Narrative - Character Pose Sneak Preview

I haven't posted anything in ages!

Well, over the past few weeks I have been skinning characters for the narrative project. It seems like everyday we have to re schedule because we cant keep up with a days work. Anyway, we are now at a stage where we have seven rigs, and I have just merged some of them with the skinned spaceman. I posed him, sitting down taking a rest while adjusting his battery pack thingy.



As soon as all the characters rigs are combined with the skinned files, I will post some videos on everything working.
Ruben is busy with creating the environments while Shahbir will be doing the characters facial rigging (excluding spaceman), while I will begin preparing and organising stuff for animation, and then animating.

Right now I am combining the rigs with the skin on all the characters. This is getting very monotonous, with all the joints that need parenting.
Here's another character.

Transcription Ideas - @ Phil

Hey Phil

I've been thinking about my transcription project, but I'm not sure what to do. Phil, you said before the briefing about whether using the summer project as a basis for the transcription project. Exactly to what extent did you mean, continuing the project where it left off and finishing and refining it, or starting from scratch with a new story, but re using the concept of a sailor at sea in a storm. The thing is that the project was so close to completion anyway. most of the animation was done. The only main thing missing from it was the sailor himself. Originally (for simplicity) he was going to be seen in silhouette and only be a simple character, (since I hadn't really designed characters before, let alone modeling and rigging them)
But since now I have done a character design project and I have gone through the pipeline of modeling characters, one idea would be to take the character in the Summer project further. So the ten weeks would be used entirely on the character or characters.

Of course I don't know whether one, that is enough work for ten weeks, or two, whether designing a character really has anything to do with transcription. The transcribing has already been done in the animation.

The other thing is that it says in the brief, to think about what I want to do in the future. I know I want to do specifically animation. The summer project so far has really been more like visual effects. ie the ocean storm. The only 'traditional' animating in cg would be the character on the boat. So I suppose that would work if I actually design a fully fledged character.

What are your thoughts. If I continue the project from where I left off, I would be well into the production phase and be able to spend the time just refining it, and add a complete character. Alternatively I start from scratch, but the problem with that is that I know I wont have any time to prepare for the project over the Christmas holidays anyway. (I have seven characters to animate in like 2 weeks… it's crazy)
The only other option is if the story is extended or altered slightly. As long as nothing that I've already done is wasted.



Anyway, at least the narrative project seems to be on schedule, but only just! We may have some characters to animate before Christmas!

Film Review - The Mist (2007)

The Mist was directed by Frank Darabont and is an adaptation of Stephen King's short novel, 'The Mist', which appeared in the book 'Skeleton Crew'. It is about a mysterious mist that spreads over a town. It is unknown how wide spread the mist is, as it could cover the whole world. When watching the film, it effectively manages to deliver the feeling of claustrophobia and suspense. However the mist is not the main thing to be concerned about as unknown creatures lurk in the mist too.



A large group of people were in a general store, getting supplies, after there had been a storm the previous night, when the mist descended over the town. A guy runs into the shop, shouting that there is something in the mist, taking people. After barricading themselves in, a series of attacks by the creatures followed. But an equal threat remained on the inside, in the form of an extreme, religious woman, who was scaring people into converting to her ideas, getting people to believe that it was Gods doing, and that they needed to sacrifice people to the mist.
So the people that weren't scared into that, had to be wary not only of what was outside, but what was going on inside.


The film was apparently done on a reasonably low budget, however it doesn't have any effect on the quality of the film. The mist kind of lends itself to low budget films as it can hide and disguise things would normally need to have money spent on, but it works for the film.



Now the ending I didn't like. I never like ending where they don't explain everything. I also don't like endings where the good guys end up shooting themselves. I enjoyed the rest of the film though.

Narrative: All Seven Characters Fully Modelled, Scaled, UVmapped and All Joints Placed

That was a mouthful!

My blog was almost getting dusty, or is that my screen! Anyway, it's about time I posted something new.




Just to be clear, they were not all modeled by me. It's been a team effort to get all the characters at the place they are today. I volunteered to finish off the characters UV maps and placing the joints. While Shahbir volunteered to do all the rigging and has been busy testing first on the soldier. I'm sure Shahbir can fill you in on all the details with rigging. In the week ahead Ruben and I will be skinning, while Shahbir does the rigging.

Spaceman


Soldier


General


Generic Female


Generic Male


Assistant


Scientist


So we are all going to be busy next week!

A Flock of Pixels