Tuesday 28 February 2012

Textures








Here is the texture for my wolf. I used a brick texture layered with a leather texture and then a human skin textures, I also added small wounds to the textures blending them in with eachother by using hardlight and 60% transparency in photoshop and I then changed the levels and hue adjustments to make it look a nice blue that will fit well with the look of the film. The rig is to be done soon once I have textured the eyes and mouth as they are white at the moment and then it will be time to animate which will be exciting. keep watching.

Rushes
Rushes today were awsome I got some good feedback from tony and some useful resources to watch wolves on and I am on the right path, need to refine the footage especially the interior but all good.

Saturday 25 February 2012

Animating

Well this has been a very productive day, the wolf I origanally modelled has been a bit of a waste as I can't really rig it as I have no rigging experience and I am finding the tutorials not useful at all as its not the version of maya I use so I have moved that to one side and took a rigged dog off creative crash and re-shaped it to look like a wolf, I have uv mapped it and with the help of paul on tuesday I am going to hand over the rig for him to tweak it so the mouth opens and closes because the orginal rig does not have a open and closed mouth. Also he will kindly put my blendshapes on there aswell, I have modelled teeth and eyes for the wolf aswell and put them with the model. So the next stage is to look at fur and textures. Unfortunatly I have only been able to watch tutorial on fur as my computer being the best in the business (not) cannot handle the wonders of fur on maya so I will have to wait monday for the studio to be open and use their high powered computers :) However not to waste my time I have had a play around with the orginal rigged dog to understand what the controls can do and the rigs limits. It isn't as fantastic as say something Paul could have done but it is tolarable. So here is a run cycle, very rough but its a first try.
stay tuned for the live action animatic that will be on here sometime next week.

Friday 24 February 2012

enforcer filming




Hey everyone some updates, I have spoken to the famous paul whiting about rigging some major and miner problems, the wolf I have modelled does not fit the rig I have found so I have two ways about going around this, one spend time with a video that neil o'grady gave me on rigging a four legged creature (horse in this case) spend time understanding rigs, this will probably take me a couple of weeks or two take the model of the dog that was origanally on the rig and model the dog simalar to the wolf I have and attach the rig and Paul said he would help me with the mouth and blendshapes as the rig does not open its mouth. This is going to be a challenge however I will look at rigging it myself if I find I can do it I will make one if after a week of screaming at my computer and can not do it I will model the dog into my wolf. I suppose a Director has these problems and it is a pain and can set me back but because I am an organised director I have enough time to play about with things. ON A GOOD NOTE. The enforcers filming has been done and it has come together nicely so I would like to thank my 2nd year Chris Wass and my friend Josh Bray for helping me and having fun with it because that is also what I want to people to enjoy what they are doing. As always thankyou to charlee burgess for being my main lead and kicking some boys ass's girl power all the way. I have a small clip how the others felt after the filming and also another outtake video. ENJOY!

Monday 20 February 2012

GAG REEL


Hello everyone, ready for the update well here it goes, Some filming was done this Sunday 19/2/12 wooooooooo everyone cheer. What me and my crew got in the end was good and bad, we have found the camera the media centre gave me was pretty bad at night, it looked really grainy and pixalated, however some of the filming was actually really good with use of shadow and street lamps it was good, I have taken the footage of the opening scene and put it into my animatic however I am not putting it on here until rushes so you'll have to hold on for a little longer :P. I have also have the music woooo everyone cheer again, It is still in its rough staged however my amazing music man has gotten it spot on! I love what he has done and it makes you defiantly watch the film, I know there is no film but the whole point of a trailer is to get the audience to go wow I want to see this film! So I am a very happy person. As normal I have made a video diary so people don't have to read all of this I have a little video from my enforcer Josh Bray who also has helped me on audio Sunday. Also watch the funny GAG REEL!! it was a very funny night. Stay tuned! Rushes soon!

Friday 17 February 2012

THE WEATHER!


The bad thing about doing live action filming is the WEATHER! it has been two weeks since I have wanted to film however living in the location of a place were it likes to do what it wants when it comes to weather is annoying, I have had freezing cold temperatures, I have had rain and above all SNOW! this is starting to become a hinderance, and annoying to all the crew but I understand there fustration and annoyance however I am not willing to take expensive equipment into such conditions. This is the price people have to do when they are working on a set and the director says no can't do it find something else whilst we rearrange and as a director of this film I have had to say no sorry but reschedulling is needed and that is what I am going to do. As a director aswell I have had other duties this weekend by entering the Stoke Your Fires 72hr filming challenge. Which you can find on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbj3bYh2gVc called Reggie's Journey which if it is shortlisted and voted for can have a chance of winning so fingers crossed. I have been able to book the camera equipment for The Darkness project this weekend and hopefully I can get my actresses acting soon! stay tuned for more updates and have your fingers crossed for me to have nice weather to film in!

Thursday 9 February 2012

just a few drawings

These are some of the drawings I did of the wolf, this was for an different story to the darkness project  until I jazzed it up with the new story but it is still my concept designs.














Being A buzy bee!

 Hi this is me again your buzy animator giving you the updates on the darkness project. Shane and Chris have been great, Shane is giving me the title mock up that he is doing in stop motion. Chris is helping me with fur and is going to sculpt the wolf in Mudbox among other things. I'm going to start filming next week on Wednesday and Thursday whether it is snowing or not. Tony Smith has signed off the project saying it is a doable project. All i have to do now is to create a live action animatic & Change the beginning of the animation with some shadows of the wolf in back allyways also showing part of the wolfs body like the foot or tail. This is so the audience does not get confused on why there are wolfs in the city. The Music front is starting this weekend Charles beeching is the music man. I have been busy on other projects at the moment so its all about what next move than what i have done. Only wall I have is to find a rigger maybe its time to bribe! stay tuned for next week and some behind the scenes footage!

Saturday 4 February 2012

The days events




ta da... very productive day I have been able to finish the wolf well the main body, the next step will be the teeth and the fur, however for my hard work I will stop modelling and research fur, because this will be my new herdel. no video this time, no need, but stay in tune :) x

Updates

Hey another catch up on events in the darkness project, it is all going very well I have two second years helping me with titles and compositing, also the audio is finished and edited by me and my fabulous assistant woddy (derek woodmas). The snow is falling in the miserable town of stoke however this may hider me or help me we will see when I take the actors out and they freeze to death on me. I will have some fabulous assistants with me to help everyone stay warm. I am modelling the wolf at the moment the process seems to be going ok. I'm not the strongest of modellers but hey ho we all have to try. The concept art is going well for the wolf aswell I think I understand the shapes of wolves the hardest thing will be the face seen as that is the main attraction to the animation but we will see. Here is some screen shots of the modelling...


Wednesday 1 February 2012

Animatic

Hi this is the animatic for the major project the darkness.