Click, Move click. What is this an rpg?

As i mentioned in my previous blog its getting hard to describe whats happened in these without mentioning key elements that will ruin the finished piece.

However, This week as well as digitally animating I have also been working on some other stuff non digitally. For example I attended a life drawing lesson where I managed to scribble some weight notes down when the model moved or stood in a rest position which I have begun to look into with max. Also attending the lessons that Mike has been offering on Friday afternoons has helped incredibly with new techniques that I hope to incorporate into the final piece.

So all in all, progress has been good!

the main focus recently has been on group project as well as sorting out numerous issues with a off project. I've learnt so much already from experimenting with animation and 3D this module and its really helped me with the "Staying" power of work.

Until next time loyal subscribers, Tutors and Stalkers!

Progress!

Hit target quote for animation this week. *wipes sweat off brow* Feels good!

Work was hard with gamehack and other stuff taking over my personal life but it has helped me to move on and focus on my work.

This was a rather short blog as if i were to upload video's each time i do a piece of work i would ruin the project by the end of it. However, As requested by my specialist tutor.

Here is my model in full :)

It functions well enough for what i need it to display and in personal preference is fairly cute :D

Till then folks!

Presentation is everything.

Who said a suit isnt "Suitable" (see what i did there?) for uni?

Not me thats for sure, Welcome back to the progress of my progress.

So yesterday I had my progress presentation, For me it was a big deal as it let me show what I'd done in my absence and was a nice look at the evolution of the project.

It went great by the way, I've never been so confident in my life.

A point that got brought up was that I hadn't updated my progress tracker since Christmas so this is it!

01/02/2013

• Create presentation for check.
• Update blog with progress.
• Create new task list.

15/02/2013

• Animate scenes 1 - 9
• Render scenes 1 - 9

01/03/2013

• Animate scenes 10 - 25
• Render scenes 10 - 25

15/03/2013

• Animate scenes 25 - 35
• Render scenes 25 - 35

29/03/2013

• Animate scenes 36 - 45
• Render scenes 36 - 45

12/04/2013

• Animate scenes 45 - 64
• Render scenes 45 - 64

Remainder

• Compile the rendered footage into one piece.
• Edit the sound and music into the final piece.
• Polish the video and render it to high quality and a web safe version for presentation.

Hopefully it should be a bit clearer now and as always shall be blogging my progress at least weekly.

Till then folks, Have a good one and Happy Birthday to Brent Spiner!

(aka data from star trek)

*blows dust off blog*

Well I'm back :D

Had some major PC issues just before christmas and didnt get it fixed till the new year. Its all good now just been working on group project and getting some feedback from a company about my design masterclass project.

So what have I been doing? Well for one my Robots name is Billy now (Smallest sister requested it) and i've been working through my scene storyboards.

This was something that I underestimated until I started animating and I appreciate the amount of work that goes into any animated piece that I see now.

I have also spent some time learning to move cameras and set them on paths as well as arranging them to certain times.

So what progress have I made? Well that would be revealing wouldn't it! I hope you can make the most out of storyboards 1-6 as thats all thats been animated.

Its a big step for me animating facial movement with eyes etc. but its a strong one.

Whats that?

Update regarding late posts

Holidays are coming!!!!

*regains composure*

Well it seems like its been a long time since I posted anything. It has, I've had some personal issues regarding stuff and its still not 100% yet. BUT the good news is after getting over the majority its now nothing that will affect my workflow (though some blogs may be early/late)

Now back on track.
As my previous blog detailed, I have done a mini timeline of what needs to be completed by when, Its not completed yet as I need to sort out the scenes and how they're going to be animated.

The original idea was to create a virtual environment for the robot to be animated in. Although I wanted to create a detailed scene for each section I was advised to stick with simple visual aides. I ended up making one large scene with simple scenery as well as positioning various cameras for each scene.

The scene where the robot leaves the room.
The trees and bushes are cloned all the way down to give a sense
of speed for the walking scenes.

21st Dec.
So for this week I set myself the UI screens as a tasklist. After experimenting with some chroma keying in Vegas I realized that i was creating more work than necessary for myself as instead I could just make a text layer in Sony Vegas that I could animate and add effects overtop to get a better feel for what I wanted.

Well this counts for the 2 weeks progress, Christmas updates will be as regular as I can make them!

So stay safe folks and have a Merry Christmas!

Timeline, What im hoping to achieve ideally! Now updated!

So as most of my readers would have noted, Alot of tasks have been completed.... But how many are left is kind of a mystery.

So to counteract that I'm going to put up some deadlines and tasks that need to be completed by then.

30/11/2012

• Asset list created
• Script created
• Storyboard created
• Storyboard Animated
• Robot modeled and textured

7/12/2012

• Rig Robot
• Test robot with simple animations
• Factory placeholder and Path area

14/12/2012

• Make the CD
• Make Log
• Placeholder scene for the robot to run through
• Placeholder scene for robot to dance through
• Suitable placeholder scene for robot to dance off

21/12/2012

• UI – SCAN COMPLETE
• UI – ITEM IS A STORAGE DISC
  CONTENTS – MUSIC
• UI – ALLOW TRACK TO PLAY?
  Y/N
• UI – WARNING
  UNAUTHORIZED LIMB CONTROL

• UI – FIND SIGNS OF LIFE
• UI – SCAN ITEM
  ANAZLYZE CONTENTS
• UI – HOW YOU REMIND ME
• UI – crisis state animation of fluid levels etc.
• UI – EMERGENCY SHUT DOWN IMINENT
• UI – Animation of a startup sequence.
• UI – Animation of track 2 being deleted.

28/12/2012

• Test scale of robot in scenes.
• Go over previous tasks and check progress.
• Organize storyboard into scenes.

Rigging complete!

Well that was a successful weekend, Managed to rig the model and up and until now was tearing my hair out trying to sort the vertices and weights. Now.... We have bones!

So I finally learnt how to rig, Its an amazing feeling seeing as the last 2 years ive been crying about trying to do it and failing.

It turns out that while I have been placing the bones correctly and skinning perfectly.... the vertices need to be rigid and 1.0 added to them all, Its still rough but the great thing about animating in 3D is I can change the vertices if I need to mid animation.

Polish Polish Polish as they say, Small update for you all. Now to work on the levels!