A note on form....

I was just watching the tv on a Sunday arvo; like you do, and one advert really jumped out at me through its lack of convention. Yes it was trying to sell, but the way the shots were strung together harked back to the times before the shackles of disney and aspects of realism that they brought. It is almost as if the building stuff of the animation itself is being reused and morphed into other objects like the older animations. This could come along with the way digital animation has altered content in some ways (Pixar and Disney) and free up the way we now can make animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnwsAr8eBQA

Very pretty bit of animation; don't you think?

New phaze.

Production is going to be stoaked up this week; and the final timeline edit is going to be struck. The fact I have my production crew 'back' is a bonus; and I am hoping that they take this week as seriously as I am going to. The first thing is to get the water scene rendering; I am giving that to Ryan; and emphisising the time management aspect of this scenes production.
Been doing a few experiments at home with different programs and have had some success; namely Flash, where the pen tool is a lot faster to work with rather than the beam tool in After Effects for instance. Also been doing some tilt-shift cheat type renders on the projection animations to see the effect on the mapped architecture.
I am also loking for either someone to gather my foley for me or some time to do it myself! Ha only joking; but it has to be done soonish :)

Hi Ya.

Getting some advice about the sound was cool today. We ran through a few ways of editing the sound and even looked at ways of negating the lack of a mix track.
Been experimenting with some vector based programs and looking at their possible uses for mapping. I mapped the roof outside my flat and the chimney stack; and then projected the animation back onto the surface. It looked cool; but the camera i have to record the imagery is not all that so tonight i am going to be recording the results with a P2. Get in there. Omni projections could be an answer to my showreel issues atm; and that kind of thing only happens at night. Gorrilla stylee...

As Promised a test shot.

Keep having ideas. Good or bad?

Was thinking about the uses of projection and trying to go away from the linear method of projecting onto a flat surface; and I have started to work with right angles; mainly the corners of rooms. Using the method which i told you about a couple of weeks ago i feel it would be possible to make a fairly convincing installation. Simple but effective. Tests to follow.

Process of the wheel of progress.

From one word to the next there is only one letter different. But to get both of these things to happen in the desired ways at the same time is ; to put it briefly; some trick. After some really good news at the end of last week considering funding for the project i have just come out of a meeting with one of the uni's estates people. He is fully behind our project and has a funding idea to do with a construction trade partner, who he feels could fund our project. Now we wait. As for the production, all is good. New music for a sci fi moody bit at the end and some contact with Nathan. Also the trumpets are being animated eventually.

This is an idea for the sci-fi bit of music. It should work ok; we will wait and see. I am waiting for a high definition reference image from the house before i finish this scene.

Check this...

Living Room from Mr.Beam on Vimeo.

The question is; how to do this realtime. I am more interested in the mapping software, and if it can be done with a low cost lazer scanner.

Progress report.

Hi all; been working on getting the lighting right for the feel of scene 4. Its been a play off between losing definition and or perspective with the overall feel of the scene. the problems i have had were picked up on when i done a test on a photo of the house i had made (A2 size; cost 9quid :( ).

The dark area on the left is the shadow from where the origonal photo was taken. This proved that the model we have built and the render pipeline is producing an image that is the same size. As you can see though; the content of the house is lost iin the projection. To remidy this i have brightened up the scene; especially the animated objects such as the engine houses; etc. I have also used the light linking feature on maya so the light ignores items such as the fluid effect (for the atmosphere) and the 'sky'.

We have also put together a presentation pack for any pitches we have to do to secure funding. It would be a shame if all this was dne with no final outcome; ie a show.

I have also been working on the second scene; the one with the plants/brass. This has been going ok; and i have found a great way of animating the trumpets using the flare extrude/vertex keyer. This enables me to animate along with the music even tho the program is dragging a bit when it is scrubbed. I have got the plants growing along flowpaths over time which looks cool and the contrast with the gold/brass of the instruments is quite cool.

In this shot the house image is going to be the 3d modelled one not the photo as in this shot. This will be shot as white light and the shadows papped onto the surface of the model; but the texture of the building will show through. In the mean time i have come to a decision on the water scene lighting pipeline; and Ryan is building the rest of the scenery for that scene. We are hitting that one tomorrow. Caustic shortcuts galore!