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!

On the subject of....

Well had to start the post somehow. Been in full production for about 4 weeks now; concentrating on transitions  between the scenes at first and for the last week on our money shots. I have dedicated this week to getting a testing method up and running; and have had a photo of the building blown up to project onto. Afterwards i realised that i should have took the photo at night; this would have resulted in truer feedback. The first shot i tried on it highlighted the problem with the doorway and projecting onto it. Including it  made the perspective effect easier to comprehend.
The size of the projection on the photo was good; so thats one less headache.

As you can see the experiment was done in the studio with the lights off; but i am sure in darker conditions with results will be better.
Another thing i learnt from this experiment was the need for high contrast on the images compared to the background; i have had to trim the environment fog and cut the light linking from my environment. The scene i feel is a little cluttered; but it is supposed to show industrial build up, so i will let that pass.
My main concern with the production is the quality of the content. As a lot of my crew are working remotely; i only have one chance a week to rectify any content mistakes. I have had one member leave the team already; and give his services to another team. this workload has been spread across myself and Ryan (because he has been great so far and the most trustworty i feel this is right).
Well i have loads more test stuff to  go up here but you will have to wait and also a website on the way; and if you want to email me about any of our work its info@lumatechcollecive.org
Till next time....

Sorry for the late post; been trying to keep it at least once a week, but this one is late. After the research into herding last week i have decided to use the flow path feature in Maya and distort the flow of the fish with two further Lattice deformers. (squash and bend). This gives a great distorted look to the path. I then re-routed the fish through the windows by animating the vertex on the flow motion path.




As for the Machinery (scene 4) i have come to the decision to make it a little more busy by having a lot more cogs; etc appearng so this suggests industrial build up. This is also true to the animatic/storyboard. The second cut has been sent back to the musician (Nathan) who is re doing the sound track with the new material attached to it.



These are a couple of shots before the new machinery has been put in. The light has to be played with, well a lot needs playing with. But that's why we produced these lighting tests. Also it gives me some imagery to put on my blog ; )

The house is nearly built (thanks Ryan) and i have a producer who (i hope ) is making sure the second years are getting on with their work. When the finished soundtrack comes back I will cut it up into scenes and give the reference and the music to the artist who is working on it. With each scene i will have to produce a rough dope-sheet showing where any important sound effects are. This is the only issue i have with the music. Looking forward to this week; really taking shape now. Get in there

Herding.

Today i am playing around with a herding script in Maya. I have had some success in the past with it and identified possible problems with introducing the script into an already busy scene. I have discovered that the herding animation works best when on a positive zxy space as the locator is world -centric in its make up. (when the fish-in this case- move across the axis they translate by 90 degrees.) I am looking at assigning the herd leader to a separate locator and dis-associating it from the world space. This should solve the problem.

Or not. After running the script for a couple of time i have found it unstable; so i am going to look for another.
This is a shot of the water which i have been experimenting with.

 This shot is with the finished fish model introduced; and the caustics boosted.. The waves at the top should be hidden by the 'screen'. I have also introduced some simple geometry along the z axis to give the illusion of perspective.

I am still going to have to render the fish out separatly; and may have to key the fish in a more traditional way instead of using herds. The position of the light has got to be moved up so it produces more light in more of the scene.