Finishing touches to maya

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!

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...

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)...

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]

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

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...

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.

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!

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!

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!!!

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...

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

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...

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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!

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

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....

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....

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!

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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.