Compositing Tests

This was a tutorial from 3D world magazine I did to help me understand how the passes all work with each other and how they can effect each other as well as how to make subtle changes easily because the render was planned out properly.

Render 1

Had a talk with my Director yesterday he wants a cell shaded/scroll look for the film, here are my first tests while getting used to the cell shader that I downloaded. I know these are nothing special but its my first day playing with the toon shader toon shader I thought I would play with there is a fair bit of control with the settings so its worth a look at.

http://www.the-area.com/downloads/shaders?word=toon&where=1&software=&material=

Concepts development

Current Work

At the moment I am working on blocking out key poses for my development project, for this I am using the moom character with simple shapes for the environment. I have been using the stepped technique in the graph editor as its a more professional way to work and I am finding it a lot easier.

I also have a walk cycle that should be uploaded in a couple of days.

Animation development

Run Test for my current Project from Samuel McGuire on Vimeo.

I know the timing is a bit off but i was more trying to concentrate on the key poses as animation is a key area I'm trying to develop this year, also I decided to have a quick play with lighting while doing this as a remind to basic lighting controls. Although I think alot of the styling of this will come down to the texturing.

More Concepts

This is just a few more concepts I did. I have been trying to develop my drawing skills in my freetime but unfortunately I dont have the money for life drawing classes at the moment.

Concept Development

One of my favourite hobbies is concept art and more specifically environment art, now don't panic thinking "oh god another one who wants to be a concept artist" I know I'm not good enough to be one, it its just a hobby. One thing I like think is that I have a good grasp on what I can do professionally and I hope to focus on that rather then working in an area because its what I enjoy working on most. Don't get me wrong I love all aspects of animation which is what I think makes me think practically.

That all aside I still did some concept art for my group as I really enjoy it. Below you can see the three images where I tried to develop my Photoshop skills. One of the areas I struggle with is simplifying images so I was quite pleased the bottom image, it also show a good feel of the style our project is hoping to head in

Here's a couple of images that I have done with different style. just let me know which direction you want me to aim towards with other images

Final Idea Research

Turns out that we have been told that we should stick to the one project Snatched so that we get quality over quantity which i a happy with as it mean everyone has a better grip of what they are doing. One of the things that was beginning to was member of the group being stretched thin over the 2 projects, I been watching other people on the course working on 4 or 5 projects and I think they will struggle later on in the year, I hope not though as it would be great for everyone to get their degree, anyway that's why I'm happy I've got just one project to work.

Below you can see the research that I posted on the group blog

Hey guys I found some cool looking animations that just look nice

This has some cool animal animation

This made me laugh as it almost could sum up the third year

Some cool cell shading, don't think much of the animation but it looks nice

30 Second short concepts

This a work in progress of some character designs you can see the general direction its going in, you can probably see the inspiration from the Mr men as well

Research Videos and Brief Introduction

As it turns out that my pitch wasn't picked, so I am now working in a group with David Legge, Dean Pankhurst, Hayley Allen and Tara Dulake. Initially we were told to work on to 30 second animations. We chose to work on David Legge's pitch Snatched in which a small marmot steals a Mongolian mans food. The other project was an comical idea Tara, Dean and I came up with, which involved the idea of queuing for a toilet.

Here is the first of the research I started for this project, from this you can see that we are planning to going for as simplistic an idea as possible

This image seemed pretty relevant as the characters are simple shapes which is what we are intending to aim for. Same goes for the video above.

I found this using 3D world magazine, it actually won a competition on CGsociety its really nice character animation. Its environment is the same as how ours has been described in our group meeting which is as simplistic as possible.

I am a Forest hq from Alex Schulz on Vimeo.

I picked this as some research as the style just appealed to me its plain and simple which kinda relates to our project. I love the lighting on the piece as well its just effective