Day Four.

Thursday.

I don't think my computer can handle renders!!!
I wanted to make another playblast with all the textures to see how it looked and it just took forever!!! it hit 10mins and it hit 15frames. AND even when I just want to look through the master camera and scroll through the timeline there is a massive lag! I'm pretty sure it wasnt doing that on the uni computers, so plan B is to go to uni and render what i need.

BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT i can't do that yet until Jack e-mails me back! because i have no idea what im doing!! i'm going to do a search on how to render and what the best way to animate.
I feel really behind! i should be animating but there is ALWAYS something that needs to be fixed.

I went through (well tried too) go through my shots in Maya so i could make a timeline for my music that i want. It took me so long because there was so much lag, so i hope that i got the timing right. I also listened to some music that Kenny gave me and he had suggested to me 'La Serenissima" by Loreena McKennitt, so i listened to it and noticed that there was great transitions between minor and major keys.




So im going to use this song as an example of how i want the song for my production. IF for some reason i cant get the violin piece that i want, Plan B is to get my boyfriend to do a accoustic guitar piece simular to 'La Serenissima'

I also went through my foley list to get some sound effects, i'm using the Sound Librarian and FlashKit. i only got a few so tomorrow i will continue to finish my foley list.

Day Three.

Wednesday.

I have almose completed the 3D room.

Since yesterday i said i have two problems with the door and book shelve, i am STILL having the same problem.

I did get e-mails from Jack back which was good! he told me how to select the door handle but then i noticed that i couldnt just select the door WITHOUT the handle. I know that they are parented together but i don't know the best way to just select it!

It's going to be something easy like "unparent then re parent" or something, im just tired.

So anyway i e-mailed Jack back with the problem and made another crappy discription for him to look at.

Also Jack had e-mailed me asking if my "cupboard" (i think he ment BOOK SHELVE) rendered okay. So i checked it and some of the textures look right, but then the other ones look like 60's designs!! i have no idea how to fix it! so i rendered 3 pictures and sent them to Jack aswell.

Yesterday i had printed off the LAST of the UVs and made a copy of them with my LightBox. Today i painted them, scanned them in the computer, edited them in Photoshop and then finally assigned them to there object!

The room is complete with textures with only the door and book shelve to fix. (AND if i need to fix the textures because of the renders!!! and i hope i don't have to!!)

OOHHH and also i would have finished this earlier today but because the storm started with thunder and lighting, i didnt want to risk working on my computer. Last time it was really windy and stormy I was almost done safely removing my hard drive till the power went out for just a second, and my computer turned off!

Of course i was in a massive panic, when my computer turned back on it kept coming up with an error and was going in loops turning on, have error, restart. same thing over and over. I CRIED!! my computer is everything and i use it all the time.(and yes i have back up of my work) The way i fixed it was to force shut down then restart in safe mode, when i was in safe mode i shut it down normaly then i started it up again and it worked fine.

I have no idea how i got the idea to do it, but it worked.
AND one more thing, Maya kept crashing on me when i was working. i noticed it started to happen when i deleted a texture from an item and it turns green, when i try and select it again, an error comes up. I fixed the texture by selecting the object in the side bar and using the hypershade to assign the new shader.

Day Two.

Tuesday.

Today i have colour grained all the items in the 3D room, mostly the walls and the beams are darker and i left the items in the room lighter. So now they dont look like they are blending in to much.

I have saved the last of the Uvs that i need to print and paint.

I am having two problems though which are the book shelve and the door and handle to the room.

since last week i was having a problem with the book shelve and i e-mailed Jack asking for help. i didnt know how to explain it so i took a print screen shots and circled things that i needed help with.

So i have done the same with the door that im having a problem with.

After i finish the last few textures, fix these two problems and make sure that everything is complete in the 3D room, I CAN START ANIMATING!!! BEST FEELING RIGHT NOW!!

but i need Jack to e-mail me back so i can finish, and he hasnt yet :(

Day One.

Starting of the holidays, Monday.

Okay i did have a bit of a break in the morning. BUT i got straight into work after that.
IM STILL working on my textures, but i want to finish them because i want to do a good quality render and start animating. Its good now that im on holidays because i can spend a day just getting my textures done and then i can move on to other things.

Today i got the bottom wall beam UVs and the Rabbit toy UVs, i will need to print and paint, scan and edit then add the textures. I had already done the rabbit UVs last week but when i printed it out i realises that the UVs were on an angle and it was hard to paint because everything was overlapping each other. So now i made sure they were completly flat by using the planner mapping.

I also finished assigning the texture to the bed frame.
So now all i need to do is assign the texture to the door (with handke), floor, two paint brushs (problem with the Uvs when i transfered the attributes) and make and texture the last wall.
After that i need to adjust the textures to make some darker because some of them look the same and its hard to no whats, what.

Then textures will be complete and ill be a happy nandos.

Week 9 gone - Hello Holidays.

Okay i have 2 weeks holidays now which is really good to try and work on my animation, i would love to actually relax instead of breaking my balls trying to get my work done.
But i have to work on my animtion! I havent done any animating and i need to start that!

On Friday the last day befor holidays started i asked Jack as much as i could about how i would put my 3D world into a 2D program and he helped me out. I would need to make a playblast of my master camera as a image sequence. this is so i can import the images into ToonBoom and draw over them.

I was thinking that the playblast is just a low quality render of my scene and i do have some shots that i need to extend or slow down because some of my shots jump straight away to the next shot. I would rather edit and animate at the same time so i will need to e-mail Jack to find out how i would do this.

i hope i get lots of work done or im screwed and becoming an accountant.

Transfer Attributes.

In the 3D room i have many items that are the same such as books, pencils, paper and paint brushs, i didn't leave them the same size so i made each of them have a small, medium and large catagory.
instead of organising each same item's UVs indivdualy, Jack showed me how to 'Trasfer there Attributes'.
When selecting an object that has there UVs already organised, you can shift select another object which is the same, go into mesh, then Transfer Attributes and change the settings to have UV set to all and sample space to component. Then when that is done the object will have the same UVs. So that means i can assign the same texture to the object without having to re organise, paint, scan and edit it.

Its takes a load off of doing extra work for the same thing.
However when Jack was showing me what to do, the pencil texture wasn't working and the UVs were'nt transfering over. All the pencils i made were the same, all i did was make a copy of them and scale it smaller. For some reason they were'nt the same and couldn't be transfered, so Jack said it was easier to make a copy of the object with the fixed UVs and replace the other ones.

So now they are all complete with the same UVs.

Problem with Image Size for Textures.

Jack helped me out alot with assigning my textures to an object because i had said in earlier posts that i was trying to work on the textures on my own but couldnt seem to get it working.

When Jack showed me again how to do it, it was everything i was doing, Until Maya decided to crash! Lucky that nothing major was done. The reason the program crashed was because the image size of the texture that i scanned in was too large, so each texture had to be opened up in Photoshop and resizes to be 1024x724.

Now all the textures are resized to be smaller and adding them into the scene.

UVs Fixed.

I havent made a post in a while, sorry about that.

From my last post i was having problems organising my left over UVs in the 3D room.

Jack helped me out with Planner Maping the UVs and looking at them from the front which shows the whole of the object and not having little pieces everywhere to sew and move together.

The bed frame complete.

The door handle complete.The fairy toy complete.

and Rabbit toy complete.

All but the rabbit toy have been painted and added to the object they belong too.

I need to next paint the rabbit toy, scan in and edit in photoshop. Then i assign the texture to the rabbit and its done.

I can't do these UVs!!

I just went through the 3D room and organised the UVs for the new items in the room.

i came across a few UVs that i can't do and it looks so complicated!!

I NEED HELP!!

The bed frame.

The door handle (it looks simple but its driving me nuts!)

The fairy toy.

and the rabbit toy.

i feel like having a cry when i look at these UVs.

3D Mothers Arms.

What the Mothers arms look like beind the door.

Mothers arms coming out from the darkness of the door.

The Mother grabbing the handle and closing the door.

WEEK 8 - Production Journal Review 1. (may have gone over a paragraph).

AIM: To report the progress of the animation production.

It’s already the end of week 8 and I’m getting close to starting to animate.
In week 7 I had to get my milestones complete, I got most of my milestones done with only a few small things in my 3D world that I had to complete. During this week I have been trying to complete them, by Friday this week I was hoping to have the 3D Mothers arms animated and add the textures that I’ve done to the scene.
I finished making the two toys that are in the room and a wall with a door that opens and closes, I haven’t done any textures for them so I will need to print out their UVs, paint them, scan them in and adjust the contrast in Photoshop then add the textures to the object.

Everything is slowly coming together; however time is slipping through my fingers.
During the week Jack helped me out with organising a master camera and timing my shots to flow continuously however some of my shots are still too fast and some shots jump from shot to shot, they will need to be fixed. While I was going through my play blast I realised that the final shot camera is in the wrong place, I will need to fix this.
I was thinking that instead of fixing the cameras in Maya 08 I can export each frame twice then use After Effects or Final Cut to extend the shot and use still frames for when the camera doesn’t move.

The Mother's arms are in 3D, during the holidays I made a blocked out and rigged body (the body is from the neck to the hips with the arms). There was a problem where the arms were too small and needed to be scaled to make them bigger. When I was doing it I was selecting the wrong thing and was making the bottom of the Mother look fat, instead of the whole body becoming bigger in size. That is now fixed and the arms look bigger in size.
I had organised the arms to come through the open door and it was set perfectly, then there was another scene where the mother grabs the door handle and closes the door, the arm didn’t reach the handle and I didn’t want anything else but the arms seen. I got told that I might have to make a new rig because the arm wouldn’t reach, then Jack decided to scale the arms a lot bigger then what they were originally, and surprisingly it worked out well and looks a lot scarier. I went through and organised the fingers so it looked like the mother is gripping the handle.

I was hoping to have my textures added to the items in the room but for some reason every time I try and add them it doesn’t seem to work. I try and organise it to the UV Texture Editor but the picture ends up being blurry and when moving the UV points it doesn’t seem to work. I keep trying and searching on the web the steps on how to add textures to a surface shader and I seem to be doing everything the same. I need to talk to Jack about this and see what I’m doing wrong.

Where I wish I was.
I was hoping that I would have completed my milestones in week 7 and I would be beginning to put my 3D room into a 2D program and start animating. However I am still working on some 3D elements because I am still unfamiliar with Maya and I am learning as I work.

What I want to achieve by week 9 is to have all my 3D elements complete and to be able to put my 3D room into the 2D program, so once the two week holidays come I will be animating Alice.

Paerry.

Jack helped me out so much today in class!
I had finished setting up my camera shots and Jack helped with downloading the zootool file and putting my camera shots in a continuous flow. I then made a playblast video and i posted it straight away!

Like i said before some of the shots are still a bit fast and some also jump straight away to the next shot. So i will need to fix them.
Other things i did was complete my fairy toy and added it into the scene, she sits on the bed.

I also added the mothers arms and was having some problems were i was trying to move the body and the skeletone wouldnt move with it. So i e-mailed Jack and it was simply i was selecting the wrong thing to move.
So i moved the mother behind the door, but when i tried to scale the arms to make them bigger, they just looked like fat arms!!!
i tired different things but i couldnt get them the way i like. I'll have to ask Jack on Friday.
(i also stopped working on them because everytime i tried zooming closer to the arms it would jump to another section, so i think my computer was going spaz)

Today and a few days ago i did try adding some textures to the items, i'm having some problems with it where i sometimes can't see the textures on the item, or trying to move the UV points to match the painting and not fitting. I did do a search on how to add textures, everything the search had i was doing. AND yes i did select the outcolour, and all that other stufffffffffffffff!!

So yeahh... i would e-mail Jack but i think i might wait till friday because then i can watch and learn.

SO! what i have left is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (must finish)
- fix mothers arms and animate. (friday)
- add textures. (friday)
- and will have to do some more painted textures because i have new items in the room.

full stop

3D Playblast.

Jack helped me today with downloading zootools and making a master camera for my 3D room.

Some of the shots are still really fast but they can be fixed. I need to add the mothers arms in, finish the fairy toy and add the textures . Then 3D is done!

Working on 3D.

Today i wrote down a list of foley that i will be needing in my animation.
I also wrote down what i want my character to say. She only has one word which is "Mum" but she does have a surprised shock sound and sniffing sounds too.

after that i went through my camera shots and decided to make them longer. like i said in my last post i think that timing is really important for my animation and i think that some of the shots are too fast so im slowing them down by adding extra frames in the time line.
I'm still working on it now.

By tomorrow i should have the cameras right and i want to try and fix up the last toy and put it in the scene. Then all i have to do is add the mothers arms in, which are too small so i will need to make them bigger and animate the arms. And add the textures.

Then the 3D world is complete.

3D today.

It's really good having Mondays off! i get to do more work!
Today i worked on the room and the items that are in the 3D room.

i fixed up my camera shots and now they are in place, however i do have some shots that i think are too fast. I think that timing is really important in my animation so i want to get it right.
I e-mailed Jack asking him how i could make a master camera so i could play blast my shots. He actually wrote back :P and said that the master camera is in Maya 11. I'm using Maya 08.
So he sent me a link of a download for M08 so i can play blast my shots.
I have no idea how to do it!! So he said i can wait till Wednesday and he will help me out.

The next thing i did was download a program called 'Sound Librarian' which lets you search for sound effects or music and you can use it for free! So i went through that for a bit.

I decided to work on my fairy toy that i want in the room, it's slowly coming along because i'm making some mistakes. I don't have Jack to guide me through it so it's trial and error all the way. Of course i'm learning as i go!

So the next thing to do is to add the toys and other items into the room.

The Fairy Toy. It's not finished yet.

7 Week Milestones.

Its the end of week 7 now. Time went by so fast.
I have to say that i got most of my milestones complete! which is pretty good.

I have a lot of little things that i have to finish, mostly in my 3D world.
On friday Jack helped me with making a wall that has a door that opens and closes, i had to move around a lot of the vertex points so it could look old and not perfect. i like it alot!
I have a problem where i use to have a door substitute, which was slightly off to the left, i set all my shot cameras aline with that door. When the actual wall and door were made it got moved around and i forgot about the cameras. Now the shots are wrong and need to be fixed.

What i have to complete in my 3D world:
- Fix up camera shots

- Add mothers arms behind door
Over the holidays i made a set of arms in 3D for the mother, i ended up using the blocking out i did for one of my assignments from last semester. I tried on friday to add the mother character to the scene but it kept coming up with an error, my plan B is to use my blocked out Alice i did.

- toys x2
The toys aren't really a major thing, but i do want them in because it gives the room a kid feel. The toys look like they have been hand made by Alice.

- Add Textures.
I need to add all the textures into the room. Last week i learnt from my new teacher Kirrily that took over Huni how to mask in Photoshop. it helped out alot and i ended up making the textures a bit darker.

What i have to complete in my 2D world:
NOTHING :D
I finished my colour world early last week. Which is a load off!
I have completed it in photoshop and added it into After Effects and made a panning shot with added bubble effects.

My Sound:
The sound section of my production is the only thing thats a bit slow, i do have a musician that will do my music, ive had a meeting with him and he has given me some cds to listen too.
what i need to do is make a timeline that says when i want the music to become minor or major, with added scenes and how long the shot goes for. i can then send it to Kenny the musician and get him to work on a violin piece.

- I do have a list of what foley i want and i have a few sounds also.

I'm hoping i can get most of my 3D stuff done by next week and get started on taking frame shots of my 3D world and putting it into ToonBoom where i can start animating Alice.

rough sound design.

These are 2 songs that i really enjoy listening too.
I hope that i can get my music to be amazing like this.
Try and listen to the violin playing.

Finished Colour World, couldnt upload video.

Today i completed my colour world and placed it into After effects and did a panning shot with the help of both Darren and Jack and added bubble effects in the foreground, midground and background. I'm really happy with it and really love the bubbles.

The foreground bubbles are a pale blue, midground are a pale yellow and the foreground are a pale purple. the colours are really dull so they don't actually destract the viewer.

Colour world complete?

I worked on my colour world today and I think it's finished.
All I need to do now is put it into after effects and do a panning shot and make each layer move in 3D space.

It feels good getting it done.
I'm actually really worried that I won't get my milestones finished. I'm in week 7 now I think I have till Friday to get them done.

colour world shadows.

I found some references for light hitting the top of a mushroom.

I'm trying to achieve the same thing.

I'm in the animation cupboard listening to Gypsy Music, trying to find something that i like for my animation.

trying to fix time wasting.

i had work last night, so i don't get to work on my animation on Thursdays.
I did however tell my manager that i'm finding it hard working 20 hours a week and trying to fit in homework at the same time.

I work full day on Mondays and i hate it. I find that when i get home im just to tired to do anything. So my manager took me off Mondays :D
Now i work less hours, which means less money, but i can finally have a full day of getting work done and i won't feel so behind in work.

So things are going well!