Camera Mapping Shots

Some work has been done on the exterior shots of the house. Camera projection of the house taken in maya with a pretty flat render.. Taken into Photoshop and worked over by Shoo. Came out very nice. Mapping works very well as long as the camera move is nothing extreme.

More of the shots that have had the camera mapping done. Interior shots next.

Shot 22 movie

Here is the reworking of shot 22. I had to change this as I couldnt quite get this working how I think it should have been. It had a POV to start with, but I just found the action of the otco jumping in the air a little strange. So I worked it into 4 shots, its nice and I think the last shot has a nice revealing of the next bunch of octos.Will be able to convey some nice emotion of the Dad and build on the danger the son is in. Still have some issues with the Dads fur but did make some progress. I was rendering his fur with rasterizer and some Dmap shadows. Got better results with raytracing, and raytraced shadows, without a huge hit in the render time. Also got a more working texture on the dead octo. Will update the texture on all of the octos when I finish the final weighting.

Shot 22 Stills

Some stills of the new shots.

Shot 22 Stills

Some stills of the new shots.

Final Render For Lighting Challenge

This the final render I did for the cgtalk Lighting Challenge. It was a film noir theme. So I went for a render with loads of black, skewered angle, deep shadows. Nothing fancy as most of these films were made like this. To me it feels like old film so I am happy with that. Doing a render these days its hard to turn off all the fancy new rendering tricks like final gathering and occlusions, but I wanted this to look old. Those elements are in this render , just not obviously.Didnt go nuts with texturing, wanted to focus on the the lighting and composition. On a downside I never quite got the body on the ground right. Will do some touchups in the future.

Did alot of layers in the end. Found this to be the fastest way to get all the elements working. And I could use Mental Ray for some layers and software for others.

Lighting Challenge

First render for the CGTalk lighting challenge.

First Pass on Rendering and Lighting.

Right, finally got this done. This was a milestone in the production. Set all the passes up! And have organized all the render layers in Maya. Then into After Effects and started to sort out any post work, such as motion blur(Real Smart for this, great plugin) A rain plugin and some lightrays. Alot of work too with the lights in After Effects. This is very handy, and helps to flesh out a shot, add a highlight, change the ambience. Changed the edit in the house, before you didnt see why he was scared, so I have added a few shots to deal with that. Much clearer. So now that is the last change.
Other reasons for sorting this out is to try to evaulate the work remaining. I have done my first pass on the lighting, now I can see what worked and the elements that need more work. Colour pallete, shot consistancy. Even just the rendering. The same lighting set up might not work for all shot. The same rendering settings might not work. Shots inside the house I am starting to like. Different tints on the occlusion pass help to change the ambience. The other major factor was the fur. I really need to see how the fur behaved and how it rendered. Which settings work, etc. Fur renders change depending on the distance to the camera, so fur would need to be adjusted - made thicker and amount decreased. All pretty obvious, just has to be sorted. I didnt have the fur on the character until most of the animatic was done, so I didnt bother with any test. This is my test, and this way I can fine tune my renders and animation to suit. Dad fur is very poor, have alot to do, I am hoping that is just a rigging problem primarily, and then I tune up the fur. Other thing I have had trouble sorting is the flicker on the fur and getting the nicest settings here. Imposable to see in this movie, its rude and is high on my list to fix.
Next up is a breakdown for me regarding fixes. Will show the animation to some collegues, and get feedback. Get the octo rigged, fix the dad and kids rigging. Do all the animation again.Render it all again. Do the final grade on it.

Darkus

This character is from Strontium Dog. Darkus and his Howlers. Its by one of my favourite comic artists, Carlos Ezquerra. I Love this character, very much a creep. I have been doing lots of work on the one project lately, I need to do something else. So will make this guy with maya, Z brush, maya work flow. And with lots of fur, SSS etc. Looking to get a lot of character and narrative in a single render.

Shot Renders

The last two shots of the piece. Time permitting, will have some flying beasts in the background.

Shot Renders

Shot Renders

For this series of interior shots, I am working with the colour pallete. Strange purple fill, will pinkish key light. Trying to avoid the conventional green/yellow horror film setup.

Shot Renders

These renders are getting somewhere. They are un-textured so far. The Kid has his textures. I have a light beam plug in After Effects to help with the feel. Gives a nice beam, rays across the scene.

Shot Renders

I like the rain and lighting in the shot the approach to the house. I do have him trip up, just for a laugh, I mean poor guy has just lost his Dad...

Shot Renders

For the shot with the running on beach, I have been trying out a rain plugin in AE. Its getting there, but I am not that happy with it yet. Ocean is looking cool and I like the feel of it. All of the pieces are without a grade so far.

Shot Renders

The monstors, or octos, are needing alot of work Still. I have some displacement maps from Nik, but I have tried to not use them, might not be able to render them.I have eight of so of them in some shots! But I think I will try to this maybe in in Maya 2008, they dont look that hot right now. Using Sub surface scattering, a bump pass and shadow pass on them at the moment.

Shot Renders

Fur in the close up shot is starting to look good. Will have to change the tip opacity and the base width. At this stage of the production I am still trying to get all the elements together so I can get a hard look at the progress.

Shot Renders

Here are some higher rez stills from the latest work in progress. Have been rendering with mental ray, Maya 8.5. For the water I have used an ocean sample, tweaked it and lit it. Had not done the lighting of an ocean before, works really nicely. Lot of work in After Effects. Layering up of the skies, blooms, light rays, tinting of the scene. Try for a early morning feel. The projects is only 2.50 min long so I am using a kind of accelerated time. Will get from early morning, to lunch, dusk, then the next morning.

Dad Turnaround

Here is the dad turnaround,with my first pass on the fur and vest. I have some problems with the ears to fix. I think the unwrapping is not quite right and is messing the ears up. I have to finish off the vest. Its just the high poly from Z brush so far. I like what I have got so far out of it so will come back to it. Now I have the characters fur I can start to test out lighting and animation with it. I still have the octo to go....

Character Images

Some of the character work. The turnarounds dont quite display the detail. Still got some issues to iron out with the fur.

Vers Audio Ipod stereo

On another tack here. Wanted to rave about this ipod stereo from Vers Audio www.versaudio.com/ Came across this product in a Dwell magazine. Had been looking for years for a cool looking, nice sounding ipod stereo... with a remote. There aint that many around, some get great reviews, like the altec lansing, but hey do you want to put that ugly thing in your lounge!? The system from Vers is awsome, look at it, its beautiful, and it has a remote. The sound is sweet, but I am not one of those that spends much time talking about how great his ears are, and I dont care much. If it sounds good I am happy and I more that happy with this one. The service was excellent, maybe the best I have ever had on online. Fast nice pro service.

On many levels this fits the bill and I think you would be hard pressed to find another system that is better at looks, price, service and sound quality. And did I mention that it has a remote? One niggle, be nice if the remote was finished with the same lovely wood as the unit. Natch.