PATCHES!

After failing at the arm and hand, I decided to take on Patches body. Through the day I had a some help from good old Sarah, Alec, Tom, Mike, Josh and Neil. They all showed me some tips to making the model look better. Unfortunately they were giving the tips to me and the model ended up looking like this, like a roast chicken!

This needs more work, I pray for someone to take this off my hands!

Little Arm and Hand

Hey all, I started modeling patches' arm and hand. Both from a cube and fairly straight forward. It definitely needs more work!

Camera!

Here is the little security camera that I made. I decided to go for a blocky, cartoony look. I cubes pipes and cylinders to create the whole thing! I stuck a couple of wires coming out the back to keep in style with the security console that Neil made. In fact if you look, the whole thing is shaped like a miniature version of the console. I also decided to exaggerate the lens to be more visually interesting!

Enivironment!

Mu gave me his original blockout for the animatic. It had Dean's shelves in as well as some originals from Mu himself. I Took this basic environment and added more detail to it. Firstly I added floor tiles by creating subdivisions and extruding faces. Afterwards I created some lights for the roof. I noticed that the lights for some supermarkets are sort of like stips, so I decided to do that. I then created a power cable form a cylinder. I though this would give the place more character. I then went about creating security camera which i will go into more detail later. It looks a bit naked at the mo, but it's looks OK for now. I had to take the roof off because the occlusion came out completely black.

This week in review!

this week has been very interesting. Mainly I have been experimenting with some modeling, I have even tried some character modeling. Hmmm. I thought that would never happen.

Wednesday we had a meeting with Mr Dave Bull, who seemed to be happy with the way things were coming along. I on the other hand am worried.

J.B has done some fantastic trouble shooting, with regards to the dynamics. Tom has been chugging away at modelling Breadbeard and its coming along nicely. I have been peering over his shoulder and we have been experimenting with different looks. Neil has started modeling objects for the Guard's room, but it is far from finished. Mu Li has provided a very nice layout of the super market, which I will be adding more details to, plus he's working on the boat. Josh has started modelling assets and they look fine, he's cracking on. Dean has really pleased me with a fantastic looking model of Walker, It's still got some ways to go, but it's looking really nice! Mike Quirke has started a pretty sweet rig for both myself and J.B, but we would both like to see it finished. Ash, has been working on the guard and he looks kinda terrifying at the moment so he may need some work. Paul has finished the trolley and it looks superb, however there is a certain bag of food that he has made, with a ridiculously high poly count...we have to change that.

The main problem in both the Pirates and Dummy Groups at the moment is ATTENDANCE. It is bad at the mo. Myself, J.B, Tom, Josh and Neil have been in everyday. Dean arrives in the after noon everyday, but he shows a brilliant level of work that I am really happy with, he also likes to hear my opinions on his work which is great because it shows that he is not afraid of changing the models. I saw Mike twice this term, once this week. He did have a great rig, but It would be better if I could see his pretty face a little more. Mu is in a lot, he could not come in on some of the days which he fully explained which is fine. Ash and Paul on the other hand, have proven more illusive than the loch ness monster. I saw them today for the PPD. Ash, talked to me today and Paul posted a message on the blog, but it is not really good enough. I need to know if they are in, both of them missed the meeting with Dave on Wednesday. They both have said this will change next week, we shall see.

Attendance has been a problem, but the work that have seen had been to a good standard, and in some cases excellent!

These evaluations shall be a weekly thing, as it will help me see how we are progressing on the film.

A little inspiration

Hi! I was paroosing the Internet looking at different models. I all of a sudden, stumbled upon a website of a man named, Andy Wakeley. Here I found this pretty sweet model. I really liked the overall look of the model. I thought the hands were especially fantastic. His body is also very similar to Walker's so I thought it would be useful to put this up. If we could get the models to this sort of standard, it would be very good!

Slowly But...Slowly!

Yup. this was me trying to make Patches again out of a cylinder...It was a bit of a failure!

Hey, I spent a little part of today, ironing out the problems with The patches model. I rounded off some areas and blocked out some areas. I generally tries to make the model look better. It still does not look right. I would also like someone to take this face and add proper topolgy to it. I tried and it did not work out well.

Patches Update!

Here's my updated version of Patches. This time my lovely assistant Tom showed me how to make the ears. I also tried to sort out some of the glitches in it. To be completely honest, this looks awful and I need someone who is awesome to PLEEEASE take it off my hand because I have no idea how to start making this look halfway decent. Serious this is all lumpy and it just looks a mess!

An Attempt At Patches!

I began to panic about deadlines yesterday. With this in mind I decided to do the unthinkable, and start modelling patches. I know it's someone else's job but I panicked. As we can see, I am no modeller. At the end of yesterday I thought it went quite well, but looking back at the model it looks horrible. It really reminds me of Colin's Bear Animation!

UV Textures

I was trying to model some of the signs yesterday, and it was not going too well. Then, like a beacon of hope, Simon came to save the day. Showed me all about the UV editor, and how I should go about texturing the signs. He said I should keep may open when I'm texture painting in photoshop to make sure I'm painting in the right places. It turned out looking OK, a little basic but the probably because I'm rubbish, good thing I'm not a texture artist eh? Thanks Si!

Ending Shot!

Hey guys here's the ending shot of the animatic. The new ending is that after the crash, we cut to the next day where the guard is all beat up and stuck in his scooter. He zooms past the display that says free sample,he looks at it, we cut to the cereal, he looks at it, we cut to the cereal. etc. at the end of the day he doesn't learn his lesson and the same old cycle starts again.

'The Signs They Are A Changing!'

He people! As I said to Tom on Friday, I would create our lovely signs and what not in photoshop today. Here we see various signs for the 'Golden Treasure' display. There's also two 'Free Sample' signs for the end of the film. I also did some general signs for around the market including the 'Produce Aisle' sign and the 'Cereals and Misc' sign. I kept all the signs within our muted colour scheme as well as trying to keep the typography somewhat similar to our retro type for the 'Yum N Yum' logo. These are ready to be modelled in Maya but let me know what you think guys.

Some More Shots!

Hey Yall! Here's two more shots. Couldn't get much work done today with the dissertation one to ones, the group meetings, and overseeing the films progress. I did manage to squeeze in two more shots though. The first is a fast slomo shot, Zak style, of the ship separating from the trolleys. I don't have a model of the trolleys yet so you'll have to use your imagination. But the ship actually launches into the air and lands on the scooter. Is decided to go a little crazy with the angle and make the ship look more dominating. The other shot is the first of my retooling of the beginning. This was sort of a test, Tom did the animation for the shot but I I'm not sure at the moment. It's sort of flat.

TERMINATOR!

Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum....That was supposed to be the theme.

As we all know, when it comes to action, nobody does it quite like James Cameron. He successfully created the two best sequels ever (Aliens, and T2: Judgement Day). Cameron doesn't rely on over stylising to map out his action sequences, he lets allot of it speak for itself. You can see how Bay is inspired by Cameron, except Bay is far more A.D.D! Cameron uses wide shots, a little shakey cam but not too much, and he really lets you observe the scene. He also uses slomo sparingly, look at the chase scene form T2. Cameron saves that big slomo shot for the bit where Arnie drives down on the bike, and saves John Conner. It's that one shot that uses the slomo and it really makes it stand out. He also saves a massive explosion for the end of the scene as an exciting payoff for the audience. This is why I really want to use slomo, but sparingly.

As before, I would love to show you some scenes but the embed has been disabled, so you'll have to settle for the links.

For every one's favourite chase scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htpL9i5WSp4

For that awesome mall hallway scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W554Hqmffzg

Terminator Salvation had some pretty handy camera work put into it as well. The film was not a patch on the first two but was leagues better than the third. Director McG (yeah, that's his name!) had previously worked on the 'Charlie's Angels' movies (which I hate) before directing the fourth film in the Terminator franchise. McG himself, said he studied Cameron's films to get his feel for Salvation, and it worked.

For the cool opening with the Choppaaas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT9k7mGze4I

For the Bike Scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oarxs5TgYWQ

Ok People, dust off ya 90's hifi, pop in 'Use Your Illusion II' by Guns N' Roses, and Enjoy!

Zak Schneider!

Zak Schneider, some people love him, some people hate him...I couldn't really care less. He debuted with a pretty decent (but not a patch on the original) remake of Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead'. He then moved onto the much man-loved '300', which oddly seemed to get the boys more excited about male muscles than the girls. Recently he directed the long awaited, and highly controversial, film adaptation of Alan Moore's celebrated graphic novel 'Watchmen'. Say what you will about ol' Zacky, but we can all agree, he likes him some slow motion. It could be argued that it is used in excess, but it makes more great analysis material. The slomo he uses is very smooth, and extremely slow. He likes to cut really fast to slow in the same shot, which is what I want to do in the shot where Breadbeard swings from the boat onto the scooter.

Now I would love to show examples but those lovely boys down at Warner Bros has disabled the embedding for these videos. Instead I shall leave you with the links.

For that famous scene from 300:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTXlWYdodnc

For the Rorschach vs Police scene from Watchmen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELSGwz7xTmM

And for the death of the Comedian from Watchmen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e-CQtsc_go

Enjoy!

In The Action

I'm very into action at the moment! After analysing Bay I came up with this shot. Much like bay, I tried to follow the action and keep the camera very low to the ground. I pretty much made this shot with J.B in mind. I want to use his steady cam in this shot and also his exploding water melons. Just imagine the shot with the shakey cam, and the melon's hitting the shelf and exploding. Hopefully it will look Tre Sexy when it comes to the final thing! Mu and I tried to import the steady cam into this shot but it went berserk!it's not J.B's fault it's mine.

BAYISM!

I was researching Micheal Bay yesterday, the alleged 'King of Destruction'. Mr Sam Saunders showed me a chase scene from the film 'The Island'. What I observed was Bay likes to use allot of shakey camera in his action. It makes the scene seem more frantic. He also likes to shoot his chases very wide and close to the ground. He also likes to make the camera follow the action, almost like ti is chasing the cars itself. This makes the audience feel more involved in the scene and possibly feel like they a part of it. This is something I will be using in the film. J.B special camera should come in very handy.

New Shots

Yo! Here's some more shots. I decided to tweak some of the angles and get some zooms and stuff in. The animation is terrible, but that's a given by now. I've been researching ol' Mickey Bay, Jimmy Cameron, and other such action type movies to get some inspiration for the shots.

Facial Model Sheets

Hey Guys, Tom said that he might need a little reference making the facial model for Breadbeard. With this in mind I decided to draw a model sheet for all the characters. The are all stripped of clothes and hair. To be honest they look really weird, especially little Patcheswithout his bandanna. I also drew him without his eye patch, instead of drawing a gaping hole where his eye should be, I decided to spare the kiddies the nightmares and draw a little 'X' instead.

More shots

Here's some more shots, not as action packed as yesterday. These are more inspired by Sam Raimi's horror films (not the spiderman ones).

New Shots

Hey all, I have been rethinking some of the shots from the storyboard so they can be more dynamic. I Thought that we should incorporatemore dynamic shots. This not only will make the film more visuallyinteresting, but I thought that seeing as we are doing the film inmaya, we should make use of it. I have been watching more action movies, Bay, Bruckheimer, Cameron etc, and have been noting down some of their techniques. Seeing as we have a lot of action I thought we could be more dynamic to make it more cinematic.

The first shot is when breadbeard lands after pulling himself out the cutout. This shot is what Sam Saunders and I have dubbed the Bay shot. This is when the camera pans around a character at a low angle. Michael Bay uses this shot in the Rock, Bad Boys and Transformers.

This second shot is when breadbeard swings on the ship. I decided to try and add a Zack Synder slow motion shot. He uses this in 300 and Watchmen, and it seems to be what the kids like nowadays.

There is more to come...please forgive my rubbish animation.