Production Diary - 16.02.12

It's been a while since my last update so I thought it about time to get something on here. 

Work still continues, I began keyframing last week as planned but the majority of work is still texturing... There's quite a bit more of it to do than I anticipated, but there is now a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm just a little tired of drawing wall textures... Looking forward to getting some variety with the characters.

We didn't want to import textures bit by bit as they're finished, it's better to wait for it to be done and get it all on in one go. So until all the building is done I don't have any progression images to show. Should be some finished texture renders up in the next week though! Hopefully they'll all fit together fine... Here's hoping!

Production Diary - 05.02.12

Well it's been a few days since I last posted so I thought that I'd better get an update on the interweb.

Animation has begun as planned, only started on 2 shots so far and only blocked in keyframes... We're being quite fussy with the actual animation on this one. I did 5 walk cycles to get Oldie's walk to look like Oldie's walk, and walking directly at the camera is quite an ache in the nether regions to draw!

The majority of work still ongoing for me is texturing, there really is an enormous amount of texturing to get through, and I'm trying to alternate between the animating and texturing while Rob is modelling. Speaking of which; the set is finished (modelling, about 50% textured) and modelling has begun on our characters! It's a very exciting time, though I know when this character is done it's another texture pack to do... 

Also regarding feedback, Mario had a look at our set and didn't like the floor texture (the one that took me 5 hours), he says it's too distracting. I can see where he's coming from, so I toned down the darker colours to be less bold, and now the whole thing does look less "in your face". Hopefully he'll like this version better... 

Some very nice screen shots from Rob's blog showing the set with the lighting rig in it, I'm loving how the whole thing is looking. Working in a group is giving us the ability to get a bit more carried away with details, and I think they will really add to the overall quality of the film.

Pretty hmmm?

It'll look better with the textures finished and some characters living in it!

Speaking of which, to achieve a more 'lived in' feel we've decided to use some royalty free pre-rigged characters we can find on the internet, just to walk around in the background, and make the place feel as 'alive' as we can.

I better get back to texturing again! Peace out y'all.

Work Update - 27.01.12

Another week down and Rob and I are now officially slightly behind schedule. It's ok, it's just taking a little longer to texture the set than we anticipated... Almost all of the 3D side still needs doing, we figure that being a group project, what makes us stand out more is attention to detail, so there's quite a bit of that!

The plan was to start animating this week just gone, instead I'll be officially putting pen to tablet on Monday, mixing in key-framing with texturing the set... Some animation really does need to start happening now! It'll be a load off when we finally have even a shot finished! It's my experience that everything seems so far form done for quite a while and suddenly comes together extremely quickly... I'm looking forward to that point!

Anyway, the set is modelled and getting there with textures, character modelling will be starting soon and camera set up, aswell as the 2D animation will be on it's way! Exciting times =]

C'est Fini! - 23.01.12

Finally the flat shapes are finished on the floor texture; here are the WIPs:

Pretty happy with the finished look of the thing, I tried to pay attention to not accidentally creating any noticeable patterns that would look obvious when it's repeated. There's also no distinguishable orientation for the same reason. 

Now to get to shading and texturing for the 3D side!

ARGH! FLOORS! - 23.01.12

After what seems like an eternity staring at my screen I'm going to call it quits, I've been creating the floor tile texture for the set. What it basically consists of is drawing a random shape, tweaking it to look a teensy bit more natural then filling it with one of 5 shades of grey.

I'm actually quite enjoying doing it, but it's taking slightly longer than I anticipated, the first problem was coming up with a system to create a non-uniform texture that would be tile-able. Then, very slowly, making sure that the colours aren't touching became more of an issue.

In hindsight I probably should have done 6 or 7 or maybe even more shades to make it easier, but I suppose this adds a bit of a challenge!

Anyway, it's now 2.30am and my burning eyes are telling me to go to bed. So I'm leaving a small post with some WIP shots of what I did tonight:

Fun, right? =] Will finish this with some fresh eyes in the morning... Well, afternoon. 

Night all!

Work Update - 22.01.12

Well work continues at a steady pace at uni and at home. I just a few moments ago finished the texture maps for buildings on the 2D side of the set, and animation is scheduled for starting this coming week... I'm nervous! But excited to start getting some actual footage.

I have a little work to do on the floor texture... Or rather quite a lot of work... 

Friday was our official weekly day-off and while playing Dead Island Rob pointed out that he quite liked the style of the floor in one of the locations, so I snapped it for reference:

A nice non-uniform tiled design... Not at all like I was asked to do (I'm lookin' at you ROB)... So work will begin on the 3rd design of the floor now. The completely random orientation of the tiles will help it look more 'in-place'. We can achieve the shading with a relatively simple bump-map. Overall I'm happy this is the pattern we're aiming for, I just wish I could get those 3 hours of drawing squares back (ah well).

Anyway all is still going to schedule, though through some discussion Rob and I think we will probably need an extra few weeks of actual animation than the schedule says, but it's OK because we actually had 3 weeks spare in the schedule anyway! Job's a good 'un; as they say.

Glad the 2D building texturing is finally done, one can only take so much rescaling and moving things! I need to draw, now!

Better get started on this floor texture! Toodles =]

Pretty pretty textures! - 17.01.12

Today has been a relatively productive day. All of the character turnarounds are now finished and ready for modelling, which I myself am going to have a go at (just for funsies), I imagine Rob will have to re-do anything I do, but practice is practice! At least while I wait for the unwraps to start texturing.

Also on another note, Rob has now finished the modelling for the set and is in the process of unwrapping stuff for texturing... Should be a busy few days, but it'll be well worth all the effort!

Anyway, since I'm going to be spending some time on the texture end of things I thought it best to look at a few resources about what to expect, especially for the 3D side of the scene (it's pretty easy going on the 2D side texture-wise).

Found an awesome hard-surface texture tutorial that was really really helpful:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=46&t=373024&highlight=hard+surface+textures

Awesome, awesome tutorial! 

Talking with Rob earlier today he mentioned that he'd like the set to resemble he stuff used in The Incredibles and other Pixar films. So trying to have a look around at how we might realistically achieve an effect similar to theirs...

I must admit a lot of the render talk goes completely over my head, personally I have no idea why people decided to start using such ridiculously complex terms to describe things, all it does is completely alienate people who don't have a CG talk dictionary at hand or a couple of years experience under their belt... Anyway as I was saying, it goes completely over my head, Pixar use a lot of very complex shaders to achieve their final finished images. Shaders that we don't have access to (why would Pixar give away what gives them their edge), nor can we recreate them.

The best we can do with the textures is make the best painted textures we can do, and put some time into setting up the light to look just right, maybe throw in a couple of bump maps for good measure... But Rob is the CG expert, so we'll have to wait and see what he thinks!

Here is one of the pages I read about the texturing involved in the Pixar film Ratatouille, though that is perhaps one of the most texture and shader heavy films they've done, simply because of the scale of the main character meaning there's lots of surface close-ups and the focus being on food, which in their own words people are already familiar with how food should look:

https://renderman.pixar.com/products/whats_renderman/showcase_ratatouille.html