No time to talk

There is a perfectly acceptable answer for my lack of activity on the blog recently - work. It has been impossible to find time to post the last few weeks due to the tremendous amount of animation we now have to get done.

The situation has reached a point in which if we do not animate solidly everyday until the deadline, then we will fail. The team have worked out that in order to complete the film each animator must complete 3 shots a week, if not more. This is seriously worrying considering we have 59 shots in total, all of which we wish to be top quality. Of course this isn't even including the 17 shots required for Splay, a film which due to story issues has regretably had to be cut short.

I cant really pin point why we have fallen so far behind with the project other than the obvious dissertation setbacks and lack of team members. What we are trying to achieve is essentially two films with one team, a feat yet to be accomplished by any Ravensbourne graduate to date. Therefore we musn't be too hard on ourselves as we are still ahead of other groups and are dealing with double the workload.

Moving on to more positive news, the Ed and Jed rigs have now been completed by Dave. Animation for Ed began almost 2 weeks ago now and a good 11 shots have been completed to a good standard. Grigsby had been knocking out some amazing renders, and Simon has conquered the ncloth sheet for the bed.

Unfortunately I have had a very slow start to animating and for some reason struggled to grasp even the simplest tasks, such as the breathing shot. The opening shot and possibly the most important, Ed has to be in deep sleep, gently breathing up and down with his head rested on the pillow. For reasons unknown I just couldnt do it, no matter how many times I tried and so we fell behind shedule. Eventually I got something I was quite happy with, until Dalli came in and gave his much appreciated opinion. He pointed out all the glaring faults such as the lack of weight, the static movement and bad head placement. I totally agreed with him however we simply do not have time to go back. So after much deliberation I have decided to only attempt to improve it if we have time at the end, and if thats not the case then in my own time during the summer. I would rather have a complete story start to finish than random snippets of incomplete shots.

My next priority is to get cracking with a few easy shots to get the ball rolling, as well as sort out a few models for Si and Grigs. I truely believe we can still complete this film, its just going to take a hell of a lot of dedication.

Petit Pois

Easter holidays have now begun, but not for us. We're staying put until the start of third term simply because we can't afford a holiday with the amount of work still to do.

Animation has finally commenced with Alec & Simon successfully finishing three shots this afternoon! Granted they were only the clock shots, but they were a nice introduction and can be lit and rendered off tonight to boost moral.

I also completed Jeds facial rigging and earphone set up.



A good day, hopefully animation can continue at this pace.

It's all Gravy

I spent today finishing Jed's blendshapes and creating a brand spanking new control box. I had to make sure we had all expressions covered, from the subtle smirk right through to the most extreme shout. After skecthing a lot of them down and running through his appearances in the animatic we decided on a total of 17, which of course can be combined.



After going through the same process for Ed I was actually a lot faster this time, especially when it came to linking set driven keys.

With Dave currently rigging the same file, the dancing dude should be ready to animate by the end of the week! Happy Days.