Once everyone had finished their individual parts. All that was left was to render it all. We decided to spilt this up so to keep individual render times down. Although this did in fact bring the rendering down to a manageable time, One part of the render was missing the Final Gathering setting. Because we no longer had time to re-render the part, we had to go ahead and leave it in. This was due to the deadline time for the unit. However the E4 deadline is not until the 1st of July. We therefore re-rendered the scene and were able to re-edit the piece and have it looking like we first intended.
It has been submitted to the competition and is available to see here : http://www.e4.com/video/u1IAn0Ccyy4Dkcq0E12S9g/play.e4
Please Vote Yay if you have a chance.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Animating the Hammer
Because i'm not usually much of an animator i thought that maybe it might be good to have a go at animating the hammer. As i made the rig i understood the controls and was all to having it moving no problem.
To get the desired effect it was important to have a quick strike, then a slow retraction of the hammer.
The hammer was to come from the back of the machine so i had to arc the arm in a way that would give us the look we wanted.
As it was important to give the hammer weight, i had to make sure that there was a slight movement after the initial impact, so to show the force of the smash.
Considering im not usually an animator really im pleased with the outcome. The rest of the group were also happy and it therefore made it into the final piece.
To get the desired effect it was important to have a quick strike, then a slow retraction of the hammer.
The hammer was to come from the back of the machine so i had to arc the arm in a way that would give us the look we wanted.
As it was important to give the hammer weight, i had to make sure that there was a slight movement after the initial impact, so to show the force of the smash.
Considering im not usually an animator really im pleased with the outcome. The rest of the group were also happy and it therefore made it into the final piece.
Rigging the hammer
Now that the hammer was textured. The joints in the arm needed rigging, so that we could animate it smashing down on the character.
As this was mechanical rigging. I was much more confident that i could have it working.
As the joints were already in place to the model all i had to do was layout the skeleton in line with these.
A rigged bind meant that it moved in way which met our needs.
Having not done any rigging before and having failed at the character rig i was very pleased with the way this turned out. As i was so pleased i decided to have a go at animating it too.
As this was mechanical rigging. I was much more confident that i could have it working.
As the joints were already in place to the model all i had to do was layout the skeleton in line with these.
A rigged bind meant that it moved in way which met our needs.
Having not done any rigging before and having failed at the character rig i was very pleased with the way this turned out. As i was so pleased i decided to have a go at animating it too.
Textures
As our film required a big wooden hammer, Harry was given the task of creating it. Once made i was given the task of texturing it.
To fit with the cartoony look of the film i went looking for suitable wood.
I managed to find a texture which I liked. It was however far to small scale for what I needed. I decided to map the texture to the hammer and managed to get the groves in the wood match up with the ones in the model. Thus adding to the overall look of the hammer.
I was very pleased with the outcome and feel it really complements the rest of the film.
Rigging
As we didn't have someone with rigging experience within the group this was always going to be the tricky part. We tried a number of ways to get the rig to work but failed to make it work correctly. To start with the model seemed to be too high poly and caused massive distortion when binded with a skeleton. TO try and solve this we went back to a lower poly model. To start with this seemed to have solved the issue. Although when trying paint weights we came to more problems. because of the shape of the character it meant for awkward joints. Altho the rig worked to a degree, it was no where near up to scratch for what we needed. This was when we decided to use a pre made rig called Bee boy.
Character modeling
Once i had the reference drawings i was able to model character using polygons. I initially made the most of the character but left the hands to do separately.
I was pleased with how it was looking, as it was very similar to the concept drawing.
However due to a few creases in the characters sides i decided to try and smooth it further in places.
After adding the hands i decided to take the model the zbrush to try and iron out some of the unwanted lines and creases.
Having never used zbrush before i was pleasantly surprised with how straight forward it was to use.
Because i was only ironing creases out, i didnt have to do too much to it before it was looking nice.
We decided to use purple as the main colour of our film. This was to fit with the E4 branding. This meant making the character purple. As he is just a cartoony character there was no real need for complex textures.
I was pleased with how it was looking, as it was very similar to the concept drawing.
However due to a few creases in the characters sides i decided to try and smooth it further in places.
Having never used zbrush before i was pleasantly surprised with how straight forward it was to use.
Because i was only ironing creases out, i didnt have to do too much to it before it was looking nice.
The Character
As we would need a character for our film we thought that we would design and model one.
Josh done the character designs and it was hen my task to model it.
We settled on a basic looking character, with a cartoony feel to him.
Josh done the character designs and it was hen my task to model it.
We settled on a basic looking character, with a cartoony feel to him.
Industry Exercise 3
The main part of the brief was to find an external brief to work on.
I joined a group of 4 people and we decided on the E4 Estings competition.
This was a chance to produce a piece of broadcast quality. To stay with the strengths of the team we decided to do a 3d animation.
Initially we were struggling for ideas. The task was to come up with an idea which featured the E4 logo in a 10 second piece. That was about all we had to work with. It was then up to us to come up with an idea, to incorporate this into.
After a lot of discussion the idea for having a one armed bandit came up. We then decided to include a character and have him seemingly win on the machine. The twist being that instead of winning he gets smashed by a big wooden hammer. We liked the idea because it was simple and funny and would suit the short nature of the film.
I joined a group of 4 people and we decided on the E4 Estings competition.
This was a chance to produce a piece of broadcast quality. To stay with the strengths of the team we decided to do a 3d animation.
Initially we were struggling for ideas. The task was to come up with an idea which featured the E4 logo in a 10 second piece. That was about all we had to work with. It was then up to us to come up with an idea, to incorporate this into.
After a lot of discussion the idea for having a one armed bandit came up. We then decided to include a character and have him seemingly win on the machine. The twist being that instead of winning he gets smashed by a big wooden hammer. We liked the idea because it was simple and funny and would suit the short nature of the film.
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