The end of rigging

As I've already posted on the group blog, rigging is all finished at last. They all been tested, and organised with master_control/eye controls and everything. The blendshapes are great. Make sure you reference the characters tho.
I've had a chance to play with them a little today. It all seems to be fine which is a relieve really.

LOL at the pircute.

Environment inspirations

some references for the lighting and the design.

So much easier...

I can't believe how easy walker's rig is in comparison with the guard. The skeleton is the same, its just the mesh, the oily fat that makes it so hard to bend. I can kind of imagine in the industry they will use dynamics on the fatness. But hey, our technical guy is not here.

After I did the rig, I was like : OOOOOOOOH That's why most the animation characters from other colleges are identically slim!

Walker's weight finished.

For the record...walker is finished.
I'll upload a video demonstration of the weight soon...

Patches

For the record, patches's weight is finished. I had to come back to it and add a jaw control, as you can see, you are now be able to open his mouth 3 ways :)
1.blendshapes
2.move the joint
3.move the slider control in front of his face.

Little test animation of Patches.

Breadbeard weight finished.

its called breadbeared_weight_finalfinal.mb under my name on adrive.
Tom still need to add the giggles to his beared.

Environment Layout.

did a nice occulution layer today.

The guard's weight finished.

This is just for the record, Guard's weight is finished and have been put onto his mobility-scooter. It is not fully animatable. I have created extra control for the scooter AND the guard. So if now you move the squre under the scooter you should be able to move them both. I basically just created a curve and parented both scooter's mesh and the guard's master control to it.

Environment. scene 2

I have made this called environment_s2. it should be under the scene folder in the production folder. This environment will be applied to all the shots after shot 36.

Its extra long, and eats less memory. For some shots though, it can be cut down even more but don't do it yourself just yet, I'll help you.

Master environment.

Everything is scaled to 1:1 real size. (tho its still so much smaller than a real supermarket, but will do for our camera's sake.)

This scene will never be rendered at its current state because it is tooooooooooo big. DON'T ever import it into your animation, call me over and i will make a customized version - base on the camera in each shot. If you do, it will probably crash your maya.

Notice that all the shelves are empty. I've tried to add in some bottles, but seems even on my iMac it wouldn't load up upto two shelves. So we have to render all the bottles and cereal boxes in seperate layers and composite them back in in after effect. But the location of the environment and the bottles must synchronise when the camera moves. The only way to do this - simple - don't move the environment, move your animation to position.

I can already hear people moaning.................

Meeting with Dan

Today me and Lewis had a meeting with Dan Dali, regarding to the future of one of our team member. I am not sure wether I should name him or not. Prehaps most of you already know who he is. I want to make it very clear here that I AM NOT BLAMING ANYONE HERE. Personally, I feel so sorry for him because we are very good friends. It is shame to see him dropping out.

Basically what happened is...2 weeks ago, he came back to me with an unfinished rig which was supposed to be finished a week before, although i phoned and texted him during the process, it seems i haven't been told the whole story. I undertstood he had pressure because we are both beginners to rigging and it must be hard for him. I asked him wether he wanted to move on to do another job, he thanked me and told me he'd like to work on the environment and said he's gonna make it impressive. It was good to see the spirt was back to him. But two weeks later, nothing from him. I tried to contact him by all means but couldn't get through. (but to be fare he's not the only one who does that) This morning, Lewis and me told our conceres to Dan Dali, he phoned him and got through. Apparently, he's having some family issues so he can only do work for us on Tuesday and Saturday.

It is a shame to lose him.

Now the environment is back under my list. I'll do it after I've done the weight.