New Animatic!

Here is the most upto date animatic!

After talking to Jared, we came away with a few choices ahead of us. We had to decide what final outcome we want, if we wanted a flyby where we show the whole ship going down as if it was a tour. Second idea for outcome was trying to keep some "beauty shots" that show off the ship, but we would focus on more narrative, try tell people what happened to the ship and why it was created. Try give the viewer something to watch and listen to, and even feel emotion for it. Not just a pretty model that shows of that we can model and render.

So obviously we chose the narrative idea, we wanted to create a story with a beginning, middle and end. So we spent a full day together brainstorming and coming up with theories of how to best tell a story. Me and Sanjay had both written down a narrative as an idea so Steph got to writing a letter that was going to be sent from the Emperor to his Admiral.

We wanted the letter to give the impression of hope and show that everything is going well! then a sudden change as we head under the deck into a world that shows that things didn't go as well as they first seemed. We show violence, famine, drugs, gambling and poverty. We do this by having these darkly lit rooms with no food where there is meant to be. Hidden gambling tables with blood on the walls and weapons thrown to the ground. Then after showing all this we explain by showing that the emperor is dead and everything starts going wrong. The ink spills destroying the map and represents a deadly storm.

What we then started to think of was how to get the shots to represent what was being said in the letter. We have many areas such as when he talks about the dagger that was a gift from the Emperor, we have the camera pan over the table showing the dagger as well as the letter, maps and scrolls. We plan to have the maps slowly bleed ink and draw the map showing that the ship is traveling and he is filling the map in as he goes. Also a comment on the flag that is referred as a source of guidance and protection on their journey, we show this later on in the animation where I had the idea of having the flag tear off as they are in an overwhelming storm and this would represent their protection is gone.

We have other things representing troubles and diminishing hope. The candles start all lit and in their prime lighting the room and this "statue" representing the Emperor and during the animation they slowly start to get blown out and the dagger hitting the map finally blows out the last candle.

For the Animatic, myself, Stephanie, Greg and Sanjay all worked together to get this concept together.  we all sat around one laptop as I sat editing shots in maya then bringing them all together in aftereffects. We created shots we thought would best show the story we are trying to portray.

The Dagger!

Here is the Dagger concept. I am going to model as close as I can to this image as possible. Including all the finer details and textures as this is one of the objects that will be seen up close!

I plan to do some drawings of the finer details such as the intricate carvings. I will be using zbrush for these finer textures but I will be making a high poly model in Maya first. This is on of 2 models I need to make high poly as they will be seen up close. Also I got 2-3 more smaller models need doing but they shouldn't be a problem.

Staircase Textured.. So Far

Here is the textured stairs as it stands. The reason its not finished is based on laziness as the panels are going to be a bit of an annoyance to uv so I am going to leave it for abit and get on with the more important models. But I plan to work into the texture a little bit more just to get that nice final looks. It all will be brown gold texture when finished.

Pulley Textured

Here is the finished pulley. Might change the shader to give some reflection etc but again this is one of the first models I am making just to get practice at texturing as these wont be seen much so I can play a little but After this I am starting on the high res models which will be seen up close and personal so now the time for perfecting begins.

A few more research images

Some really interesting shapes that have given my some ideas for other objects that we still need to get concepts finished for. Just gives me more clue on how things were made during that time.

This shot made me laugh as if you remember the beach shot that was the last shot in our first animatic it looks exactly how I planned to have it except we wanted a bit sadly lit to set the mood a bit more.

This is the concept design for the back of the ship is perfect. Will adjust it and redesign to fit but this is an perfect example of the time we are researching and the style we are going for!

Both these images just interesting me with the lighting and the architecture of the chinese of the 15th century.

Stairs Modeled

Here is the base mesh that I quickly put together to get the shape correct and the steps in the correct spacing and shapes.

Here is the steps completed and ready for textuing. Took me about 2 hours to get this model completed. The thing that took the time was the pattern in the panels! They were based on the images given to me from ash. Texturing should do the rest of the job as they are in the background of the shot and so no point going crazy and I haven't got the time to really perfect them unfortunately.

Stair reference images and concept art

Above are some images I gathered after seeing ashes concept images for the staircase we need for the deck. First plans for the staircase was that we were going to have a really detailed in depth stair case with all the sparkles and decoration. Then the redesign came, and we have only 1 shot containing the staircase and its in the distance so I won't go crazy with the LOD here but it will look good.

My day as a Compositor!

This blog is more writing that image based as I had the lucky chance to work along side the Framestore commercials departments compositors and was with them as they were finish of their latest project. I have been taking notes all day and in this post will try put through all I have learnt about rendering and compositing!

First thing I was told about was the workflow and file setup for Nuke. At Framestore they use open.exr files that contain all the renderpasses etc in one file which when opening for composited you can get it all in one and break it down rather than importing individual layers and passes then making sure they all fit together etc.

I got good information on render layers and what they are used for:

Diffuse- Can be used for all lights in the scene but also can be broken down into different lights such as a key light (key light which would be you main source of light that would give all the reflections and shadows) and a fill light ( you use to fill in the unshaded areas which some light which is a technique used in live shooting, this is so you don't have one side of the face lit and the other dark so fill light would just even up things) in nuke you would use a Add node to blend them together.

Specular - which is a generally used render pass.

Reflection and Refraction

Indirect- Which was the main thing I learnt during the day that was this indirect lighting so its general sun light that just illuminates everything, such as outside where it can be lit without any rays of light. You can do this by using IBR which I have played with alot today but not allowed to show the frames I played with but below is a quick one I made just for this post to show the difference in quality.

The image at the bottom shows all the render layers That I have been listing and how they can bring an image to light and give it so much more and the awesome reflection I am getting is the Hdr image in the IBR, ok I have tweeked it at all so the image isnt well balance but I wanted to show the difference when render is well thought out and how much of a difference it can make!

Ambient Occlusion!- also known as the dirty layer

Shadows!


Will be talking to them again during the week so will be posting again with more notes from rest of today and the next time!

Render Passes!

 

(images in order starting from bottom to top)

Above are images showing some render passes I have tested out with my group also giving help and guidance. We are all new to this so we took the time to test some render passes and play with compositing them together. First images went really well and improved as we went on. However the wood look good but I thought it brought out problems with bump maps as the render and overall image quality is now better so bump maps need to be really well made or we need to upgrade them into displacement maps for that better quality! Tests are still on going and I plan to work into it more add more render passes. For these images we used Beauty, Ambient Occlusion and shadow passes! but there are many more I can play with to get that final perfect image we want. But for final comment, this shows the difference in quality from normal renders in maya to properly well thought through passes composited together.

Textured Winch

Here are a selection of images that show the changes in bump map and textures. Some had bump intensity way to high and some had it way to low or not at all, I changed the darkness of the material as it was to light and wasn't what I intended it to look like. Also I got some nice texture detail on it and it looks good enough from this difference and I don't think it will be seen any closer so at the moment I plan to keep this as at stands but I am sure I can up the detail if needed.

The final image above the text is the final image I took when I was happy with the texture.

Annnnnd here it is! took me about 1 hour and 30 minutes to get the finished. Still needs uving but I plan to uv and texture alot of models in one day so I get a scene full of finished models and I get to see what needs to be high res and what looks good! I am happy with the final model and I got some nice concept ideas for the texturing so might do some drawings to start with.

Winches for Anchors

Here are reference images for my winch model I need to create. Its a simple shape. Will be easy to model just got to make sure I got the right silhouette for the model and then textures will boost the final look!

Modeled Pullies and Hooks

Above are some images of the models I made based on the image research. I place to model more but this gives us some basic models to start to use to start getting the rope layout and places we can put spare ropes that all ships would of had. Yet again not loads of detail as they again wont be seen up close but texturing will do the job we want!

Hooks, Pullies and ropes!

Above are some of my visual research showing what I have found out about the way ropes were hooked and used on the ship! I want our ship to look like its being used, its busy and functional. I was mainly looking at the pullies, hooks etc As the layout of the ropes is still to be finished but I wanted to get these modeled so we can use them in the correct places. Some of the images show how I can model the ropes in certain positions and styles to fit each area they are needed as different nots or locks are used for different things.