16/5/2009

We had a look at our production schedule and moved around some of the scenes. Frederik had some "spare time" and wanted som cg animation so we though of giving some of the scenes to him. I gave him two of mine. I gave one to Peter as this scene really had to be done well ("final" scene), and I was behind schedule.. and it was the frog, which I had not been animating yet and Peter knows him quite well. After the last meeting with Michelle we realized that we had to have the 30 seconds of animation to be able to pass, so I took back the two scenes I gave to Frederik. I am now 30 seconds.. but only just..

8/5

Been animating. Tuesday adn Wednesday this week I did renderlayers so that we can start rendering as soon as possible.

I keep having problems with the mesh of the cahracter.. I open a scene which was perfectly fine and suddenly a part of the mesh is stuck to the floor. It is always the area around the jar. Sunit had a quick look and said it was some painted weights that were not 100% painted.. Peter checked and they are 100% painted.. so manybe it is only on my computer or is it something I do?? It is very frustrating as I am behind schedule and do not have time to re-do any scenes.. This have happened to 4 of my scenes now. Scene 420 I re-animated, scene 450 magnus helped copying and transrferring the animation to at new model. In scene 480 the transfer did not work, but found a scene that was not far from the latest version that I could continue working with. Scene 31.. where I am now.. I do not know.. I am going home now.. had enough for today!

25/3/2009

Animating...!

We started animating last week. We are planning in 2D first as the animation is in some places extreme. Michelle and Alex are a bit concerned that the 2D will be a waste of time as everything will be "animated twise". But when looking through our main inspiration from Meindbender I think it will be a waste of time not planning in 2D.

We have a problem with the bear rigg which we hopefully be fixed today or tomorrow. As pretty much all my scenes involves the bear I have spend the last week planning ahead in 2D. Just to get started in 3D I am, today (March 25th), starting on one of the two frog scenes I have..

We were supposed to start animating on March 17th.. I am 9days behind schedule!

26/2/2009

3D scene (Between trees) ended up being made with uv mapping and bumpmaps done in photoshop.

Now working on the 3D scene Waterski.

6/2/2009

Rökur got the Mudbox working on the school computer yesterday, so today I got in ready to Mudbox but now it does not work..!

Tried to make the tree tops with particles (Sprites) but it really looks horrible. A couple of days ago we talked about using a 3D scanner but Michelle said it would not be possible as the tree tops have too many details. Magnus suggested to use paint tools in maya which I will have a look into. I really hope it will work as I am starting to get a bit desperate..! I have worked all week but nothing to show that actually works which kind of feels like time wasted.. -and that I am being lazy..

Starting on the paint tutorials now..

4/1/2009

trying to figure out how particles works and simply if we can use it.. Magnus had an idea of using Sprites as the tree tops in the 3D camera scenes.. -which have been working on. The thing is/thingS ARE: We are not sure if you can actually put lights on these particles and even though we are using images of our real trees it does not, to me, look like it is going to work.. Magnus is a believer though.. And he does know more about these thing than I do but I really do not see a proper possibility. Any ways.. Magnus mentioned the potential use of a 3D scanner, put it through ZBrush (for lower poly) and then a quick paint in Mudbox which we will talk to Sunit about on Monday. But till then I will make the threes, bushes and blades of grass.

We could not get Mudbox on the school computers so tomorrow I get to borrow Astrid's laptop and the plan is to make all the trunks for the waterski, between trees, torpedo and fish from water scenes..

For the weekend I will try to get some more of the matchmoving stuff done.

29/1/2009

Magnus and I went through the pipeline which was a bit of a mess, so that is now fixed. As we soon have all shots, and most of them are still pics, we thought it would be a "waste" of time for me to do the 3D animatic. So now I am doing "animatic" in the scenes that need to be done in 3D. So I have the torpedo, waterski trees, chase between trees and tadpole's p.o.v. scenes that will be as animatic and match up with our still pics.

Started on match moving.. which takes a lot of patience as the 3D model might not be as accurate as it should have been, and the house might not be in the exact same position after moving it from basement to clock building.. something we should have thought of before we moved it.

Magnus showed me how to use Mudbox.. which seems incredibly easy! -And the result seemed quite acceptable.. So when I am done with my scenes they need to "Mudboxed".

27/1/2009 Bloody Match Moving!

Yesterday I started looking through some tutorilas on match moving so that I could start putting our shots into the animatic. I was alot harder that I first assumed. I sat here all night just trying to understand why my layout and camrea did not look like the tutorial guy's. When I was close to insane I went home.

New day.. -New problem. Think I have the camera setting set up correctly now.. but for some reason it does not seem to fit.. I am in doubt wether some things in the 3d set has ben measured wrong, if I fucked up the camera match moving shit again, or if it simply because I should play with it a bit more and adjust the camera lense.. I still do not understand this crap 100%, though I am trying! (The other guys are very busy so I would hate to bother them 934765 times a day..)

Magnus had a final look on the car, finished the bear, working on the moped.

Peter have taken all shots that need to be taken and is riggign the frog.

Anders is matte painting.

26/1/2009 -Damn Trees...

After our meeting Thursday with lots of great critique I started correcting the 3D animatic. Unfortunately I had to leave Viborg Thursday and did not get back until Saturday. I had a quick look at what had to be done at the sets and what we had to work woth. I started on painting the bear house and fence and then changed the driveway. Sunday I had some ladies coming in to help building trees.. lot and lot of trees! We very quickly ran out of our "original" material and tried with some of the new material, that look like frank the tank's mattresses choped to pieces.. which did not work.. at all. So we needed a million trees to be done but did not have any materials to make them with. (The reason why we did not have enough materials is that we needed many more trees than first assumed and when Anders was at the stor to buy some they had, of course, run out.. So Anders just bought whatever he could get.) Well we had to make trees with whatever we could so we tried with moss wich worked quite fine. So we went to get ALOT of moss and twigs.

If we had done this froim the beginning we could have saved a lot of time (much faster working with the moss) and money.. as the twigs and moss is right out side. However we are a bit concerned that the moss will not keep looking fresh.. but lots of pic were taken Sunday so if we have any to reshoot it will be done this week so the damn moss should stay fresh.

21/1/2009

3D animatic needs to be done for tomorrow, so that is what I am working on still. Peter is rigging the frog, Magnus is modelling the bear and Anders is wokring on matte painting.

Magnus and Anders had another look at the waterfall scene as it was one thing we talked about with Tod earlier. They changed the camera movements and angles and it works really good.

Andreas (Peters friend who helps us with the light on set) cannot make it here on Monday so he will be here on Sunday instead, which means one less day to get the job done. Fortunately, as I will not be here Friday, both Sarah and Astrid would like to helped me work on finishing the set sometime during the weekend.

Martin (CGA) did not have time to help modelling as he is already helping the Motherfuckers. So Lisa has now taken the submarine, she will finish the moped and she will clean up the car.

Tomorrow, Thursday, we are going to the Photoshop class, as Michelle thopught would be usefull for us. I am sure I will learn something but I am not so sure about the other guys.. They know Photoshop quite well. But we are going.. so hopefully it will not be a complete waste of time!

20/1/2009 -Group Meeting.

As we are a bit behind schedule we just had a meeting to figure out just what had to be done and by when. Thursday we will have a meeting again to see how things are going and to critique what we each have done since today.

Thursday afternoon I will have to be ready with 2nd draft of the 3D animatic.

Ready for Mondday morning:
Sets to be ready for the actual shoot. I will do the sets and I have Rie from KAU2 to help in the weekend.
Anders will have 2-3 matte paintings ready.
Lisa, CGA, will have done the modelling of the submarine.
Hopefully we can get Matin, CGA, to polish the modelling of the car and moped.
Louie will have the modelling of the fish ready.

Peter has started on the rigging of the frog and expects it to be done some time next week. Wednesday at the earliest.

Magnus is finishing th modelling of the frog.

16/1/2009

3D animatic needs to be finished for Monday. First draft is done but something looks weird.. Almost as if the is not enough time for what has to happen but I will look through it this weekend. Peter took some pretty good pics of the set but unfortunately some of the trees look horrible (Too saturated and artificial). We talked about spray painting them but worried that they might get ruined. Peter tried to fix them in Photoshop. It looked okay but it did take some time.. we have not decided wether to spray or photoshop. For a chase scene between trees Peter has build a 3D set, as our camera is too big to put into the real set, and put on tree textures. It looked very different from our real set.. But I think it might get to look acceptable, especially in the areas where the camera will fly by. Magnus is working at home as he is using certain programs we do not have at the school. Magnus came with a textured frog the other day. I think it looked really good.. We tried to stretch it to see how it would affect the texture but it seemed that the texture got "smudgy" in places with small details. But other than that it looked really good. Louie will help us with modelling and uv mapping next week. Anders (who is in Madrid) is not completely convinced that we should accept Louie's help as he feels we should do it our selves. The rest of us think that since we are a bit behind schedule it would be the right choice to accept.

14/1/2009

I will continue to work on the 3D animatic.


13/1/2009

Started working on the 3D animatic. In the evening we went to build more trees for our sets. We need an extra set with only trees to have behind the other sets to avoid the sharp edge from when the main set ends and the matte painting starts.


12/1/2009

Meeting with Tod and Henrik. Though the car is not finished I started modelling the submarine.

6/1/2009

Wanted to finish the model that I build during the holidays but since I could see some mistakes I wanted Magnus to have a look at it and maybe help out. It turned out that there were alot of mistakes..! Mangnus thinks it could be this version Maya or the driver as he has experienced weird things himself. So right now we are waiting for Thomas Alhmark to come have a look at the computers and see what happens.. After that I will be remodelling that car.

5/1/2009

Meeting with Michelle, Tod and Henrik. After lunch we all went down the basement to finish the sets.