Rigging

Hello.

Today I've been spending a bit of time rigging one of the characters. This also includes blend shapes and all the other bits and bobs associated with this part of the process. Id like to think ill be through this stage by the end of the week. I'm going to use a free Mel script called Rigomatic to aid in the rigging process. Hopefully this will speed up the workflow and soon ill be animating.



Mike

:)

Still modeling

Hello.

Today I have been focusing more on my dissertation. This involved going to the library and picking up a few books on the subject matter i will be dealing with. Some of the books included, The great cartoon directors (Jeff Lenburg), Timing for animation (Whittaker and harris), Of mice and magic (Leonard Maltin), Acting for animators (Ed Hooks), The animated movie guide (Jerry Beck), Chuck amuck (Chuck Jones), Animation the mechanics of motion (Chris Webster) and animation from script to screen (Shamus Culhane). I think these books will keep me pretty busy on the literature front for the time being and hopefully they will help me when writing up my dissertation.

The problem just now is figuring out how to phrase this dissertation? I can't seem to get my head around it even though I know I should be able to. Its almost as if I deter myself every time I reach a point where I could possibly start. Always having the urge to change the subject area into something a little more appropriate because I'm afraid of treading on someone's feet regarding the content. In fact the very nature of writing a dissertation just seems a little alien to me right now.

I feel I'm more akin to the project work, however I wont let this detail take my focus away from doing both to the best of my ability.

In terms of project material, I have rendered a few scenes with different back ground colours to try and add more depth and purpose to the environments. More work will follow later in the week, myself and Vykintas will hopefully have the majority of assets and characters completed and ready for animation within a week :).





Mike

:)

more modelling

Hello.

Today I spent the majority of my time modelling and texturing some of the props for the scene with Vykintas. some of these props included the laser device, notepad, severed arm, remote control and a few other bits and bobs. All in all the textures look ok for the objects but i feel that they could do with a bit more work.





That's all for today.

Mike

:)

Modeling

I have been working on the 3d models for the past month and only now have I had the opportunity to complete a few scenes, well produce some test renders anyway. Today I showed them to some of the Abertay lecturers as well as some fellow students. There was a mixed response regarding the test images.

For example some students have stated that perhaps I could change the background colours to make the environment more dingy and less cheer full. This sounded fair enough and I am currently in the process of applying these criticisms to achieve the desired effect.

Here are some of the images I was talking about.


The organic looking mountains in the back are supposed to be stacks of boxes piled in an irregular manner. This was achieved by creating a polygonal mountain and then applying a box texture complete with specular and normal maps to the object.

Individual boxes will also be added to the scene for added effect.

Mike

:)

Animatic

Hello all.

Here is the newest animatic and hopefully the final one.

Enjoy.

The quality of the video isn't great but it gets across the main points of the animation. I decided that some of the timing needed to be adjusted and Vykintas also pointed out a few errors in the initial animatc. Further to this, criticism from fellow students and lecturers helped us lock down any problematic areas within the animatic.

Mike

:)

Animation

For my final honours project I have decided to team up with a fellow student and create a short animation titled fishy science.


This short animation will detail the struggles of an amphibian scientist as he strives to create the perfect human. Although in the end the scientist will discover that there is more to life than the experiments he toils over.

That's the rough story so far however I will post an animatic when it becomes available.

Mike

:)