late night modeling, chauffeuring files and the AA man...

Its been a hectic couple of days. My task for this week was to complete my modeling section for Friday 21st Nov so it could be added to the final street layout and passed on to Dan who could use the weekend to begin texturing. 

My buildings are quite detailed and I have always wanted to achieve a variety of architectural looks in each to keep it looking interesting for the audience and also to challenge my up until now limited modeling skills. This has meant my modeling has taken more time than I initially planned to spend on it, but I was determined to complete my section and to a standard I was happy with. I have been offered help from Dan and Yaniv in terms of completing and destroying the buildings and whilst Im very grateful for this, Im very aware of how much the others in the group have to do themselves and am in the mind frame if everyone else can complete their section I can therefore complete mine on time. In any case I've been pretty confident I'll do it and I new the exact look I wanted to achieve (lot of I's there!)

*ahem* Anyway, I worked on my file solidly and up Friday at 5:00am to resume work I was determined to have it complete so I could meet the group in the afternoon to hand in and discuss the next step of the project. It had got to about 12:30 and I was doing quite well (apart from Maya crashing no less than 10 times PAIN) with the modeling when GRAVE (i.e big pain) my booleans tool stopped working which meant I couldn't continue destroying the buildings as I had been doing by differencing shapes into the geometry. Pulling vertices and sculpt geometry tool will only get you so far and the buildings so I decided to complete the buildings as much as I could at home then booleans what needed to be done at college (I have had continual problems with Maya on my mac laptop and believe something to be wrong with the err.....not entirely legal copy I have *ahem*) 

As if by magic...the shop keeper appeared, eeeer I mean my producers rang me. Firstly I spoke to Producer Dan who asked how the work was going. I told him the issues i was having and (perhaps a little to kindly) he said I could hand him my file Monday. I knew straight off this wasn't on as A. my deadline was Friday...this Friday, today in fact B. I'd taken long enough as it is and any longer would be taking the mick (to put it in polite terms) C. I really wanted to complete this and move onto the next section (not that I'd stopped caring but I want to animate damn it! I said "Dan, now I know thats not good enough and neither do you...I WILL have this file to you today, latest Saturday morning" Straight after talking to Dan, I spoke to producer Matt and reiterated what was said to Dan and that I would arrive at college 3:15 (bearing in mind its an hours drive for me).

GRAVE! As I was leaving (literally just got up the road) my tyre goes BANG and it appears I have a puncture *thumbs up* NOT and I manage to drive my car up a hill with very limited control. After throwing myself to the road screaming WHY?! for a couple of minutes I ring the AA who GRAVE tell me they'll be with me in about 1hr 15mins. I ring the producers to give them the low down and tell them I'll get there as soon as I can. Dan had to go to work, but Matt was going to stay on and meet me. After a nice man appeared and fixed my tyre adding "you've done a good job on this one" meaning "love you fudged it up good and proper" I was on my way once more after GRAVE needing petrol then GRAVE being at a stand still whilst some idiots had decided to crash into one another on the A249. I had been in continual conference with Matt over each of these graves and told him he could go home and I would drop off the file to his house when it was ready. 

I arrived at college just gone 5pm (just about when everyone else was leaving) and worked on the file until I was kicked out of college at 7pm. I'd literally kicked matt out of college about 6 and told him to go home. Apologies for this but I was A. conscious of how long he'd waited for me and B. able to work better knowing Matt wasn't there, therefore feeling less pressure (no offense Matt) 

Kicked out and work continued on the file when GRAVE struck once more as I discovered parts of the building had gone missing even though Im now a paranoid saver. I then had to remake parts and booleans difference as importing old versions of the geometry didn't allow booleans to work. 

9pm: I rang Matt to tell him I was on my way and once round his house we composed the final street layout...you guessed it....GRAVE one of my building structures wouldn't import in to the scene. We tried saving it as different file types, saving just the structure on its own and reimporting but it still wouldn't work. Then a further GRAVE Maya now crashed every time we tried to open this now HUGE file (check out the lunchbox main blog to see how the bear now made the file smaller and more manageable) kept crashing. Matts laptop out of the picture, the file was composed on my Mac and we called it a day at 11pm. What still needed to be done? Weeeeeell, I'd noted from Matts occlusion render tests the scaling of the car was not right compared to the buildings, so this needed to be sorted. Also, more rubble needed to be added to the scene now that all the buildings were in. Matt would complete this over the weekend and give the final updated elements to Dan on monday. 

Now it was my job to hand over the final file which was being held catpive on my mac over to Master Grigsby. I was unfortunately unable to get hold of him via the phone and by the time I had returned back to home, Dan had rung and we agreed Saturday to ewxhange the file.

Saturday 12:30: after battling with the christmas shopper traffic I arrived at the bears resisdent to give him the final street layout. The file size worreid him as its massive without texturing, lighting or even animation information. This needed and since then has been sorted (thank you Dan) by deleting history and a general file clean up. I updated Dan on Matts decision and then helped Dan to list what he needed to do this weekend and left him to continue with the work without me yapping on in his ear (I....talk....loads? pffft surely not) 

SO....wasn't this an interesting tale? Possibly not, its full of plot holes and Im not sure it'll get published. BUT, it does show that there are elements in life AND with software that will go wrong and delay you no matter how much you plan your time out. Its annoying...a total GRAVE but these matters test you and I've certainly learnt a lot of perseverance lately and Im glad I kept on going as I was able to fulfill my deadline and keep the project rolling. I was only to happy to chauffeur the file back and forth because I knew it was my fault these matters had gone wrong (even if some were beyond my control) I just wanted things sorted so everyone could move on. Thankfully I can say...this has happened and Im looking forward to the next stage...and any challenges it decides to throw in our faces

WE ARE TEAM LUNCHBOX, DONT YOU DARE TAKE US ON!

Enough talk...let's look at some lovely pictures to sooth that sore brain of yours. Heres some screen prints of my modeling section:

The full monty...er...section. 7 lovely houses, which will you live in? I've tried to include a mixture of houses as well as shops/pubs to give some variety to the environment and give the sense that it was used/live in. Im pleased I've managed to achieve a number of different looks as well as widths and heights to the buildings. One of my feedback notes from producer Dan was to break up the linear quality of the buildings to give the sense of destruction which I think I've been able to achieve here. 

Damage to the buildings has been created by a mixture of pulling vertices, sculpt geometry tool, booleans difference using a variety of shapes from soccer balls to ones I have made in polys as well as the CV curve tool. 
The shattered glass is made from simple poly planes. I have about 5-10 different varieties that are rescaled, rotated and duplicated to create numerous looks and the effect of damage throughout my section of the scene. The only curves left are the balcony ones, everything else has been converted to polys to help Dan in terms of applying textures.
Environment animation: I have left the street sign intact (apart from dents and cracks) as the group decided they would like have it swinging in one of the shots.

Overall, Im very pleased with the final outcome of my modeled section. Im proud I was able to complete it on time and get artistic with the details and damage. I enjoyed creating new ways to damage my buildings and feel this shows in the modeling. I feel my piece will contribute to the group environment and convey the feeling of a post apocalyptic street.

enter the lord of maya...

thats right, the LORD of Maya. Over the last couple of days we've had a guest lecturer Rob Jones come in and talk to us about rendering in layers in maya for compositing in after effects. 

I have to say I know very little about rendering/compositing but Robs lecture helped me understand the benefit of this process and also not depending soley on maya for all our lighting. 

Rob began by introducing himself and taking note of all the level 2 teams, their members and type of environment. From that he was able to suggest some further research we could look at and with the deadline fast approaching, the advise to everyone was to pre-visualize by start blocking out shots (this would help in terms of what needed texturing and what didn't and would again help save us time for getting the project complete. 

We then watched a shot animation by Blur Studios called A Gentleman's Duel. 

Rob then provided breakdown shots to explain the layering technique for basic 3 point lighting. It was so helpful to see how the layers added together created the final look of the piece and I was stunned to learn one shot consisted of 50 layers.

Rob has left us with a gentleman's duel film as well as the layers to play around with in after effect and practice adding different lighting effects. He also left us a pdf which he created on lighting as well as a phone box Maya model which we can practice different render passes on such as the occlusion layer we learnt about. 

After practicing with these different elements RObs came round and saw each individual group and offered his thoughts on what was the next stage to consider in the project. For us, Rob helped us consider the different layers we might need such as

• Buildings
• Spider - including further layers of - environment map, colour pass, occlusion pass, reflection/spec pass

This is just a general list of layers, the final list will need to be established soon if we are to begin making some test renders. 

As well as this Rob advised us on the following:

• consider what elements require further details for close up shots i.e pavements
• need to establish and start blocking off shots (pre vis)
• consider light linking (you can tell Maya to light certain objects and not have it affect others)

Overall it was a very helpful couple of sessions with Rob and it was nice to be shown these techniques in Maya. Rob was thoroughly prepared with examples, demonstrations and files for us to experiment with in our own time. I think its a bit of a relief to the group that we don't have to solely rely on Maya to get the project sorted and I think it will save us a lot of time when rendering in layers. I think Rob has given our group a lot to think about but by addressing these elements will allow us to best utilize the remaining time on the project. I hope the college will bring back Rob for further tuition as his knowledge and guidance was well received by all in level 2. 

everybody was kung fu fiiiiiiighting!

Ok, that title may not seem relevant but as I modeled away and had Kung Fu Panda playing in the background, I realized there were some good examples of damaged structures and rubble used in the film. On closer inspection the shapes used are actually pretty simple block which just demonstrates that simplicity is key no matter how small or large scale a project is (ok they've got magic rendered textures too...but still) Below are a couple of photo examples that might inspire some further destruction ideas to include in your modeling section. I certainly think this will help me out. 

Week 6: Maya Update

So I thought I better post some images of how my Maya modeling is going now were at the end of week 6. I've taken a few screen shots (why on earth did they teach us to say screen dumps in secondary school???) 

Anyway, heres a look at some of the buildings and street extras I've been making. I've gone through a list made by Dan of some of the extras he thought would be in the scene such as street signs. These and made a few which can be duplicated, destroyed in different ways and dotted around the scene.

Street life: an alternative street lamp, 2 example road signs, rubbish bin, can, drain. O, and that curly wurly thing, was an experiment I was doing with polys, might make a good sign bracket or help with debris on the street floor?

One end of the street: My first building was the one on the far right and from this first exercise I decided to bring down the amount of detail I put into my buildings but still make them different and interesting looking. I've tried to recreate the mix of heights, widths and architectural details London is known for but put my own spin on mix of designs. Destruction of this has begun to occur but needs completion after I have finished modeling my section.

Come on down to the other side: Here you can see where my modeling is certainly not finished but my houses are mapped out ready for extra details to be added such as doors, windows and extra frame work or any architectural detail I feel is necessary. Again destruction needs to be shown but only after the models are complete.

Overall, Im very pleased with how my section is looking and I feel with some extra details I'll be well on the way to creating part of a lived in environment. 

My only concern at this stage is the amount of time left to completing my section. Im not sure how it happened, but my section seems to be a bigger section. Im trying very hard to complete it on time and to a good standard but I have voiced my concerns of completion to some of the group members and next weeks group meeting we shall discuss shuffling about tasks so that the project doesn't become hindered as the next stages of texturing and animation need to begin. 

I feel I've become a lot more familiar and creative with my use of modeling in Maya and feel this will continue with further practice. 

dear santa...

...for christmas, all i want is

A DECENT BEDTIME!!!

 

is that too much to ask?

(posted 3:00am from the skeletal freak known as Sarah)

spiders in the baaaath, spiders in the baaaaath!

Version 2 Spider Walk

Walk contains no extensions of lower limbs, only simple rotations of shoulder and hip joints. No body movement demonstrated (I will upload another video displaying this shortly).

Apologies for the poor quality of this so called play blast. I have been having difficulties uploading my .qt videos even though that first one is one, it wouldn't play this second one so i have to convert the file extention to .mov.....PAAAAAIIIN! If this problem gets sorted I shall repost a better quality version one.

I already realize the body movement on this is a little too extreme and needs refining but hey, its a first test and I shall develop and post further examples later.

run lassy run

I know what your thinking: Sarah...when WILL you go to bed?

NEVER! For it is my sworn duty to see how long I can live without the so called world of sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep *slumps on laptop* 

zzzz zzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz

*bolts awake* 

Errr anyway. I took our little spider friend and I made him run run run like the wind bullseye:

Too much like a dog? I was trying to reference Cloverfield whilst I did this. I shall try another attempt tomorrow, practice makes perfect...*stares* 

my car got stolen...

...by a bear :) hahahahaaaaa!

Although I really really REALLY wanted to model the car for the scene, Im finding I cant dedicate enough time to each area I have been assigned which includes: building modeling, car modeling and learning how animate this spider (who is actually the biggest FAKE spider ever) 

*ahem* Anyway, after realising how long its going to take to get into the swing of the quad walk cycle, and having issues with my car model, Dan agreed to take over the modeling of the car and sent through my recent maya file for him to continue....whether he uses this or bins it is up to him haha! As well as this, I have sent through my reference images for him to use so he can get straight to the modeling.

Anyway, I have loads of imgaes of the many cars I attempted...they are too ugly for blogspot though so I shall just post these:

So far so good - extruding basic block to create the shape of the car. Im still using my curves I'd drawn for previous attempts as guidelines.

But then....oh no! Model splits when smoothed. Splits are occurring in areas where i had snapped vertices. Turns out I forgot to merge vertices....DOI! Annoying when you overlook the little things!

Notes from the Bear...we both overlooked merging vertices...opps. Internet is too good for instant feedback on your work :)

So yeah, heres some of my past attempts where I had to improvise without the use of my extrude tool:

I tried making the car plane by plane so it would be easier to texture...not easier to model though...snap snap verts
I then thought I'd try to follow a curves route which would allow for a smoother finish...it made my brain hurt and due to my many options not displaying because of previously mentioned problems with maya vs laptop the idea was abandoned. Lofting this was beyond crazy!

I tried! Lord knows I tried, and if I had more time I'd continue. Im sure Mr. Grigsby will have more success and I hope my work helps him in some way *broooooooom brooooooooom*

itsy bitsy spiiiiiideerrrr

So Im sitting here, trying to animate this spider creature and for reference I thought hey, lets look at Cloverfield...you know, that disaster film with the parasite creatures...how very relevant i thought. Their description "think of a dog crossed with a spider and crab" seems just how we've imagined our little creepy crawly. 

CLICK HERE FOR CLOVERFIELD PARASITE VIDEO

You need to scan through to 1 min 55 to get straight to the CG Parasite run. Its just a suggestion for our spider walk, inspiration at least.

Quick post *shotgun* Im outta here.

Maya playing tricks on you?

So this is just a quick blog which I hope will help anyone whose suffered a similar problem in Maya.

Basically I run Maya on my mac laptop but this problem does occur on any laptop where option boxes and tools don't display...in fact a lot of issues with things not displaying in Maya on your laptop will be related to this problem. I have had many issues with the right click and have always put it down to selling my soul to apple.

After searching through many forums and speaking to Jared to confirm the problem, it seems its related to video card drivers on your laptop...in short, Maya doesn't like display settings on your laptop.

However there's a very simple solution to this problem, its so simple perhaps everyones already done this in which case this is all a giant note to self *GET ON WITH IT*

SO...

All you need to do go to your laptops display settings and change the dpi/display settings to something different (any really it doesn't matter but perhaps not one too far off your original just in case it stretches too much) then restart your computer. Then repeat the process, changing the display settings back to normal and restart once more. I've just done this on my laptop and the right click is working much better, only time will tell.

Anyway, short blog and I hope this helps anyone out if there also having this issue. Pass it on too (like Jamie Oliver style but better!)

that can is god!

actually that was a typo, it was meant to say "good" but imagine if a can was god.

Anyway after a deafeted couple of days trying a 101 different ways of modelling a car, Khalid's storyboards inspired me to model some extras for our piece. So here it is....I give u....MR CAN!

*pppphhooaar* check out that ring pull! haha
if u want to take me on in can wars then go ahead....i dare ya!

Moving on. The last couple of days I've been trying to model a simple car to include in our project. Ive tried curves, CV and EP, polys, building up blocks and extruding and guess what...my experiments have gone horribly wrong and my car looks like its been beaten with an ugly stick...O NOOOOOOO! However, Mr. Grigsby says he'll share some tricks of the trade with me tomorrow so watch out motor vehicles! 

*ahem* i also made a bin (to put my car in - HA) and a bog standard lampost to include in the scene but now Im back to modelling my wonderful world of houses as I feel I dont have much to show for my efforts at the moment. KEEP GOING VERRALL!

The street so far...

 

The extras....
Back to work SLAVE hahaha

Matt...you are legend for sorting out that bastard spider....more starburst to follow

Bunch of Pillars

The maya-ing continues and I find myself up at midnight modeling pillars. Been using the curves tool today which has been much easier to control and manipulate than the EP or CV curve tool. From left to right: original curves model, converted polys version, copied further with added verts which are extruded and finally copied over again and bevelled. 

Its probably waaaaaay off on the poly count for what we need in a model but its been a good test and my confidence in maya is starting to grow.