Summer Competition

This year during the summer me and a few friends are taking on quite a challenge!

We're entering a competition during which we're pretty much recreating Whitby!

It's a good excuse for a ROAD TRIP!

I am taking on what I've learned during a year so we are going to Whitby to take a lot of reference photos because it's not far and there's only as much information as you can get from the internet.

My original thoughts are to make it quite medieval, and show it through like, a bats eyes. The original camera shot could be of it looking around and it'd just be a group of bats flying down. I'd make it dark and evil, cause Dracula... But we shall see where it takes us. We will make those decisions soon! 

I just can't wait to hand all my work in and get started! ^^

SWOT analysis

Strengths:

• Able to work on my own as well as within a team
• I am quite flexible, if anything changes I am able to quickly get up and take my work in a different direction
• I am familiar with a lot of software like AfterEffects, Photoshop, Maya, Unity, recently started learning to use Mudbox and Cryengine. 
• I pick up new skills really fast through practice.
• 3D modeling

Weaknesses:

• Drawing skills
• Still working on my online presence, I'm not really recognizable yet.
• My website is not up and running yet. 

Opportunities:

• Attending festivals like Bradford Animation Festival, FMX
• Networking, making connections online
• Taking part in competitions

Threats:

• Other artists with similar skill sets to mine

Visitor speaker at Uni: Dave Blewett

Dave Blewett
Sumo Digital

This talk I've found quite useful because he mentioned what's important when applying for a job.
What things they appreciate the most etc.
He did say you've got to start at the bottom and find your way to the top.

He mentioned how many people work on their titles.
Concept artists
Environment artists
Character Artists
Animators
Motion Graphics
User Interface Artists
Vehicle Artists
Visual Effects
Technical Artists
Art Management
Art Director

So you don't have to know everything!

He said not to be precious about your work, because the idea can be scrapped at anytime and you might need to start from scratch.

You have to compromise, sometimes it's gotta look worse, and run faster! D:

How realistic are you? - sh*t happens, deal with it.
Are you flexible and reasonable?
How adaptable are you?
Can you pick up new skills fast?
Do you have the right team spirit?
Are you professional?
Be prepared to compromise.

Visit to the Industrial museum - Manchester

I was in Manchester and had a spare minute, so we've decided to visit the industrial museum.
I found it really interesting because it's really up my street!
There were a lot of old planes and trains and engines and I ended up taking hundreds of photographs. You never know when you'll need a reference!
Trips like these expand my texture library which is getting quite big now, I seem to have a bit of everything in there which is really useful when starting new projects.
Here are a few shots of what I've seen ^^

Trying out different engines - Cryengine

During this summer I will be taking on a project which will require me to use a different engine that I'm used to.
So I didn't waste any time, I downloaded cryengine to get myself familiar with it, so when it comes to me working with it I won't be lost.
It seems that once you try one engine it's not difficult to switch because the options aren't different or anything, it's mostly that things are in different places and it's a matter to find them. But a little more practice and I don't think it will be too difficult to start creating big things with it! ^^

Being a human tripod

Recently I had the pleasure of helping out a friend, he went to film a gig, forgot his tripod. So invited me over to help him film.
I am not the greatest person to do it, I probably didn't help out much, but it was a fun experience.
You could tell that I don't do it often because my arms were aching for a few days afterwards from holding the camera up.
He set all the settings and everything so I don't have to worry about much, we went over what kinds of shots he wanted to get, and we got on with it.
I quickly realized how difficult it is because there were quite a few people around I got a lot of unwanted things in the shots and there were people wanting to squeeze past, people pushing past me, very rude. I worried a lot about someone hitting the camera by accident, or spilling their drinks on it it was actually a stressful process D:
To sum up, it was difficult, and stressful, and I'm not really a fan, and I'm glad I didn't get into film. But it's an experience, I suppose if I never tried it I'd possibly regret it in the future! 

BAF Game 2013

This year I had the pleasure of attending the Bradford Animation Festival, I've attended the animation side last year and because I'm more into games I attended the Game bit this year. And I wasn't disappointed O_o

There were many interesting talks and I loved it because people from this industry are just, so funny! I mean I was hoping that the industry I want to get myself involved with isn't as serious and is funny, cause I think that's the best environment you can possibly do work in : D

I got quite a few emails from the presentations which is always good.

Their motion capture was interesting to watch.

They had to actually worked with horses. They showed us the process and how difficult it actually was. Since you have to make sure that the animal is not harmed or scared. 

They also had to make sure it's at peace because if it started running around it'd probably destroy all their gear that was placed around the stable.

It was interesting to see but I don't think it's something I'd want to get into.

Another talk that stuck in mind was one by Warren Spector to talk about his recent work Epic Mickey, for Disney.

He talked a lot about it's history and processes again.

He is clearly really passionate man and really made it clear that he didn't want to create new Mickey, and it was important to keep it's most recognizable assets but to make them logically work they had to be tweaked and changed but not enough for the mouse to look much different from the original.

A lot of attention to detail.

The really interesting one was the TT's talk because we had a little suprise waiting for us as we walked in. We got lego masks waiting for us on the chairs, they were of the Marvel characters.

When everyone walked in it was like letting small children into a toy shop, everyone got so excited.

This talk was again about the processes they went through to create the game, the mistakes and the victories.

We got a little preview of the game and got lots of tips and tricks.

It proves that bribes still work, because this turned out to be one of my favourite talks. And after months I still have the mask! 

The final talk I attended was by Brian Horton.

He's a senior director from Crystal Dynamic.

He talked about having to reinvent the iconic heroine Lara Croft!

I am a huge fan of the old original Tomb Raider games, and I never really wanted to give the new ones a go because I feared they're going to ruin it for me. 

But all the way through the talk he talked about how he didn't want to ruin the game, he kept the little things, but improved them.

It was all about the character development, as I said, not to ruin it.

But also it was about the characted interacting with the environment, so she doesn't just walk through the bushes for example, she gently moves them out of the way as she walks past them. 

There was a lot of about catching the right camera angle to portrait the right emotions, the cave shot for example, with the water halfway up it, they wanted it to feel really claustrophobic for example and they mostly did it through the right camera shots. 

I never really thought about it that much but I've gotta admit it's something worth looking into in a little more detail! It really changes A LOT.

He actually reassured me and made me want to go out and buy it! I did, and I spent days and days playing it. And it's amazing I actually don't have anything bad to say about the game.

Overall I've learned quite a few bits and pieces and enjoyed myself! 

Looking forward to next year : D

Creating My Showreel

When I began creating my showreel I started with collecting all my best work that I wanted to see in there.

I then started to look for the music I wanted to go in it. 

I wanted it to be really dynamic and to give you goosebumps because I think that good audio is half the battle! 

So I listened to hours and hours of orchestras and things to find THE ONE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHXxJtouJsQ

The first two minutes of this turned out to be my favourite so I've decided to use it! ^^

I then cut it roughly to the length I wanted my showreel to be, around a minute and a half. 

Then started placing my files down so they play along with the music.

I wanted the peaceful shots to play as the music is building up, to then hit the most dynamic ones as it kicks in.

It's hard work cause timing, is really important. 

But I think it's fun.

I enjoyed making it ^^ makes me proud of myself : D

Improvements of old projects

I wanted to create my showreel using my old projects as well as my recent ones. 

I have gained a lot of new skills since then and wanted to improve my old work.

It's mainly some textures that needed improving, some more detail added.
Modeled a little more of the little things to fill the spaces a little.
Changed the lights around added some in places, removed the others.
In some projects I've changed the layout a little so it works a little better.
I found it good to come back to the old projects, because you then begin to realize how much you've improved in this amount of time. You start looking at things you didn't pay attention to before and fix them!

Mudbox

So, I've been trying out mudbox.. It's not difficult to understand what's going on or anything which is a big plus. It's easy to navigate I never fail to find what I'm looking for. But using the right things with the right things... I mean, I imported a simple model of a cactus i made in about 30 seconds... and tried to sculpt it and paint it. But it seems that models ready for sculpting need to be flawless AND nothing must be duplicated cause when I paint one thing the duplicated bit gets painted too O_o At least that's what I think happened because I can't explain it any other way.

Apart from that it's quite fun to use and I see how it can come in very useful when working with things that need to be really detailed. Also working with big objects would be a plus. It makes things look a lot more natural.

Used amplify tool to create an uneven surface.

Pinched it here and there to create the spikes.

Here is what happened when i tried to paint it... yea. 

FMX: Bringing rhythm into animation, Rio, Chip Lotierzo

He mainly talked about his way of creating the rhythm in his animations. He uses something he calls energy lines to do so. (looks sort of like brain waves graph)

He listens to the recorded voice overs to decide how dynamic or soft the movements should be.

Even when we're just standing still we're still sort of moving.

Simple lines can make a huge change, tell a different story.

Make sure that the performance is unique, true to the character.

Laban movement theory.

Play out little scenes, video it to see what you look like, what you do, what parts of the body you move around when in certain situations.

When it's an important situation, for example a deeply hurt, confused bird, hold it's pose for just a split second longer to let his emotions sink in.

He went from working on choreography for 13 birds to 160 birds, which was quite a difficult step up.

Again it took a lot of testing to see which dance etc. looked right.
Mostly during this talk we learned how the little tiny movements can change the whole meaning. So pay attention to detail.

FMX: Unmask the secrets behind "The Amazing Spiderman 2"

David A. Smith, SPI

digital effects supervisor.

Jerome Chen

Dave Schaub

Over 400 artists worked on it

Pre production - Oct 2012

Photography - Feb 2013

Happens mostly in New York.

Built around 300,000 feet of stage!

Imageworks did around 1000 shots.

For this movie they've created a new suit.
It made things quite easy because it meant that the actors could pee....
In the old suit it took about half an hour to undress the actors so it meant that whenever someone needed to go to the bathroom they lost an hour overall.
It's also a little looser, it's not really tight around the body.
used maya nCloth.
cg'd the eyes, just to bring them to life a little, so it's not really plastic looking.

Animators get taught proper physics. They have a so and so amount of hours of science lessons a week.

The stuntman work looked pretty awesome.
He showed us how out of 12 shots of the same scene they consider everything, to finally come down to choosing one. So it's important to always get a variety of shots because in the end you might not even like it, so it's good to have back ups.
When shooting in the Times square, they weren't allowed to go over 55mph, even with roads closed off etc. so they had to shoot somewhere else, meant a lot of greenscreen and set building.
And also it meant they have to virtually create the times square.
 Again this meant a ROAD TRIP and taking over 36 000 reference photos.
There are 491 lampposts, 486 planters and 1210 billboards, in the times square. Every tiny prop had to be built.
 In total they built 8 blocks of it, but made it look like 22 blocks.
KMB effects did the make up. They also worked on zombies for walking dead.

Inspirations for Electro:
Lightning sotrms.
Neurological networks.
How electrics would go through a body.
How light would shine through skin.
Silhouette details veins etc.
Eal movement and different sea creature movement.

He's got a different look in different light conditions.
 It was important to them to build high level of detail in their sets.

Just a little info on the Rhino character...
3 million polygons!
2295 pieces of geometry
4195 rigs!

Overall they've done around 350 shots entirely cg. 

FMX: Michael Giaimo on Frozen

Michael Giaimo

at Disney since 1978

Frozen is mostly Norway inspired.

Environment: organic

Architecture: Steve Church

This castle is a complete opposite to all Disney castles,it sits down in nature not overpowering the environment. It isn't on top of a hill, it's down in between them.

Stones etc. were actually stones from castles in Norway. Again coming from a lot of photographic references they've collected during their research.

Another research trip was to the Ice Hotel.

Suspiria - another one of their inspirations.

Palace's colour pallet changes depending on emotion. 

A lot of thought went into everything tying up, the dress for example, when you unfold it on the floor, it forms a snowflake ^^ Because it's the little things ; ) 

This talk was again a lot about referencing. That's why they've personally gone out to Norway and visited as many interesting places as possible, taking as many photos just for future reference. 

Makes it easy to make everything fir together. 

It's easy to expand from there knowing what the overall look is.

Knowing the native clothes for example, the colours they wear, their traditions etc. 

FMX: Raising the dragons! - Sven Martin

This talk was about the process of creating the Game of Thrones dragons.

It was really exciting since I'm a huge fan of it!

They showed us how important it is to create a very recognizable character, even just by it's shadow because in this case the shadows of the dragons were used as advertisements on big buildings etc. to give people the impression like they're flying over. I personally think it's an awesome idea and I wish I could see it in real life, but I'll live. 

Fire&Blood productions:

Steve Kullback season4

Joe Baver season3

Rainer Gombos season2

Process:

Concept & Design

Sculpting

Surface

Rigging

Animation

Fx

Composing

They made a litle puppet of the dragon for lighting reference and for actors to practice with.

SO MUCH RIGGING!!!

When it came to design they had to figure out what they look like in different situations like when they're calm and when angry. Just so you can easily tell the difference. 

Lizard + snake = dragon

Again it came to referencing all the patterns and textures. To make it more believable.

What I thought was genius is the way they were understanding how to rig this thing.

They bought CHICKENS! 

He showed us pictures and videos of this dead bird being flapped around by a group of people just to understand how it works. It was very funny to watch but apparently it was even funnier to do :') 

He claims it was the only way, because it was the only dead bird he could find. 

They did tons of scales and spykes and chain tests. 

All dragons had to pass a windtunnel test before they were approved! Talk about realism. 

Krakatoa particles were used for the shot of the dragon getting out of the water.

BBC + National Geographic were used for reference, they watched things like bats and all kinds of birds. 

They had to make sure that they interact with the environment as well as the actors. It's the little things that matter.

And most importantly in the end, we got a little preview of the FUTURE DRAGONS! 

Overall I think it was one of my favourite talks!! 

Did quite a great job at showing how fun this industry is! 

FMX: The art and technology of RYSE: Son of rome!!

This talk was something I really looked forward to! Because I really love the look of the game. I personally don't have an xbox one to play it. But if I ever got one, it'd be to play Ryse and Destiny. BUT Destiny will have special content on PS4 but I'm coming off the subject here.
Back to Ryse.
Anyways
The talk was by Habib Zargarpour from Microsoft
And
Franco Bresciani from Crytek

They both gave us tips from different parts of the game development since they were from different departments. Which I found really useful.
Talked quite a bit about the character development, they talked about how they made it so detailed, realistic. The process of creating him, from costume design to the way the character interacts with the environment.

I keep saying it but a lot of companies really gave us really useful tips and tricks and there were too many to remember but it was things like, when trying to create a camera shake. Make sure not to translate the camera ever, because the horizon wouldn't more. You've got to rotate it! And it gives you a better effect.

Sometimes the companies would show us their tests and you can really see how things can go wrong even in professional world and it's nothing to be ashamed of. All that happens is that you take note of what you've done wrong and pass the message on so other people don't make the same mistake. So it's never a failure!

FMX: High-End Graphics For New Game Platforms

Development from Handhelds to Consoles and PC's.

By Dr. Jon G Peddie

Pc gaming - $8.4 Billion in 2013. 

Math is the foundation, as math was being developed, hardware was developed. 

The Antikythera device 82 BCE

Whilwind 1950. This is rthe start of cg. Created from the fear of Russians.

SAGE was born.
A military grade version of the Whirlwind computer was developed for the US Air Force SAGE project.
Charles W. Adams & John T Gilmore Jr. developed the first animated computer graphics game.
NIMROD - built by Ferranti 1951 first dedicated computer for gaming.
1962 Steve "Slug" Russell led MIT team who created the first video game.
1983 Atari 3D-polygonal game.
Irobot 3D fps on pc 1992 - Wolfenstein 3D
We covered a bit about the Moore's law. He came prepared with charts and facts.

Mobile gaming is good, but will never be awesome!
Purely because they don't have enough power.

Sensorama 1956 - virtual reality.

Iran southerland 1968 first real time virtual reality.

He is a very interesting man, clearly very passionate about his job.
He left us with his e-mail in case we have any questions or just want to have a chat about all this, with a promise that he always replies! It's clear to me that he really loves his job and is happy to share all this knowledge. 

FMX: World Rendering Engine, Outerra

This presentation... was something.
It was by Ladislaw Hrabcak.
He is from the team that is bringing us Outerra.
It's a very very intelligent engine.
From what I understand it's got 22 levels of terrain detail.
You can render from as far out as 160 km, to as close to 4cm!
You can get real ocean depths in there.

What i mean by intelligent is the fact that it recognizes different terrain, like mountains, underwater, forests etc and uses different rules around them, affects the way things act. GENIUS!

The biome systems will tell it how much ground needs to be covered in grass.

Uses global colour data so it looks right from the space.

He mentioned something like, you can go and explore different planets there too, eventually!

When you lay a road down for example you can control the thickness of it, even the thickness of the paint on the road! D: YOU CONTROL EVERYTHING :') Makes me happy.

It's something to really keep an eye on because I think it'll be something! It'll be great once it's finished ^^

FMX: AAA Asset Production, Killzone, Guerrilla Games

Dan Calvert, Alex Zapata

Here to talk about asset production for Killzone

Naturalism

Originality

Don't repeat yourself!

Understand things rather than just look at references.

We looked at a lot of their assets. 

I never actually clicked how you need to create a few of each in that kind of gaming because it's affected by the player. So you've got a machine for example, and gotta model it at around 2-3 stages of destruction. And I never thought about it before, till now! 

They reassured me a bit when saying to not worry as much about the polycount because it is not about the quality of games! I always hated worrying about my models being huge but I don't care as much ^^ Cause to be honest I prefer making beautiful high poly models.

Obviously there are the cases of you having to model 'on a budget' for things like mobile gaming etc. it's a good skill to have, being able to model in both ways but I still prefer not to worry to much : D 

On top of that they gave us a lot of tips and tricks which I found really useful and I can't wait to try out on my next project! 

FMX: Nuno Bernardo on Collider - Transmedia

Nuno Bernardo 

on their approach to transmedia.

Story - web series - social media - books- game- tv - film.

That way they get feedback about story and characters before they invest tons of money into it!

Also by the time they produce a tv series etc. they already have an audience, people looking forward to it!

One of the strategies is to partner with someone who's already got an audience you're looking for. 

They partnered with around 50 websites across the both UK and US, gave them early episodes etc for promotion!

Give out 2/3 of the content for free. Then once people are converted, make them pay.

Reward community for spreading the word! 

They created a table, and they gave out points for certain things, top 200 people with the most amount of points were in the credits. 

Fans want recognition!

Fans could vote for their favourite character and the company then expanded on the most loved character! 

But make sure you don't tell the same story over and over again. Keep the audience challenged and entertained!

Don't try to produce everything at once. You need time to develop it. 

Co-produce with people that have skills you don't have!

Zoo and Botanical Garden in Stuttgart

Today I only attended the talks in the morning which gave me an afternoon to myself, there is a zoo and botanical garden nearby so on a beautiful hot day like this it seemed like a perfect place to go, spend the rest of the day! 

This was purely for references both animals and their habitats, I think that they did a great job at recreating it so it was worth photographing them!

There are some funky shaped cacti there ^^

FMX: Facial Animation

Chris Landreth

Facial Animation

This one was one of the most interesting talks I've attended, not impressive, interesting. 

Mr. Landreth is a really funny person can easily tell that he's very passionate about his job!

He brought a lot of energy into the room, made us pull faces to prove his points etc.
Mostly we covered a lot of theory during this talk but it's ok, it was so interesting I didn't mind no tseeing as many visuals, apart from the man pulling funny faces at us to show us which muscles we use during certain emotions! It was a really entertaining talk!

In dramas 75% of the shots are of faces. purely because that's how we portrait most of our emotions.

Observation is the most important.
It's all about the shape and movement.

Fusi Form Gyrus is a part of our brain that recognizes faces.

FACS: The Facial Action Cooling System.

Primary muscles of the face, there are 14, to 41 action units.

He showed us several muscles on your head and explained how important it is to use those in specific order+ combination to portrait specific emotions because skipping on one can be a difference between a real smile and a really fake/creepy looking one.
He had a model ready to show us that even a tiny movement of your bottom eye-lid makes a difference.
From this talk I have learned quite a bit actually. It's not something I want to write about because it'd mean that I have to give you the names of all the muscles which aren't easy to pronounce, nevermind spell. As I mentioned before, observation is key! You can easily figure it out. You can also then put it into practice by pulling faces at yourself in the mirror, which is something he recommended doing!
If I ever come around to having to animate a character in such detail I will definitely use all this information!

Dance + Animation

Here I wanted to talk about a really interesting combination of dance, and animation.

Purely because of an effect if had on me, it is really powerful yet really calming. It reminds me of star constellations (as well as what happens to vertexes when you stretch them around). Its a very calming video. Usually when i watch dance performances I don't do so carefully... here I followed their every move of the dancers just because the lights were drawing me to it, saying that I feel like some sort of an insect now. But it's true it's a very interesting use of it and I am a fan! That's a point of performances like these, to grab people's attention and keep them there in the end and these guys are doing it right! I love it!!! And I hope to see more videos like these in the future! 

Please watch it, and be amazed!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?=454133938056955&set=vb.197939013676450&type=2&theater

FMX: Deconstructing Captain America

Russell Earl - ILM

Ron Frankel - Proof

Deconstructing Captain America! 

They worked on it for around 17 months. 

Started with 3 artists, ended with 15.

In that time they've created around 10 000 quickfilms. 

20-30 compositions per day.

When going into a project like that you've gotta go in with a good strategy!

They created a continuous action in one scene in Maya and animate it all, then drop the cameras in there, where they need them at whichever time. 

Another thing they talked about was creating action maps. Where they have noted all the cameras, times at which they come into play, space etc etc 

The action maps seem like a really good idea, if I'm to ever to any project similar to this it's something I will do because when you're unsure you can just look back at a quick map and clear all the doubts. 

FMX: Beyond Two Souls - Cinematics

Beyond: Two souls

30 000 captured motions.

Around 60 hours.

He compared motion capture to playing 'the floor is lava' 

Because you've got to imagine things are there, you've got pretty much nothing to work with. 

256 bones limitation.

Process:

Alpha - first phase of game building (blocks etc)

Beta - send off for approval

Master - Final changes/polish

Gold - ready to go!

He talked a bit about the uncanny valley.

He recently worked on world war Z and talked about that process.

I was really impressed, and amazed how even the simplest of scenes weren't real! 

The chase up the staircase in the beginning of the movie was cg and I would never have guessed! 

He said to always get as much info as possible. 

'Don't be afraid to ask stupid questions!'

Another very useful thing he said was:

'Give people not only what they ask for, but also what they might need!'

FMX: Concepting for film

This talk was by Ravi Bansal from MPC

He worked on movies like, Lovelybones, Tintin and District 9.

The most important thing I learned during this talk:

'Don't let the backstory take over the current story!' 

He worked on costumes for Tomb Raider 2, and Batman.

He mainly talked about what it's like to work in this industry, how many different roles he's had over the years. 

He told us what it was like to work with the famous Anne Rose, (who crafted Captain Jack's Sparrow's costume for example) he put it this way, she didn't need him there for any kind of concept art, she knew what she wants and where she's going, she just liked to have him there. 

He talked a lot about how you need to be very flexible because a lot of the times he did everything, from concept to 3D and promo videos. 

FMX: Creating The Unifverse for Thor: The Dark World

The talk was by Alex Wuttke, from Double Negative
I've been to talks by Double Negative before and I am a big fan of their work!
Once again they showed that they're amazing at what they do. Here they went into a huge amount of detail, told us about their inspirations and processes. I find these talks really helpful because then I have a good idea of how to get around to my projects.

They worked on around 900 shots from the movie.
Asgard - Dungeons, Throne Room, World Assets,
Harrow Ship Interiors
Svartalfheim
Greenwich
They work through the usual routine, from the concepts through tests to finished work. But admit that as you work on it, you change a lot of things, it's roughly similar to the original concept but most of the time not the same. Because when you see the whole thing and how things behave etc you need to change a thing or two. Which is a bit of a reassurance to me because my finals never look like I originally planned!

They talked about mechanics, and figuring out how things would behave in real life makes things easier!

Nailing things down early is also very important so there isn't much experimenting going on during production.

We got shown in detail, how they've made the throne room crash! And it looked absolutely amazing, mostly done in houdini. I love seeing countless amounts of layers just coming together into this one beautiful image.

As of Asgard itself it was a very interesting process.
Asgard is pretty much just Norway. They found a beautiful place there, took a helicopter out for out five and a half hours to get as much footage as possible!
Skinny shutter - eliminates motion blur! Makes it easy to pin down an image and use it.

If you're creating a world, always reference!!! Creating a world with no constraints makes it difficult.

Town planning:
Palace is a main thing, it's what all the main roads come to. I's the biggest thing seen from everywhere, makes it easy to navigate.
Once you've got the overall look, explore the individual buildings.
Consider shapes of things - so they're recognized when you see their silhouettes.

Waterfalls were shot in Iceland.

Overall they've created 12 x 10 km's of cg Asgard.

They've used Nuke for Harrow Ship Interiors.

Svartalfheim was again shot in Iceland.
Used a lot of negative lens flares.
Everything is based on photos.
Gives you freedom of camera etc. but still keeps the realism.

Greenwich, water simulations - huge deal!

FMX Conference!!

This post I decided to talk a little about the trip to this years FMX conference.

So far it's been great, the drive down to Stuttgart was really pleasant the weather is beautiful and the hotel is really nice! My original predictions for how much fuel I'd burn were wrong, but I'm not going to complain because it's a lot less than I thought and I ended up driving all the way down to Stuttgart on ONE TANK which equals to around £50. 

I've seen very beautiful things along the way which made the trip really enjoyable. Apart the ferry crossing I didn't cross any obvious boarders, i only noticed I'm driving through a different country purely by what it looks like, which is quite fascinating, my favourite country so far is Germany, it's very green (by that i mean there are a lot of forests and is well looked after) and clean! They seem to really care about the environment. And lets not forget about NO SPEED LIMIT on the motorways! 

I picked up my conference pass and the event schedule and I'm really excited about it! There are a lot of things I'm looking forward to, and I shall take notes and share all the interesting things I learn ^^

Final Environment

Here are just a few screen shots of the nearly finished environment.

And here is the nearly finished video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVK08f6ZBNs&feature=youtu.be

Modelling an Alien

As a first task we are to create a model of an alien. In the near future we will rig and animate it but we'll get to that. 

First we have to prepare our image planes for reference. 

 

So this is pretty much it. 

Just modelling from there on.

I decided to start with a torso and carried on from there.

It wasn't that bad to model, after a while it started playing tricks on me but I just cleaned it up and it was fine again ^^ 

When it came to UV mapping him it wasn't too bad either, unwrapping it makes life so much easier! 

I decided to make my alien look a bit like a frog... cause why not. 

I spent hours following my tutor's videos on rigging him etc. 

But when it came to animating some of the vertexes were doing what they like, not limbs so it wasn't things I've moved previously, it was just single vertexes.

I asked about it and it turned out to be just a case of painting the weights right. And that's pretty much it ^^

 

Another problem I had was his arm doing whatever it liked whenever I moved his torso, that problem was caused by parenting it incorrectly. So once I got help with that he was all fine.
But now he's all fixed up and ready to animate.

I must say that rigging was really tricky! I was fine when following the video but when it came to me doing the other half by myself I was a bit lost, maybe that's why he was so broken... It's something you've got to get used to so it'll be a good idea for me to do a few more little projects like these over summer just to get myself familiar with this business.

So I got to animating, and I did a wave, and when I tried to import it to unity... it only imported the eyes!!! I got my friend to help me with it, and we couldn't really sort it out, so I give up.
Here is the screenshots as proof I've done it aaand, I'll include the file on my disc. But I really don't have time to fiddle with it anymore D: