Shot List

today we assigned shots to everyone, so we can begin gathering reference and animating tomorrow.
i also worked on the sky for the environments.

It's Not That Bad ...

Today we started to layout the scenes with the most current assets [character rigs/environments] and to our dismay we had several scaling issues. nearly all the characters are finished and rigged  but the models were not scaled to the environments accordingly causing a lot of problems. luckily, the cat and the mother had the correct relationship and tubbs had a general control so he is able to be scaled even though he has been rigged. it is just a matter of scaling the environments to accomodate the characters which is appears to be not too difficult.

As the environments get rescaled i am working on the painting for the sky for the background.

Posters

The posters are nearly complete, next thing for me to move onto while the rigging is having their final touches is the painting of the background which will be behind the fence of the house.
Matthew Darragh was our guest lecturer who gave us insight on industry life, directing short films and story telling which i found to be very intriguing, and i could empathise with his explanation of letting the people who know what their doing [in terms of modelling and lighting etc [the specialists]] work on the things he was unfamiliar with. i also found myself having the same feelings about 2d vs 3d in the way that pencil and paper feels better and as nice as it is having full control of the camera and getting any desired view you like, you cannot correct something as easily as you can in 2d and having direct control over the entire figure as to using controls to move the characters.
He also mentioned the importance of the principles and how anyone can learn a program but an animator who understands animation will be able to utilize it, and that goes for any program. Matthew also explained how the different story can be clearer or more entertaining using different sylistic mediums [2d/3d].

Catchup

Today i caught up with what the team worked on and they have had set backs but trucked on and managed to get some decent progress.
I wasnt that productive today, i worked on divying up the posters between jono and i and made a start and completed 1, im not going to spend as much time on the rest as i did this first one as it took too long. Im gonna start the shot list, but it would be easier if the team was complete more often than not.

Kitchen Render - Housekeeping

Today i fixed the lighting in the kitchen to look nice like in the bedroom [i used area lights].
We also had a meeting to see where we were all at and what we need from each other to progress the project. it was a very productive meeting, and it was nice to have a small break from the computers and bond a bit in a casual setting.
im going to make a turnaround for tubbs in his mother costume so that it can be modeled over the weekend.

Lights

I played around and finished touches on more texturing, i had a mental ray render for the bedroom which i am quite pleased with. i painted in a miniature portrait in the frame for the lounge of the kitchen scene. The team is making steady progress, we are all anxious to get into some animating.

Revisiting the Kitchen

Today i revisited the textures for the kitchen, i felt i was able to sort a lot of things out when it comes to texturing while testing a lot of methods in the bedroom environment. The renders in the kitchen look quite nice it is just a matter of lighting i think, i had a go but it a another skill in itself i have to explore more to achieve the look i want.

Environment details

I added some more details to the bedroom, i added some peeling of the wallpaper and some stickers and drawings on the walls to bring to life the idea that the room belongs to a child who loves super heroes.

Texturing cont

Continued refining the Bedroom textures today, added some drawings for the wall to give some character to the environment and bring it to life a bit more.

Bedroom Texture

The bedroom is just about complete, most of the models have some colour on them. The wood textures came out quite decent but i didn't want to use that as a crutch for other objects i wasnt sure how to texture. i tried to use it as sparingly as possible, as i continue to flesh out the detail of other materials im unsure of.

I decided to add some empty ice cream tubs in the corner of the room to hint at the origin of tubbs nickname.

Texturing cont.

Im slowly getting more comfortable texturing the environment, and i like the direction its headed.

I'd like to get a bit faster at texturing so i can move on to progressing on other aspects of the project.

Texturing

I started texturing the bedroom today, after we had a quick meeting in the morning to catch up and delegate tasks. we are a bit behind schedule but not too far from where we should be which is good. the quality of the work is still to a high standard. We are making good head way to where we should be which is great and everyone seems to be focused.

im thinking of adding some hero print on the pillows/sheets or some plaid to make the tectures less boring.

Finished the Previs today, i'm quite pleased with how it turned out. The team has been doing a great job!

Previs

Today I continued adding the models to the previs and playing around with the cameras to get the shots a bit more accurate. Its really encouraging seeing how much of the project has been completed.

we also had a masterclass on SSS skinning in maya, it was a bit difficult to follow for me [because i am not a 3d student] but i understood the purpose of it and look forward to trying to implement them in the project.

Referencing in the models

Today began referencing in the models into the animatic so we can get a clearer idea of how the film will looks like and also so that we can gauge how much we have progressed. I have found it to be not too difficult apart from when i look for the files that were originally referenced when the original animatic was made. i also have to manually locate references each time i open a scene which is very tedious. however when i parent the imported model to the animated block from the animatic it is very exciting to see the model move no matter how primitive it appears

UV's

Today i changed the walls and continued to have a go at unwrapping some assets. its really difficult, i might get some help tomorrow. I used today to try and see what i do and don't understand about unwrapping. its a very technical and interesting aspect of 3d.

Bedroom

Today i had a go at doing some textures, unwrapping easy things like walls. i did what was within my ability and tried painting the scene to get a sense of what color scheme i think would fit most appropriately. i think i will change the walls to a light blue tint to reflect tubbs innocence a bit cos the pale yellow green is too gross. played a bit around with the sss shading with the mother but i didnt progress any further than my other attempts at understanding it, i might just wait for the masterclass.

Unwrapping

Today i continued working on the tree, i think it is finished i just need to liase with my teammates as to how to tackle the leaves. We got some help from Oana on how to efficiently unwrap our models which i thought we found very helpful. i caught up with our members to see how they were going and gave some input where it was applicable, but overall i was very impressed with how up to date and hard working everyone is going.