Sunday 18 September 2011
Crunch!
My first time using Pulldownit for Maya after a failed attempt at trying to use DMM for shattering. Must say Pulldownit is a neat little tool, albeit quite simple. This is just an R&D test of an asteroid collision which I've packaged into a neat little importable cache-driven asset for a particular sequence. It'll maybe enjoy a maximum of 1 second of screen time.
Saturday 10 September 2011
Fun with displacement
Here are some displacement tests on an asteroid that will be present in the short. I had originally planned on sculpting something more rounded in Mudbox with all sorts of craters etc, but then I opted for the more bad-ass looking piece of rock which will eventually also have bits of ice and other jazz coming off of it.
These are all defined by mental ray displacement, and a tweaked crater procedural plugged into the material's displacement SG. After that it was just a matter of messing with the displacement amount and the texture coordinates and skew settings. The base geometry is literally just an oval.
These are all defined by mental ray displacement, and a tweaked crater procedural plugged into the material's displacement SG. After that it was just a matter of messing with the displacement amount and the texture coordinates and skew settings. The base geometry is literally just an oval.
Monday 5 September 2011
Story & character model
Firstly, thank you for the emails. As you know, I'm being pretty secretive when it comes to story. But I SUPPOSE I can give a brief two-liner for what the tale is about.
Gabe is a little robot who wakes up and finds himself alone just outside of earth's orbit. He will soon discover something that will send him on a journey of self discovery, and bring him to a point were he has the lives of billions in his little aluminum hands.
Ok, that was two and a half lines. ;)
This is from a turnaround of the character that I have put together, just so you can see how some of the character designs have been interpreted into 3D. His arms are able to deploy from around his waist.
Gabe is a little robot who wakes up and finds himself alone just outside of earth's orbit. He will soon discover something that will send him on a journey of self discovery, and bring him to a point were he has the lives of billions in his little aluminum hands.
Ok, that was two and a half lines. ;)
This is from a turnaround of the character that I have put together, just so you can see how some of the character designs have been interpreted into 3D. His arms are able to deploy from around his waist.
MAXIMUM GALAXIE
MAXIMUM GALAXIE is an awesome little animated student short created by Thomas Chretien.
I just love the combination of 3D and flashy anime styled explosions and gunfire. Some seriously cool camerawork and what I imagine to be a fair degree of post.
"Maximum Galaxie is my graduation project at Cégep du Vieux Montreal.
The movie isn't meant to be taken seriously, I just wanted to have fun while making it.
It won the "Best Technical Direction" award at the school's projection that year."
Check it out!
http://vimeo.com/28242185
I just love the combination of 3D and flashy anime styled explosions and gunfire. Some seriously cool camerawork and what I imagine to be a fair degree of post.
"Maximum Galaxie is my graduation project at Cégep du Vieux Montreal.
The movie isn't meant to be taken seriously, I just wanted to have fun while making it.
It won the "Best Technical Direction" award at the school's projection that year."
Check it out!
http://vimeo.com/28242185
Saturday 3 September 2011
Concept Art
A small update with some of the concept art created for the animation.
These concept pieces can be quite important for determining the visual result of the final thing. If I'm designing scene layout, I'll refer back to these to see what I liked about certain compositions and combinations of elements. Its also a way of getting my ideas about colour and lighting down on 'paper'. These may serve as a guide for when animation is point cached and brought into Maya for lighting, further surfacing, VFX and rendering (I'm animating for the most part in Softimage XSI). If you're curious about this cross-platforming that I'm talking about, never fear: I will be going through my planned workflow for the entire project in a later post.
In the meantime: enjoy
These concept pieces can be quite important for determining the visual result of the final thing. If I'm designing scene layout, I'll refer back to these to see what I liked about certain compositions and combinations of elements. Its also a way of getting my ideas about colour and lighting down on 'paper'. These may serve as a guide for when animation is point cached and brought into Maya for lighting, further surfacing, VFX and rendering (I'm animating for the most part in Softimage XSI). If you're curious about this cross-platforming that I'm talking about, never fear: I will be going through my planned workflow for the entire project in a later post.
In the meantime: enjoy
Thursday 1 September 2011
Lights, camera, animaction!
So here it is. I've finally decided to start a blog for this little short film. This has been my brainchild for the last nine months, having to be fed, nurtured and educated into something that can stand its own as a story. The ironic part I guess is that I've just started with animation now after 9 months, so its almost like the thing is being birthed after a sort of intellectual pregnancy period. Strange metaphor, but it's the way I'm thinking about things at the moment.
At present, about 90% of the short's assets are complete, with some polygonal detailing, and a bit more shader and texture work to be done once animation for the whole thing is locked down. Story is for the most part, locked down as well. I'm a sucker for this, and maybe its a weakness, but I do often come up with cool or funny things the character could do between sequences, or during a general action. That stuff is sort of all still unplanned and left to impromptu thinking. I'm on a bit of a steep schedule for animation at the moment, needing to do 90 - 175 frames per day. After that, I will build on my arcs, poses, and other principles until I just go bonkers and can't do it any more.
A lot of future talk here though, the best is to take it one day at a time and make sure I'm working towards concentric short term goals. It's so easy for a creative to get bored and frustrated with their end goal and just give up. I promise myself to not focus on the end goal just yet!
It would be unfair of me to just talk and not have anything to show for it, so here are some of the initial concept sketches, with more pre-production content to come further down the road:
At present, about 90% of the short's assets are complete, with some polygonal detailing, and a bit more shader and texture work to be done once animation for the whole thing is locked down. Story is for the most part, locked down as well. I'm a sucker for this, and maybe its a weakness, but I do often come up with cool or funny things the character could do between sequences, or during a general action. That stuff is sort of all still unplanned and left to impromptu thinking. I'm on a bit of a steep schedule for animation at the moment, needing to do 90 - 175 frames per day. After that, I will build on my arcs, poses, and other principles until I just go bonkers and can't do it any more.
A lot of future talk here though, the best is to take it one day at a time and make sure I'm working towards concentric short term goals. It's so easy for a creative to get bored and frustrated with their end goal and just give up. I promise myself to not focus on the end goal just yet!
It would be unfair of me to just talk and not have anything to show for it, so here are some of the initial concept sketches, with more pre-production content to come further down the road:
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