate light on it.

My Scene - Living quaters

Ok so the project is going through a vast modeling and texturing stage now. We have all been put in charge of putting together different scenes, which means modelling and gathering models from others in our group. My shot is the living quaters, so after consulting the work plan, the animatic and my own thoughts I have put together a list of what I think I will need to do and get done to make this scene a sucsessful environment.

High Res:
dagger - seen up close. not ornemental, plain, working class.
Emporers dead note - badly conditioned paper, impaled with the dagger saying that the emporers dead
opium pipe - (taken from gambleing scene)


Med Res:

Pillars - More or less cylindrical wooden mast like pillars stretching from ceiling to floor.
Beams - to run along the roof twice or maybe 3 times
Swords - more or less plain swords to occupy the background

Lanterns - paper ribbed oval-sphearical lanterns to provide a dim orange/red light

Hammocks - Cloth material suspended by ropes, stretching from pillars to walls

Low Res:
Bottles - broken and unbroken to occupy the floor and cloth hammocks
bags - to litter floor, walls and hammocks
hooks - to hold hammocks and bags and be dotted around the walls
books - to lay open and closed in a couple of places
ceramic pots - to occupy the far corner of the room
pillows - on hammocks and floor\
scraps of paper - to litter the floor
lengths of rope - from cut hammocks to litter the pillars and floor
eating bowls - some whole some broken to litter floor

Navigation tools RenderTest

Ok so ive spent the last couple of days working on my assigned models for the admirals room. I have really enjoyed modelling so far and I have been thinking since the summer to specialize in this role. I am also starting to get the hang of UV's, having not really done a huge amount before this project. I also however really enjoy playing with lighting and rendering, so here is a render test I did to both practice and see how my models/textures have come out.

Navigational Drawings

Ok so here are my drawings from the reference material i gathered earlier. Now i would like to move into maya to start getting these done!

Navigation tools (hr)

 Ok so I have been put in task of researching Navigation tools to appear in the admirals room. After lots of researching what the chinese would have had in the 15th centuary i was a bit put out. Obviously they had the beautiful Compass below, however apart from that i havent found any other instruments which the chinese had during this period. The reason for this is that the chinese had many rules and laws about how to distinguish wind direction and weather, distance and speed. These came in the form of tables or scribings upon scrolls or on tablets.

I have decided there fore to incorporate a Scroll which denotes how you choose wind direction, with caligriphy brushes and pots for scribing them.

Here are pictures i have found to help me in my drawings which will come next!

Get in there once again!!!

Ok so here are 2 of my shots which i submitted for the animatic and one was used. The other we just wanted slightly different so ollie re did it :)

A Slight Re-addressal!

Ok so after talking to jared, who inspired us to push our work further and develop a story, we sat down and did just that! It was a good day, running from around 10am until 3am the following day, but we got there!

I wont go into the full story here but heres a sum-up.

A letter from the late emperor is being read as the ship starts on its journey. There are clouds on the horizon however and as we proceed down to the lower levels of the ship all is not how it seems. Scraps of information about a revolt and remmision of the junk and a final word about the emporor himself.....

I hope that wet your apitite!

HEre are a couple of little animatics i did whilst we were talking. Each took almost less time to make as they do to play but enjoy!

Get in there!

Here are the shots of mine which got into our first animatic! Ollie asked us to cut them again after we knew timings ect. So here are the individual videos!:

Another Sail test.

So you guessed it! more sails!

for this test i placed the sails near enough as they would be on the deck of the Junk, and affected the mesh using dynamic hair curves and turbulence. The result is pretty still and poor in my opinion, and I have found a MUCH better method to work with which i will hopefully be able to get done and put on here soon!

This is how we roll!

Ok so sorry i havent posted in a few days, ive been so busy doing the work!

ill start with this post and hopfully catch up to date with whats been happening with the subsequent posts.

This is How We Roll!!!!!

I was asked by the producer Ollie to make everyone aware of how we want to be working on this project. Here is what i sent everybody:

Hey guy's we will be working with a naming convention when modelling and texturing. Here is how filenames should be layed out:

for (.mb)
(model name)(modeller name)

for (textures and bumps)
(texture name)(type)(texture artist)

examples:
''CannonSteph.mb''
''CannonBumpSteph.tiff''

all textures and images should be saved in the 'source images' folder.
all models should be saved in the 'Scenes' folder.
all test renders should be saved in the images file.

Also we have discussed how to model and position files within our boat. Here is a breakdown in steps:
1) open the shot you are currently working on.

2) create a new piece of geometry and place it where the object is you are going to model. Try and get the size/shape near enough right.

3) copy and paste this geometry into a new scene and model it there.

4) if you need to move the model during modeling then keep a copy at the location so you can re position it for importing directly into the same place within the shot.

A bit of movement

Oh yeah i forgot to post this a while ago. Ollie had asked me to do a quick test about how we could get things moving onboard our ship. for this test i used dynamic soft bodies and dynamic hair curves for rope. I dont think the rope worked very well but the dynamics in sync with the gravity works well and i think if it was tweaked to perfection it would look great for our purposes

Just an observation....

Ok so I have been put incharge of deciding the interior structure of the boat. Thisis important as we do not want the boat to look like a 1x1 resolution poly cube. I want to capture some of the nice curves from floor to ceiling and wall to wall as they will give an amazing sense of being on a ship. Going further still might also prove to be a good idea and make it slightly exagerated however care must be taken to still instill a feeling of reality.

Above are notes i have made after studying all the interior pictures and blue prints i have found. I am also observing the outside curvature of the boat in order to make an informed guess about the shapes of the interior. Using my notes and the references below I will now begin to structure the rooms and make placements for beams.