Finalizing Scene 2

Doing a little bit of compositing within maya to imbed a background into the shot. I felt I needed to do this to bring more noise to the shot. It just looked a little too plain before.

Here's the result:

Animation Complete

For this scene I have incorporated a slow-mo look to it as the camera pans around the room. This was a great idea because it meant less work needed to be done on the animation. All I had to do was make slight movements and drag the frames over a lenth of 250 frames. This created a very nice effect. Ive made a basic video here of some shots. Obviously it needs to be cut and edited for the final result but you get the picture at least.

Render of the Scene

To finnish off my working day at 5am I wanted to upload a picture that brought a smile to my face. This is what the overall scene will look like, as you can see with the poses I have used, the emotion of the scene is really captured. This is the point where the humans have discovered a new inhabitable planet. I wanted them to show shock, awe and excitement.

I am extremely happy with the final result:

Scene1 Shot setup

Ok reached my goal for the night and its only 4am! Quite tired now I must admit but nothing some coffee cant fix. So far I have managed to set up the scene with all the clone characters with a specific pose within the environment. I have decided against heavy animating because its too time consuming and I need to focus on other things. The best way around this is to create a time warp of the camera zipping around as everything happens in slow motion. I can add simplistic movements and drag them over a timeline of 250 frames and it will look like the matrix. I really want a few closeups of the characters main features as well. Like a close up of a slow blink, lips twitching and opening, and also fingers extending. These small details will really make the shot look nice.

Heres a quick click of ONE of the camera revolves.:

Rig Complete

Once again, my inner OCD perfectionist is screaming at me, but I must push on ignoring that voice in my head. I have slapped together a VERY basic body rig of the torso just so I can quickly animate some key poses for the shot. Since there wont be much movement it wont affect the overall quality too much.

Its going to be a very long night, as usual. Still waiting on an email back from Karin to find out what is going to be possible in the remaining few days before the due date. I REALLY need an extension for the render times of this project. Hopefully by the end of the night I will have this character duplicated and ready to be animated within scene 1...

Full Character Model Complete

Once, woke up and got straight back to work as per usual. I finished baking out displacement and normal maps for the clothing so that I could replicate the detail from zbrush into maya and add the clothing to the head rig. From here I simply need to add a few bones and IK handles and the rig will be ready to be referenced into the environment I made for scene 1.

I wanted it look like more of a lab coat in the end, and also the color white strongly relates back to the whole 'clone' theme that I was going for within the film. I kept it pretty minimal. I wanted to make it more detailed but I literally don't have time which really annoys me because I am pretty OCD when it comes to perfection.

You will notice that there are also a few artifacts under the armpits, around the rim of the collar  and the sleeve  I could fix these but once again. Not enough time.

Here is approximately what the final model will look like within scene 1:

Cant Sleep

For a few months now I've been working nonstop almost from the time I wake up to around 3 am in the morning and its really takings its toll on me now. Sleeping pattern is absolutely demented so what else can I do but more work? Perhaps something towards studio?

I suppose with the mood I'm in lately I had to express it somehow through CG. The pieces of puzzle (for the rig) just weren't fitting together as they should. And so I stepped back for a minute and decided to rearrange the puzzle. I imported the hand mesh into the scene and duplicate it numerous times around the rig. Using the facial rig I played around with expressions until I found one that suited the atmosphere - FEAR.

For some reason I imagined my character in a dark dungeon with giants all around him. I wanted to push the rig and try and get some exaggerated facial expressions to fit the mood of terror.

I guess this is the feeling I'm getting now knowing that I wont get my short film in on time. Despite nonstop learning and hard work it seems it will not pay off. The rendering alone is going to take a week and I haven't even put it all together yet... Perhaps I have bitten off more than a can chew for the time we have been allocated.

Here is what I came up with: