Lighting Update

Revised lighting for the store is just about done! We added some lights inside the store to brighten it up. The only issues left with the background is the outside environment and the windows. Not quite sure how to do those yet.

lalalalalala

This week I worked more on CU/color. I'm about done with Sequence 4, half way done with Sequence 5, and done with Sequence 2. I have about half of my film left to color. I'm not worried though, because most of my hardest shots are finished.

I also talked with my sound designer this week, and we sat in the mixing room together figuring out what's what. She established the environment, and it's coming along well.

Lighting WIP

Here are some lighting tests that I've been working on with Eric Hanson. For some reason, bookshelves make the lighting darker. Need to figure out that problem. Otherwise it is starting to look pretty cool.

Background almost complete....

This week I worked on trying to finalize the background design. I'm feeling relatively pleased with it, although it was not quite what I had initially envisioned. The lighting still needs a ton of work, which I plan on fixing up with Eric Hanson. There are also a few problems I want to work out, for example the posters and the windowpane. I'm also not quite sure about how to deal with the toy shelf, which is just a plane in space. Still, it is close enough. check out some maya software renderings here:

 

I rendered out a shot to see how it looks with a character. I think it looks pretty cool, but at the same time I have an itchy, uncomfortable feeling about it....my aesthetic senses are tingling with discomfort! There is something wrong with it, but I can't quite point it out. perhaps it is too detailed, but at the same time, I  like the detail. In this shot, I desaturated the background, which helped a bit. It think it has something to do with the composition of this shot itself. The vertical datum is right in the center. Well, this shot isn't quite complete still--I don't have a background for the outside street view.

EDIT: I just played around with the composition. I think its starting to work better. Check it out:

Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned in the last post, but I finished all of the Sequence 2 cu/color animation revisions, so I'm relatively back on schedule. hoooray!

More progress, second draft of music

This week I made more progress on the CU/Color animation, and revised most of the Seq2 shots that I had to redo from the first week. I also got a second draft of the music, though it's still not quite what I'm going for. I also re-setup my animatic files on aftereffects, so I'm sure that for the next class critique I will have a new animatic up and ready to show.

Progress on the background is falling a little behind because I still need to work on lighting. I met with Eric Hanson today, but we were unable to finish what we started and plan on working on lighting next week. I'm also unsure about how to render and composite my shots, which I hope he will be of assistance.

Almost done with Background, more CU and Color

This week I got a hold of the background file that Dom has been working on! It's looking really great! I've been coming across some issues with Lighting and Rendering though. the lighting seems too dark, and for some reason rendering one frame takes more than 15 minutes. If I want to finish my film in time, this rendering problem needs to be figured out! I'm going to meet with some people in the coming week to see if we can resolve these issues.

CU/Color is coming along well as usual. I've gotten 2 of the hardest shots out of the way this week, which is a big relief. I'm relatively on schedule but I am constantly feeling behind for some reason. perhaps it is just nerves.

Here are some screen shots of my work flow:

Seq5_sc3: finished shot!

Seq5_sc7: drawing in Ray

Seq5_sc7: Adding in shadows for the swirly things. This shot took forever....

Seq5_sc8: Clean up from SWF roughs

Seq5_sc10: More cleanup from SWF roughs

Seq5_sc10: adding color