Episode 13: The Looming Deadline

So my tutor was wonderful and I've been given another extension on my 3D character animation.
I've been plagued with IT issues and then often just my own stupidity (those are the most frustrating ones).

So as it is I'm sitting waiting for the last 41 frames of "A Quest For Knowledge" to be rendered.

I can see the finish line but just can't do anything to get there faster.

I thought I'd talk a little about my assembly process. I think that my renders came out pretty good, but I've further improved the look of them and added in Background plates to get the final look of the short.



Here is a screen grab from Adobe After Effect (the compositing program I used to put the short together).

And here is a screen grab of the original out of Maya.

So as you can see quite a bit different.

The layers on the right are the various adjustments I made. 

Basically I put a contrast curve on and lowered the Saturation 10%

Then the second layer consists of two lighting effects, a slight lens flare from the crystal and then "godrays"

beaming down from top right. 

next is a white layer, this has a glowing particle effect which resembles glowing insects or magic dust.

These glowing orbs float around in the background, glowing on, then off as they travel.

Below them is the Targa sequence from Maya.

Finally the Back ground plates, the reason for two is simple, by duplicating a layer then putting it in Multiply mode the layer bellows contrast and saturation are boosted.

And there you have it, my process for putting Albeit together.

So for our other assignment, Charlie Floyd is tantalizingly close to having the VFX done. 

There is still the CG street to be comped and then the film is need of a good grading.  But so close! 

I'm pretty happy with how the first VFX watch through went. It has been a busy last few weeks, especially with a couple of animators going home for the holidays. It meant I ended up trying to smash out a load of shots that never really got the attention they deserved. I'm looking forward to handing in my animation tomorrow so I can go back and fix up a few more of the shots from Charlie Floyd 

So for the link of the week! I've gone with a tribute to Charlie Floyds pre-production, for those in the know I'll just say "Macro, Stamen........ Pollen"

http://vimeo.com/69225705

Episode 12: The Render Wars

So been crazy busy last two weeks with finishing the animation an now over a week of rendering.
Been difficult to get through the renders, IT have had three server outages with another planned to night then next Tuesday. I've had a great time logging back into 12 computers and setting the render going again from the frame it dropped.

Being not the only person round tech wanting computers has had it's draw back too, twice now I've come in to find people have logged me off, and just yesterday I came in to find the power cable had been yanked from the back of one of the computers. I mean who does that? could have only been some one either really ticked off I was on that particular machine or Someone who doesn't know to just hold the power button down to turn a computer off? Either way I was pretty ticked off.

I can only imagine tensions will reach boiling point next semester when the other 3rd years  begin to render as well.
Anyway enough venting...... ah

Here is my playblast edit.

Password is: albiet

https://vimeo.com/70020247