How to Imagine A Square

I prefer this shot to the last one. Just changing the position of the arms makes it so much less.. generic and boring. Plus it effetively leaves him one hand free which really helps for the next shot I'm doing. So it's win win. I figured, seeing as I want him to cover his eyes for the next shot, I can't have him holding the cube with both hands, obviously!

How to Imagine A Circle and Square

Two new scenes. First, here is the next time he pulls down one of those slides. And makes a circle.

Plus, he also makes a cube. However, I do not like how this one has turned out. He grabs the cube wrong.

How to Imagine Basic Shapes Part2

Ok, edit made.

Animated UVW Mapping Gizmo to move the texture, and biped slowed down.

But I think it should be slower. Just a little, the shaking hands at the beginning.

How is this, as a little bit slower?

How to Imagine Basic Shapes

Happyman is now going to attempt to teach Unluckyman how to imagine some shapes. Back to the basics.

This scene needs some changes. First of all, I need to slow the last part down. He gestures too fast, he moves too fast, and you can't read the sign.

Second, I need to find out how I can make the banner look like its sliding down, not squeezing in. You know? I had to use a squash to make the banner move, but the textured picture changes shape too.

Bowling Ball Landing

Ok, extending this scene even more.

KAPOW!

I don't think there is much I need to say about this, it is self explanatory...

Going back

Ok, taking a slight U turn here. It has been brought to my attention, and rightly so, that it is silly to have such a big chair for both of them. Their feet are always dangling, and it looks a bit offputting.

So I am spending my time going back to all the scenes I have already done and shrinking the chair, then moving everyone down so they are sitting on the chair, and then reanimating the hands.

Sigh. Lots of work. May have to wait til tomorrow before I can continue...

Editing

Edit.

I'm extending the last scene. I don't want to cut to yet another shot from a different angle, so instead I am continuing the scene from this shot. As a change from last time, I have removed the initial beginning where Happyman watches the ball drop, because the ball has already dropped. So it works better when it cuts straight to Happymans reaction.

I have Happyman attempting to aid Unluckyman.

Literally.

Aid? Geddit?

Anyway, I don't like how twisted Unluckymans jacket looks, so I need to work on the positioning of his arm...

Scene 003 so far so far....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4R7y_dw3AM

Slight edit to the scene 003 so far.

It's on my youtube channel, because of the size. Too big for this blog.

Here you can see the shakey legs have been corrected, plus the next shot has been added.

Scene 003 so far...

What I have of the scene I'm working on so far.

Ok, so this was the third attempt at rendering this, the other two just had niggling little problems so I won't be uploading them.

Actually, this one has one problem with it too. I may upload a better version later. In shot (5 I think?) the tall stilted man should NOT be shaking so much. I do not know why he does...

Ballooons and more textures

Well, I've been putting all my shots together, just to get an idea of what it looks like so far, and one of the things that occurred to me was the speed of the balloon in one of my most recent shots.

Floats up far too far and far too fast. So this is me editing it, better? It didn't look right, floating slowly in one shot, then speeding up in the other.

Additionally, I have finished the rendering of my outside scene, which means I'm practically ready to begin fully rendering my whole scene 1! yay!!

Here are a few pictures of it:

To the left is me comparing the size of my model to the size of my brick textures. The closest building has larger bricks and I wanted to see which looked more realistic. I went for the furthest one, the bricks are smaller.

Below is experimentation with lighting. Trying to get that bloody lampost to look realistic.

And the final thing, here is a few shots:

There are 6 main shops at the front of the street which I paid particular attention to, as they will be used to hopefully show the degradation of shops related to entertaining in this world.

Fire and Balloons and Textures (oh my)

Ok, so I finished the 'moving chair' scene. I think it works well as a story telling device, as WELL as helping me move my chair closer. Plus, I have the next scene done too! Yay!

You gotta imagine a lot of massive fire bursting from those candles...

Right. Gotta get on with rendering this scene, textures and whatnot. Not my strong point, but I think I'm getting there. The first one was too dirty, the second was too uniform. I think the third is a bit better...Plus a little detail where I can...

New textures

Working on some more texturing for the buildings.

Once I get these done, I can start rendering scene one as I animate, help me out a bit with time...

Fire!

So the second he touches the cake, WHOOOMF!

Lots of fire.

Which hasn't been added yet..

Moving once again

Changed the timing slightly again..

Moving again

Okay, here are the movements for this scene.

What do we think?

Yup, far too fast. I need a bigger pause between him straining to reach and him deciding to pick up the chair and move it. Can you imagine how fast his though process must be here? Unrealistic!

I need to think about the motives some more...

Moving

Hmm. I found when I wanted to pass the cake sideways to Unluckyman, he's sitting far too far away! For continuity reasons, I can't just MOVE him closer without explaining why. I could go back and alter the previous scenes, but that would require reanimating a lot of previous shots.

Here is my solution. I hope that it still retains the story, in fact I hope it adds to the story, showing further that you can alter objects after they have been made by touching.

Difficult...

I find texturing very very difficult. I just cannot do it :(

Making a Cake again...

Okay, so here is the scene where he makes a cake. Told ya he makes a cake!

(Imagine there will be flames. Obviously it needs stuff adding in after effects)

Editing a scene

Okay, so speaking to Sarah and we decided that my last version of this scene was a bit all over the place, mainly because of the camera angles. I kept snapping from one side to the other, and had my character head off to the right, then enter from the right. Here is my attempt at fixing that.

However, I worry that there are now two shots that are far too similar. The shot where Happyman crouches down is too similar as an angle to the shot before it. I may need to work on it more.

Making......a CAKE!

If I'd have known you were coming I'd have baked a cake.

Hahaha! heh heh.

Hoooo.

Perhaps not.

Oh well!

Unluckyman is feeling a bit, unsure what he should be doing, and Happyman is suddenly feeling responsible, so decides to show him what he can do by making a cake! Complete with candles!

Seated

Just adding this little picture from the scene I just did. Dunno why, I just like it.

What's wrong with his face?

I have no words.....I don't even.... I mean.... Huh?

It looks like it needs a caption, like it is some kind of advert..

"Good evening. I am Happyman. Some of you may know me as the recent survivor of the

infamous and tragic "Ice Skating Collision" of 2006, but I like to think of myself as more than that...."

Going to sit down.

Deciding to sit down, Unluckyman heads for his brand new chair.

Making A Stool

making A Stool

The importance of references.

I need my Unluckyman to crouch by the stool. I imagined in my head him crouching, leaning his arms on his legs. You can see my first attempt on the left. When I tried making it, his arms couldn't reach, and I had to settle for putting them on his knees.

This looked stupid. So I got up and crouched myself, to see what I was doing wrong. For starters, that position I made is MEGA uncomfortable. When you crouch, you don't hover, you SIT on your legs. Plus your feet go on tiptoes. So on the right you can see how much difference that makes.

I do this often, but I am writing this up as advice to everyone who animates. Always, always get a reference. Get a mirror or a camera and practise movement in front of it. I have a collection of videos on my computer of me doing silly silly things for the animations I make.

References = good.

And how he reacts to it.

I need Happyman to stand up now and walk over to the stool, touch it so it can turn into a chair. However, animating him standing and moving will take unnecessary amount of time, and isn't THAT beneficial to the story, so instead I shall give the impression of him doing that instead. I shall show him briefly standing up at the end of the scene before (see below) and have him walking past in the show above. Done.

But alas, I needed to change the top scene, as when I was animating, I forgot he was holding a suitcase. Doooi!

Making a Chair as well

Unluckyman tries to make a chair too!

Making a Chair now...

Making a chair...

NOW WITH SHADOWS!!!

Scene 003 Shot 01 Part III

I wanted to see how the scene looks with shadows, and also how long it takes to render. This scene took about an hour. An hour!

I need a few backlights on the other side of the dome, as when it zooms out the characters over there are quite dark. Also, I have no idea whats with that strange shadow when the door closes.

Oh, the door closing? It's something I have decided to change. Instead of leaving the door wide open, which isn't very sensible realistically, there will be a big heavy duty looking door on the outside that opens to let them in, and on the inside it just looks like a seamless part of the wall. Obviously when the dome gets destroyed, it will be revealed as a heavy duty door on the inside as well...

A chair! A chair!! It's being made!

And I changed it so that it bounces less harshly.

And changed again so the speed is slightly different.

LIGHTS, camera and action.

Ok, so this is complicated and a bit fast, but I'll try to explain. I'm trying to learn how to sort the lighting out, and it took a lot of trial and error before I found the one I want. I have numbered the fast moving movie to explain what is wrong with each bit.

Ahem.

1. Was the first attempt. Using "Shadow Map" for the shadow has resulted in this strange flickering shadow on his body. Not quite sure why, so I tried again using a different rendering tool.

2. Then I used "Mental Ray" as a renderer combined with "Mental Ray Shadow Mapping" to see if that made a difference. I only bothered rendering a few frames of this one before I got fed up. The shadow was far too pixelated, so I gave it up. Look at that shadow on the floor. What is that??

3. Another attempt with "Shadow Map" for my shadows and "Mental Ray" as the renderer. Not much better than the first shot.

4. Using a different scene now, and it really shows how bizarre that shadow is on Unluckymans body. This was "Shadow Map" again. I don't know why it keeps doing this.

5. Finally, I used "Area Shadows", which makes a much nicer looking sharp shadow, but severely increases rendering time. Unfortunately it seems the most effective. Sigh.

6. And back to the first scene, to see if it worked. It did. Although, there is still a shadow for the umbrella after it is closed and also for the suitcase in Unluckymans hand. These objects were meant to be invisible but unfortunately were 0.005 invisible instead of being fully invisible. That little tiny bit was all that was needed to ruin it unfortunately. Still, I think I know how to use lights and shadows now....

Making A Stand, altered again.

And another alteration. Camera slightly slower....

Making A Stand, altered.

Slight alteration to the timing of the camera, following the child for a bit longer.

Making A Stand, completed?

Ok, so this scene is pretty much finished. I have even included the little kid with a rocket flying by. This shot is immediately after the previous video I have shown with the little dragon. I hope they look good together, but there's a possibility that it will look odd, because he leaves bottom left of screen and arrives top centre, looking a bit wierd. I shall see.