Week 14 Report

AT LAST what needs to be done is done!

Everything went smoothly except for the final render which wasn't good because I didn't know that exporting as ".mov" (compressed) from after effects would affect the quality of my animation that later on I also edited it in Premier which was worse when render out again. The sound need to be export separately as ".wav" and for the animation as "TGA" plus a preview "Mpeg2", instead of doing all that I rendered my animation as a single file "MP4" then burned it on disc, but it wasn't the right format for the submission said Jack. So Jack helped me to get the right format and re-render it again before Friday. Later on that day i got my animation rendered and being submitted on Friday. That was the last challenge I guess!

Throughout the year of working on a minor project I've learned a lot, the boring bits, frustrated bits, and lots of fun bits but what important is that my Major Project for next year is going to be an awesome animation!

Production Journal Review (Week 12)

This is week 12 and I'm very happy where I'm at, the animation is locked up by Friday (end of week 12) and ready for some rendering actions over the weekend. Just a few days before that I was experiencing the files being corrupted but I managed to re-do it because I still had some backups at home. So I'll have 2 weeks for rendering and editing, I guess I somehow following schedule even though I hardly check it. The rendering properly takes no longer than 24 hours so that can be done over the weekend and hopefully it'll go smoothly. For the sound design, I have just recorded a bunch of sound such as (screaming) voice of "Jarrod" and recording technician "Josie". I found some free sounds FX online but it's better to record my own because it'll synchronise with my animation better! Overall I think I'm not falling behind or ahead according to the deadline but at least I'm not stressing out. So far everything goes well! :)

MORE IMAGES!

Here are some rendered frames before i render the whole movie

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GHOSTs in the machine

BAD NEWS: When i try to re-open the maya file that i saved earlier today then this message pops out.. The file is corrupted and I can't do anything about it. So all the works i did today are "Gone with the Wind" hurray!!! :((

GOOD NEWS: I still have the backup @ home and I have to do it again. Sighs...!!! (not much though) :

Rough Sound Design

This sounds like the one in the animatic but better.

WEEK 10: Production Journal Reviews

Over 2 weeks break I continue animating and thought I've done fair amount of works, so I estimated 70-80% of animation but NOOOO! after Jack checked it, now I'm down to 50% :( Anyway I think I got the point, after Jack checked it I see lots of things that can work so much better such as anticipation, timing right, energy etc.

Right now I'm fixing up the timing and getting rid of the floating in my animation. So far I'm quite happy where I'm at now and with all the advises from Jack I'm pretty confident to do it by myself.

I keep focusing on animating and almost forgot about sound design. For sound I haven't done anything except that rough sound design in my animatic long time ago (but that gives me an idea of what my final sound design would be like) so I reckon this week I'll spend a little more time on sound design.

Oh yeah and the textures too! I might come up with the new textures for my Hungry Bunny and the Planet after finish animating.

WEEK 8: Production Journal Reviews

According to the schedule now is the time that I should started animating. After everything ready by week 7 I started doing the key pose until now. So far so good, now I'm catch up! even though when I look at my production over again, I see lots of mistakes and problems. But I did expecting that to happen and get stuff up, so that the next major project I can do it better.

Right now I'm still getting use to the timeline in maya (linear, tangent, graph editor ect..) I find it a bit confuse even though it seems easy when Jack did it. I want to finish the key-pose by the end of this week but I have to give sometime on other subjects which due this Friday as well. So I decided I'll keep animating through the holiday and "hopefully" I'll able to get it done when uni resumes. If i get it done early I will have time to perfect it plus extra time to render!

And the sound as well, I didn't spend enough time for the sound, until now all I have done is the rough sound track. If lucky enough I'll get it done over the holiday too.

Finally the biggest problem of them all "MOTIVATION"

New Bunny Textures!

Just made a new texture for the Bunny, this looks abit too plain compare to last one but i like it because it has some grey colour.

Mushroom deformation fixed!! =]

Spent 2 hours to fix the mushroom to deform properly.. now it's time work on the non-rigged mushrooms.

Camera locked down (Play blast)

Play blast of the camera locked down before bringing the rigged character into the set and animate it for real. However it's not perfect, yet. I might still need to work a bit more on the camera before animating it.

How do run a quick render test in maya?

I'm just finished the working with the camera, and now I need to run a quick render test so that I can put it into my running comp in after effects. When I render the current frame everything appears except for the bunny! any idea why I can't see my bunny?

PRODUCTION REPORT

This report covers all the issues, problems and solutions of an ongoing production “Hungry for Mushrooms” 3D animation.

Since the semester restarted I am supposed to move onto post-production stage but there are quite number of major problems that I’m experiencing.

Problems: The character was not fully complete; character’s rig didn’t deform very well as I expected it to be, needed to add a mouth that can open and close, 2 ears are needed to be rigged and deform well.

Solutions: So I had to spend a few weeks ahead just to have it fixed. For the first 3 weeks I started working on re-rigging my character until I think it works fine. Even though I didn’t expect it would take that long just to have it rigged because of many small issues keep appearing. It didn’t go smoothly that I had to try different methods and seek for help from teacher and by the end of week 3 the character is animate able.
While other students start working on their post-production I’m a bit too far left behind still finishing production works.

The old textures on the character which I created last semester weren’t that good. It looks kind of yellowish which doesn’t look standout so I decided to create a new one to replace it and this time I made it white instead and it looks just fine. By the end of week 4 I got it done.

Beside the character I need to worry about the unfinished set. I’m still thinking if I want to keep the old texture or make a new one. The mushroom right now for some reasons I can’t skin it and I need to ask the teacher for some help. The texture for the mushroom is done. I also modelled an extra mushroom that doesn’t need be rigged. This mushroom will only need to bend and stretch, and then I’ll duplicate it as many as I need. For the rigged mushroom I will only use it for a couple of last shots when the mushroom eats the bunny. These are tasks I must finish in end of week 5 so that I can catch up for a bit.

I also started looking at the camera shots and to match up with the storyboard to see what works and what doesn’t work. However I still having trouble with camera setting, so I “Printscreen” instead but I will ask during the tutorial classes.

Other issue would be technical issue; working with Maya in my laptop at home is quite frustrating. It crashes every time when I save it as “.ma” but not if I save as “.mb”. So I prefer to work at uni instead. Sometimes during the tutorial class, I need some extra help but the time is limit and others students need help too. So pretty much I have to give it a go by myself and other than that I would be looking at some tutorials or solutions online.

Camera Shots

Currently working on the camera shots.. even though the set is not fully completed just yet!

So I brought the character into the set just to test the camera shot/angles according to the storyboard.

Animatic & Concept Art are UPDATED!!

colouring and texturing (NOT FINAL)

currently experimenting with the colours and textures...

Q. because I'm not working with 3D hair/fur, so which would be good if I just have plain white colour or try to have some textures like fur on it?