More Bouncy nCloth.

Untitled from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

Thanks Pat :D

SG

Lovely bouncy nCloth.

Any idea how I can get something like this (any particular settings, etc.)?

Walkcycle Geertje, with ncloth from Nanda van Dijk on Vimeo.

SG

Anyone know what's up with these Constraints?

Dodgy nCloth Constraints from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

The Maya Help documentation has been completely useless. Ironically, the nCloth is working much better than before (and I've no idea what I did differently this time!), but these Point on Poly Constraints are completely messed up. :( Help would be appreciated!

SG

Scene 2 Shot 1 - First Stages

Scene 2 Shot 1 - First Stages from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

The movement is just about there, but I really wish I'd known more about corrective blend shapes earlier... now trying to figure out a way of detaching the rig and fixing the knees and shoulders without losing the animation! And I STILL haven't figured out exactly what to do with the skirt... urgh... oh, and of course the environment is to follow soon.

SG

Floria and The Monster

Photoshop and I have not been the best of friends in the past - I think it's because I've always liked getting messy with acrylic, big brushes and paint knives. Photoshop's always felt a bit clean - I'm not neat enough for this kind of thing! So I've been trying to make amends, via some rather lovely splatter brushes. I'm quite happy with this one right now, though I might hate it in a week. This blog is a good way for me to force myself to post things up before I overwork them (in the same way as I seem to be doing with my dissertation... trying to make 10,000 words' worth of ideas fit into 7,700 is a nightmare).

Right... bedtime!

SG

This is a production chart. (Help!)

Well you can't really see it... (click to make larger) but yes, first time I've made a production chart for 3D so... to be honest. I'm not really sure what I'm doing! The end product has left me feeling a little deflated - yes, you guessed it... that big white space is everything we haven't done! The render passes bit is blank because I haven't quite figured out what I'm doing with them yet.

Does anyone with 3D experience have anything to comment on this? Have I taken it too far? Do I need that many render layers? What render passes should I use (bearing in mind I tried to do a render in Mental Ray and everything imploded in spectacular fashion, so I don't think I'll be touching that, not for this project anyway)? Will I be able to do all this by the end of Fourth Year? Will I be a gibbering wreck with 80% blood caffeine content by next May? (Probably.)

Heeeeelp!!

SG

**EDIT**

Thanks very much to Mark Haldane for the ImageShack link; here is a production chart you can actually see (click on it to zoom in):

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/5791/productionchart.jpg

Another Animation Test!

Old Floria Animation Test 1 - Playblast from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

So this is one of Old Floria - none of these animation tests are particularly polished and I probably shouldn't be putting them up, but I'm just so excited to finally see things starting to move after months of static models. The idea with this one is that the monster is sneaking up behind Floria - hence the yellow light.

Right, now to go fix those shoulder weights... (-_-)

SG

Smoke Monster - First Animation Test!

Smoke Monster Animation Test 1 from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

So... it's not perfect, but it's a good place to start! The back of the monster is still looking a bit square even though I've adjusted the dropoff, so might need to have another look at that one. On the other hand, there are very few frames in which the back of the monster is actually visible... to maintain the impression that he is just an everlasting mass. I'll need to keep the arms moving too I think, for the first few seconds he's moving they look pretty stiff. Still, considering I've never animated anything in Maya before, I'm very happy! :)

SG

Innocence Making of - Clips from the Studio (The recording studio, that is)

Innocence Making of - Recording Drums and Ghost Vocals from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

Innocence Making of - Recording Bass from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

Innocence Making of - Recording Guitar from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

Got these video clips from Graeme (Seagate Studio's ultra-talented engineer) today. These will obviously be shortened for the final 'making of' but I was feeling lazy.

'Ghost' vocals are the provisional vocals recorded simply for the sake of everyone knowing where they are in the song. Unfortunately don't have any clips of the final vocals being recorded :(

SG

Films!

Our wonderfully talented colleague Kieran Baxter has made a directory of all of the forthcoming Duncan of Jordanstone graduate films, of which this is one. So, for a chance to see what the rest of them have been up to - click on the thumbnail just under the banner on the right, or go to:

www.animation2011.com

SG

This video makes me disproportionately happy.

Jiggly Hair!! :D

Old Floria Hair Jiggle Playblast from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

SG

Smoke Monster Playblast

Yay! Finally got the playblast to work! It's not the best quality, but you get the idea...

Smoke Monster Playblast from Sarah Gillespie on Vimeo.

Now THAT'S more like it...

The smoke on the face and arms needs a bit of readjustment, as do the blendshapes but I'm otherwise very happy. Picked up 'Introduction to Maya Fluid Effects (Gnomon Workshop)' from the library and it's worked wonders :)

SG

Two more Smokey Tests.

Been wrestling with the Air Fields controls... for some reason the wind keeps changing direction... It's not weighted yet, but weights are looking lovely already. Ah well, less work for me...

SG

Smokey Joe's Dilemma...

The dilemma being... which one do I go with? I like elements of both... I'm leaning toward the Maya Fluids one (the two bottom pictures) as the smoky effect is just so much more elegant than the 'blobbiness' of the Classic Particles (top two). But the Classic works much better for the big, imposing stylised shots near the end...

(which reminds me... need to get an animatic up here!)

Anyone got any ideas on how I can get the Fluids to spread in the same way as the Particles do?

SG

Studio Aiko

Studio Aiko, in Israel, is behind the music video 'Hey' - one of the major influences behind this project. They've got a gorgeous mix of hyper-realistic and hyper-stylised stuff on their website. Thought everyone should check it out :)

http://www.studio-aiko.com/

SG

UV mapping...

...is not as bad as I thought! In fact, I almost enjoyed it for a while...somthing must be wrong with me!
Just posting a little update, I have UV mapped two of the three flowers, with one left to go! I still need to fix the model slightly on the third one but I shall have the flowers all modeled and UV mapped by the end of the week hopefuly, then onto the treeeees! :)

Here is a quick screen shot of flower number 2 - the rafflesia














Amy :)

Young Floria Rig - Getting There...

These are, arguably, the three faces I make most often when rigging:

Still a work in progress. But getting there... slowly... painfully...

SG.

Environment stuff...

Helloooo

So... I havn't actually posted anything on the blog since joining team Innocence! 

Here are some screen shots of the flowers and trees I have been working on.

I am working on another two flowers at the moment so I shall post them in a couple of days :)

 Amy

Why so serious...?

...because the eyelids haven't been rigged yet, and a smile without the lower lids would be creepy. So instead here are some sad, mad and thoughtful faces, all exaggerated beyond any shape I would actually use in animation but... hey, blendshapes are fun :)

Oh, and both models now have eyelashes and shiny eyes!

SG

Textures.

So I went a little overboard on the wrinkles perhaps... Ah well, that's what the Smooth Tool is for, eh?

SG

MUSIC - DONE!!!

OK, after that disastrous first attempt to upload via Blogger video, I thought this was the best way.

Link: www.myspace.com/sarahcoloso

Should be the first track on the music player.

Credits:

Sarah Gillespie (or Coloso... or something): Vocals, Piano, Synth.

Harry Sheddon: Bass.

Andy Gavine: Drums.

Eoin Boylan: Guitars.

SG

A smoke-free smoke monster.

I manipulated the tendrils before taking this snapshot to give a better idea of what it'll look like when its finished. Obviously I've had to model them sticking straight up so the monster actually looks more like a shark-narwhal-slug right now (with emphasis on the narwhal). I actually quite like it with its arms sticking out like that. It's an aeroplane monster :)

SG

Old Floria - Finished Model!!

SG

Old Floria in Progress

It looks like I've done loads of work, but I've just taken the Young Floria mesh, stretched it out and prodded (is that a real word?) it a bit.

But the main reason I'm posting on here is to announce the arrival of a new member of the team!

She's black, shiny, and...

...well, she's a laptop, actually. A refurbished Dell Precision M6400.

She's lovely. And she works hard too - I'd say progress on Old Floria has sped up tenfold at least since she joined the team this morning.

And she has a light-up keyboard, too.

Bonus.

SG

Young Floria - Finished Model!!

yay :)

SG

Baby dentures!

These took me all day... I'll have to add more teeth for Old Floria and narrow them a bit, I imagine her baby teeth may have fallen out by the time she gets to that age ;)

Young Floria In Progress - Part Two.

Still refining the face - at the moment it looks a bit lumpy and "jowly" and the nostrils are rather huge... but it's getting there!

SG

If God exists, his name would be Ryan Kittleson.

Don't you just hate/love it when you come across a wonderful tutorial video that you really wish you had seen earlier/are really grateful for?

Here are two, by Ryan Kittleson -

Modelling a Human Hand:
www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-model-human-hand-with-perfect-edge-flow-maya-179898

Modelling a Human Head:
www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-model-human-head-with-great-edge-flow-maya-179899

As you may have figured from the addresses, these tutorials focus on getting the basic edge flow right to allow for the most natural looking deformation (for blendshapes, etc). What surprised me is how few edge loops are needed to create almost a complete human hand, fingernails and all. The face... much more difficult. I'm still working on it.

SG

Young Floria In Progress

Still have to fix the face, as you can probably tell. The fingernails took a while...

SG