Back

28 Dec 03
Still churning out animation.  I'm learning as I go.   Uploaded a clip of Ravel to the sweatbox.  I don't imagine I'll post a lot of clip like this, but this one is fairly close to finished... though a lot of the details are not showing in the render at this resolution, and since I only rendered it out as 4 polys to a patch- very low resolution.  The cat can be seen to breathe in the full sized animation.  The first scene is almost done.  There are a total of  12 in the entire film- though some are much longer and with many more cuts than the opening scene.  None of twhat I've animated is rendered out, yet, however- as I will go over the animations and timings in a full wire-framed or lowpoly render version assembled in Premiere before comitting to final renders.

21 Dec 03
Winter break, spring break, summer break, heck yeah!  That's when things get done on this project.  I think I better take a job when I'm done with grad. school where I have these times free too.  About 1:30 animated.  I find I'm taking a slower pace to the story boards than I htought, so the film is going to be longer.  I jsut really want to avoid a rushed feeling to it- after all, one of the main elements to the film is "time" and how it flows, and how Ravel experiences it.  Actually, I think there'll be a lot done in post that will decide the film pacing- the soundtrack is very easily manipulable to suit whatever I decide.

Just animated a touch 3 second scene with Ravel putting a manuscript page into his bag.  I had to remodel his wrists, add a quick fan bone, and redo a little bit of his constraints- hehe... isn't that always the way.  Well he works great now!  It is SO nice to be able to do all that, then just go back to the choreography and check out the bad frames and -viola!- they're fixed without me reanimating them!  Kicks serious butt.

Speaking of which, g'night, mine is kicked- toughest 3 seconds of animation so far.... but it looks so much better animated than my first real short- Fireflies.

15 Dec 03
I'm into the animation pretty well now.  While my animating skills are clearly subpar, I'm still learning that bit of the program too- so navigating the program is a little tricky at times to get what I'm trying to do.  So far, the well-laid plans of over two years work is paying off in spades.  I've got about 2 minutes of the film animated and rendered out using quickshaded renders and/or wireframes.  It is extremely pleasing to finally see this thing coming together!

Posted up an in-production still: the FIRST one!  Woohoo!  It's from the first scene, fifth shot.   Not rendered correctly (so some subtle qualities to it will be different when I do the final renders, but it's pretty much what you'll see in the film); it was a final render test of the scene to check lighting, shadows, etc.

School has roundehoused my ego, self-confidence, and whatever other positive self-images I used to have.  I'm just happy to be passing classes now- used to want to be the best in the class...  What's this gotta do with the freakin' animation?  Well, I'll tell you- it means I got precious little time to spare on this thing if I want to get out of it alive and land a real job.  However, I've found this online journal helps force me to remember how far I've come and simply not give up no matter what.


7 Dec 03
Well, unless I later decide to re-render them- we have 396 frames completed.  The first 16.5 seconds.  I'm breaking all sorts of rules and moving along as I complete the soundtrack to various parts of the film.   These first frames are at 1600x900- then resized to 800x450.  So far I like the 200% oversampling method I'm using (not the built-in AM one), but the time spent on each frame may be prohibitive and I may render out to 800x450 with AA on instead.  Will have to see.

Grad school is much tougher than I ever imagined- in fact I've never had doubts about finishing school until now.  Good lord.  However, one of  my cohort has the perfect voice for the DGM character in the film- so I've got her recording for that. soon.  Not many lines of dialoge in the film, but the few in there are critical.

So there you have it.  Still alive.  Still trying to finish this beastly project.  And with a little bit of footage completed.

3 Sep 03
Move to Seattle mostly overwith.  Good lord what an effort.  Internet back up.  Server moved to new ISP... Grad school begins around the 23, week before is orientation..  AGH!  Nerves failing me.

Thought I was done with materials but then I'd forgotten the airplanes!  Finished coloring the two Nieuport 11's in the film.  Quite a bit of decaling involved, and a few complex textures considering how little screen time they get.  Oh well, it only took a day.

16 Aug 03
Moving on Monday.  Oh what fun it is to laugh and sing while driving a rickety rented truck!  Finished all the mouth phonemes for the characters, and that about finishes them up.  need to texture the Nieuport 11, and then it's light tests, and real rendering tests.

10 Jul 03
All texturing is pretty much done.  Heh.

23 Jun 03
Ok, I graduated University.  Now it's on to the Master's degree.  I think I've got my summer job lined up, so my schedule (at least until the big move to Seattle) should be set for a few months.

All internal sets done.  Yes!  Only one more external set to finish! YES!  Then... uh... uh... switch gears I suppose to the audio portion of the film.  I've posted a render of the most complex set in the film- the 1916 village set outside of Verdun.  I've worked very hard on this set, and really learned a lot doing it.

6 May 03
One more quick update before the week gets hectic.  Finished DG's internal texturing and halfway through BG's, so at this rate it won't be long until all textures are done.  I hope to be able to keep up this rate for a little while here.  Posted in the stills section two little screen grabs of some of the current work.

5 May 03
Well so much for the dates I last thought would work... ha!  School got really tough, applying to Grad. School got really stressful, and life just warped me from Jan to May in a snap.  The good news is, I got into Grad. School, in fact I'm moving to go to this school, as it's very good.  The good news also is that I have time here in my last undergrad term to start up again on this film.

  In fact I've textured Ravel's Study room in Belvedere- where the first and last scenes take place, and the color scheme works as planned.   I like it a lot, although it's not the usual CG type imagery people are doing these days with "simulated" reality, smudges and dirt and stuff... I'm not going for that look.  I know I'll take some heat for my decision, when people see the film, the CG community is notoriously wanky/pissy/nitpicky and could crit it's way to parting the red sea, but who cares!  I'm sticking to my vision!

The bad news is going to be this summer.  I have a feeling it's going to suck, filled with meaningless work for little scraps of $$, and I'll be moving.  The bad news also is (for BPMF that is), once Grad. School starts in Fall, things get really serious with me actually messing around with real clients (not animation clients or something harmless like that; my real job will be in an entirely unrelated career).    I think without some serious discipline, as in a scheduled amount of regular time spent on this little thing, it may take just too long to finish.  So I'm going to aim at that: discipline!

Anyway, things are still moving forward!

12 Jan 03:
All characters are rigged with constraints.  Have built the major pose channels I'll need for the bipeds as well, and will have the cat done today.  Instead of going into the phoneme poses next, I need a break from characters.  I'll be assembling sets into choreographies next while continuing to texture.  Then I'll go back and get the lip-synch poses I need for everyone.  I hope in about amonth to have some decent renders of what could amount to the "final look."


6 Jan 03:
Good bye.  School starts tomorrow.  While this should not be as stressful a term, grad. school apps will be going out...   However  with the HUGE amount of advancement made these three weeks on the film, I'm feeling confident enough to update the projected milestone dates.

After the RAF rig I managed to stuff one into Ravel in his military garb.  Now on to the two mothers, then Ravel 1920's and finally the cat.  One of the mothers will be interesting, because her legs are never seen- she sort of glides around in a dress.  While adding in the rigs, I added teeth and gums to both versions of Ravel along with the inside mouth.  The mouth rig I came up with is working really well- while my splineage around the mouth is not designed to be realistic, this simple bone rig helps with verisimilitude.

All the actors are remodeled now and up to my new snobby standards.  Though I can still see things I wished I was motivated enough to fix, I'm moving on or this thing will never be animated and see the light of day!

Well, it's not really good bye, but it is time to triage my time.

4 Jan 03
Good grief!  I must be some sort of freak!  After modeling everything I need for the film, I went back to do some final model checking.  Did all the props, yadda, yadda, then... I went to double check the characters.  Oooops....

While RAF got some new pants and I added pince nez to him (they look cool and complete his personality nicely), Ravel has been completely redone.  I redid his jacket attire and now he has a vest underneath and a shirt and a proper tie.   I redid his hair (two styles now- the younger Ravel and the older).  I redid his freaking shoes.  I redid his pants.  The only thing (amazingly) that survived the encounter with my modeling madness was his face.  And no, I wasn't just adjusting CP's.  After a day of this I have to admit: he looks a lot better.  Since he's the main character with the most screen time, I think putting the final polish on him to as high a degree as I possibly can will pay off..  He looks more sauve, sophisticated, and substantial (physically).

Got the little girls all rigged up and I'm really pleased with their bone layouts.  Very easy to manipulate and a pretty simple rig.  One rig does it all for them so far.  I spent the better part of one day flipping out about the Red Haired girl's pony tail- trying all sorts of constraints until I about wanted to murder someone.  Then I had a brainstorm.  I DON'T NEED no freaking constraints!  Two poses for the tail was all I needed.  One to "swish" it, the other to "bounce" it.  Now every position I'll need it in for this film is a snap.  Also added some controls for their dresses.

Riggedf RAF- his mouth is never seen in the film (moustache) so he didn't need many poses.  I came up with an interesting mouth rig that no one else seems to be using.  It involves three bones for the jaw and a control bone.  When you open the jaw it simulates the jaw bone around the edges of the face and looks kinda neat, like there's an actual mandible in there.  I'll need to put up a lot of info on all of the little things I've discovered when I'm done.

I remodeled the cat.  Dang, I can't believe what a rank amateur modeler I was when I did him.  He would have worked, but he sucked.  Now he doesn't.  His eyes work perfectly now- something that won't mean anything to you, but knowing what I went through for him, it means a lot to me.  I also textured him.  He looks really cool- like he's coated with a bunch of velvet fur.  I'm going to rig him last.

Good grief, I may begin actual aniamtion here shortly!  After lighting tests, color tests, compositing tests, dialogue recording, etc...