Marmalade Gang

Discotech?!

2008-12-13T07:11:00.000-08:00

The final render featured some weird flickering surfaces, possibly due to lighting or the camera clip plane. Still not sure what the main cause of the problem is, and hope to find out in the near future. Just a shame it was included in the final. On a positive note, learn by mistakes and avoid in the future.

The Final Film

2008-12-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

Well everybody here it is. Our Movie! As you've all probably read in Josh's blog, the occlusion layer was nuked by the render farm. So we've had to do it without. With this in mind, we tried to make the editing as good as we could. I am a little disappointed about the occlusion, Sam is going to post some images of what the final movie should have looked like. Anyway, it is what it is. I would like to thank everybody in the whole class, who rallied around helping all the groups. I feel really happy about how well the whole year works together and helps each other.

The Marmalade gang thanks you.

Also a special thanks to Alex Hulse, Rob Jones and, of course, Jared

Happy Holidays everyone and see you in the new year!

In the words of my buddy and teammate Josh...

"INCREASE THE PEACE!"

Occlusion Layers

2008-12-12T04:18:00.000-08:00

Some of the occlusion layers that rendered using the render farm. Gives a good idea of the exact scale.

What should have been...

2008-12-12T04:15:00.000-08:00

These are some shots from the film, complete with occlusion layer. As you can see it adds more depth to the frames and a slight textured feel. It was a real same they didn't render, but this is a major lesson for the future.

Rendering...again.

2008-12-11T09:08:00.000-08:00

All was not well this morning. Neil and myself came in to find that camera 1 had not finished rendering, camera 2 had not moved at all from the day before, and camera 3 said it was finished but in fact had not rendered whole layers. After many discussions, we decided not to bother rendering in layers and to just rendering the whole scene. We set these up and sent them to the render farm. Meanwhile, we edited our ending credits which ended up looking very good. Astonishingly the rendering was complete and we imported it into after effects. Trying our luck, we decided to render an occlusion layer for everything. We've left it rendering over night. Hopefully everything is good tomorrow...fingers crossed (but only cross fingers in one hand because if you do two it cancels it out)!

Rendering...still.

2008-12-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

What can I say. Yesterday we left some rendering in the render farm, and when I came into college I saw all three camera shots said 'Killed'. We pretty much spent the day trying and trying to render, and email Alex Hulse. Camera two is now rendering OK, but we are doing it locally rather than using the farm. We had a little bit of a problem with shots one and three as we could not open the files that have rendered. Then we found out that we rendered it with the wrong settings. So we set up a new batch of renders for shots one and three, and have left all of them rendering over night. Hopefully all is well in the morning...

Rendering.

2008-12-09T11:39:00.000-08:00

Today the group started rendering. firstly we had to set up each shot with a separate file. Then we sorted out the layers between foreground mid ground and background, with a separate occlusion layer for each. We then, with the help of the magical Dan Shuffly B, sent it to the render farm. Here is where we started getting problems. Shot two rendered until 99% but then failed, however it missed out every other shot making it look really jumpy. Then shot one was 'killed', that's literally what it said. Then nothing happened with shot three. We waited for hours. Eventually we sent the files to the render farm again and have left it overnight. Hopefully all is well in the morning.

CUTS

2008-12-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, just here to report about the progress at college today. Where should I begin. The computer crashed so many times today I lost count (no exaggeration I can't remember how many times it happened). Quite a few times it kept saying "C++error", other times it said that it would have to close the programme, and other times it just closed by itself. There was problems with the textures, with the lights and with the animations. Firstly, Niel's refinery kept strobing like there was an acid house party in there. This took ages to correct. We tried changing the colour and removing objects. Eventually we found that every wall had two faces within them so we actually had to make the refinery bigger to stop it from strobing. We attempted to tidy the hypergraph and layers but the programme kept shutting down. We then tried importing the animation and had no end of trouble. Things wouldn't import, things shut the programme down, and some things wouldn't even render a single frame. At the end of the day three out of the five animation had to be cut as they were just tipping the computer over the edge. These were, the saloon doors, the wobbling crate and, unfortunately, the tumbleweed. I'm sorry Jared but the tumbleweed was the worst of all, sometimes it wouldn't import and the other times you couldn't open the render view without Maya crashing. The only consolation is we managed to keep the sign falling and the windmill rotating, which I think are the two most important animations anyway. So guys, today was an absolute nightmare, However we must move above and beyond this as tomorrow we are rendering....

Sound

2008-12-06T07:48:00.000-08:00

Just to say I've found some wicked sound effects...okay bye!

And just one thing....

2008-12-06T06:31:00.000-08:00

I did two pictures and I wans't sure which one to pick. My family likes the bottom one...what do you think?

2008-12-06T06:24:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, here's my mug shot. I used Neil's tutorial to help me. God I help the way I look.

Dust test

2008-12-05T12:27:00.001-08:00

I tried to make a dust effect in Maya so that it would add an extra dimension to our piece. I used a fog effect on a spot light. On the fog I added a rock texture and fiddled with the settings. It does not look that great. I don't even know why I'm putting it on the blog as the picture quality has been so reduced you can't even see it.

My Animations

2008-12-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

Here's my animation guys. It was far more tricky that I thought it would be. Especially the sign as I originally wanted it to swing down then drop. I tried to get it to do this for hours, but it ended up spinning like a ninja throwing star. The tumbleweed was hard as well as I could not add any squash and stretch as a tumbleweed has an almost weightless form. Anyway tell me what you think.

Here it is, my animations

2008-12-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

Well animating this was surprisingly easy, Maya said no to me when I tried to upload the sky dome coloured environment file, so I had to open one of my earlier files and rotate the propellors to where they are now currently facing. I had the farmes spaced out so that it would rotate slowly, which I'm proud of. Let me know what you think guys.

The same principle is with the doors, I also tried to provide a little alteration in movement with them. One more thing about this, there was a issue with rotating the doors. When I rotated it first time the door moved as though it wasn't on any hinges, I realised that this is because the pivot of the rotate tool was placed in the middle, so I moved the pivot point (by pressing insert on the keyboard) and moving it to the middle but where the hinges would be placed. This worked successfully, thank God.

Cowboy homie

2008-12-05T06:06:00.001-08:00

Well here I am, just used the same process as before and viola (I think that's how you spell it). Well this is it, time to face Maya the nightmare, the head breaker, the master of disaster the...you get the point.

Update Post !!

2008-12-05T03:11:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys,
I'm really pleased with the work we've produced in the last week or so. The lighting is look really nice and i don't think it needs to be changed. Few little tweaks here and there regarding cast receive shadow. I'm ganna start organising the hypergraph, which may take abit of time.

Here's the texture if you wanna use it for the mugshot photoshop work.

Oh and have a quick check when you're object being animated is in shot, just look over the cameras to remind yourself.

To Do List

2008-12-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

Over thw weekend each of us have specific tasks, these are:

Sam: Sort out Hypergraph, photoshop your portrait for credits.

Neil: Animate saloon doors and windmill, photoshop your portrait for credits.

Josh: Animate crate on rope swinging, photoshop your portrait for credits.

Lewis: Animate sign falling and tumbleweed, photoshop your portrait for credits.

For animation guys remember it is only a light wind draft, so no fast movement. If you are looking at the front of the sign, the wind directing is from the left of the screen to the right. Remember to save playblast and put them on the blog so we can comment on them!

Good Luck Guys!

Lighting

2008-12-04T09:18:00.001-08:00

Today the group received help from Rob Jones. Here he told us all about lighting. However, we had many problems. Firstly, the hills were creating some weird shadows, so we raised them up slightly off the ground, and switches off the cast shadows feature. We then created a point light (we used this because it turned out to look the best) and pointed it towards the ground. The mountain's shadow was eclipsing the village so we switched off the cast shadows feature on it. We then created another light on the opposite side to light the front of the houses. We created a sphere, cut it in half and imported my skyplane on it. We clicked the normalise feature on the even the skyplane. Finally we coloured the point light a red to create a sunset effect. we also coloured the other light a light purple. to reflect the colour of the sky.

This creates a very moody effect and everyone is happy with it.

Sky Plane.

2008-12-04T09:08:00.001-08:00

With the realisation that our film actually takes place at sunset, I decided to edit our skyplane. I firstly quick selected the bottom are on a new photoshop layer. I then applied a gradient to the selected layer, changed the opacity and applied a Gaussian blur. I think it creates a convincing sunset.

Animation reference

2008-12-03T10:27:00.000-08:00

Here's some video references for our animation in our film. The other references are prooving hard to find. So here these two are whilst I keep looking!

WANTED (No not the movie)

2008-12-02T16:42:00.000-08:00

Well guys, since we are considering putting our pictures as an opening or credits as wanted posters, I did a little experiment tutorial, so here we go. First here's my picture. Make sure you double click on the background layer to unlock it, call it whatever you like.

Cut around your pic then, delete it. Next you colour the cut out selection, MAKE SURE YOU CREATE A NEW LAYER for the colouring, if you want to change the colour. Next use the rectangular marquee tool to cut the edges.

Alright to get this, go to filter at the top, then go to artistic, then cut-out. Mess around with the edge simplicity, edge fidelity and number of levels. I only touched number of levels and put it on number 5 because It brings out those highlights and I plan to cut them out.

Alright to get this, I used the magic wand tool to select all those highlights, including some on my jumper. MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON YOUR LAYER PICTURE. Afterwards go to image-adjustments-Hue/Saturation. Slide the Saturation all the way to -100. Use the magic wand tool to select the dark areas and the colour them black. It's optional though. Which you think looks better?

To get this I used the rectangle marquees too the make thin selections for the borders and filled them with black. A shortcut to making your foreground black is "D". Then I used the text tool to write the words. Just make sure you do your borders and your text on seperate layers to avoid problems and yes I know it's not the correct type face, Photoshop didn't have it. This is a test anyways so no biggie, right? Let me know what you think.

Peace out.

OCCLUSION

2008-12-02T05:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a image of the occlusion layer for our mining town environment.

Finishing touches to maya

2008-11-29T14:00:00.000-08:00

Well gents I've added some final touches to the refinery building and to the generator. I first took some of Sam's planks to fit on the edges of the building but the rotate tool was jerking with me. So I made my own and put some on the edges, after that I made a little table inside so that people can store stuff in there. I'm wandering if I have to create a plane inside the conveyor to make it look as though things can move along in there? Anyways I did the windows aswell and I mad some minor flashy improvements to the gerenator by using half cut spheres, let me no what you think. Damn! the supports...ah I'll do it tomorrow when I test out lighting and colouring.

TUMBLEWEED!

2008-11-29T09:36:00.000-08:00

Jared requested a tumbleweed in the final film. And what Jared wants Jared gets. So here for you Jared, is a tumbleweed. I made it by creating cylinders and bending them around. This will hopefully really seal the western effect!

A Grave understatement...

2008-11-29T09:27:00.000-08:00

I thought that the other side of the canyon needed something more, so I decided to make a graveyard. Here I modelled on grave out of a cube and then duplicated it several times. I thought the graves looked a bit bare so i decided to cover them with rubble. However, afterwards I thought this made it look like the graves had acne so I took it away. I then Couldn't decide whether to smooth the graves or not so I posted up an example of both. What does everyone think?

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (man that wasn't very clever was it)...

2008-11-29T09:16:00.000-08:00

This is the revamp of the hills that I made it maya. I spoke to Josh who said that I had too many hills, and when I looked I realised he was correct. So I took half the hills out an extended some of them. I then added in rocks to fill the area. I'm not sure how this looks as I think it is rather simple, then again less is more and all that.

Ramp Shader [Updated]

2008-11-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

Hey All,

Update on the ramp shader. Starting to look better now, with bold shapes and outlines. The colour really adds depth to the environment. Was really worrying about this over the weekend. But it's starting to get there now. I want to know what the sky will look like in the background.

Let me know what you think. Reminds me of RoadRunner. Meep Meep!

Chow.

Ramp Shader

2008-11-28T16:11:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys,

I was really stressing over the colour work today, making sure it looked the way we want it. Just started blocking out the colours, needs abit of tweaking in place but it's not look too bad. After effects will play a major part later on, with creating a shadow pass and depth of field. Let me know what you think so far.

The Hills Have Eyes...

2008-11-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

Today has been quite frustrating. I decided to tackle the hills on which the graveyard is built. Firstly I tried to extend the actual floor to create the hills. Unfortunatly this did not work...I mean nothing happened. I tried for ages to move the vertexs but nothing happened. I then decided to move onto plan B. I started to build the hills out of a cube. This I felt was quite unsucessfull, as it just looked like a blob. I then decided to move onto plan C. This is where I create a sphere cut it in half and shaped it into a hill. I then repeated this for all the hills in the area. I then duplicate some of my rocks to create a bit of rubble in the area. I also created a boulder for good measure. I don't think this is finished yet but I really need to know what you guys think of it. Please comment!

Credits.

2008-11-27T10:40:00.000-08:00

In our group meeting today Jared said that the Animatic reminded him of an introduction to a western. This got me thinking about the credits for our film. Instead of it being an ending credits...lets make it an opening credits. Instead of having just black with our names, for example "modelling by Sam Saunders", we can have "Starring Sam Saunders". We could also have grainy images of us in cowboy hats and things like that. Much like the intro to 'The Good The Bad and The Ugly'. I just think it will end the film on a more exiting note.

After Effects!

2008-11-27T10:18:00.000-08:00

This is an image of an after effects tutorial I gave to Sam. Here I just used a ramp shader create a colour range in between a pale brown and a warm grey, along with a dark brown outliner. I rendered that to a layer, then I created a point light and shone it on the barrel. I uped the intensity to give it a sharp shadow. I then Rendered that aswell as an occlusion layer. I imported all the images into aftereffects, and put the occlusion and light on multiply. The image was rather dark so I uped the brightness on all the layers. I also slightly blurred the shadow to give it a sense of depth but not too much as I did not want the shadow to loose its power. This is just a quick example of what the final thing will look like.

DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES!

2008-11-27T02:32:00.001-08:00

As I promised here is a a new version of Dead Man's Quarry. I built two huge boulders to stand either side of the ramp. I then built a rock which I duplicated a re sized several times to create the rubble. However, the whole thing still looked bare so I duplicated Niel's mine cart and pulled it apart. I overturned the main part of it and made more rubble to look like it broke and capsized whilst carrying coal from the mine. I then took the wheels and pulled one of them apart, and placed them in different places. This creates the illusion that it has just been left there. To top everything off a placed a crate and a plank of wood in the scene so it will make it seem like people where working there. I think that Dead Man's Quarry is more or less finished. Now I must move onto the graveyard.

New Updates!!!

2008-11-26T14:10:00.000-08:00

Things have been a bit hectic, as I'm sure you all know we have gone through trial & error, losing hope, gaining hope, trial & error, panicking (me anyways) maya problems, and back to gaining hope again. But anyways enough of my complaints, let me show y'all what I've done. ^_^
For the first pick I've finally done my windmill, it took me ages to do while using the reference. However I encountered something cool by accident while creating the body, earlier today. I accidentally created someting that looks like where the fire comes out of a rocket, don't know the name, but it served its purpose well.

The second pic, well I though I'd try and find and import my original refinery building but considering the problems we encountered with with my model before, I mad a few modifications to the building, Sam placed next to his storage building. I actually like it more than my previous one.

The third pic, I looked at the refernce I had of the coal refinery I have and based the shape off that. I deleted the block I had next to it, figured that the overall design and shape made more sense. Hopefully if we get through this we can add some ligt in the conveyor belt, to give it some idea of heat. Just remembered, forgot to add some supports.
Finally the fourth pic, the tracks. Not much to say the pic is self explanatory, but I'll just say that I created eoungh space for both tracks to pass through and two other entrances on the left side of the building.

That's all for now, peace.

Dead Man Walking...

2008-11-26T10:31:00.001-08:00

Although it doesn't look like it, Today has been pretty event full. Firstly started building the curve in the track to Dead Man's Quarry. After a an hour the laptop froze, and I hadn't saved. After having a hissy fit, I decided to try the uphill incline again. this was with more success. I Used the edge loop tool to rotate, move and shape the tracks. I then widened the hole that was cut into the mountain to make it look more interesting. After that I created modelled the Dead Man's Quarry sign. This took a very long time. Although you cannot see it, I also started modelling some boulders to go alongside the entrance, however they are in a separate file that I will import into the environment. There is still lots more to do to the entrance like having an overturned cart and some rubble. I'm hoping to finish it soon.

A new look revisited

2008-11-20T13:38:00.001-08:00

With Rob Jones help, our group has worked out a new style. Similarly to what we did before we used a ramp shader and occlusion rendered on layers. Also we used blurr and brightness to toggle with the depth of field. This time however, we inclused a shadow layer and a skyline. To top it off we used the toon line but instead of just placing a black outline around everything, we decided to use a darker colour of what it is outlineing. this gives it a more earthy feel and reminds us of Sean Galloway's artwork. We did try using the outliner on a seperate layer but it looked terible so we decided to render the outliner with the object.

A New Look...

2008-11-19T09:16:00.001-08:00

Hey guys, today has been pretty event full. Firstly Neil and I tried to get a more subtle colour scheme to the toon shader. We fiddled around and got a little further but it still looked really flat and boring, we weren't sure whether to use the toon shader at all. Then we met Rob Jones and like a beacon of light he lifted our spirits. He showed us how to render in layers and how we can manipulate those layer to create a unique look. He firstly coloured the scene with a ram shader not the toon. This gave a greater variety of tone. He then rendered the background, fiddled with the opacity, and blurred it slightly to create a greater depth of field. He did the same with the house except he didn't blur it. He then rendered a layer of occlusion on top of what we had done to make it more grainy, and to get a better balance of light. These subtle things made a huge difference as the scene really came to life. This really reminded me of the backgrounds in the Batman animated series. This was only a quick test but I already think it looks fantastic! an actual shadow is needed now and I still think we could use the outliner but more subtly.

Animatic

2008-11-17T10:20:00.000-08:00

Hey guys here's the animatic, with art by Josh Cook and editing by yours truely. One thing to not is that the shot where the camera spins around will not look like that in the final movie. It will actualling spiral down around the houses created a much more 3D effect.

Cart Tracks

2008-11-16T10:34:00.001-08:00

Hey guys,
I modelled the tracks coming from inside one of my storage sheds. The shed can act as a place to store them when not used. Therefore they lead from the shed to dead man quarry.

Function of the refinery

2008-11-16T04:51:00.001-08:00

Ok guys I had a thought and that thought was we haven't really looked into what happens within the refinery, so with two plans up above here's my idea on it. On Josh's sketch we see tracks leading in and out of the refinery and into Dead Man's Quarry, however we don't know where the tracks acutually start. Could it be that the tracks start at the entrance, but goes through on the outside of the town area, not through the middle? If you look at Josh's pic the tracks could start on the left side, at the back of the two buildings, right? The buildings could be shacks, sherfiff building, saloon or whatever, the point is the tracks can lead to where they where originally drawn before.
Next, is what happens within the refinery so here's what I think happens.

1. The mine cart goes in the main building on the right track, and within the main building the track curves leading outside again, but instead of the cart coming out it stops in the middle of the curve.

2. Whatever the cart was carrying, it will be unloaded to the back where a huge coneyor belt is, that goes over the canyon. If you think about the luggage in the Airport, the conveyor belt moves in the same fashion.

3. Eventually the product will reach the edge of the conveyor belt, and the product will go into the boiler. Based on the plan above Josh's pic, this could be the process of how the town is powered, that little circle next to the boiler I imagined being the smoke tower. If you remember that little tunnel I built connecting the tower, that's where the smoke goes.

4. Afterwards, what's left of the product goes back on the conveyor belt and gets put back in the mine cart which then takes it to Dead Man's Quarry. Kinda makes me think they are burning humans or something, but anyways the process starts all over again. That's my idea anyways, SO BRING ON YOUR CRITICISM! Ahem...I mean let me know what you think.

2008-11-16T04:12:00.001-08:00

Alright here is my version of the refinery, which is almost done. I haven't done the passagway that connects to the back of the refinery because I don't have the enviroment Lewis has done, so I'll create it once I do. Ok here's what's going on, if you look at picture 5 (the one just above) we have the main building of where the mine carts passes through. To its right we have a storage building which looks a bit like a big shed, there's also a passage that connects the two. To the left of the main building is these 4 cylinder type things. Not sure what they are exactly, but if you look at my Team Fortress pic I got the idea from that, which I persnoally think looks pretty good (let me know if you want it taken out). Now if you look in the distance you'll see this huge smoke tower, and another block called the boiler, if you look closely in pictures 2 & 3 you'll see a little rectangle attached to the big tower, which will be attached to the boiler.
This is what I've done so far so let me know what you think. If you look at my previous post on my personal blog or maybe the group blog, you'll see that I posted a question about where the tracks go. I'll elaborate more on this even further on my next post.

The Refinery inspiration!

2008-11-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

This big building is what I'm gonna base my idea on I'll do some basic sketches of it. I really like the towers and I always had in mind that the place would be overall metallic, but the wood has a great touch it, but I'm definitely gonna use this.

Cell-Shader Exp

2008-11-14T12:48:00.000-08:00

Spent some time getting the shading to work well. Practiced on some shapes that represent some of the various surfaces within our environment. I noted the way in which lighting hit each object and cast a different shape depending on the surface, flat or curved.

The positioning of the lighting played a major part in creating the correct tonal shading to complement the surface.The cone represented a surface such as a roof that would point downward. As the light hit the cone it cast three tones that really helped create a feeling of depth. This is exactly the kind of tonal range we are look for. The square, being the most flat, only cast single tones on each of it's faces and needs more detail to look interesting. The sphere worked well, being curved it managed to highlight all three tones, avoiding it from looking too flat.

The colour pass at the top (1 and 2) used three tones of red, the bottom two (3 and 4) used a tone of black to represent the darkest part of the shape and two tones of red. I found after applying an outline to each of them, the three tone pass showed the outlines up the best and was complemented against the colour tones. This is the method i think we should use when colour shading the buildings and other objects.

The outline width used was 2.0, this will need to be adjusted depending on the object being shaded. For example the mountains in the background will use a slightly larger outlines because they are such large scale.

Weekly Planner!

2008-11-14T11:29:00.000-08:00

I know this is annoying but i felt we needed a time plan in place to get things sorted on time to meet the deadline. Rough at the moment but probably good for time management.

Week begin: 17th Nov - Have animatic completed, modelling almost complete and toon-shader experiments.

Week begin: 24th Nov - Getting models together into one file, lighting and toon-shading applied. Adding a few more details and correcting problems.

Week begin: 1st Dec - Camera movements and positions, getting everything finished for the final render.

Week begin: 8th Dec (LAST WEEK!) - RENDERING FINAL FLYTHROUGH

Title

2008-11-14T06:25:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys, (loads of posts today aye?). I was thinking about our film and it's zombie standoff-like theme. With that in mind, I've come up with two titles for our film. I was thinking either "Dead at Dawn" or "Dead at Dusk". What do you think? I need to know as I'm going to put it on the animatic.

A Score to Settle....

2008-11-14T06:08:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, here is the song I showed everyone yesterday. It's what I think we should have playing in our film. Knowing about Ennio Morricone's epic scores, especially the Clint Eastwood westerns, I decided to listen to many of his soundtracks. The track that I think best suits our movie is 'Man with a Harmonica', from 'Once Upon a Time in The West'. The track starts with a lone harmonica wailing, drenched in reverb. It is incredibly lonely, isolated and mourn full (in fact it almost sounds like a baby crying). The track then builds to create a tense atmosphere, which makes you think that something is not quite right with this situation. Finally as the track crescendos with it's full scale orchestras and twangy guitars, it creates the foreboding feeling that something terrible is afoot.

A Shot in The Dark....

2008-11-14T06:06:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I was playing around with Sam's storage shack which is loaded into my rock face, and came up with a few things. Here are some ideas for some fly through shots for our film. It's pretty basic because there is only one building in the scene. It makes me think how much more exiting it will be when everything is all together.

Trials and Tribulations with the Toon Shader!

2008-11-14T05:36:00.000-08:00

After our chat about the toon shader, with Jared, I decided to experiment with the cell shade effect. The image labelled 1. is my first attempt. This is a scaled up version of my rock face, the actual toon shading worked OK, but the outline is practically invisible, despite the fact that it is on max. The images labelled 2., 3. and 4. are my rock face in its original size. Here the outliner has worked better however, they all still look rather two dimensional and I am not very pleased with the look (granted it was a very quick attempt and it's not even in the shade it is supposed to be in). The image labelled 5. is the same model as the previous three, except this time with a light. Unfortunately the light has seemed to rob the model of all its dark shading. I don't know much about lighting so I could do with researching it more. For the image labelled 6. I decided to use up to five tones in the toon shader, but, to be honest, it barely looks any different. For the last image, I decided to go a little crazier with the outliner. Here I set it off the edge and played around with all the settings. It makes it look rather disjointed. I don't know, I don't really like it but what does everyone else think.

Back to the Future ->

2008-11-12T05:44:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys,

My Maya model was lagging big time after the cell-shading was added. I know we thought it was the scale but that wasn't the problem. I removed all outlines and colours, and that fixed the lagging issue. It's easier for me to model now using this file without having to import objects in.
I think we should add the cell-shading later, once everyone has finished modelling. We can then sit and decide together on certain colours.

Let me know what you guys think.

COMBINED!

2008-11-11T09:45:00.000-08:00

Here it is. The mountain and the ground are fully combined! I did this by deleting the faces, combining them and merging the vertexes. There's not much more to say. There was a couple of little hitched but they were ironed out. I'm pretty sick of saying this but...it's still got a long way to go!

Lighting

2008-11-10T07:13:00.001-08:00

Hey guys I've been playing around with lighting and came up with this. I used a point light and turn the shadow intensity to black. It creates the Mike Mignola look, I'm pretty pleased with it, give me your thoughts.

Hard Days Maya!

2008-11-09T13:06:00.001-08:00

Hi all, I didn't go into work today as I fell down running for the train on Friday and smashed myself up. With that in mind I decided to work my maya environment. I firstly created an incline for the rock faces. I did this by going into vertex mode, selecting the bottom points, and moved them around by using the move tool. Pretty simple. I then decided to make the ground for our environment. I initially tried to attempt the floor my using a plane. With the plane I tried to cut out vertex points to lower to create the gauge. However, this went horribly wrong so I decided to try using a cube which work fantastically. The floor is made up of two cubes that are attached together. Looking at the sides of the rock faces, I decided that I was not happy just leaving the flat so, using two cubes, I created two outer rock faces. This, I think, makes the whole thing look a lot more believable. The last thing I did today, was start combining all the separate rock faces together to make them whole. I did this by deleting their faces, combining them and merging the vertexes. I'm about halfway done combining everything. All in all, I think this is a good start, but it's still got a long way to go.

2008-11-09T04:08:00.001-08:00

Here it is finally my very first building model in Maya. Afetr looking at some western saloons on google images and the film A Fist Full Of Dollars. I decided to base my buildings on these ideas, which I think turned out overall pretty well. I first started with a cube for the bottom half of the building, then I cut in a door way (doh, that's right I forgot to add the swinging doors!) Anyway, I did the same thing for the top. The thing with the top is that I wanted to creat an actual roof with a short wall so I lowerd, it by using the faces option and adding some line with the split line tool to give the wall some depth. Next I made the canopy, I used a cube measured it in realtion to the building using the grid, then I made it thick slight slightly and I put it into position. Then I created the bottom, because no saloon is built on the dirt ground itself there's usaully a wooeden floor underneath, afterwards the poles came next, simple stuff. Oh yeah the windows were created in the same fashion as the door. Well that's how I built it, I think it looks pretty good considering it was my first attempt, I personally like the canopy and the poles, a very nice touch. Well let me know what you guys think, peace!

Mining village rough!

2008-11-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

Through absolute panic, I decided not to model a house for the village but to model the whole area in which the village is situated. I know it's going to be a big job so I think it's wise to start it as soon a possible. First of all I made a quick sketch, based off the design Josh drew, so I could get a rough estimation of the top down view of the place. After that I put the drawing into maya to start modelling. I've spent most of the day just trying to figure out how I would make this whole area in maya. I first tried making it by cutting into planes but it was proving too difficult. I then tried created a plane with hundreds of pre-done subdivisions in it. I tried cutting this subdivided plane with the split polygon tool, but it was proving way too fiddly. I finally decided to simply make the rock out of cubes and extrude the edges. The whole area is made up of about fifteen cubes that I will merge together by deleting some of the faces. It's very basic at the moment, I'm just trying to get the general shape. I will go on to make it look more 3d and have more of an incline to the floor of the village rather than a sheere drop. I placed my model of the main mountain in here to show how it will really be the towering, castle-like, centre-piece of the village.

Drawn Of The Dead!

2008-11-05T08:38:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone. Seeing as the whole group has decided to colour in their zombie designs, I've decided to do it as well. However, I did not want to colour in my old zombie drawings, because I thought it was rubbish, so I decided to draw a new one. Ages ago, back when I was fifteen I started work on a personal project comic book. It was set in the wild west and the main character was an hitman, called Morgan, who dressed in ragged preacher clothes. So for my design I decided to 'Zombify' Morgan. I chose washed out colours for Morgan's clothes as I wanted to emphasise that he is dead. There are a couple of things that I would change like the perspectives a bit off, and the photoshopping is not all that great.

Shack Attack! Update

2008-11-04T11:08:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys, developed the design and layout abit. Added a bridge and a rough canyon space to give me a reference to work with. Dan Dalli told me the best measurement settings to work with when creating environments in Maya is 'metres'. Also set your frames to '25fps' at the start so no problems later on. With this measurement all our objects should be in correct sizing.

Shack Attack!

2008-11-03T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys, let me know what you think of the shack. Experimented with some colour, i think it works quite well. Need to add more details, but still keeping it simple. Also keeping the colours blocked so lewis can do his thing with the toon-shader.

Coffin Maker

2008-11-03T13:11:00.001-08:00

Well here he is the zombie coffin maker. Now this, I'm very happy about espescially the glowing eyes and the shading. I really like this character, after seeing A Fist Full Of Dollars I had to colour this bad boy in, let me know what you think. In case you're wandering I used inner and outer glow to get that glowing effect, just makes sure the layer you're doing it on is on top of your line art.

To Hell and back..........

2008-11-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

Here's some examples of Mike Mignola's work. All the images are taken form his comic book Hellboy. I love his use of heavy shadow. This is what the look of my coloured Maya Mountain reminded me of.

Lewis vs Toon Shader (round 2)!

2008-11-03T09:23:00.001-08:00

Hey guys, I've finished colouring the mountain using the toon shader. I decided to colour the unsmoothed model as I just think it looks more interesting. I had a good hearty go at the toon shader and this is what I came up with. I'd heard of this this called 'Non Realistic Shading' from the Internet, which apparently gets a similar effect to the new Prince of Persia game. However, I found out that I would have hack into Maya to install the add on. Now, I'm no computer expert, so I decided to throw that idea out the window. Instead I decided to battle the toon shader once one. I drew influence from the two tonal shading from our concept designs and decided to make the shades of the mountain quite stark. A bright orangy-yellow for the highlights, a deeper orange tone for the mids, and a abrasive black for the shadows. For the outline, I decided to keep it quite thin as i think that a really thick outline can look a bit tacky. However when fiddling with the outliner I noticed there are different settings. There is the usual outliner effect which just does the border of the entire shape, or there is another one which outlines just the contours in the model. I chose to use a combination of the both to get the effect that you see in the images. It seems, that the unsmoothed model has created a really cool effect, as it has given the mountain a very blocky, comic book style shading. Also, because I used An outliner for the contours of the model aswell, it has outlined certain, jutting parts of the model which gives it a more 3d look. The use of heavy shadow has given the model an interesting look which reminds me of Mike Mignola's art style. Sam suggested in a telephone conversation with myself that, for my next model, I should put the model against the gradient background that we made to get an idea of what it might look like in the final film. It's funny because I think that the coloured model, actually looks a lot like some of our concepts. Obviously, there are some things I would like to change about the model, but all in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

A search for the edge...

2008-11-03T09:11:00.001-08:00

Hey guys here I have uploaded two pictures from my recent maya model of a mountain. It's been going OK (for once), and the front and side view sketches that I did really helped, I recommend that anyone who is having trouble should do it. I made the mountain from two cubes, which I messed around with using the 'insert edge loop tool' function. I have uploaded the unsmoothed model and the smoothed one. After, smoothing the model I ended up not liking how the mountain looks, it seems to my to look really bland and boring. I actually favour the unsmoothed model as I think it had far more character to it. It sort of reminds me of the look of the new Banjo-Kazooie game coming out for the X-box 360, which has a very cube like design. I want to here what everyone else in the group thinks but, personally I much prefer the blockier style. It reminds me of comic book artist Mike Mignola.

Mood Board.

2008-11-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys,
Thought I'd post up the mood board if any one needed it as reference. Hope everything this going well over the weekend. Starting to think more about starting Maya modelling next week. Lewis your rocks are really good, the top one is spot on i think. Exactly what we need. We'll probably do some more experimenting but i think you got the toon shader to work perfectly :)

Toon Shader

2008-11-01T10:02:00.001-07:00

I have been spending all day today, modelling this boulder and colouring it in maya. Firstly the model of the boulder looks like a lump of poo. Secondly, I have spent many infuriating hours using the toon shader in maya and to no avail. I did receive the look I desired. I don't know what anyone else thinks in the group but I am quite unsatisfied with look of the effect.

Sky Gradient

2008-10-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

This is the gradient that we are going to use for our environment. We tested it in photoshop. We compared it with the sky that Josh originally had, and we realised it should be just a little bit darker. We selected the lighter part of the gradient to mimic the sun dropping down behind the mountains keeping the darker part of the sky at the top.

The Fresh Prince Has Returned...

2008-10-30T11:23:00.001-07:00

I was thinking about the idea of using cell shaded graphics in our final movie. In my opinion if we are not care full it could look a bit pants. However, when we were at the Eurogamer Exbo, I got to play the new Prince or Persia and loved the art style. I think shooting for something like this should be our goal. Try and make it like a living illustration!

Yankee Flesh Eaters

2008-10-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Josh drew a zombie cowboy, today Sam drew a zombie cowboy so I thought "Screw it I'll draw a zombie cowboy too!". So here it is...a zombie cowboy. The perspectives a little funny on the legs.

Rough Storyboard

2008-10-30T10:53:00.001-07:00

Here is a rough storyboard that I drew. It is a collection of quick ink sketches that illustrate ideas for shots for our fly through. These drawings are really basic, quite embarrassingly so, but I wanted to just get a rough idea down. They could be a little clearer, I might do a neater version later.

old sketch

2008-10-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

This is an old sketch from a week ago that I did. It is a quick design of the main mountain (which I knick-named Turd Mountain) and the entrance to the mine. In our formative, Jared told me to analyse my work more. So here I thought that I could have worked on the perspective more and the pencil work is not that great. But my main aim was to get a quick design for the mountain down.

2008-10-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

This is an old rail switch captured near the old railway station in leuenberg (germany / brandenburg)

Pumpkin Hill Sonic Adventure 2

2008-10-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

A reference to use for the mood of our environment. I like the sunset sky coupled with the dark shadows and such. If we can get a similar image like this, it would be a real achievement.

OMV's Schwechat refinery in Vienna, Austria

2008-10-28T14:26:00.001-07:00

A refernce pic, of a refinery since it seems we are having one in our final design.

Colour Environment Concept

2008-10-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

As promised here is my colour concept. I tried to incorporate the colour scheme from Sam's mood board. I've put two versions of the concept one with a grainy layer on top of it, I thought that maybe we could use this effect in the style of the final film.

Mine/Graveyard Concept

2008-10-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, here's a concept that I drew for the opening to the mine. I thought that we could turn it into a sort of graveyard due to all the deaths related to the mine. This is also a style experimentation, it's definitely up for debate so tell me what you think. I have another colour design coming up but photoshop is not doing what it's told.

Cool fly through

2008-10-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

Hey guys here is a cool moody flythrough, it's the opening from Nightmare Before Christmas. It's got a really cool mood to the opening which I think, could be incorperated into the movie (except we won't rape Tim Burton's style like every other animation student on the planet!)

An idea on the look of the Mining Village.

2008-10-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

We could use this as an example, a 2D background, with a 3D character or the other way around. Or have it fully 3D or 2D, I personally think we should have a 2D character with a 3D background or the Other way around. Just as long as it has an element of 2D in it. This movie was done by Daryl Taylor, Lewis got the dragonball Z SFX just in case you're wandering.

Intro idea for our horror/ western intro.

2008-10-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said that I wanted the whole thing to be like a ride? Well the very begining of this opening where the camera pans out and goes through the city and then stops at the title Soul Eater, is what I had in mind. What do you think?

Shake it like a polaroid picture!

2008-10-22T10:55:00.001-07:00

Hey guys, some interesting photos you might want to look at. More on my blog page. Very inspirational and could provide us with good references. Notice the textures and construction of the buildings with many levels.

Zorro!

2008-10-22T08:18:00.001-07:00

Hey this clip was a suggestion from my sister. I saw the clip and realised that the movie has a very cool design for a mining area. It is very tall and speratic!

Nevada Smith

2008-10-22T07:57:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I've been watching some old westerns and this one is pretty cool. It's called Nevada Smith and it stars Steve Mcqueen as a mixed race native american. Yeah I still find that part pretty unbelievable. It's about a boy who, after his parents are murdered by bandits, sets out on an all out kill-fest in revenge. He pretty much goes through the entire movie kicking the crap out of anyone he remotly resembles a cowboy, unfortunatly due to the limited wardrobe of the movie, that means that most of the cast gets an ass whopping. The reason I mentioned this film is because the area where he lives is a mining village. Unfortunately I couldn't find a clip so instead i posted the movie's title sequence! :)

Batman

2008-10-22T06:46:00.000-07:00

Now I know what you guys are thinking, "Why the Hell has Lewis put Batman on the blog page, when we are doing a western theme?". Well, after giving you a sharp slap to the forehead, I would say "let me explain myself". The reason why I have posted a clip from Batman is because of one thing...style. The Batman animated TV show had a fantastic simple, blockey style. To me it stands out with lots of character. This clip in particular shows off such environments. Simple and punchy is what I, personally, am after in this project.

Mining Village Concept

2008-10-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a concept that I drew for the mining village. Here I have drawn the entrance to the mine embedded into a deep canyon. I decided to have the idead that the actual village is build into the rockface, rather than have it built on the ground as I thought it was more interesting. I thought that the poeple who lived near the mine would leave the groung level for the workiers and live above the labour on the rocks.

A shack drawing

2008-10-21T12:29:00.001-07:00

A simple shack drawing. What do you guys think, should I do a coloured version?

Mining Village concept

2008-10-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

Here's my concept picture ^__^

And another thing!

2008-10-18T14:28:00.001-07:00

With Neil's post about bridges I thought about Goron City, from Zelda Ocarina of Time. The central part of the city has crossing ropes and is very sunbaked!

Possible Thought

2008-10-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

With what Josh mentioned about the level in Oddworld, I got to thinking about smoggy, desolate areas. What came into my mind was the story about a mining village called Centralia which had to be evacuated. This town was the inspiration for the game Silent Hill. If you watch the documentary you will see pipes sticking out of the road...I quite like this idea.

Concept art

2008-10-18T13:38:00.001-07:00

I found this on an old website of Lionhead studios.

Mining Test

2008-10-18T08:04:00.001-07:00

Here's a sketch of a mountain side with a few abandonned buildings next to it!

Red Dead Revolver

2008-10-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

Here's another scene from Red Dead Revolver. It's a classic shoot out in an abandoned town!

Red Dead Revolver

2008-10-18T04:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a mountainous scene from Red Dead Revolver... I thought it would be of some use!

2008-10-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys. I was thinking of our project and my mind turned to Big Thunder Mountain at Disney Land. It's got some pretty cool shapes and interesting pieces of machinery on it so take a look.

2008-10-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a sketch of a windmill dude's, the perspective's a bit messed up but its just quick.

Another area busy eh?

2008-10-17T08:53:00.001-07:00

I like this busy, compact look of this. The steel towers and the concrete poles aslo draw my interest. Ha reminds me of the opening scene in The Running Man.

Wooden Bridge

2008-10-17T08:46:00.001-07:00

Anyone remember Indiana Jones? I thought about adding some these bridges to.

Shack or bungalow inspiration? I dunno.

2008-10-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

When I say shack I mean something small and short like this. Maybe this will help if you had any in your designs. If you'd like to know where I got this here's the link: http://gallery.undying-heroism.net/index.php?cat=3&lang=korean

2008-10-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

If not a house with a watermill why not on on it's own?

Another house

2008-10-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

Another house or shack to consider, I like the watermill on the side too.

2008-10-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

Yo I found this image that I really like. Particularly this old, termite infested look that it has, plus the texture, seems like it has this sort of wet or brittle look. For my future designs I'm going to use this, as basis for the small shacks I have in mind.

Mining Village layout

2008-10-17T08:01:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys I thought this pic would make a very good possibilty to consider the layout of the village.

2008-10-17T03:09:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys her's a quick design for the mountains in our backgrounds, it's pretty rough!