Project : Deep

Deep 

Our production towards the deep project started with several meetings clarifying what scenes it was that we chose to do. Jacob and I had taken an interest in the opening castle scene and agreed to creating this whilst I agreed with Bradley to do the 3d hotel scene.

Production started with Jacob and I gathering some reference images to base our scene on. The idea was originally to build a set extension within Maya. After experiencing lots of problems with the projection mapping technique we had decided that perhaps it was best to achieve the end result by means of matte painting different layers within Photoshop and layering them within 3d space within after effects. We broke the scene down into 6 layers; foreground, front middle, Live action footage, back middle, mountain background and clouds. The live action footage obviously setting the speed at which we track into the castle we placed the layers in 3d space and set up stabilising the  footage. As the footage was very shaky it proved quite difficult to eradicate all of the shake but actually enjoy the slight shake. It was our duty to allow the viewer to tell that the castle was a model and was not created in any other medium. After stabilising the footage we could then start on animating a virtual camera within after effects to match the move of the live footage. 

We distanced the 2d planes to create a sense of depth and scaled them accordingly. We ensured that when creating the painted layers the resolutions were ample for scaling. To create the clouds we used a turbulent noise map and distorted the shape as to take on the sky above the scene. We animated the sub-scaling properties of the noise to create that effect of clouds lower in the sky passing larger ones. Once we had all of the elements, we balanced the levels and converted our colour images to grayscale. We added an adjustment layer to boost the contrast which instantly helped reinforce that hitchcock style piece we were hoping to achieve.

The production with Bradley started actually quite late in the game. Bradley worked well in producing a clean plate for me to use as a background in my 3d scene.

 After creating the objects for the table I had made the decision of actually recreating the whole scene. The combination of real footage and cg elements I was struggling to marry in a convincing way. I therefore started to model and texture all elements of the hotel room, paying close attention to the texture of all things. The lighting was also an important aspect of the overall ambience and although I was not in the room when filming was completed I gathered that there was really only one light source in the way of the sun shining through the window.

I set up an area light ensuring that the direction was correct, it was casting physically accurate shadows and added a tinge of yellow to create a certain warmth apparent whilst I studied the footage. After all of my items were modelled and texture it was time to get on to the animation of the whiskey bottle smash. I initially tried to complete the process within Maya by using an nCloth material and designating the frame of impact, however I was experiencing lots of issues and had remembered that a few years ago I had played around with the physics engine within 3dsmax. I decided to export my whiskey glass and built a scene in max for the glass to interact with.

The way in which the shards of glass interact with other objects I felt was important to sell it actually happening. After attaining the desired smash I re-imported the baked animation into maya and lined the camera accordingly for where I was initially told by Bradley to put it. 

I manually animated a single shard of Glass to fly towards the camera and fill the screen as I thought this would be enough clarification of the sparkling transition required into the sequin dress of the next scene. 

After showing Derek the scene it was apparent that we had slightly different ideas. It was also apparent that the angle of the camera is in an incorrect position. I returned home and set to work at putting these things right. My scene is completely textured and animated however the rendering process is taking too long for me to be able to produce a finished product. Had my initial scenes been approved I would have been able to render straight away and produce an animation.

It did not help that my refraction bounces within Maya had to increase due to the amount of shards layering in front of one another. My whiskey bottle was appearing black originally as there were not enough bounces, as soon as I turned this up my render time went up from 10 minutes per frame to 2 hours.

Whilst I feel the time management part of the project could have been managed better I did enjoy the live brief scenario in working to the desires of another party.  

A Light From The Dark

This semester was all about getting involved in team based projects and as became quickly apparent in the studio the third years had all started with their final film projects. Eager to get involved i put myself up for a few projects with the intention maybe to build some models, work on some animation, in fact, i was pretty happy to do anything that encapsulated the 3d pipeline. I quickly received a message asking if i'd like to create some models for a film called a light from the dark which was going to be created in 3d.

On meeting with the project leader Alex, we discussed my role within the team and he started me off by relaying some reference pictures:

So I started to block out the environment in maya. I didn't want to create unnecessary detail so I ensured that I put the detail only where the camera would be shooting. As the door into the Warehouse would be a focal point of the video I felt that it was probably a good idea to start there. 

I blocked out the shapes of the door and surrounding area and thought about the necessary animation of the door denting as I knew that the geometry would need to be bent after the monster hits into it. After modelling the door area I continued to texture it. I used a combination of procedural textures within maya and a bit of help from Photoshop to create the door texture which I was told should be rusty and weathered.

I continued to model and texture the surrounding areas. The cladding on the wall around the door area, some filler objects including traffic cones and pallets, the light above the door and so on.

I continued to model and texture and light and build the scene as closely to the guidance i was given. Every week I turned in my progress to Alex and received feedback, sometimes critical and helpful and other times not. As i continued forward and the pressures started to build for everyone involved within the project I decided to use a lot of my own intuition and focused on just getting all of the content in there and to a stage that i was happy with but could revise if necessary.

I started to bulk out the corridor ensuring that i tapered the end where the door was to create the sense of entrapment.

I continued onto the warehouse now where the shelving would consume the majority of the space. I was told that on the shelves would be lots of boxes, crates, junk, bottles, nuts and bolts and so on. I obtained a reference image to use for a guide to building the shelves. I noticed that the holes that allowed the shelves to connect within the frame would be best achieved using transparency maps. This was important in the pursuit of keeping the poly count down, I knew that with the textures the scene was growing quite large and I'd been told to be careful of this. 

I plugged a box ramp into the transparency slot of a blinn shader as well as the eccentricity slot to ensure that light was not diffusing seemingly off of thin air.

As well as, modelling, texturing, lighting, Alex suggested that perhaps I do some environment animating. I agreed as I had the best knowledge of the capabilities of the models and my first task was to animate the bend in the door as the monster hit into it. I used blend shapes as I thought this would be the easiest way to animated with the most amount of control. I created a duplicate door from the main model and deformed it in the areas that was necessary to portray the damage. I created a blend-shape deformer and key-framed the slider between 0 being undamaged and 1 being completely damaged.

The final film is as follows:

. : A Sea Tale : .

This is the updated animation for our Sea tales animation. There is still a fair bit to complete but we are very happy with the way things are looking.

. : The devil is in the detail : .

For this task we were required to replicate a real world close up environment in 3d. We were encouraged to take photo's of the environment we would be trying to replicate as this would help us recreate the 3d scene more accurately.

I felt confident with modelling the environment, I used textures to pull out a lot of detail, areas such as the top of the window, where the cavity just sat too flat as a texture, I really needed  to model in order to maintain the realism desired.

. : Motion Studies Showreel : .

A show-reel to demonstrate my studies towards motion. 

. : 2d Projection : .

Before we started this task, I had previously used the 2d layering technique to create depth. I have previously created a few scenes in this manor using Adobe's After Effects but whilst learning Toonboom  for this project I'd definitely favour the software for the process. 

I feel the move throughout the space is convincing but could have heightened the resolution even more to remove distortion that can be seen around the edge of the buildings.

. : Experimental Animation Testing : .

I have been playing around with some ideas to contribute and inspire the idea for my Experimental animation project. I feel that the washing machine will best suit the clip of audio i have chosen to animate to. As the audio clip is repetitive, i feel that interest can be drawn through subtle changes within the chamber of the machine.