New York New York!!!!

NYC trip 2005

I thought this one of my best trips and most memorable times.....

A New Beginning - {Film Review}

so it has finally come the deadline.... over the past month I've been busy rendering as all my animation has done. I've been doing render tests myself in particular the ambient occlusion pass as we have done several passes for this film for each scene. Pretty darn heavy renders I'll say, but thanks to a friend and also a few Mac Pro's we're done in like a day or 2 for the heaviest that would normally require 800 hours cut down to a staggering just under 48hours for this one scene!! quite shocking some stats. But we boosted up our Apple Mac's and it was all good to go. So in total with 16 Gb's of ram 5 graphics cards and a sick 16-core processing power we made it for this one scene and also for the entire film!!

Personally I enjoyed working in a team and on this film, however we always wish we had done more. But seriously I would of liked to have done more lighting if Jess was a bit more aware, but I think it all took over a bit from her view. Nonetheless if it was your film and you were the director there would be arguments and seeing as you're the director they may say what is to be in the film and cut out.

Furthermore a rather controversial thing happened on the journey of this film, in the beginning I really wanted to be an animator, and I still do as that's where I feel my ambition lies. However I seemed to have transitioned from that to an artist/modeller! I really thought my 3D modelling skills weren't half bad as I thought it would be. Though I do feel my confidence was really abused throughout this entire year, but I picked myself up and none shall show a sign of weakness. I have much bigger dreams to catch and take on, and I have planned out my path to becoming better and soon great at it only time will tell! I will succeed, whoever dares to cross my path I will take the CG battle to the death.

I've learnt a lot to time management which are vital to the working world. I have also become a lot more proficient in the graph editor than previously, though it still frustrates me. I really did struggle in the early stages of animating. However there was a large scale of improvement by far in just under 1 week and especially when I was feeling poorly because of over stress and I had to go under medication. But now that I have experienced this, I can go on into the working world to do things at my own pace. When I'm ready and it's my time I will be great at it.

I really enjoyed the pre-production of the film as drawing is my strongest skill particularly in storyboarding. I found the research side fun as I went out on several trips to London to take photo's for our film. During the winter stages I found I did a lot of modelling for props and assets, including UV mapping and texturing that turned out better than my animation.

Now that the film has finished, it is only ironically the beginning of a new era towards my career. I have learnt so much amongst my peers and spent restless nights to non existent sleeping to finish this film. I have many to thank who helped me on this project. I now leave with a resentful feeling, but somewhat happiness.

Test Renders.... Scene 6

Here are some test renders that I have done for scene 6, this is the ambient occlusion pass. I have also been rendering most of the film on my machine as it's crunching the renders incredibly fast. Far much quicker than college computers will ever be, so my computer has turned itself almost like a rendering farm. I did pop along to the meeting a while back about the college setting up a render farm to support animation. However it would be in beta testing this month and not in time for our deadline far too late to make it happen, which was rather a big disappointment.
But I do appreciate the handwork they have managed to set one up, which will be more useful for the future years.

Long time no Post

It has been a while since I made a post. So here's what I've been up to is that I've finished animating Scene 6 finally! and I did some animating for Scene 7 which is the mice scene where little owl fly's over swiftly into the night. These are nocturnal animals so they are going to be mostly as a silhouette... 

scene 7 Mice from redlittlepill on Vimeo.

Improving

So after showing Mike, he too thought I as progressing. All of my friends after showing before and after thought I'd progressed, particularly Jessica. Which I am very pleased as it's Jess' film I need to be able to animate well enough to get a great film out.

Here are version 2 of the previous, with the suggested re-touches from Mike and Jess. I can see it's moving a lot more fluid, perhaps I can lay with timing now.

Here's the walk



The same walk with goggles (almost spelt google ha ha!!)



Here is the run

Walk the Run

Okay here's what I did today, a simple walk and a run cycle. The Run cycle I will try and make it more smooth... I think I got my confidence up again. My head doesn't hurt so much today and able to do some kind of work. I'm quite happy for 1 days work as I've also been hit with a migraine and fever, that I have no clue where it came from out of the blue. I must have over stressed myself and burnt out.

Here is the walk cycle...



Here is the run cycle...

lonely walk cycle

here's a simple walk cycle i did today. I have been hit with a migraine and fever this weekend, and I have not been able to do much at all. Really sucks, my head hurts so bad.....