Creating DVD

I have started working on DVD studio pro, and to be honest, i dont like it one bit. its fairly easy to use but i just find that u have limited options, i think iDVD is much better, and a lot easier to use.

i have had problems loading work as it constantly crashes on me! its getting really annoying and its slowing my work flow down.

Breadbeard and Guard

i have now got the two remaing rigs, now i can start to animate my remaining shots.
i have been playing with the two rigs and find that they are a lot of fun to mess around with. the captine has been created with a jiggle diformer on its beard and its quite interesting watching how its moves around while you animate.
i have also noticed that the rig has a few problems, when the legs are moved into positions the belt moves into his belly and its quite noticeable. althought its quite annoying its not a big issue and i hope to get around it for the final animation.


the Guard comes on a scooter, lookwise it looks really cool and you can tell a lot of work has gone into it, however, the model does not come as a whole and its really hard to move it around without the bones and clusters moving away from the mesh. i couldnt find a way to fix this problems so i had to move everything else insted of the model, it wasnt the best of solutions but it worked.


here are some shots of the rigs




the picture above shows the position i will start one of my shots in, i believe this is shot 60, in this shot the ship is about to crash into them and they are about to brace themselves for impact.

Patches

here is a test of my animation for shot 40 with patches. in this shot he's about to be fired out the cannon and he doesn't notice straight away, my challenge here is to be able to show the three stages of the scene, the first scene where he doesn't yet know what's going on, when he finds out, and when he gives up due to no choice. i think i have done quite well here, i will try to improve the part where he gives up as its a little too sudden.

Client contact

for the this project i have to keep in contact with my client through either meeting or email, i have been in contact since I've been accepted into the team. we have had regular meetings to discus things like shot breakdowns and the sort of animation they want. other meets have supplied us with rigs, ideas and deadlines. so far i have had all my questions answered and i have a good idea of what they want from us.

here are some of the emails that i had replies to when contacting Lewing, our team leader,

showreel modeling!

I have now started modeling and Ive been trying a number of different ways to model, Ive used polygons and nurbs, Ive learned a lot of different new techniques and short cuts which will allow me to speed up my work flow. i have used tutorials online to create non organic structures and object.

here are some of the projects Ive worked on so far,



here is the beginning of my plane, as you can see ive been using reference to get a good model. i have used subdiv proxy here which allows me to work on half the model in low settings while having the other mirrored half in high quality, this is very useful as you always know what your model looks like.




here is a smoothed half finished version of my model





I have added colour to my plane, although its not textured yet I am pretty happy with the result so far!

I modeled a pair of headphones using a tutorial on the internet, I managed to use some of my new skills learnt in plane project, for example i used the proxy here too to get an idea of what the model would look like when smoothed out when finished. I also experimented with adding a bend to the centre piece once i finished it.







here is my final model!



here is a model which I got from a book, i was very happy with the result.



i would like to have more to show in my showreel, i have done other models but i dont i feel like they are good enough to go on the showreel.

here is something i modeled but im still questioning whether or not i will put it on my dvd.

confirmation of work :D

I am now an official member of the Pirate team! i really liked this movie way above the rest, i found that the story was very well put together, it was really funny and creative. the characters where exactly how they have pictured them to us, i really like how dynamic each character is. i also managed to get a rough idea of who will also be working in this project and i can easily say that it looks like it will be done in time! the second year students working in the projects have show real motivation in the past and i can see that we will be of great help to the third year!

here are the characters in the movie!



this is breadbeard, the captain of the ship



this is snooty, the second in command and a slightly posh talking pirate



here is patches, he is the worker on the ship, the guy who gets pushed around, he gets pushed around so much that he's fired out a cannon in the movie! :D


we were all sent a rig to animate so we could show our skills, for some reason i wasnt able to use it and i had to use moom once again, i saved myself the trouble to animate something new so i just polished some of my old work, Lewis seem to like it so i was let off :P

here it is


the reason i have chosen this animation to show to the third years is that i believe i was able to capture realistic movements for both the body language and the lipsyncing! i am mostly proud of how well i managed to get the right movements in the mouth and how smoth it is!

Showreel ideas

for the last term of our second year we have to prepare a DVD show reel. i have chosen to concentrate on modeling and some texturing. i have modeled a lot more than I've done anything else, and i feel comfortable doing it. i have models which i could polish up and add to my show reel, these models are more based upon structures and no-organic things. i would like to have some character modeling to show as well, i will try to get more modeling done for my show reel in the next few weeks. i have already started working on a few projects but these are far from finished.

i will be using DVD studio PRO to make my DVD show reel, although i will have to learn how to first :)

tthe obvious advantage of having this done by the end of the year is that i can apply for work experience and hopefully get my name around a little more. it will take a lot of time to perfect it, (if i can perfect it in time) but it will be worth the hours. i will upload my modeling presses as i go along.