evaluation

so the project is done and dusted now and all handed in.

i personally am extremely happy with the work that we have produced as a group, i am also surprised at the work that i have done as it has shown that i can create work of a high standard.

i feel that i have played an integral part in the team from the ideas stages right through to the end result whether it be through producing my work on time or through supporting the group technically or artisticly. i was given the main job of modelling the mine which was a great challenge for me and gave a lot of time to work and expand on my skills. i then also proceeded to create the model of the mine shaft and door aswell, which provided further technical expansion.

at the uv and texturing stage of our project i took it upon myself to show my fellow group members my methods of uv and texturing this was to ensure that they understood the process and to also retain the continuity within the film.

our group showed a lot of passion through our decision in the last 4 or so weeks, before deadline, to come into college everyday and work later than timetabled to make sure we were meeting our own personal deadlines. this showed me that team havoc was committed and determined but also professional.

we met problems such as rendering with to the point decisions. rendering on maya software did not suit the render farm but mental ray did not suit our film so we decided with plenty of scheduled time to render locally on our own machines. this decision although taking longer gave us more control over what was happening and the guarantee of a known output.

the group itself is well balanced, although we each had our moments where we had had enouh of maya crashing. the group kept to deadlines due to bens initial schedule which was used as a very rough guideline but was surprisingly accurate.

the only thing i would have changed would be to enforce project setting and correct use of maya folders from the outset as i knew that this was an area that alex and chris had not payed much attention to before, but through our textures dissappearing and being reassigned to other peoples desktops i think we have all learnt the importance of a proffessional workflow.

i have thoroughly enjoyed this project and admire the professionalism of my fellow team mates and as such given the chance would happily accept to work with them again.

team HAVOC FTW

terragen

i have been using a program called terragen for years now, as it creates great quality landscape with an easy to use interface. it also gives a great level of control over the atmospheric colours, fog, sunlight and direction, clouds, water bah the list the goes on and on. anyway this software is great for creating a quick matte painting and at a high quality. so i did a 360 render of the generated and tailored lanscape, by doing this i was able to create a painting that lined up at both ends and could be used in so many ways. so after collecting the rendered images they were stitched together and completed in photoshop to create a nice big square texture. this image was created in order to fit the colour scheme of the lighting system created by tom so planning and communication within the group was key.

the eliptical door

so i have now modelled and textured the door and the mining shaft, this was a cool model to build as it was in between organic and man made as the rocks are remnants of the miners and obviously the door is made. the challenge with the door was, well the door... the opening of the door is unusual but is also a nod to some classic sci fi doors, such as the air locks in alien. the sheath eliptical door was created using a duplicated instance with set pivots which were then controlled via one master handle. to me this door is one of the more technical aspects and for that im proud of it, even though its only in one shot and probably has the shortest screen time.

shots

so the shots a re coming along great at the mo with the group pulling together, feeling stronger and stronger every day.

http://www.vimeo.com/9781612

here is a link to toms comp of my model land matte painting with alex's environment, this is a taster of whats to come, looks and feels great. this comp is a target render i suppose and is a goal for the rest of the short film.

issues

so we had some issues today as a group and it was all due to projects not being set correctly as such we were set back a whole day in order to correctly set project folders and re-find textures. an annoyance that the group has now learnt and hopefully the guys will enforce a bit stronger on their part.

building lighted renders

some lit renders of the textured exterior model. yeah its banging

lighting renders

here are some lighting renders to represent the lighting in our final scene although looking at these pics now i think the lighting is too dark and needs tweeking