GameCity stuff + general work updates

Today I feel rather rubbish so haven't been to my After Effects seminar or Context 2 seminar. I am glad I decided not to go at the last minute to be honest, my neck is now killing me and feel achey in general. I am gutted I did not get to go to this because of my illness:


"The folk from Media Molecule are here to give a tour of their most recent add-on for LittleBigPlanet 2, The Move Pack, which empowers gamers to create their own levels and games for the PlayStation Move. After a tour of the features and the brand new story mode, the Molecules will attempt some speed level creation LIVE ON STAGE *audience shrieks with excitement*."

Very fed up. I will probably still use Media Molecule in my assignment despite a lack of feedback, as I really do like their work, despite LittleBigPlanet being quite 2D in style, and they are actually a medium company! (I can't find many :s)

  

Talking of GameCity, yesterday, I went to the Capturing James Bond talk from the motion capture departmant at Eurocom - one of the companies I looked at for my networking assignment but have had no response from. The talk showed how they made the animation of characters in their newest adapation of "GoldenEye 007" for PS3 and Xbox 360 using their own motion capture studio in Derby, and explained what techniques are used for different actions, etc. I found it really interesting, and am really tempted to get the game now actually! :) But it also helped me with my research, from them firstly introducing their company and some facts. I didn't take notes, but I remembered they were established in 1988 and have approx 270 employees, so I will probably use them as a large company in my essay.

Here is a photo I took before the talk started (very blurry with heads in the way - I was being sneaky and am useless with my iphone camera since IOS 5 update... Baffling.)

And here is a trailer for the game that the talk was all about...





PLUS for the animation work, which I seem to have been solely focused on since I discovered its earlier deadline, I have been experimenting with materials. Mental ray ones obviously look so much better in the Mental ray renderer, but it will take probably days to render out if I use all these materials. Here's an example of how I might use metallic paint, metal and plastic/vinyl mental ray materials for the main objects in my animation anyway (this took approx 1:50 mins to render :s) :