1 day to go...

Got my presentation tomorrow at 10am! (I'm not going to lie, I am rather cacking myself like I did last time... I hate talking.)

Then I just need to upload my Visual Essay to the dropbox and I am done! It has gone so quick....

Anyway, I am currently just finishing writing a few note cards for the dreaded presentation then I will practice it a couple of times before labelled and packing up my DVD and stuff in a folder then I shall be ready for tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

(PS I guess I will still post stuff when not at uni for a whole 4 months. I get bored easily! :D )

Visual Essay is finished! :o

Here is my mp4 version uploaded to Vimeo. I decided to upload it online despite my hate of my voiceover, as it seems to be better quality on Vimeo. :) Please ignore my silly voice, haha.

Haunted Castle Ride Animation + Evaluation

My main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were: 

In this project my aim was to produce a 1 minute animation of a haunted castle ride to fit inside the Waverley theatre. This animation had to have a number of 3D modelled props and a minimum of between 2 and 3 scare scenes throughout. I wanted to keep the style quite simple but still show 3D skills I had learned in the module.

The methods I use to develop my ideas were: (brainstorming, , visual research, storyboards etc)

Firstly, I produced a couple of moodboards to explore the theme of haunted castle rides, as well as my original planned style of silhouettes. Throughout our Friday seminars with Yelena, we had small brainstorming sessions in our group to share and suggest how to enhance each other’s ideas for our animation. Just before completing the animation of my scene in 3DS max, I also produced a storyboard for the narrative of my final animation so I knew how it would pan out.

 

I took a risk by trying something new. (Explain):

I think my work is different to a lot of my peers’ due to my constant use of quite basic black shapes and silhouettes in my scene. I thought that taking the risk of using mainly 2D (extruded spline drawings) shapes in a 3D environment could be a simple but effective outcome in my animation.

Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were:

It took me quite a while to get to grips with the idea of path constraints to make my cart and camera follow my track. However, after I had done this, I had to keep rotating my camera along the timeline to make it follow the track and look at my scare scenes, which took quite a few attempts to get right and kept seemingly moving by itself, which was rather frustrating. Another problem I faced was my environment background not appearing in my render output PNG files.

The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were:

I read through the tutorials for path constraints a few times and kept at it until I had done it correctly, and for the camera rotation I had to make sure I did it in order of the timeline to make it flow as I wanted and I had to remember to turn auto key off when not animating. To make my background appear in my animation, I had to render as high quality JPG files instead, which didn’t seem to affect my file size too much.

The things I have learnt from this particular project were: (Specific examples should be cited.)

I have learned how to use the slate material editor in 3DS max which I didn’t understand before and now find much simpler. I have also learned more about the different types of lighting in the software, which I found very confusing before and may have used the wrong type (photometric) in the past. I have also learned that moodboards, physical models and storyboard drawings are often vital in the design of a 3D environment or animation.

Areas for improvement , If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently:

I would probably spend more time on modelling 3D props a more realistic feel, as I feel my track and some of my props are slightly too simple or repetitive. I would also experiment with lighting much more if I had time, as I feel I just placed lights where I thought they were needed and didn’t really understand the rules of set lighting very well.

A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe:

I now feel that I have enough skills to produce quite effective animation projects by myself in my own time. Therefore, over the summer I plan to research more techniques and try to come up with my own project to improve my skills further and to add more work to my online portfolio.

Busy busy busy! :(

2 weeks left of my first year from today (I have my presentation on the 26th, so I'll give in my visual essay then too). :o And lots to do in so little time unfortunately...

1) Haunted Ride Animation - I have VERY nearly finished the lighting and animation now... Not far from rendering. It isn't in until next Friday (the 20th) though so I have plenty of time to get that done then edit on Premiere Pro. While it is rendering I will be on the hunt for sounds and music to enhance the experience.



2) Visual Essay - I apologise for not uploading a plain version of the animated part. It isn't great to be honest, lol! But I will definitely upload the final thing when it is done... Although I make a version without voiceovers to put online because I sound awful :( haha. Anyway! I have edited up to the end of my first practitioner... About half way done then. Not going too bad.


3) Presentation - I have found out mine is at 10am on Thursday 26th May. So 2 weeks left to prepare. I have started a simple HTML layout in Dreamweaver for ease of access for me and whoever marks it. I feel powerpoint isnt internet based enough...? Anyway, I hope it works at uni, I know their internet browers tend to dislike my HTML/CSS coding and make my layout well messed up or dont like my videos and gallery! Lovely. I will have to go to uni next week to test out how it's all looking there, seeing as that is where I have to show it, after all.

First draft of 1st slide of presentation. Keepin' it simple guys! Images are bound to change.

Will be updating more if I get time!

Byeee.

Animation Storyboard. (:

Here is my storyboard design I did in Yelena's session for my haunted castle ride animation, to help me plan out the animation and narrative of my ride, as well as specific camera shots to include.

Haunted ride update... Getting there now!

First of all, we had a seminar on lighting, the tasks of which I took part in in lesson to get to know the techniques, but I feel I should wait until my modelling and animation is done before adding my lighting, due to increasing render times!

 (I have only added half the trees so far (mainly due to repetitivity and I got bored!) as I will clone these all in at the end to fill in empty space.)
 (Also note that the walls of the theatre are hidden here as I am undecided on whether I need to include them or not...)


Anyway, here are some screenshots of how my modelling has gone so far.

Starting position of camera showing entrance. Have added a track style pathway leading up to the doorway and a railway sign to link with my train theme. Materials and background complete!

Wooo! Finally followed a SIMPLE tutorial for water using scanline renderer. Its really good and happy with the colour! Also finally got the track opacity map pretty much spot on. Just used wooden diffuse bitmap for simplicity.

One of my scare scenes using a ghost shape with illuminated eyes/mouth and textured gravestones. This would be in front of the outer wall opposite the entrance if it was rendered too.

And this is the entrance to my very average attempt at a tunnel, haha! Another railway sign... changed the train to a dark green with turbosmooth to avoid obvious polygons in renders.

Will keep you posted whilst I keep cracking on before I need it rendered! :D