Year End

I've been very, very busy lately with work and the graduate exhibition for college! While the stuff at brown bag is still super secret, I can show you some of the college stuff I've been working on.

Here's a quick look at some of the things I've been doing:

DVD menus (in 4:3 and 16:9 setups) for our end-of-year DVD

The Poster for my little film, Pandamonium (click to view)

 

It may not look it, but I really worked hard to get my film finished for the exhibition. With working full-time it's been a real struggle -  I'm not planning to make another film all by myself again any time soon!

I still think it will be an amusing watch to anyone who doesn't know the twists and turns yet!

I've also been working on bios for people in the class, to be put up for the exhibition:

Here's my bio! The bears were supplied by Joe Loftus

Some more roughed-out tests

I'm working on my first pass of animation, building my symbol library up as I go - I started by concentration on cycles and actions that can be reused with a little tweaking, for more time-efficiency.

Here's a rough version of Baby's front 'flying' cycle, running down a scrolling background - just tracking his general route for the final version, and seeing how the lighting is working. 

Trying similar things here, but with his three-quarters cycle. The final scene will be rendered on several separate planes to get some good depth-of-field in.

A roughed-out version of the laser shooting into space scene, just trying out getting the timing and flow of the motion right. This was done straight ahead with the brush tool to get a more fluid, organic feel.

Animation Cycles: in-progress

Work-in-progress from my film - some cycles:

The baby flying cycle, three-quarter view

Alva's run cycle, side view

(With the main movements keyed, I will now look at getting the secondary motion on things like the head and hair.)

Revised Model sheets

Some revised model sheets for my film, with Flash versions of the characters coloured.

New Forest Backgrounds

 Some Background concepts I've been working on, to get the forest looking more mystical.

Early background test

Here is a render of a test background, that I've been working on for a while for my film:

I like using Maya to plot out a background, as it feels like I'm building something in three dimensions. It helps me to get a better feel of the world I'm building.
This is just a rough version blocking in the main architecture - for the city scenes, I decided to go for a Art Deco design, as it works really well in CG.

I overlayed a few textures over it, to get the feel I want for the finished film ~ a sepia-toned city.