I made another movie in Skate2 but this time I imported it straight into flash and drew over it to make some pretty graphics, I’m really proud of the presents bit, it looks great but I think the mario background wasn’t the best. Oh well. Anyways Check my bad shit
I guess this would cover the rotoscoping that the class last year got to do 
. I’ll redo it someday and put it on my show reel
One of the main problems I’m going to be facing with the website I want to make is textures. The shape of the building can only do so much to make an impression, you also need some colour. Today I managed to work out how to include bitmaps into my scenes, I’m hoping as time goes by I should be able to have bump maps and transparency maps so I can have windows and more detailed models. This is a start at least.
So after the basic example of moving a model around with the mouse I managed to track down the source for a file that allows the user to drag the model around, I hacked it so it did what I wanted it to do in my file and got some good results. I just need to work on getting textures on the model.
For my Multimedia Application module for uni, I’m hoping to make a website for local architect’s ZedFactory which showcases their past and present works. I’m still awaiting reply to an email I’ve sent them asking to act as a client for the site, so I can get some realistic feedback on the project. I am planning to use Papervision3D for the project as it’s great for simple 3D models in flash, and buildings aren’t that complex so the models will be simple. The one problem I am facing is the ActionScript 3 language, it’s so different from ActionScript 2 which I’m fairly good at. After much going through tutorials and such I managed to get mouse input working. I found an excellent source file on importing Collada models from Cinema 4D so I made my own mockup model, changed some code added basic mouse input (you have to click on either side of the screen to rotate the model) and came up with this, obviously as I work through Papervision3D I will learn how to add bitmaps to things and then I can have some serious fun with textures but for now this will do.
I don’t know why but I’m continually at war with my desire for an awesome website. I know not a lot of people are going to be seeing this, but I want to make something impressive. Anyways, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I think I might go for a flash site. If I use papervision3D correctly I can really make a jaw-droppingly beautiful site. I was looking at FWA recently and saw their site of the year ECO ZOO. Though the site itself is a bit thin on content, this truly is an awesome site and I’d love to make like this myself. The question is though, what shall I base it on. The posts I get most hits on are my ARToolKit and Quartz Composer tutorials, so I could base it round that, but that’s just my uni stuff, not my stuff. I would love to base it on 3D animation, which is possible in Papervision3D, but it would mean huge loading times for everyone.
Sigh….
w00t! I finally uploaded Home Delivery to Vimeo for everyone to watch. It’s been a long 2 weeks of modeling, rigging,rendering and post production but I’ve finally got it out of the way. I’m quite happy with it though there are a few things I would have liked to have done but couldn’t have due to time limits. All the models and textures (apart from the plants which I exported from Vue e’spirit) were made inside Cinema 4D using photographs I had taken when on a trip to kew gardens as a reference. Once I had modeled it all up I put it all in one giant scene added the plants from Vue e’spirit in (this really made my mac pro groan) and got to animating the fly’s movement, and then after that the spider’s. Using a picture I had taken of the sky on the day I had taken the other pictures I made a sky object and set up the HDR lighting, I also added 2 lights into the scene to help with lighting issues. Once everything was in place I rendered out TIFF images of the camera positions I was using at 1280 x 720. I then used the sketch and toon render settings to add a light blue background to the renders. Using this setting I rendered just the fly moving across the screen. After these clips where rendered I put it all into After Effects where I did a colour range key to take out the background on the fly clips, added any overlays (such as the tree branches in the first shot) that were needed and exported it all out at 1280×720. I then used Final Cut Pro to edit the clips together (this was important as I had to match the shots to my animatic) and to add the music in the background.
But enough technical mumbo jumbo just watch the clip ( I suggest watching it over at Vimeo as that way you can see it in HD)
Home Delivery v1 from Colin Wren on Vimeo.
Ok it’s Sunday again which means that I’ve been reading my chosen book, so now for Part 2.
Part 2 is short as it covers layers but yet I did learn something. I wasn’t aware you could have layer markers in After Effects so I was a happy bunny when I read it. To add a new layer to the compositions timeline just drag the time indicator to where you want to add the marker, press shift and one of the number keys on the top of the keyboard, this does unfortunately limit you to only having 9 markers but it does allow you to press the keys to jump around the composition easier.
To add a marker to a layer again drag the time indicator to where you want to add the marker, press the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keyboard and it will add the marker in, the book says you can also do this while its RAM previewing but I don’t think that would be very useful as the RAM preview is shite.
You can use the Markers to define chapters for Quicktime files, which is good if like me, your currently converting your DVD’s to mp4 files.
Lastly you can split layers by pressing Control + D
The next part looks at masks and the like but I already know most of that from experimenting
This book is the heftiest of the tomes in my bedroom, I bought it over the summer so I could get to grips with after effects but I then found VideoCopilot and well if you’ve been there the tutorials are much more fun than reading a book. Anyways this is the book I’ll be reading and learning from. The first part is about 100 pages long but luckily it’s mostly easy stuff so I should have it done in an hour.
The first chapter of the book covers animation techniques the interface and simple animation techniques, I skimmed these pages as I already knew most of the stuff on them, one thing I was interested by was Adobe bridge but when I went to use it, I found that it wasn’t good for every file type and more for audio and video (but I suppose it was designed for that after all). I think I might try and get my computer in order, so I can use this new tool.
I have some great advice for anybody looking to make some awesome plants, download the free trial for vue espirit. I did and it’s awesome, I don’t know how to use it properly so I just exported the plants and used Cinema 4D to make my little garden. As I type I have finished the environment the Home Delivery will be set in, and I rendered out a beautiful shot of the opening scene (though it took 30 mins to render!) which will be at the end of the post. The file is killing my Mac Pro but I think once I have all the elements in and have the primary animation path sorted out I can then split the main file into the different camera angles then delete the stuff I don’t need for that particular shot, also I haven’t baked the lights yet so that will definitely cut down render time. I doubt I’ll be able to get it done tommorrow but I think after that is sorted I’m about 3/4 of the way there, so I should have it finished by the end of the week. MEGA HAPPY!
Finally finished texturing my fly model, I still think the wings could do with some work, but for my distance shots this model will do. The body is just near-black all over apart from the eyes which are light red (should add highlights on the spec map at some point). I then made a specular map which has light green,purple,and reds blended in to give it that awesome fly-y look. The bump map is just a simple eyebrow brush all over.
The wings are a bit cartoony, I had originally planned to use an existing picture from the web but I decided against that as it wasn’t a good picture. I’ll probably go back and do them properly with splines so I can make sure everything looks awesome.
I did a test render and tried to match it up to a photo I had taken of my desk.
A final comp of my fly model made in photoshop