Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Production Pipeline: Project LARP 08

It's been a couple weeks since I've posted progress but suffice it to say it's been a little slow in the sweat shop due to theater. Not to say there hasn't been some improvements and new items created. One of the largest improvements has been to particle effects. The two fire elements I have are now improved as with their smoke...only the smoke isn't animating yet. Not sure why but I'm looking into it. Fire is doing wonderfully now that the fireball is made of fluids and not particles. Slime has blend shapes now so the only thing left is to smooth out his animations and render. Mimic has a bit more work because he has very complicated rigs for his tongue (which has been remodeled upon request). The bamboo pole was done a long time ago but I haven't shown it off here so I figured I'd upload that. The sky has been finished but I haven't really shown it off properly. The environment as a whole should be fine but I still need to create those dirt clouds for when characters/models make movements in the dirt (what would rock would be some footprints and the like done as an animated texture but the timing/placement of all of that could be a major pain so I'll leave that out for now since a RPG wouldn't have that anyway). The only other model that hasn't been shown yet is the winged potion. It's finally done except I still want to try to rig the wings to flutter and I need to animate the cork pop with the glitterfetti. I may try to research nDynamics to have 'realistic' fluids but considering how late in the game that would be coming I may just add that later down the line. The 2D components are started but I may be tweaking them a tad as they're only so-so. Music and sound effects will be starting next week and all green screen capture will be imported to After Effects for compositing. Now, for the long awaited photos of all these new goodies. Videos to come.

Until next time,
     Tex.


Friday, April 22, 2011

EDW Ind Study: Week 07

This is a demonstration of the functionality of the rig I'll be using for each of the models. I intend to still use Motion Capture for the march but all other animation of the upper body will be key framed as was this animation. This exact rig will be used for all four models to ensure a similar march and continuity between models.
This coming week will be filming myself at the counter and then applying the models with their animation. If Motion Capture does not happen in time I'll be animating the walk cycle myself week 9. All renders will occur week 8-9 for final compositing week 10.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

EDW Ind Study: Week 06

New project starting up utilizing Motion Capture and Motion Builder. The message is simple: get kids to eat breakfast. Utilizing four maya models (cereal, milk, bowl, and spoon) I intend to capture a march very similar to "Let's all go to the Lobby" followed by a live actor smiling down at the objects as they cross through the video of a counter top. The idea is to have them dance when the reach the actor in a very Hip-Hop style. Music choices are still somewhat up in the air but the two inspirations for this are "Let's all go to the Lobby" and an old breakfast time commercial from Nickolodeon in which a spoon, knife, and fork do a rap about different breakfast ideas. I have concluded that my models will be fairly simple pieces of separate geometry rigged with rigid bodies and proper naming conventions for Motion Builder. I'll be contacting Halbstein this week for meeting to learn the Motion Capture system. This commercial should be approximately 30-45 seconds long and be followed by a 2D text over the newly blurred scene reading "Eating breakfast can help you get up and move!"

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Production Pipeline: Storyboarding Progress 01

I haven't posted the storyboard for Project LARP yet so here it is in progress. Very dark I know and unfortunately the environment has indeed changed since then (update to come). The characters are hard to see now so suffice it to say the next step is to chroma-key the footage...or at least take the footage, make a still and pop it into the storyboard. Anyway, more progress on this to come. In addition, look out for the animatic. It's coming up soon.

Monday, April 4, 2011

EDW 05: Green Screening

Though I'm not quite ready to be using this yet I went ahead and chroma-keyed one of my many videos from green screen...and then I realized I will likely need to reshoot. So much for planning ahead. ^ ^; No worries. Nick and I plan to finish the green screen on Wednesday so a reshoot can be done this weekend. Time to gather the actors!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Production Pipeline: Week 04 into 05

It's been a while since I've been into the 'studio' due to my acting but there's been a little progress. Let's do a run down shall we?

LARP Project:
Slime: Model - Polygon and Textures (complete!)
            Wiggle - nCloth (complete!)
            Squash and Stretch - Blend Shapes [have one that shows Slime dissolve] (starting this week)
            Bubbles - Particles (revisit texture and needed to be added to model)
            Fire and Smoke - Particles and Fluids (starting this week)
            Animation - (starting soon)
            Render - (starting soon)
Mimic: Model - Polygon and Textures (nearly complete [requires grouping])
             Tongue - Model (redoing this week) and Rig (rig needs to be tweaked)
             Saliva/Spit - Particles (starting this week)
             Lid/Box animation/rig - Rig (starting this week)
             Animation - (starting soon)
             Render - (starting soon)
Bamboo Pole: Model - Polygons and Textures (revisit if need be)
                        Render - (starting soon)
Fireball: Fireball - Particles (revisit if need be)
               Smoke - Fluid Effects (revisit)
               Animation - (starting soon)
               Render - (starting soon)
Winged Potion: Model - Glass (complete!), Wings (starting this week)
                          Magic Potion - Fluids [or possibly just model and animate] (starting this week)
                          Glitter - Particles (starting this week)
                          Animation - (starting soon)
                          Render - (starting soon)
Environment: Model - Paint Effects (revisit textures for coherency), Dirt (revisit texture)
                       Sky - Fluid Effects (revisit texture)
                       Animation - (starting soon)
                       Render - (separate passes to start soon)
Menu Tab/Hit Point/other 2D effects: (starting soon)
Music/Sound Effects: (starting soon)
Green Screen/Video Editing: (starting soon)

As you can see, there's a lot of stuff to do before week 9. Very ambitious project but by taking off just a little bit at a time it'll be manageable. Week 5 will see the completion of the potion, the completion of the Mimic's tongue (put into model), all fire/smoke particles, blend shape Slime, saliva/spit, Box Rig (if any), and environmental pieces. In addition, I need to redo my storyboard and animatic. Therefore, if any thing aforementioned is not finished due to the animatic and storyboard I wont consider myself behind for the week because the planning stage is still underdeveloped and that will account for any last changes to the piece anyway. By week 6, animating key frames should start and renders will begin week 7.

Until next time! - Tex

EDW Week 4: Green Screen and Motion Capture

Nothing much to add here. All filming was performed in advance and I'm still working through production pipeline to add all the elements for rendering. I'm currently working with Nick Nicely to create a giant wall of green screening or possibly just a floor for the current green screen sweep. In addition, I hope to use the remaining paint that we bought to create a wall for my own apartment where I can film in my own home! Exciting things happening with green screening under Marla Schweppe's guidance. In addition, I hope to have a camera for this coming weekend to test the paint color and the wall or floor. Depends on our availability when the wall or floor will be done but pictures of our progress will be posted shortly.
Starting this week: Motion Capture. I'll be asking Halbstein for assistance in this if I can't reach Kirk Lansman.
Concept: Take a photograph of my clean kitchen and model a cereal box and jug/bottle/carton of milk. Capture motion of two actors moving around and attach motion to the models as they dance on the counter top. Matching perspective and applying lighting/shadows is the challenge here. Interest is not on tracking motion, but rather capturing motion and applying it to a model.