Strange Behavior (Short Film) Entry: Dimitri Diakopoulos

[danb]

Jen walk test... http://www.cgfreelance.com/Untitled.avi .

I changed the colors a little.

[ddiakopoulos]

Hey Dan, in case you didn't get the email... the kitty file is here:
http://www.djdimitrious.com/sbteam/fileupload/files/cat09.mb

and also here is the ortho for the beginning of the dragon:
http://www.djdimitrious.com/sbteam/fileupload/files/dragon%20wings.jpg

Dimitri.

[redfrog]

Amazing work, Dan!

Jen sure has some real 'tude when she walks. Check out those hip movements!
I love it man! Classic!

[danb]

Does anyone know if the mech cat is going to be animated? Or is it just a statue? I'm beginning to rig the cat but if he is just a statue with no movement then i can just make a simple rig. If he moves about like jen and john, then i need to make the rig like jen and johns.

And how about Tekhead? Same thing or does he move around?

[ddiakopoulos]

Does anyone know if the mech cat is going to be animated? Or is it just a statue? I'm beginning to rig the cat but if he is just a statue with no movement then i can just make a simple rig. If he moves about like jen and john, then i need to make the rig like jen and johns.

And how about Tekhead? Same thing or does he move around?

Mech Cat will be animated... to what extent... not quite sure yet. I believe he should be rigged for a pounce animation + head movement, but I don't think he'll be doing any walking.


Tekhed is similar, he should have full arm movement and headmovement, but I don't think he'll be doing any walking either.

The maiden will need a full rig, and we'll figure out the dragon once he's finished.

[danb]

Ok thanks. Makes things much easier. :)

[danb]

http://www.cgfreelance.com/mech%20cat.jpg

Mech cat shaded. Will rig soon.

[Ranath]

Environment concept for shot 60, John being dropped from cliff:


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/cliff-view-down.jpg

[danb]

Excellent pic. How the heck do you add so much detail? :) Is that all 2d or did you use a 3d landscape generator also?

[Ranath]

thanks! I often just throw flat textures on overlay mode on top of my painting with like 50% visibility and then paint on another layer on top of it all and erase some bits of the texture. Works a lot better for me than custom texture brushes. I would probably use more 3d if I knew how :D but I'm still learning that..

[SamsonsReaper]

more scale to the shot 55, just a test seeing what you guys think

http://www.leventep.com/SP/SP_P/plain2.jpg

[danb]

more scale to the shot 55, just a test seeing what you guys think



Very cool. Almost looks like mars.

Do you know how to do 3d camera projection mapping?

[danb]

Mech cat fully rigged, even rigged the gears to move. :) Couldn't resist. He's got open and closed eye morphs and smile morph.


http://www.cgfreelance.com/mech%20cat%20rigged.jpg


Do we have the voice over yet, and written storyboards? I only have the treatment story. Could i get the written storyboards, or script if its available please? Thanks.

[ddiakopoulos]

Mech cat fully rigged, even rigged the gears to move. :) Couldn't resist. He's got open and closed eye morphs and smile morph.

Do we have the voice over yet, and written storyboards? I only have the treatment story. Could i get the written storyboards, or script if its available please? Thanks.

Written storyboards i'll post tomorrow (Craig has them but they need a few corrections). Dialog is nearly done (will finish tomorrow) then just need to schedule a time where I can record both voice actors (this coming week). Sound good?

Also, for the 3d mapping, Mike can do that.

Great job on the kitty!

[danb]

Written storyboards i'll post tomorrow (Craig has them but they need a few corrections). Dialog is nearly done (will finish tomorrow) then just need to schedule a time where I can record both voice actors (this coming week). Sound good?

Also, for the 3d mapping, Mike can do that.

Great job on the kitty!

Ok thanks. Good news again.

[animationhohogrl]

Wow everything looks amazing!

Dan I have a question. It looks like you fixed the face area? How much of it did you have to reconstruct?

It looks amazing. I'm starting to get some freetime again. For a couple of weeks before I start my work with Electronic Arts. (Thats why I had to bail also its my senior year! sorry guys!) But I could do some set modeling if you need any help.

Mandy

[SamsonsReaper]

Do you know how to do 3d camera projection mapping?

In maya yes,

[danb]

Wow everything looks amazing!

Dan I have a question. It looks like you fixed the face area? How much of it did you have to reconstruct?

It looks amazing. I'm starting to get some freetime again. For a couple of weeks before I start my work with Electronic Arts. (Thats why I had to bail also its my senior year! sorry guys!) But I could do some set modeling if you need any help.

Mandy

I only had to reconstruct things so that i could create facial morphs and also so that the cel renderer could render the outlines for the eyes, nose and mouth. Other than that the inner mouth was poking through the outer mouth.

I also reconstructed the tail. I needed cylinders that were not modelled at an angle for the tail to animate properly. But that wasn't your mistake because in the orthos the tail is curled upwards. So if you stuck to the orthos to the T, then the tail should have been modelled like that.

You did an excellent job.

I have an off topc question for you, and a little back story to it so beware. :)

I have been doing freelance 3d for 3 years because i have been disabled due to medical problems and had to work from home. Recently doctors finally have made progress with my illness. So i think in about 4 months i will start sending out job applications.

I would like to apply to video game companies. Can you tell me how you got Electronic Arts interest? Is there something special you did to get them to hire you?

Thanks for any help with that.

Dan

[danb]

In maya yes,

Sorry i forgot that we are rendering in cinema 4d, so the projection mapping would have to be done in that program.

Anyway you can get access to cinema 4d, to help out with the projection mapping? I could teach you the process in the program pretty quickly. And i think Mike has a video tutorial that explains it in c4d.

I was thinking you and Mike could work together to get some of these awesome Mattes to work in 3d.

[ddiakopoulos]

I only had to reconstruct things so that i could create facial morphs and also so that the cel renderer could render the outlines for the eyes, nose and mouth. Other than that the inner mouth was poking through the outer mouth.

I also reconstructed the tail. I needed cylinders that were not modelled at an angle for the tail to animate properly. But that wasn't your mistake because in the orthos the tail is curled upwards. So if you stuck to the orthos to the T, then the tail should have been modelled like that.

You did an excellent job.

I have an off topc question for you, and a little back story to it so beware. :)

I have been doing freelance 3d for 3 years because i have been disabled due to medical problems and had to work from home. Recently doctors finally have made progress with my illness. So i think in about 4 months i will start sending out job applications.

I would like to apply to video game companies. Can you tell me how you got Electronic Arts interest? Is there something special you did to get them to hire you?

Thanks for any help with that.

Dan

With the right selection of portfolio material, there are a TON of videogame companies hiring 3D artists of all sorts. The largest concentration of companies by far, though, is in southern California... so you would probably end up moving.

Btw- for the list of shots, that'll have to wait till tonight. I need to go help a friend recover a couple hundred gigs of important data on his crashed harddrive this afternoon. (Always remember to backup!)

Cheers,
Dimitri

[danb]

With the right selection of portfolio material, there are a TON of videogame companies hiring 3D artists of all sorts. The largest concentration of companies by far, though, is in southern California... so you would probably end up moving.

Btw- for the list of shots, that'll have to wait till tonight. I need to go help a friend recover a couple hundred gigs of important data on his crashed harddrive this afternoon. (Always remember to backup!)

Cheers,
Dimitri

Thank you. I'm hoping this project will help my portfolio along a lot.

Actually i'm going to apply to a few game studios in Boston. The company that makes "Guitar Hero", named Harmonix, is hiring for Animators and Character Modellers. I'd be going for one of those spots.

[slouchcorp]

hey guys sorry for the delay in replying, been flat out at work so havent had much, time,


back into it today, i wasnt happy with the modeling id do sofar and as were now rendering in cinema i decided to start again, and to it with generators and more procedual methods.

west wings nealy done and ill be starting the dome room soon ill post some updates pics in a while.

mattes should be pretty simple to make based on that last image. will get to it soon aswell

dan your characters are look great man nice work your fast!

Mike

[danb]

dan your characters are look great man nice work your fast!

Mike

Thanks. I can't take credit for the cat, amanda modelled that one. I just rigged and textured it.

Mike, i'm using some SLA shaders for metals. Do you know a way to grimy them up, without having to start over? Maybe bake them and then modify by hand? Or is that not possible?

Did i already ask you that? :)

[slouchcorp]

just dump a second layer of materials on, id layer up some noises in the alpha, and drop it iver the top should work ok, dont forget to add a stick texture tag so they deform ok.


Mike

[animationhohogrl]

Hey!

I don't think you'll have much problem getting a job. But, I kinda slid my way in mostly to the EA work. My school offered a class in which you got to attempt to help EA out. If your work was good they used it. Then after the class they picked some of hte people in the class to take contract work with them. It is pretty cool!

Also, our school teaches us that we need to go to conventions like GDC, siggraph and so forth. To pass out business cards, demo reels , and resumes to make contacts! Be sure to do that! Other than that, good luck! Your amazing tho, you shouldn't have trouble.

Mandy

[danb]

Hey!

I don't think you'll have much problem getting a job. But, I kinda slid my way in mostly to the EA work. My school offered a class in which you got to attempt to help EA out. If your work was good they used it. Then after the class they picked some of hte people in the class to take contract work with them. It is pretty cool!

Also, our school teaches us that we need to go to conventions like GDC, siggraph and so forth. To pass out business cards, demo reels , and resumes to make contacts! Be sure to do that! Other than that, good luck! Your amazing tho, you shouldn't have trouble.

Mandy

Mandy, That is very helpful. Thank you very much. I'll definately use that advice.

Mike, how can i add a layer to a SLA shader? I don't have much experience with materials, as you can see. :) Do i just add another texture tag to the object and then "mix textures" in the tag settings?

Would it be better if i emailed you?

[slouchcorp]

yeah email me:) you just add new material tags , no need to use mix, materials stack ontop of each other. if you want i can make an example


Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

Emailed most of everyone with an updated list of shots. Below post will be two entries of Mike's nearly complete west wing.

I also just noticed I messed up some nomenclature on the wings, labeling things East/West wing without thinking. There is only 1 wing in the film, the EAST, so disregard anything that indicates that there is a west wing... it's all "the east wing."

Cheers,
Dimitri.

[ddiakopoulos]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1191204344_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1191204344_large.jpg)

Near complete render of the West Wing by Mike Batchelor.

[danb]

Wow very nice! I'm glad you switched to nurbs. :)

Mike do you think we should render to layers, one background animation and one character animation? That way we could start rendering the background ahead of time. Then use one fram to generate HDRI for the characters and maybe bake the textures?

[slouchcorp]

hey dan, when it comes to rendering, i render everything out seperate anyway so that would work. as long as the shots remain locked then itll match up fine.

been thinking out the painting we have to go into, il try and make a mini matte painting of it inside the frame so it looks like it has depth as we see it, then a clean transition into the world beond.

mike

[GrandGourou]

Your work is quite impressive, I'm specially stunned by your artworks, Raine Kuusi.
The gallery gives a very strange feeling, it's beautiful !

[danb]

Final Mech Cat rig... http://www.cgfreelance.com/Mech%20cat%20rig%202.mov .

[animationhohogrl]

I was just wondering if I can have a rigged version of the cat. So I can pose him for my reel? I'll need your full name tho Dan to give credit.

Thanks,
Mandy

[danb]

I was just wondering if I can have a rigged version of the cat. So I can pose him for my reel? I'll need your full name tho Dan to give credit.

Thanks,
Mandy

I am using a plugin for c4d, which allows IK setup of any type of object, not just bones. This means that I have rigged the cat mostly without bones. If i export the cat through .fbx or .obj then all the rigging setup will be lost and you would not be able to pose him. I have only rigged the legs with bones. Everything else you see is rigged with either "Cactus Dan's Character Bundle" or xpresso, both are c4d native tools, which would be lost on exporting.

I can post the most recent mesh of the cat, if you want. You will get all the shaders as textures, which will need to be altered in Maya.

Or i can export the cat as a point level animation of what you see in the link above as an .mdd file. You would not be able to pose the cat in this format. I'm not sure how you would open it in Maya though. I am sure that .mdd is compatible between c4d and maya, I just don't know how its done. Doing it this way would take me a couple days, so if you can wait until after the competition i can send you the file as an .mdd.

[animationhohogrl]

I'll just wait for the competition and take the .mdd file.

Thanks,
Mandy

[danb]

I'll just wait for the competition and take the .mdd file.

Thanks,
Mandy

Ok no problem. Won't be a long wait. Deadline is looming soon. Eeeekk! :)

[SamsonsReaper]

this is the final composition for the matte, from now on its just detailwork wihooo

http://www.leventep.com/SP/SP_P/plain3.jpg

[danb]

Very nice work.

Here is the steam maiden shaded. Some minor changes could follow...

http://www.cgfreelance.com/steam%20maiden.jpg

How's the voice over coming along? Any progress on the dragon?

[ddiakopoulos]

Very nice work.

Here is the steam maiden shaded. Some minor changes could follow...

How's the voice over coming along? Any progress on the dragon?

Nice work. Dialog script is nearly finished, then I'll get my voice actors together this week.

Hasn't Brad given you the rest of the orthos?

Hmm..

[elnady]

Great work guys
Good luck :)
I like the steam Robot alot:thumbsup:

[danb]

Nice work. Dialog script is nearly finished, then I'll get my voice actors together this week.

Hasn't Brad given you the rest of the orthos?

Hmm..

Ok cool.

He's given me the orthos for the wings of the dragon so far.

[danb]

old man...
http://www.cgfreelance.com/oldman%20shaded%202.jpg

forgot to put his eyebrows on...

[SamsonsReaper]

Mike:is it ok if i provided you the matte later on for you to do the cam projection?

I could learn the stuff in C4D but me and dimitri discussed that it would be better if we were on the safe side just to be sure.

Daniel: top notch work on the characters man!

[GregOconn]

Wow guys all your progress looks great.

Sorry I had to jump off the project. Keep up the good work!

[slouchcorp]

Hey man sure thing send when your ready iv still got tone of work on the building to get done will do my best to keep up!

heres some shots of the entrance, would be cool if you guys could have a look see if there ok and if you want more could you do some paint overs so i can add extra parts im getting stuck on what elce to add, and the entrace shot seems to need more enviroment stuff, or at least if we use that angle from the storyboards??

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/entrance5.jpg

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/entrance6.jpg

and while i was rendering at work yesterday i took the time to have a quick play with the last painting see how it works as a matte, so far so good only a quck n dirty test thoe...

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/MATTE1.mov


will start the hallway today if theres no major changes to the entrace.

Mike

[Ranath]

hey, nice work on the entrance. When you finish it, could you render a shot of it from the same angle as we see it in the first establishing shot? that way I could get exactly the same look to it without spending too much time and worrying of continuoty?


I'll do a paintover later today, mostly it's just sort of a garden/park type of thing outside the building, and a lot of fog.

[slouchcorp]

no probs thanks for looking into the paint over for me

MIke

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

This stuff is rockin'! :twisted:

Dimitri and Dan I've posted my WIP of the dragon ortho's only a front and probably back view of the dude body/neck left to do.

Dan - Sweet texturing the Steam maiden looks bad a$$. The cat rigging looks mad too I love that you made the gears and shocker move!

Ranath and Levi - Some awesome matte work coming from you guys they look stunning

Mike - the gallery inner/outer is coming along a treat, great job on the door!

I'm honoured to be part of such a talented team.

[ddiakopoulos]

Mike - The entrance looks great to me. Textured up and from the angle in the storyboard, it will fit right in. Go ahead and start on the Hallway. It's going to be like the gallery, but with larger, more widely spaced columns and no second level, and also a few misc doors in the walls. Nice test shot on the matte by the way... atmospheric and just about right for what we need.

Craig - How are the storyboards coming along? We'll need them pretty soon, even if they are just rough sketches. Did you get the latest updated list of shots?

Raine - After you do the paintover, what % is the establishing matte complete? I'd like to get that signed & sealed pretty quickly at this point.

Levi - When will you have a detailed shot of your latest matte available?

Dan - Where are you at right now? I spoke with Brad and he said he would send some more orthos of the Dragon. Has the TekHed been textured yet? Old man is looking good... is it possible we can change the color of his jacket? The yellow doesn't seem to fit for me... anyone else feel similarly? Also, is it possible we can get together and set up the renderfarm on Tuesday the 9th during the day?

Me - I'm leaving to go to the 123rd AES Conference in NYC this weekend... I'll still be able to get online at night though, so there shouldn't be any communication issues. I'll record the dialog a day or two after I get back-- Wednesday the 10th or Thursday the 11th.

Cheers everyone,
Dimitri.

[slouchcorp]

ok cool will do as soon as i get the pint over..

started a little on the hall and was wondering about adding a info sign showig the gallery layout i know yout not in the scene long its just details, but wondering if the style fits to modern? or ok.

added the room for the old man is this ok? will be adding the coloums and the other side will have the arched doors. as you see on the right.

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/hall1.jpg

thoughts comments as allways

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

Mike... I think we can do without the gallery map. It's just an extraneous detail that doesn't need to be in there, plus I don't think it fits in very well with the theme of the gallery. I'm also not too sure about those wall posts... they seem a bit too post-modern for me.

Neovictorian architecture is what we're aiming for, and though you may not have known, seem to be getting it quite right (as in the east wing...) Doing a bit of google image searching, you can get a feel for the type of interior ornamentation used back then... in particular I liked this image...
http://www.dsphotographic.com/g2/15724-3/Manchester+Town+Hall+Interior+-+006.jpg

The hall should be left pretty simplistic... Instead of having separate pillars as in the layout, they could possibly be merged with the wall (1/2 in 1/2 out) where those decorative wall lines are. The picture above is almost what we need :)

[slouchcorp]

coolio no probs so you want valted celings for the hall aswell?

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

coolio no probs so you want valted celings for the hall aswell?

Mike

Yup. You bet.

[danb]

Dan - Where are you at right now? I spoke with Brad and he said he would send some more orthos of the Dragon. Has the TekHed been textured yet? Old man is looking good... is it possible we can change the color of his jacket? The yellow doesn't seem to fit for me... anyone else feel similarly? Also, is it possible we can get together and set up the renderfarm on Tuesday the 9th during the day?

I was going to start texturing and rigging the tek head character. Then on to steam maiden for rigging. But now that the orthos for the dragon are done i'll start with that.

What kind and how much animation is the dragon going to be doing?

[ddiakopoulos]

I was going to start texturing and rigging the tek head character. Then on to steam maiden for rigging. But now that the orthos for the dragon are done i'll start with that.

What kind and how much animation is the dragon going to be doing?

Probably 10 seconds of animation total, wings flapping. Claws might need to extend to pick up John, but that's about it.

[danb]

Probably 10 seconds of animation total, wings flapping. Claws might need to extend to pick up John, but that's about it.

Ok thanks. This one should be easy to rig.

[Ranath]

Raine - After you do the paintover, what % is the establishing matte complete? I'd like to get that signed & sealed pretty quickly at this point.


Almost done, have to finish one section and get a render of entrance from Mike to be pasted on. Then final adjustments which doesn't take too long - just color correction and contrast adjustments.

anyway, here's a mood shot of the entrance and a quick side view of entrance and hall.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/entrance-overp.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/entrance-side.jpg

[redfrog]

Craig - How are the storyboards coming along? We'll need them pretty soon, even if they are just rough sketches. Did you get the latest updated list of shots?




Hi Dmitri,

Sorry with the delay on sbs. Have been super hectic at work at the moment and have been able to find no time to do this stuff. On top of that i am away this weekend as well. Is there anyone that can help out with the storyboards?

Here is the next page but obviously there is a lot more to do. I think your shotlist had about 60-70 shots.

http://features-temp.cgsociety.org/gallerycrits/155081/155081_1191450019_large.jpg

[ddiakopoulos]

Craig - I understand your workload, but I don't think there is anyone else available to do the complete storyboards. Is it possible at all if you could do a quicker/toned down version? Basic framing and stick-figure poses would be sufficient--not nearly the quality you're producing now. Let me know?

Also Mike/Raine, anyway we can get rid of those circular flappy things on either side of the entrance? Something square would work a bit better. Seems too modern to me.

[slouchcorp]

thanks raine that looks great, dmitri will lose the flaps and make a more normal wall.

craig cool SB's can get a better idea of the dome now:)

Mike

[slouchcorp]

heres an update on the hall, let me know if its working..

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/hallway.jpg

some details

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/hallway2.jpg

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/hallway3.jpg


Mike

[danb]

Looks awesome. Nice job.

[ddiakopoulos]

Looks good to me. Wondering were we can put some lights though. I'm thinking torch-like lamps on the sides of the pillars.

[slouchcorp]

good call. i was thinking a floresant tube above the ticket booth? will add the lamps, currently tweeking the entrance will have an update in a few.

Mike

[slouchcorp]

dan are you getting 10.5? iv been using it for this project havent used anything new (i dont think) but would be good to test out if you can open the scenes ok


Mike

[danb]

dan are you getting 10.5? iv been using it for this project havent used anything new (i dont think) but would be good to test out if you can open the scenes ok


Mike

I don't have 10.5 right now. I plan on upgrading, but it won't be for a few months at the earliest.

You want to send me a file to test opening it?

Also, Dmitri has a group of computers we can use for rendering. Do you use network rendering at your studio? Is there anyway i can set his up so that we all can use it for rendering, from our homes/work?

[ddiakopoulos]

I don't have 10.5 right now. I plan on upgrading, but it won't be for a few months at the earliest.

You want to send me a file to test opening it?

Also, Dmitri has a group of computers we can use for rendering. Do you use network rendering at your studio? Is there anyway i can set his up so that we all can use it for rendering, from our homes/work?

Getting remote acess to it is trivial... getting the data back to you is harder unless you drive down and pick it up on a dvd, or i ship it overnight or something. I expect the files to be large, right?

[slouchcorp]

at this stage no, the entrace is 5MB with out materials, ive got a nice big server to host files on so its not a problem to upload these as soon as im textured, dan ill send you the entrace file soon..

heres the entrance update what do you think?

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/entrance7.jpg


Mike

[slouchcorp]

sorry miss read most of that! i dont do network rendering sorry.

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

at this stage no, the entrace is 5MB with out materials, ive got a nice big server to host files on so its not a problem to upload these.

Mike

I'm talking about the rendered video. What does cinema 4D render to? Mpeg? Avi?

3 mins of HD video in mpeg2 wouldn't be too bad I guess...

Entrance looks great by the way.

[slouchcorp]

cinema renders out as anything you need, how ever as its all going to be comped id personaly use tiffs or targas as i render out everything seperate, EG AO pass, colout pass lights and so on so you can have more control in post..

thanks:) back to the hallway then:)

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1191517188_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1191517188_large.jpg)

Steam Maiden & Old man models textured and rigged by Dan.

[ddiakopoulos]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1191517323_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1191517323_large.jpg)

Entrance modeled by Mike.

[danb]

Mike how come you don't use .psd files out of c4d? Too large?

Dmitri, i think you're right. That might be the best way to get the files to Mike for comping. It can be setup for internet http access but i forget exactly how that's done. I used to know all about this stuff a few years ago, as i was thinking of starting a render farm for c4d, but i forgot it all. :(

So i think the best way to do things would be to put files up on your team website for rendering and downloading.

We still got a few weeks before that happens. So maybe in the meantime i can figure out how the internet/network rendering works.

[slouchcorp]

whens the dead line? iv been hit with a trip away on the 19th for 7 days for work so going to have to cram in what i can from now...

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

whens the dead line? iv been hit with a trip away on the 19th for 7 days for work so going to have to cram in what i can from now...

Mike

doh.

Hmm, the 30th...

[danb]

I emailed, just a little while ago, another c4d artist from the forums, his handle here is Sammer. He's an animator. So hopefully he'll be interested and can find time to help out.


He'll probably reply in a day or two.

[slouchcorp]

heres the hall looking to the dome room with extra lights and stuff..

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/hall2_0037.jpg


Something im thinking about as im going is little details, like rubbish bins signs little extas that a place like this would have any opnions on that?

Mike

[danb]

heres the hall looking to the dome room with extra lights and stuff..

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/hall2_0037.jpg


Something im thinking about as im going is little details, like rubbish bins signs little extas that a place like this would have any opnions on that?

Mike

That's looking excellent man. Yeah i think where the ticket booth is, there should be a trash barrel. Maybe a bench near an empty wall.

Looks good. Time to texture it now?

[ddiakopoulos]

A couple potted plants near the dome entrance maybe? Waste bin near the pillar to the office? Perhaps a few signs that hang out above doors (horizonally) toward the middle... can make stuff up, maybe something clever like "Office of Amy Adams, Artist."

[slouchcorp]

ok cool nice ideas will add them as i go. textureing soon dan, but have the dome room to deal with thats been giving me probs havent managed to get anything i like yet will beat it thoe:)

then the fun of texturing.

Mike

[danb]

How many buildings do we have to create?

[ddiakopoulos]

How many buildings do we have to create?

Wha?

Questionmark?

[danb]

Wha?

Questionmark?

Just thought there was more than the museum. Good thing there isn't.

Don't mind me. :)

[slouchcorp]

only the gallery as far as i know? rest of the establising shots are matts, any 3d will be simple geomantry. i hope

Mike

[jakeDaMus]

Nice work!

You guys have good communication going. It must be hard being countries apart well done to the team leader!

Good luck Guys

JAkeDaMus

[Ranath]

nice. I checked earlier today this thread and now there's like 2 pages more stuff here..

about entrance - looks ready, just a question of scale. How large are the characters, doors look kinda low compared to lamp-posts? It's not a big deal really though.. maybe it's just about lack of scale reference right now that confuses..

Indoor stuff looks kinda nice, it should be pretty dark and pretty empty I guess, so no stress about having a ton of stuff there.


And as far as I know, no need to make detailed models of other buildings than gallery.

[Peter-Eriksson]

You have done some tremendous job since my last visit :-)
What a team, don't "stumble on the finishing line" as we say in Sweden.
Rock on and good luck guys!

Love the matte paintings!!!

/peter

[slouchcorp]

hmm yeah your right the doors tiny ill fix that up:)


Mike

[slouchcorp]

start of the dome room hows my direction going on this?

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/dome1.jpg


Mike

[fifty3dragons]

Just wanted to say I was looking through your challenge thread here and I'm thoroughly impressed. What a tremendous amount of work. The WiP stuff is excellent, but I've also really enjoyed the concept art. If you ever get a chance to post a step-by-step for one of your concept paintings, I'd love to see it.

Great stuff across the board. Best of luck!

[ddiakopoulos]

Wheew, sorry for the slow reponse guys. Been pretty busy in NYC the past day and a half.

Thanks for all the kind comments to the above posters. It is indeed hard managing people on 3 different continents!

Mike, dome looks fine. It only needs to be in moderate detail, considering there are only a few shots .

About the buildings... no, just the gallery and some simple 3d for the mattes. And that's it!


D

[slouchcorp]

dome room done. think im ready to start texturing the sets unless you guys think of anything elce im missing?

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/domeshot1.jpg


mike

[danb]

Looks perfect to me. Nice!!

Can i get those .c4d files please? I think i can begin animating. I don't have all the characters rigged or shaded but the ones i do i can animate with. I have Jen, John, the cat, oldman, and steam maiden shaded and rigged, and TekHead rigged not shaded (doing that today).

Dmitri, how's the voice track coming?

[ddiakopoulos]

Mike, dome looks great. You have my go-ahead to start texturing!

Dan - Voice will be recorded either 12/13/14th. I hope that's not too late. Can facial morphs be the last thing we animate, or does it need to be done all sequentially...?

Dimitri

[danb]

Oh bummer. Its usually done beforehand, because the body and facial motion comes from the conversation.

Oh well i'll work around it. Maybe i can get that facial mocap thing figured out and save weeks of work.

[slouchcorp]

heres a texture test for the dome room hows this for you guys?

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/DOME_ROOM.jpg


Mike

[Billabong]

WOW! amazing work Mike,

[danb]

Awesome!! How long did that take to render? Any SPD, AO or GI in there?

[slouchcorp]

thanks, thats about 7 min render, have AO, blury reflections and volumtric lights so might be able to speed it up doing it all seperate. not really convinced with lighting or the pillers yet, lightings not my strong point


Mike

[danb]

Cool. Yeah i was doing test renders for scale and had trouble lighting that scene also. I ended up copying the torches and switching them to spot. Then targeted them to the pedestal.

I must have done something wrong though, because my render with AO and no textures took over 3 hours. Maybe from too many lights.

Here's some scale tests...
http://www.cgfreelance.com/cat%20viz.jpg

http://www.cgfreelance.com/gallery%20viz.jpg

Does scale seem right to you guys? Will be doing the other ones next.

[ddiakopoulos]

Mike - Great work on texturing. No critisims on this end. I don't like how you changed the top of the columns on the gallery through (from dan's shots) ? I believe they were more gearlike from previous renders.

Dan - Hope you can figure out the rendering issue. Scale looks about perfect though.

Sorry for the short responses - coming home tomorrow and i'll be able to give my full undivided attention again.

[Ranath]

Your work is quite impressive, I'm specially stunned by your artworks, Raine Kuusi.
The gallery gives a very strange feeling, it's beautiful !

oh, didn't notice this until now. Thanks man! much appreciated!

[Ranath]

oh, and Mike, establishing shot is almost ready, I just need a render of entrance from right angle.. just non-textured version works. So when you have time, want to render one for me?

[slouchcorp]

here you go mate


www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/ENTRANCE.zip (http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/ENTRANCE.zip)


Mike

[danb]

Brad, are you around? Do you happen to have the remaining concept sketches of the dragon?

Only need the top view, i think.

[danb]

Oops. Need a front view also of the neck and body. Same for the top view.

[ddiakopoulos]

Oops. Need a front view also of the neck and body. Same for the top view.

I'll email him tomorrow if he doesn't get back to us shortly.

I'm taking the week off from work so I can work on the dialog and get the voice recording session going. I want to make sure everything goes completely smoothly.

I was also playing around with some post-effects we could use. I know this scene isn't textured, but this is a nice effect I came up with:

http://www.djdimitrious.com/cat-viz_post.jpg

Sepia toned, desaturated most colors (sweetened a few highlights), and applied a lens blur.

[danb]

I'll email him tomorrow if he doesn't get back to us shortly.

I'm taking the week off from work so I can work on the dialog and get the voice recording session going. I want to make sure everything goes completely smoothly.

I was also playing around with some post-effects we could use. I know this scene isn't textured, but this is a nice effect I came up with:

http://www.djdimitrious.com/cat-viz_post.jpg

Sepia toned, desaturated most colors (sweetened a few highlights), and applied a lens blur.

That looks very good. It brings out the shadows in crevises nicely. Which program did you use to do that? If that was done in photoshop than we can do that in After Effects and it will save us tons of time in rendering.

I've got the dragon almost done. I just need reference of the front. I'm actually going to keep going and guess from the side orthos and see what i end up with. Probably have the dragon finished tomorrow. Including rigging. I hope. :)

Its going to be badass. :)

[SamsonsReaper]

looking good!

i feel there is a risk it might look abit blotchy though. I was thinking of all the black areas.

[Ranath]

hey, looking good. I'd try to watch out for too high contrast which is causing the blotchiness Levi talked about.

Here's my try on color:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/DOME_RO.jpg

[SamsonsReaper]

ranath: that lightings is working really nice

mike: been busy with deadlines, but i will have a matte for you of shot 55 by the end of this week most likely sooner.

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

Dan the man, I'll have a front veiw at least of the body/neck done tonight. I was going to do a back view of the body/neck too...but would you rather a top view?

[Ranath]

a question: do we have a painting of the dragon and girl? or do we just composite 3d elements and matte? the girl isn't designed, is she?

nice to think of this stuff now..


EDIT: and another thing.. about lighting in dome. Those strong window shadows create a feeling of bright light that comes from outside. I showed this to my friend and what she said made me realize it too. This film takes place during evening or night after all. I don't think it's about the AMOUNT of light, I think that's really good in your render and also I like those faint light rays.. but somehow those window shadows don't really work. Is there a way to get rid of them easily? What do you guys think? It's all my mistake really for adding such strong light to my concept art but there you are..

[danb]

Dan the man, I'll have a front veiw at least of the body/neck done tonight. I was going to do a back view of the body/neck too...but would you rather a top view?

Top view should be fine. I have the profile from the side view and with the top view i can work the details out for the back. Thank you.

Ranaath, when you say Girl do you mean Jen, or a different girl? I hope you mean Jen because i don't think i have anymore time to model another character. :) Jen is modelled in 3d.

But you're right i don't have a matte for the dragon and girl. Maybe if you illustrators have time, could you create one? That way i'd know what the scene is supposed to look like. No big deal though.

[Ranath]

no, I don't mean Jen.. there is a topless girl in the dragon painting. In original script she was friend of the female main character (Jen/Amy, I dunno which anymore :D ) and in original script she emerged out of the painting in the end. That has been cut away in our version, our main character talks with Steam Maiden instead. So apparently this girl appears only in dragon painting and is completely motionless and 2d.

[slouchcorp]

yeah i agree about the lighting, looks like day light, iv been trying to get more of a nighttime feel hard thoe to get the volume light without blowing everything out, but most of it would be done in post so should be ok, that renders just a pure 3d render test no post, wich isnt how id do it anyway..



Mike

[danb]

no, I don't mean Jen.. there is a topless girl in the dragon painting. In original script she was friend of the female main character (Jen/Amy, I dunno which anymore :D ) and in original script she emerged out of the painting in the end. That has been cut away in our version, our main character talks with Steam Maiden instead. So apparently this girl appears only in dragon painting and is completely motionless and 2d.

Oh ok. I've been so busy i haven't even had time to read the documents.

So does the dragon even move? It'd be a pity to not see the dragon animated.

Ok next task for me, after i finish the dragon, is to read the script. Haha :)

[ddiakopoulos]

Hey, looking good. I'd try to watch out for too high contrast which is causing the blotchiness Levi talked about.

Here's an extension of yours with some exposure control and a little desaturation. The heavy shadows in the first untextured dome wouldn't really occur because it seems the lights are very bright and very directional in that particular render- that's not going to happen in the film. Like you said, this film takes place at night. Subtle moonlight from the windows and indoor lighting will provide all of the sources of shadow/reflection.

http://www.djdimitrious.com/DOME_RO2.jpg


But you're right i don't have a matte for the dragon and girl. Maybe if you illustrators have time, could you create one? That way i'd know what the scene is supposed to look like. No big deal though.

I was thinking about this earlier. It can just be a a section of the bottom cliff matte with the modeled dragon posed, and someone can draw a quick naked girl. Take that, add a little photoshop, and voila: a painting.


That has been cut away in our version, our main character talks with Steam Maiden instead.

Yep, you're right. That part didn't make sense to a few people who read the script: why would Amy befriend the girl in the painting when she's doing the exact same thing with John-- she's posing them, not having tea and crumpets with them!


So does the dragon even move? It'd be a pity to not see the dragon animated.

Yes, it has an animation sequence! Wouldn't have made you do all of this modeling if it weren't going to be animated. It flies around for a bit and picks up John :D

[slouchcorp]

heres a little lighting test for the entrance. ignore textures! just messing with lights so slapped some on for the hell of it.

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/ENTRANCE1.mov


mike

[ddiakopoulos]

heres a little lighting test for the entrance. ignore textures! just messing with lights so slapped some on for the hell of it.

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/ENTRANCE1.mov


mike

#&*^&! Brilliant. I love it. I think it could be in 1/2 time though... as in, 2x slower. That, coupled with Amy and John walking up the steps is a complete shot :)

[danb]

heres a little lighting test for the entrance. ignore textures! just messing with lights so slapped some on for the hell of it.

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/ENTRANCE1.mov


mike

Mike, or anyone else, do you want my character scenes to put in the environments in order to test lighting with the character textures? Both Jen and John have textures that are on the dark side. So i was thinking with the type of lighting you guys are going with, the textures may appear too dark.

[ddiakopoulos]

Mike, or anyone else, do you want my character scenes to put in the environments in order to test lighting with the character textures? Both Jen and John have textures that are on the dark side. So i was thinking with the type of lighting you guys are going with, the textures may appear too dark.

Some testing would be good... but the overall tone of the film is on the darker side. I wouldn't be worried about altering any of the textures if seem too dark-- that's just how it'll be!

I also noticed though, Jen's hair is supposed to be black with only the front purple. Her skirt is also supposed to be a deep red? Just noticed that looking back at the old character sketches.

[slouchcorp]

dan id say its probly better to render them out as a seperate pass anyway so we can light them up to match the scene without them getting lost.

mike

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

Mike that looks great!

Dan I had to keep going with the Dragon ortho's and I didn't read your response in time, so I've done a front and back view of the body/neck. If that doesn't give you the info you need let me know on here and I'll do a quick 3/4 sketch of the back/top of the body in my lunch break tomorrow (won't be at home tomorrow) night.

A revised assembled view is on the team site at the moment, i've still got to scan the back view and muck around with it a bit then i'll post that in a revised version of the dragon pieces file.

Catch B(rad)

[Ranath]

Yep, you're right. That part didn't make sense to a few people who read the script: why would Amy befriend the girl in the painting when she's doing the exact same thing with John-- she's posing them, not having tea and crumpets with them!



I think in the original script the topless girl was a friend of Amy who was sucked in earlier. She went on a date and brought him there only to release her friend. A typical player ;) . That's how I thought. But our direction where she is actually working for the gallery (bringing in more stuff) works just as nice.

I like what you did with the color in that one, though I find your contrast to be too strong. You get serious burning effect in the dark areas.. gotta find a way to avoid that.


heres a little lighting test for the entrance. ignore textures! just messing with lights so slapped some on for the hell of it.

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp...P/ENTRANCE1.mov (http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/ENTRANCE1.mov)


mike

wow! serious ass-kicking! let's see how I can use that in finishing my matte.. definitely got me an idea for colors..

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

Hey Dan I didn't chuck it in the pieces file I made a seperate file with the dragon body orthos and uploaded it to the team site it's called: Dragon Ortho WIP body.jpg

Have fun and let me know if you need a aerial 3/4 of his back deatail.

Catch

[danb]

Dmitri, Craig said that the colors in the concept sketches could be changed. I made them different colors so each part would stand out a little more. I will make a test of her hair being black to see how it looks. I'll post later.

Mike, that's a good idea. Would i just render the characters and not the enviros, then set the alpha as a seperate layer? Do i need an object id on anything? Do i need the lighting setups from you, in order to light the characters?

Brad, awesome man, i'll check the team site. I'm sure with a front and back view i can get the same results as if i had the top. No problem.

[slouchcorp]

hey dan when i get a chance ill make a rendering quide pdf for you, but the basics id do is

1:AO pass, comping tag set to matt (white) on the intire scene no lights, global AO
2: Shadow pass a white mat colour on scene and all shadow casting lights.
3: colour pass. textures no lights
4: lighting pass this os generaly volumtric lights, comping tag on scene set to black.

for characters they need to be included in the AO and Shadow passes however in the colour pass, give them a comping tag and turn off cast recive shadows seen by camera, and leave seen by rays, that way they will not render but will still generate reflections on the floors.

after that you can render them out as a seperate pass targa+alpha or tiff etc. light them in a way that matches the scene but keeps them nicely lit,

rest is all post work in AE.

hope that helps.

Im currently optimising the sets so they run faster

MIke

[danb]

Mike, i forgot to ask how to use the comp tags on a segmented mesh. Each character has lots of seperate polygon parts which are grouped under a null and deformed with bones (this works well with .fbx).

So do i need a comp tag on each and every character polygon part, i.e clothes, hair, shoes, pants, eyes, etc...?

[slouchcorp]

No just on the very top of the characters hiararchy itll take over for all children,

Mike

[danb]

Oh ok that's good news will save time

[danb]

Mike, we need some puffs or stream of smoke coming out of the dragon, and maybe the steam maiden (?). Do you think Pyrocluster will do the job or is there a faster way to do it in post?

Just realized we needed this effect.

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

Dan I whipped up a VERY rough 3/4 back view of dragon's body to show you what's going on...hopefully. It's on the team site.

Cheers

[danb]

Ok i actually ran into problems with the back. When i rigged the wings and rotated the wing base it would intersect either the gear or the body.

So i had to improvise a little. I pulled the body out near the gears, and made the gear part of the wing base. This way when the wings rotate the gear follows. If i did it any other way the gear would be intersected by the wing base when rotating the wing down.

There isn't as much detail in that area on my model right now, as in your pic, but i'll work on that next.

Here's the first draft of the dragon. You'll see the body is designed differently than your illustrations, to allow the rotation of the wing base and gear without any intersections, and shows the beginnings of the stove grate (is what i call it :) ).

http://www.cgfreelance.com/Untitled.mov

[slouchcorp]

nice start on the dragon dan,

heres a render guide for you and who evers doing the AE stuff..

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/RENDER_GUIDE.html


Mike

[slouchcorp]

textured entrance.

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/ENTRANCE_TEXTURES.jpg


Mike

[Ranath]

nice! how's this for establishing shot? it's slightly larger here than in final film but yeah.. I tweaked the colors to Mike's direction.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/establish.jpg

[danb]

nice start on the dragon dan,

heres a render guide for you and who evers doing the AE stuff..

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/RENDER_GUIDE.html


Mike

Thanks Mike. This is very helpful.

[ddiakopoulos]

Status update everyone?

Raine - Nice job. Once Mike finishes up texturing the gallery we can send that to him and we can get some mapping going on.

[ddiakopoulos]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1192077476_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1192077476_large.jpg)

Detail of the opening shot. Matte by Raine, 3D entrance by Mike.

[ddiakopoulos]

Me messing around with some cinematics:

Click. (http://www.djdimitrious.com/Messing.mov)

[slouchcorp]

status for me

dome and entrance done, east wing and hall left. little over a week left for me to do anything:(
wont be able to do much this weekend. so times running short..

raine that looks ace man! nice work, liking the cinematic has a good feel, do you need someone to do the smoky text revel?

Mike

[Ranath]

Me messing around with some cinematics:

Click. (http://www.djdimitrious.com/Messing.mov)

there's something in the cut between 1st and second shot. They kinda are unconnected in a way. Maybe it's due to combination of camera movement speed and fade between shots, zoom in first one and camera move in second are almost identical in speed. Together with this fade they get kinda mushed together.. So one solution would be to try cutting it clean between the shots, no fade.

Another thing that came to my mind would be to improve continuoty - you see the area in foreground, this crossroads with bright lights? What if the camera zoomed to that instead and we had our characters meeting up there (not a huge zoom, just so that attention is brought to that area and we see silhouettes of characters), and then walking towards gallery building (and camera would rotate up slightly so that it would almost say: "this is their destination"). I feel that then when we saw our characters again in shot 2, the shots would feel more connected to eachother?

I'll have a try on "The Art Gallery" text as well, that's working pretty nice already but I just wanna have my go at it. Shouldn't take long. Anyway, I should move to next matte then, the one of valley. It should go pretty fast, no difficult geometry..

[slouchcorp]

is there someware i can get the high rez of the intro matte?


Mike

[Ranath]

is there someware i can get the high rez of the intro matte?


Mike

how high res do you need? I can upload one in the rez you want

[slouchcorp]

this is going to be done in HD isnt it? anythng arround there would work.

Mike

[Ranath]

I uploaded 1920 x 1080 px .tiff to our team webpage.

[danb]

My status is not looking good. The c4d artist that i was trying to get to help with rigging and animation cannot help out.

I am still modelling the dragon. Modelling and rigging of that should be done today.

Steam Maiden, and Oldman still need rigging.

I still need to make facial morphs for animation for; Jen, John, Oldman. Those will take one day. Probably tomorrow.

Did we ever get story boards, or do i just interperet the animation from the treatment?

I might be able to get all the animation done in one week as long as its uncomplicated.

Am I also responsible for camera animation?

[slouchcorp]

hey raine thanks for that, dont supose you have it in layers at all do you? or is it a solid painting?

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

Status is not looking good.Strike that. My status is great for someone who has selflessly devoted a ton of time to see this project finished! :thumbsup:The c4d artist that i was trying to get to help with rigging and animation cannot help out.

I am still modelling the dragon. Modelling and rigging of that should be done today.

Steam Maiden, and Oldman still need rigging.

I still need to make facial morphs for animation for; Jen, John, Oldman. Those will take one day. Probably tomorrow.

Did we ever get story boards, or do i just interpret the animation from the treatment?

I might be able to get all the animation done in one week as long as its uncomplicated.


Just rig the old man's and shoulders. That's all we're going to see-- the only thing he does is look up. Maiden will need a decent rig for walking and maybe a few arm animations.

It doesn't look like we'll get the storyboards in time, so I will help you out in every way possible to get the framing of the shots right. I'm not worrying too much. In terms of camera movement, is it possible we can get Mike to help out?

Raine - I agree 100% about the disconnect between the shots. It was just a sample I did late last night. I feel that the 2nd shot is too bright and the matte doesn't bring enough attention to the entrance. I think it needs to be brightened up with some lights to bring the attention of the viewer. Continuity wise, I think your solution is superior, but technically infeasible at the moment (time). If you could think of an easy way to do it... let me know.

Also, in terms of the text, I think it would be great if the opening shot was actually the 1st thing we see, and the Art Gallery Text does a fade in on top of it. Maybe?

[danb]

Just rig the old man's and shoulders. That's all we're going to see-- the only thing he does is look up. Maiden will need a decent rig for walking and maybe a few arm animations.

It doesn't look like we'll get the storyboards in time, so I will help you out in every way possible to get the framing of the shots right. I'm not worrying too much. In terms of camera movement, is it possible we can get Mike to help out?



Ok good, then i'll create an upperbody rig for the oldman and maybe a quick smile/frown morph.

[slouchcorp]

camera shots not sure ill have time? only a week of evenings for me left befor i go, then a few after i get back, would like to get a matte done for the first shot between now and then, once iv got the east wing textured up, have to optimise it wich will take me tonight i would think.

hallways done rendering some elemets now will post a shot in a few.

for the first shot.

after looking at the painting, all the fog and atmos makes it a great shot to pull the title out off
allso think it would be cool to have the flying ship move but will need to modle that. shouldnt take to long. depends if theres a layered version of the painting aswell for how much effects i can add in post

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

After looking at the painting, all the fog and atmos makes it a great shot to pull the title out off also think it would be cool to have the flying ship move but will need to modle that. shouldnt take to long. depends if theres a layered version of the painting aswell for how much effects i can add in post.

Mike[/QUOTE]

Yeah, all cool ideas. Lets see if Raine can provide a layered PSD or something?

[slouchcorp]

heres hows the hallways looking

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/HALLWAY_TEXTURES.jpg

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

Beautiful. I love the floor texturing too, with the line that leads into the dome and all.

Have you started the gallery space yet?

[slouchcorp]

thats the next job any requests?

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

thats the next job any requests?

Mike

Yeah, make it good :)

Also, just rendered this:
Click. (http://www.djdimitrious.com/Messing2.mov)

[Ranath]

so.. yeah, no time for anything that we absolutely don't need, I guess. It'd be shame if we missed the deadline after all this work. Keeping stuff simple (like camera moves, animation..) starts to sound like a REALLY good idea right now.

Yeah, I agree it doesn't bring enough focus to entrance. I didn't realize that it would be this important to get the entrance clearly visible.. hmm, I could probably re-do it. Mike, if you have time, could you give me another render of the entrance - the one you gave me last time was good but the angle didn't quite match the matte so it didn't work out completely. Or maybe when you're doing camera mapping you'd want to composite a view of the entrance on top of the painting and see if you could make it more visible?

I'll think of some way to improve continuoty too, that's something that can be done for sure.


A layered PSD does exist, but it doesn't have the right color correction. It's easier for me just take the flattened one and cut it to sections. Sky, background, midground and foreground are easy enough to separate. Individual fog elements are gonna be much harder though.. and all light effects. It can be done of course, I should get it done tomorrow.

[authentic]

beautiful environment. congrat.

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

Hey Dimitri I've done all my stuff now yeah? I'm guessing i don't need to re-do the cat render 'cause it's already been textured.....? If there's nothing else at the moment I'm gunna help Craig out with the storyboards working backwards and hopefully meeting him somewhere in the middle.

Cheers
B(rad)

[danb]

If there's nothing else at the moment I'm gunna help Craig out with the storyboards working backwards and hopefully meeting him somewhere in the middle.

Cheers
B(rad)

Oh man please do. That would be a huge help for me animating. :)

[ddiakopoulos]

Hey Dimitri I've done all my stuff now yeah? I'm guessing i don't need to re-do the cat render 'cause it's already been textured.....? If there's nothing else at the moment I'm gunna help Craig out with the storyboards working backwards and hopefully meeting him somewhere in the middle.

Cheers
B(rad)

Get crackin' mate :thumbsup: That would help out immensely.

My wishful schedule:

12 - Dan finishes Dragon, gets everything ready for animation.
13 - I record dialogue.
14 - Raine gives Mike final establishing matte to be mapped.
15 - Mike finishes texturing/optimizing gallery. Does 3D map for establishing matte.
16 - Dan ready for animation. Does facial morphs.
17 - Levi & Raine finish fantasy mattes. Give to Mike for Mapping.
18 - Storyboards complete. Mattes given to Dan for animation. Animation begins.
19 - Animation + Music: Mike can do opening animation for title screen? (Talk about this)
20 - Animation + Music: Shots 1-15
21 - Animation + Music: Shots 16-30
22 - Animation + Music: Shots 31-45
23 - Animation + Music: Shots 46-59
24 - Animation + Music: Shots 60-69.
25 - Rendering, Editing + Sound
26 - Rendering, Editing + Sound
27 - Rendering, Editing + Sound
28 - Post + Sound + Making Of.
29 - Post + Sound + Making Of.
30 - Delivered.

In regards to rendering, Dan, as soon as you animate it up, is it possible to render it as we go, in pieces?

Cheers guys - we're in the home stretch,
Dimitri.

[danb]

In regards to rendering, Dan, as soon as you animate it up, is it possible to render it as we go, in pieces?

Dimitri.

Yes.

How much actual speaking dialog is shown to the camera? In minutes how many, do we see the characters face morphing?

[ddiakopoulos]

let you know in 5.

[ddiakopoulos]

Yes.

How much actual speaking dialog is shown to the camera? In minutes how many, do we see the characters face morphing?

Shot / Lipsync (Y/N)
5 Yes
6 Yes
7 Yes
8 Yes
9 No
11 No
20 No
21 No
22 No
23 No
24 Yes
28 Yes
29 No
32 No
33 Yes
34 No
36 Yes
38 Yes
43 No
44 No
47 Yes
48 Yes
49 Yes
50 Yes
55 No
59 Yes
62 Yes
63 Yes
65 Yes



Total Shots: 69
Shots with Dialogue: 29
Shots with Dialogue and Lip Sync: 17

[danb]

Ok thanks.

Dragon almost done. More complicated than i thought. Just have to do the legs and rig. Hopefully done tomorrow afternoon.

[slouchcorp]

yikes 3 days for rendering and editing what about compositing? looking like its going to be tight.

dont forget im gone on the 19th so not sure ill get the fantasy matte done in time.

Mike

[slouchcorp]

heres the gallery room. and a little fly arround the dome.

gallery

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/GALLERY_ROOM.jpg

dome fly (http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/DOME1.mov)

am uploading the full textured sets will send dan the link its just under 200mb so hope thats ok?

going to start modeling parts for the intro matte

Mike

[Ranath]

that looks pretty cool to me!


Uploaded a layered psd to team page. It wasn't possible to separate atmos effects, which is kinda bad. Maybe you can add some moving pieces of smoke on top of it in 3d if necessary. But sky, fore, mid, and background should be separated now. There's 2 versions uploaded. In first one (establishingshot__sliced.psd) zeppelin is part of background layer. In second one (establishingshot__sliced_2.psd) it's part of sky layer actually. I don't know which way you'd prefer it so I did both. Also I think it's time to forget moving zeppelin.. no time I think?

[Ranath]

here's 2 quick tries at title:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/title2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/title1.jpg

[SamsonsReaper]

soon finished with the matte mike, will post the high res tomorrow

http://www.leventep.com/SP/SP_P/plain5.jpg

[Ranath]

great work! I was checking the shot list and figured that we can use a lot of the elements of Levi's painting in shot 60 as well.

This is what I thought of action that takes place in this shot:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/plain_cameramoves.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/plain_camera_moves2.jpg

[Ranath]

And another thing, since shot 60 isn't much work (or maybe we can use just Levi's matte unchanged?), maybe I should do 61 instead, which is a view from the bottom of the cliff? Shot list says 3d Matte but also "wallpaper" and "long shot", so to help 3d people out, maybe I should do 2d matte.. and then they'd just have to make a projection?

[danb]

Can any of you guys pick up mikes work when he's done? Don't know if this has been discussed or not. If it has sorry.

[danb]

Here's the dragon pretty much done and 90 percent rigged. Didn't follow exactly the orthos, but if i find time later down the road then i'll go back and fix it up. Still have a couple details on the legs to fix.

Oh yeah its a quicktime vr so if you have quick time pro you can view it in 3d.

http://www.cgfreelance.com/Drago.mov

[SamsonsReaper]

download highres layered psd here (http://www.leventep.com/SP/SP_P/plain.rar)

matte finished:

http://www.leventep.com/SP/SP_P/plainMatte.jpg

[danb]

Awesome!! Nice matte. Can't wait to see the dragon animated in that scene.

Created an animation instead of qtvr, in case some weren't able to view it. http://www.cgfreelance.com/Drago%201.mov

[ddiakopoulos]

Raine -
#1 = Shot 57,
#2 = Shot 58,
#3 = Shot 60.

You show the action as it's supposed to happen perfectly. Shot 60, we can use Levi's matte again. You can start on Shot 61, and I think it'll work if it's just a projection. It will probably need some small 3D environment to make it stand out a little bit, but the main action in the shot is John falling a little and then being snatched by the cat. The environment doesn't play a big role here except being a container for the action. See what you can come up with!

Dan - Awesome job with the dragon. He's a real badass!

Levi - Great Job with the matte!

Also Raine, here's a compilation of your two title screens. I think it works.

http://www.djdimitrious.com/TheArtGallery.jpg

[Ranath]

concept for shot #61. Going to make a matte out of this now...


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/valley-wideshot.jpg

[danb]

Dragon Rig test... http://www.cgfreelance.com/Drago%202.mov .

Going to shade soon, then start on facial morphs for Jen and John.

Brad if you're around, any specific colors you want on the dragon?

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

Hey Dan the dragon's looking rad. The mattes are looking beautiful too guys.

Yeah I was thinking the dragon should tie in with the cat or steam maiden colours. Iliked the colours you did on the steam maiden so somethiing like that would be good.

B(rad)

[danb]

Hey Dan the dragon's looking rad. The mattes are looking beautiful too guys.

Yeah I was thinking the dragon should tie in with the cat or steam maiden colours. Iliked the colours you did on the steam maiden so somethiing like that would be good.

B(rad)

Ok i'll stick to those colors.

[ddiakopoulos]

Update on the dialog... Got it recorded today. I'll spend tonight cleaning up the mass of audio. Here's a link (http://www.djdimitrious.com/DialogueScript.pdf) to the script. It will vary between what is written and what was spoken... we invariably had to change a few things to correct a few of the "flow" issues.

[ddiakopoulos]

Dan - Uploaded dialogue pack to the team upload website. Let me know if you have any questions.

[danb]

Dan - Uploaded dialogue pack to the team upload website. Let me know if you have any questions.

Ok i'll download.

Dmitri, wasn't there another animator on the team? Do we still have another animator besides me?

The person i tried to get to help out, could not, and took a long time to get back to me to tell me so. :(

[ddiakopoulos]

Ok i'll download.

Dmitri, wasn't there another animator on the team? Do we still have another animator besides me?

The person i tried to get to help out, could not, and took a long time to get back to me to tell me so. :(

Afraid not. There was Greg and Amanda and they both became too busy to continue.

[Ranath]

final matte for shot #61. There's a simple layered version uploaded to the team page, at 1920x1080 resolution.


Will do #60 next..


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/valley2.jpg

[ddiakopoulos]

Status update, everyone!

[slouchcorp]

time for me is pretty much over sadly, would love to do more but work calls. wil have a few days when i get back so will check in then,

iv made the plain1 matte scene still working on the intro matte nealy done, and will upload them when done. sent dan a link to the textured sets a few days ago.

heres the plain matte.

http://www.c4dportal.com/slouchcorp/stuff/SBP/matte1.jpg


Mike

[Ranath]

hey Mike, that's still a wip too, right? just to clarify.. will you have time to finish these 2 before you go?

[slouchcorp]

well theres no lighting or anything in there just mapped the image to geomantry. time wise not to sure what did you have in mind?


Mike

[Ranath]

Nothing big, it seems to me that the background mountains are missing, or that there is no texture mapped on them.. if you look at Levi's matte, they should be much lighter in value and they should contain texture. I hope you can fix that before you go..

[slouchcorp]

hmm yeah not sure why they cam out so dark might just make them flat.

Mike

[ddiakopoulos]

Forum clutter best left to PM's

[danb]

Forum clutter best left to PM's

[danb]

Forgot to update.

Here's the dragon shaded. Only basic shaders is all i had time for. If you guys want me to change colors let me know.

http://www.cgfreelance.com/Drago%202_0029.jpg

[ddiakopoulos]

Forum clutter best left to PM's

[ddiakopoulos]

Forgot to update.

Here's the dragon shaded. Only basic shaders is all i had time for. If you guys want me to change colors let me know.



I think the dull grey parts could be replaced with super-shiny chrome! This Dragon will roll in style.

[danb]

Forum clutter best left to PM's too :)

[ddiakopoulos]

Forum clutter best left to PM's

[redfrog]

I'm back. Brad has agreed to help with sbs.
Have simplified them too soo they'll come pretty fast now.sorry for the delay guys.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/%7Ecraigbruyn/mypic117.jpg

[GregOconn]

Hey guys,

I've just finished up a couple of jobs and have some free time. If you need a hand hit me up!

Cheers,

Greg

[Ranath]

you cluttered it anyway :D


shot #60, finished I think. Going to upload layered HD size .psd to team page..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/Sir_Ranath/shot60-falling.jpg

[danb]

Hey guys,

I've just finished up a couple of jobs and have some free time. If you need a hand hit me up!

Cheers,

Greg

Oh man defintaley need help with character animation. Is that something you could help with? You use Maya, right?

I would have to re-work the pipeline, but shouldn't be too bad, could probably come up with something in one night.

Do you have the .MDD import/exporter for Maya?

[Ranath]

okay guys, I need a render of TekHead to be used in a painting that will be viewed at gallery. Think of a pose that could appear in an art piece, right? I also need a render of the Dragon, again, he has to be posing for a painting. Then we were discussing what will happen to that topless girl in chains. I guess nothing's done for her.. but since she has to be in same piece with the dragon, she has to be of the same style (no photos). So maybe if you can take Jen and like modify her slightly and then make a pose of her too and then I could paint out clothes or whatever? She'd be the right style and would be done pretty fast I think that way..

[danb]

Do we have a concept of that? So a nude girl in chains? That should be fun..uhm i mean easy to make.

Brad or Craig, could you do a quick concept of where the characters should be in the gallery?

And i need to make them in a flat 2d render, right? Not 3d statues inside the frames?

[GregOconn]

I'll look for a .mdd importer/exporter when I get home from work tonight. I can help with animation for sure. Has all the rigging been done? Rigging is not my forte as of yet.

[danb]

I'll look for a .mdd importer/exporter when I get home from work tonight. I can help with animation for sure. Has all the rigging been done? Rigging is not my forte as of yet.

Well i rigged them for motion builder and cinema 4d, but i can rig them for Maya for you.

Which version of maya do you have?

Is motion builder an option for you?

If you have other questions you can PM me.

[Ranath]

Do we have a concept of that? So a nude girl in chains? That should be fun..uhm i mean easy to make.

Brad or Craig, could you do a quick concept of where the characters should be in the gallery?

And i need to make them in a flat 2d render, right? Not 3d statues inside the frames?


no, there's no concepts.. just think of poses on the fly, not a big deal. I thought you were busy so I wasn't going to ask for a render of the nude girl, but apparently you will find some time for it no problem :P Which is okay for me, the less work for me..

I'm reading the shotlist, and I think they are both just complete flat motionless 2d things.. I guess shot #27 where TekHead is coming to life "for and extremely brief second" can be achieved by some on-screen morph to animated model or just video effect.. dragon piece is even easier, it's completely still.

[ddiakopoulos]

Do we have a concept of that? So a nude girl in chains? That should be fun..uhm i mean easy to make.

Brad or Craig, could you do a quick concept of where the characters should be in the gallery?

And i need to make them in a flat 2d render, right? Not 3d statues inside the frames?

No, no concept of the girl in chains. Maybe I should think of something to take her place- she's not entirely part of our storyline.

Yeah, just flat 2d renders that have empty backgrounds so Raine can do some photoshop magic.

Hope you guys can work out splitting some of the animation up!

Raine - Nice matte (already gave you some comments earlier, hehe)

Craig - Glad to have you and Brad working on the storyboards. Thanks for making time.

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

I'm working backwards on the storyboards to meet up with Craig in the middle somewhere. I've completed SB's for shots 58-69 hope they're OK I've never done storyboards before :P.
They're uploaded to the team site titled: shots 58-63.jpg and shots 64-69.jpg I'll chuck them on the tread when I'm back home with access to my FTP up loader.

Catch
B(rad)

[ddiakopoulos]

I'm working backwards on the storyboards to meet up with Craig in the middle somewhere. I've completed SB's for shots 58-69 hope they're OK I've never done storyboards before :P.
They're uploaded to the team site titled: shots 58-63.jpg and shots 64-69.jpg I'll chuck them on the tread when I'm back home with access to my FTP up loader.

Catch
B(rad)

Hey Brad, I just checked 'em out. They look great. It'll help a lot. Thanks!

[ddiakopoulos]

Status update!

[GregOconn]

Waiting on Dan to send me some scenes so I can start animating :thumbsup:

[Ranath]

waiting for renders so that I can do those paintings

[ddiakopoulos]

Alright guys. Hopefully Dan can get back to us today with those things. I think he's working hard on the animation! We had met Wednesday night to set up a renderfarm for the project.

-D

[danb]

Sorry guys, had some appointments yesterday.

Greg i'll get those files to you. Will be Jen, John and steam maiden.

Ranaath, which renders do you need? Girl in chains, or did we ditch her? Do you need them straight on or do you want the characters at an angle, or whatever?

Mike sent me the mattes, does anyone need those?

Dmitri, i'll be trying to hook up to the server through vpn today. I'll keep in touch or IM you if i need help.

[ddiakopoulos]

Sorry guys, had some appointments yesterday.

Greg i'll get those files to you. Will be Jen, John and steam maiden.

Ranath, which renders do you need? Girl in chains, or did we ditch her? Do you need them straight on or do you want the characters at an angle, or whatever?

Mike sent me the mattes, does anyone need those?

Dmitri, i'll be trying to hook up to the server through vpn today. I'll keep in touch or IM you if i need help.

Dan, just think of two intimidating poses for the TekHed and the Dragon. Raine can take care of the rest. The TekHed should at least be at an angle that would make sense for him to extend one arm out of the painting. The girl in chains will stay, just need to think of a slightly better context. I can figure that out later today.

Can we see the renders of the mattes if at all possible?

Craig & Brad - How are the storyboards going?

[Ranath]

I need a render of TekHead. I guess it's just a portrait of TekHead.. so just make a pose that could appear in a painting. Otherwise it doesn't matter at all, I'll just paint a background that fits with the render. If you do want some direction, think along these lines.. http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=10708 http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=10710

just classical pose, nothing really special about it.



Dragon and girl in chains: I understood that this topless chick has to appear in film.. so I guess we do need that. Dragon and girl should appear in the same painting so I guess they have to be posing accordingly. For direction of poses check out some works of Frazetta.. maybe the whole piece could actually scream: HUGE CLICHE (theme surely does!) and then John's interest in such piece might further emphasize his lack of understanding of art and underline his interest in.. ah, the naked female form.

But yeah, don't take too much pressure, animation is what has to be done now.. do this if you have time.

[danb]

Been busy last night trying to get the renderfarm working properly. Was working fine, now its down again.

Greg i'll send you those files tonight. I have to clean up some weight maps. Have you had a chance to get to know motion builder yet?

Here's the links for the dragon and tekhead. I will not have time to create a girl in chains. Please do your best to make the girl from one of the older Jen pictures i've posted.

http://www.cgfreelance.com/Untitled.jpg http://www.cgfreelance.com/tekhead1.tif

[danb]

Waiting on Dan to send me some scenes so I can start animating :thumbsup:

Hey greg, i sent you a PM with a link to download the jen and john motion builder files.

You will notice a lot of jagged edges. This is because when i import them into c4d i will apply a "hypernurbs", which will smooth the edges out. This saves on polygons and makes animation easier.

Please do not modify any of the geometry or hiearchy or add/subract any materials. Its very important the files remain the same as the ones i sent you.

If you haven't had a chance to get to know motion builder, let me know and i'll write up a short tutorial on how to animate.

Oh damn, i forgot to send you the scene files with that. So you can animate the characters inside the environments. I'll upload those soon.

Will get right back to you...

[GregOconn]

Yeah I've had a few issues geting Motion Builder going. But with any luck I'll be up and running by tonight. A short tutorial would be awesome too. I'm hoping it will be pretty straigth forward as they are both Maya related products.

[danb]

Ok, PM me if you can't get it working before the end of the night. I'll help you with that too.

I also am uploading the steam maiden with teh environment files. A warning though, the environment files total 500mb unzipped. So you may want to import them into maya and take out geometry you don't need. We really only need the floors in the scenes, but i wasn't sure if you were going to need the whole file in case you need them to animate a camera.

I'll get back to you in a few hours with the download link

[danb]

Dimtri, cannot connect to renderfarm. Can connect to the vpn but not through c4d IE interface. Are the computers shut off on the weekends? Was working fine until about midnight last night.

[ddiakopoulos]

Dimtri, cannot connect to renderfarm. Can connect to the vpn but not through c4d IE interface. Are the computers shut off on the weekends? Was working fine until about midnight last night.

I'll check it out 1st thing tomorrow

[danb]

Greg, PM sent. Sent link for steam maiden... Any luck with mb?

Dmitri, any luck with the renderfarm? Was hoping to start rendering some mattes.

[ddiakopoulos]

Greg, PM sent. Sent link for steam maiden... Any luck with mb?

Dmitri, any luck with the renderfarm? Was hoping to start rendering some mattes.

Yeah, it's working. There was a power outage on Friday night and restarted all 3 servers. One of them is down because it gets stuck during boot time due to a bad drive, so only two are operational at the moment. I'll reboot the 3rd first thing tomorrow so we'll have all 3 up and running again.

On that note, they've been rendering the opening matte since I started up the clients again. It's taking about 10 minutes PER frame, so I restarted them at 2:30, when they were 33% done, and now it's 7:15 and only at 39%. Should we consider rendering to jpg instead of tiffs? I thought before it was only around 20-30 secs per frame...

[ddiakopoulos]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1193012564_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/17/13039/13039_1193012564_large.jpg)

Model by Dan, Painting by Raine.

[danb]

Yeah, it's working. There was a power outage on Friday night and restarted all 3 servers. One of them is down because it gets stuck during boot time due to a bad drive, so only two are operational at the moment. I'll reboot the 3rd first thing tomorrow so we'll have all 3 up and running again.

On that note, they've been rendering the opening matte since I started up the clients again. It's taking about 10 minutes PER frame, so I restarted them at 2:30, when they were 33% done, and now it's 7:15 and only at 39%. Should we consider rendering to jpg instead of tiffs? I thought before it was only around 20-30 secs per frame...

Switching to jpegs won't make a difference in rendertimes, only in file size. Tiff's render to 16bits which allow for a better resolution, but does not make a difference in render time.

Jpegs are 8bits and tiff's are up to 32bits, so its still not a huge difference.

Actually what you are seeing is normal time for 3d rendering. We are using volumetric lights which are HUGE render hogs. So its normal for it to go this slow.

The scene i am rendering now on the renderfarm is probably one of the slowest, and processor intensive all because of volumetric lights.

Once we start rendering other scenes you will see a huge speed increase, especially when rendering characters.

Another reason for a slow-down in mid render is because if the camera is moving and in a part of an animation there are more samples of volumetric lights to render, it will slow down.

Its all very technical and there isn't a set render rate for any given scene.

Its complicated. :) I'll look to optimize that scene, but since its almost half way done we should probably just leave it alone.

[ddiakopoulos]

Switching to jpegs won't make a difference in rendertimes, only in file size. Tiff's render to 16bits which allow for a better resolution, but does not make a difference in render time.

Jpegs are 8bits and tiff's are up to 32bits, so its still not a huge difference.

Actually what you are seeing is normal time for 3d rendering. We are using volumetric lights which are HUGE render hogs. So its normal for it to go this slow.

The scene i am rendering now on the renderfarm is probably one of the slowest, and processor intensive all because of volumetric lights.

Once we start rendering other scenes you will see a huge speed increase, especially when rendering characters.

Another reason for a slow-down in mid render is because if the camera is moving and in a part of an animation there are more samples of volumetric lights to render, it will slow down.

Its all very technical and there isn't a set render rate for any given scene.

Its complicated. :) I'll look to optimize that scene, but since its almost half way done we should probably just leave it alone.

Hehe, okay, yeah, don't worry about it. I would consider rendering to jpgs for filesize then, because the tiffs are already managing about a gb of stuff, 1/2 way through. For bandwidth and transferring time requirements, I think it would be best to go with the smallest we can for now...

[danb]

Hehe, okay, yeah, don't worry about it. I would consider rendering to jpgs for filesize then, because the tiffs are already managing about a gb of stuff, 1/2 way through. For bandwidth and transferring time requirements, I think it would be best to go with the smallest we can for now...

Ok i'll do some testing on the next matte scenes with .jpegs. I forgot that we need to submit a final flash movie. So i guess image quality really isn't an issue then.

[ddiakopoulos]

Ok i'll do some testing on the next matte scenes with .jpegs. I forgot that we need to submit a final flash movie. So i guess image quality really isn't an issue then.

Renderfarm has a folder called resultsjpg which is a batch conversion of all the tiffs into jpgs. turned it from 1.86gb down to 32mb :)

edit: here's a very lossy render of it. http://www.djdimitrious.com/opening.mov

[danb]

Renderfarm has a folder called resultsjpg which is a batch conversion of all the tiffs into jpgs. turned it from 1.86gb down to 32mb :)

edit: here's a very lossy render of it. http://www.djdimitrious.com/opening.mov

Wow that's amazing! Did you have to set the .jpegs to a low quality?

Anyways, i'll use .jpegs from now on.

[ddiakopoulos]

No, I had the setting in photoshop set to High. Only very, very slight artifacting. They look damn decent.

[danb]

They look damn decent.

They do indeed. :)

[redfrog]

http://members.optusnet.com.au/%7Ecraigbruyn/mypic118.jpg

latest sbs

[Jana69]

u say 22 i say 24, but is it ok for 50 megs avi in the end? I started counting this challenge in seconds and u? Ur film looks promising! keep on till the end. Good luck!

Jana69

[xXmushr00mheadXx]

Another storyboard is up on the team site, shots 52 - 57. Opening matte looks cool. Dragon looks fantastic coloured and textured up.

[ddiakopoulos]

SSssssstatus Update?

[danb]

Bad news. I have gotten a freelance project i must work on. I tried to get it done quickly but couldn't. Will probably take me the rest of the week.

What does everyone think of me writing to CGSociety and asking if they can extend the contest a couple weeks? Not just for us though, because i have seen a few other teams that seem like they will not be able to make the deadline.

Everyone chime in here with your opinions please. Maybe we can ask some of the other teams to help petition for an extension?

[ddiakopoulos]

Diegopit and his team have agreed to petition with us for an extention of the short film portion by 2 or 3 weeks.

[Ranath]

I think they changed the deadline in previous challenge, EON. I'm not sure though. I remember I participated in illustration at the time and managed to finish because of that.

[redfrog]

The request for extension seems pretty reasonable i reckon. a lot of teams are in the same boat. Its damn hard to try and balance demanding jobs plus this project. I know Brad and myself have been really struggling due to the demands of our own jobs.
Good to see you score some freelance work dude, as you have worked your butt off on this project. I know both myself and Brad are in awe of the quality and quantity of the stauff you have churned out danb.
:)

on a different note here is the latest sbs.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/%7Ecraigbruyn/mypic119.jpg

[ddiakopoulos]

Well everyone,

It looks like this is it for this team on the competition port of this. Mibus, the forum admin, says it's not possible to extend the deadline.

Unless Dan can break the rules of universe and multiply himself by 3 and slow down time 50%, we won't have an animatic to submit for the 31st.

On the bright side, I think most of us would be committed to coming out with a final animation regardless? We could easily spend the next month perfecting and coming out with a nice work we can all "pocket" so to speak.

We'll see.

D

Edit: Speaking with Dan, we think we can hobble an 18 shot version together in about 4 days.

[digikris]

Hey i wanted to join this contest but i wasn't because i was busy.

I have two dual core systems sitting idle during the day time. I have Shake, Maya 8.0 and Maya 7.0 , Vue

I think i can be of some help if the time is nearing and there is no extension. Let me know if you want me to put together in comping and render it in Shake.

Hari

[danb]

Hey i wanted to join this contest but i wasn't because i was busy.

I have two dual core systems sitting idle during the day time. I have Shake, Maya 8.0 and Maya 7.0 , Vue

I think i can be of some help if the time is nearing and there is no extension. Let me know if you want me to put together in comping and render it in Shake.

Hari

Hi, thank you for the offer, but at the moment we need help with character animation, using motion builder or cinema 4d. Can you animate in either of those programs? If so what kind of animation can you do?

[digikris]

hi,

Sorry i'm not a Character animator. I do good Camera animation in Maya and Shake. I don't have cinema 4d not familiar with the Gui interface.

Also good in fluids and effects.

Basically a Compositor with 3d experience.

Let me know,

thanks,
Hari