Thursday, August 26, 2010

Week 10

A rendered sequence! Flickering shadows and over hot spec hits on the glasses aside I am happy with it and in the process of re-rendering. That leaves only 13 more shots to go... Rendering has been an issue with render times being very high or unfarmable but we'll see...

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Previs 5

I missed a week of work due to being out of town. This past week I worked on texturing, lighting, and shader development in addition to some compositing tests. I rendered out an interior shot and comped it together with an occlusion pass. Its a little dark (easily fixed in Nuke) and not all of the textures are done.



After I finish all of the textures and lighting setups I will begin matte paintings to fill out the scene.

I had some trouble with the exterior shot. I couldn't decide the look I wanted. I wanted it to be light outside so that it would make sense for light to be coming in from the windows in the exterior scene but dark enough that the unicorn effect will contrast well against the darker background. I began with a darker light setup but I hated it so I started looking around the internet for reference. Eventually I decided dusk is the time of day that I want the lighting to convey. I found this painting that captures a mood and color palette that I really liked.



A render from my lighting after referencing the painting. I'd like to fill out the foreground exterior with leaves but that may fall away to more important priorities. The exterior shot will rely much more heavily on the matte paintings and I will be working on nuke projection techniques this week.



Dan had a chance to develop the effect and render out a test. My feedback to him was less smoky, more particles and more definition of the form. This shot is repeated in the previs for this week once with a render of the effect and another with animation blocked out.

Animation has started with two animators graciously pitching in their time. Ultimately, animation will be the aspect that I let go if it comes down to deciding on what gets finished by the end of the term. My goal is to have at least two shots fully realized with matte paintings and all by the end of the term and I am fairly confident I will hit that mark. Of course I am shooting for completing the entire piece and I am going to give it my best.

The Previs

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Previs 4

An updated previs is here. Surfacing on the main character is about half done. I still need to make some shader and texture adjustments as well as finish off the fur. This will probably be the last previs before final animation starts to happen. (hopefully)