Merry Christmas Everyone

Hi all,

On behalf of myself I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and all that jazz..

I'll see you all next year.

Game Ideas for Next Year

Hi to all...

First things first... Congratulations to everyone on their short films... they are all excellent from what I've seen. BE PROUD PEOPLE!

Now that we have finished our short films, and hopefully by now decided on a direction to pursue, be it Video Games or Animation for Film and Screen, I find myself taking a closer look at all the video games I play in hope of spawning a few ideas to pitch for 2008. Its only been a week into our holiday break and I'm already itching to get back into doing something creative... (I'm sure that's pretty sad in some sort of way...)

One thing that's bugging me at the moment.. I'm not sure what restrictions we have when it comes to working with the programmers. Creating an RTS is probably out of the question, but I still have hope that we get the chance to do an FPS. Most likely we'll be doing a Platform, and that's absolutely fine, its just where originality is concerned its going to take me a while to put my own little spin on an idea.

Rendering...waiting... and waiting some more!

I'm at the stage now where everything in finished and looking nice and pretty (the sparkles blind my eyes!) However, now all I can do is wait around for this thing to render, I really need to get another computer just to speed this up a bit... its taking a while.

On the Home Stretch!

Almost done, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (not that this hasn't been an extremely enjoyable experience :)
I have about 10 seconds to do which is basically the guns coming up and the thief shitting himself. I'm pretty happy with the additions to the scene, I've really gone crazy on the guns, theres more variety now then before which will be interesting to see and I've managed to put them EVERYWHERE! I'm taking 'massive overkill' here!
Then its on to post production which will be awesome!

Scene 2 Completed

Hi all...
Scene 2 is pretty much complete right now, the bulk of the animation is done, just need to go back and add in facial expressions and stuff like that, but on the whole I'm glad I can finally move on to scene 3 which probably won't give me any difficulties (if Max knows whats good for it..... ((smacks max over the head)) Hey get back in the corner bitch!) Its basically just animating the alarms and guns, still not sure whether I should shoot the thief or fade out just before, but oh well I'll come to that later

Problems Fixed

Thank God!
The issues I've been having, have been resolved. Turns out I needed to upgrade to service pack 2 as suggested by Joe. It worked

Nearing the end of Scene 2, quite happy with it so far. Then its on to scene 3, facial animation, lighting and sound effects

FUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!

SHIT SHIT SHIT!!!
I keep having this problem here I try to select the 'Bip01' object, you know the small round thing 'inside' the pelvis of the biped, and Max fucking crashes. THE PROBLEMS ALREADY AFFECTED 2 OF MY MAIN FILES!. I have no idea why this is happening! I can select all my key frames except the ones for the bip01 object, I just click them and it instantly crashes, maybe max can only handle a certain amount of key frames...... but thats a load of shit!

I'm this close to throwing my computer out the window!

If anyone has encountered this problem or knows how to solve it PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HELP ME!

2 minutes isn't enough time!

Just made major changes to Scene 1.
I'm extremely happy with the improved result, (props to Jason) problem is I had to chew up a bit more time to get it done. I swear 2 minutes isn't enough, especially when your doing an animation filled with gags... we need that time for pauses, anticipation and delivery of jokes, I've already had to sacrifice about half of my gags already and I don't want to get rid of any more!

Going to have to beg and see if we can get at least another 20 seconds

The results are in... I'm Insane!

If you didn't think I was insane before well.... I am now!

Oh My God... Theres this little voice in my head yelling at me saying 'For fuck sake!, what the hell do you think your doing! Don't change Scene 1... For the love of god!!!

(proceeds to punch self in face) Shut the fuck up conscience...

I am going to change the opening scene of my animation... Why? you may ask... well, I've come to realize that I can make it a lot funnier and better animated... plus a change of music has been on my mind for the last couple of days and I've finally given in.
On the bright side it wont take me very long to change... I have a plan.

Update soon (and YES, I know the video from my previous post doesn't work... Blogspot has been temperamental lately so if you'd like to see it just ask me)

Flipping

Hi all...

OK here's the deal... Since I decided to scrap my initial idea on my storyboards for scene 2 (namely the laser grid section) I've been making it up on the fly as I go along which sounded like a good idea at the time, but now I'm bordering on insanity... THESE FUCKING FLIPS he's got to do are taking my too god dam long!

I've finally been able to get down and do some animating for this section... it's been really frustrating as I'm having trouble coming up with an idea that I'm going to be happy with for more than a coupe of hours. I keep getting this urge to change everything... NOT HELPING RIGHT NOW!

Here's an example... (its nowhere near complete, it runs a little fast, but I'll make hose changes in Premiere) I was going to use this for the beginning of my first flip for scene 2. I was happy with it until a moment ago when something in my head snapped and I realized he's got to land with his back turned to the laser grid in order for my other actions to flow smoothly.The jump at the start needs to bee a little higher, I'm going to have to redo the twist in mid air , also the forward somersault might look fine from this angel, but from anywhere else it looks like absolute shit (no idea what I was thinking) so I'll redo that as well.

Needless to say my reaction to all this is "FUCK!" (kicks hole on wall)
Will update when all these have been resolved

Animating Scene 1

Hi Everyone,
Truly excellent news... as of a few minutes ago the animation for scene one is complete!
Wasn't able to get all sound effects in at this point, but that really doesn't concern me... as I'll put them in later on in post production... needless to say, I'm very happy with the way this is turning out

On to Scene 2 and beyond!

Rigging Demo

Hi Guys!

I completed the rigging a while ago and I've been using the 'Ballet' File that Joe gave us to test how its working. I'm pretty happy with the result, my only concern right now would have to be the feet and the fact that their not bending at the toe... but oh well, I'll fix that eventually..... also I need to be able to manipulate the cloth so that it starts at the right position in this file.

Well enough from me, lets see some Ballet!... (I know that sounded weird... so STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!)
I also noticed that his hands are passing through his head, but that's just because its over-sized.

Finalizing Character Colour Scheme - NEED YOUR OPINIONS!

Ok guys, going strong at the moment, progressing very nicely with the collection of sounds effects and music for the animation, however I have hit a snag in one area, the god dam colour scheme for the character! Seriously guys and girls, I NEED YOUR OPINIONS! on this one.
I've put up three examples of what I'm going to choose from... basically the run down of what I want is for the animation to be as cartoony as possible and I need the character to reflect that.

I'll also put up some images of my scenes so you can see what I'm on about... (should have done that ages ago)

The first image is just using the ink and paint material. Since I want this to be cartoony I guess the best thing to use would be ink and paint.

The second is a variation on the cell shading , using a falloff map I'm able to retain the 3D appearance of the model, but it looks a bit dark. My greatest concern with this is that it fit in with my scenes .

Last is a combination of the two. I was able to get a good cell shaded effect and also keep strong highlighted edges around the model.

Please let me know what you think is best...

Thanks

Finished Rigging! + BIOSHOCK

I've had to restart a few times while completing my rigging, but its the best thing I could have possibly done. Everything looks alright so I'm pretty pleased at the moment! This Holiday break for me right now is all about gathering sound effects and editing music for the animation. I have a few things in mind, so I'll keep you all posted.
OK... on a completely unrelated matter... Bioshock is finally working! Thank-Fucking-God! this game might be totally awesome (which it is!) but FUCK its been driving me insane! crash after crash after crash... I'd almost given up hope, until the latest drivers where released that is.

Enjoy the break everyone!

Revelation = Capoeira!

I had a revelation a few days ago about how I was going to animate my character in a certain section in the movie. Basically I first wanted my thief to perform a few flips and tricks to pass through a laser grid in the bank vault.
So I've been looking through a few movies eg. Matrix Trilogy, Mortal Kombat, Rush Hour ect... just to get some ideas on the stuff that he could do, cause I really want this to be good ... and then it dawned on me, capoeira!. For those how don't know, capoeira is a Brazilian form of martial arts and its fucking awesome!
Needless to say, it will work really well for the movie

Character Update

Still making good progress today.
Added the sneakers and beanie, also applied a texture to see how it looked. Not too bad
Still planning to create some folds in his jumper though, which should work well.
Will update soon

Lack of Sleep!

Somehow last night between the lack of sleep, and the amounts of coffee I was taking to stay awake, my model sheet had a lot of sketches pop up on it.

Can't really remember doing this... but here you go.

Creating the Character

I had a MAJOR panic attack a few minutes ago... I was really worried that my character wasn't going to turn out the way I had hoped. Luckily, after applying a cell shader to what I had modeled so far, my anxiety over the subject faded. (BIG SIGH)

This is my thief thus far. Just getting his body right at the moment (I've drawn and redrawn this bastard all weekend trying to get him right!).
I know he looks a bit plain right now, but that will change. I'm planning to turn his shoes into sneakers, I'll give him a beanie on his head, along with a mask, also really wanting to give him a baggy jumper to wear, but I have no idea how to do cloth properly at the moment. Overall I want something thats cartoony, looks good and animates well, so I think I'm on the right track...

Anyways. I should have the hands done by tomorrow, then its finally on to the good stuff!

Minigun!

I really feel I've been making progress on the animation so far.
Currently I'm working on weapons for the bank vault, which will ultimately kick the shit! out of my little thief. (yes I am evil as well as crazy!)
It was suggested to me that the weapon of choice should be a mini-gun. Not having even thought of that I had to agree.
Sooooooooooo without further a-do here's what the the mini-gun looks like at the moment, I'm still not sure on colour though...

Let me here your thoughts :)

Cheers Guys.

Sick!

This is what I really didn't need right now! God dam cold!
I've got too many things to do and not enough focus or energy to do them!
....... except post this blog.