problem with opening file.

I had a look on the internet and found how to change the pivot point, i remember now you press 'insert' next to the 'home' button. Thanks Jarrod for reminding me to look it up.
Anyway I went to open the Maya file and an error came up. Last night i did import Edgar in to see what it looked like and then i think i saved it with him still in the scene. So now the file wont open.
The saved file before that doesnt have the new modeling that i did, so it will be a waist of time if i have to start from there again.

Also in Darren's class i worked on the city and he told me i should make a hazy blur between the city and the power poles in the distance. Its starting to look a lot better.

Still lots of work to do! But i dont know what to do about the Maya file. Im hoping that Jack will be able to help me. I should write an email to him. 

wall&door&city.

On Tuesday i got some help from Jack with perspective. I'm still bad at it but i will keep trying to learn. He helped me with placing the power poles around and to give them a 3D look. He also helped me with the ground and said that i could still use the guide picture but change it up and add some textures to it. So he found a nice brush and showed me the stroke and angle of what i should do.
This is what it looks like know.

There is still a lot of work i need to do. So i will continue to work on it in Darren's class on Thursday.
On Tuesday i started working on making a wall and door in 3D, i would have had it finished but something happened within the family and i found it hard to continue. So today (wednesday) I tried really hard to work and get it complete.

The only thing i have to do is animate the door opening with Edgar. I know i have to move the pivot point to the side where the door hinges are but i dont remember how to do it. So i will do some research tomorrow in class.

Gangnam style!

On wednesday after uni I decided to work on animating Edgar's hand. As i was trying to place his body in the chair something weird happened and the body ended up stretching down and his shoulders staying in the same place. I had a bit of a search on the internet and maybe i was too tired but i couldnt find what i needed to do to fix the problem.
So instead i just kept him in an up right position and placed his hand the way i wanted it. I will soon need to animate it.

Also on wednesday night as i was getting frustrated with the 3D work i stopped and started working out my Outside/city landscape. I'm trying to learn more about perspecitve as i am really bad at it! So when i was trying to do a simple layout of how i wanted things to look, i went a little crazy. Nothing seemed right. So instead i just drew up some ideas.

On Thursday in Darren's class i spoke to him about the problem i have with perspective and that i was finding it really hard to begin. So he helped me by searching up some pictures and finding what i liked then cutting them up and placing them in the right areas. It helped out so much! I finally had some sort of guide to work with. So i continued on working and completed a bit of the sky and I had already finished off the city.
On Friday i continued working on the city and added in some extra towers and put in Steam/smoke coming from the towers. I also designed how i wanted the power poles to look. I also did a bit of fixing up with the sky and made it a bit darker.

Today (saturday) I am now working on placing the power poles around and trying to figure out the power lines. It is getting abit annoying and i have decided to stop and start working on my presentation for Mondays class.

In this picture, the ground is an image that has been cut and placed as a guide. I dont know if i want the power poles/lines to be placed the way they are now.

    

running comp done.

This is my Running comp! I know that the starting is a bit weird, that has been fixed! Right now i am in Jack's class and he said that my test animation is good! he also said that shot 5 in scene one should be changed a little so it doesnt look so flat! and now that is fixed too.

Jack also went through the finger influences so that i can now animated Edgar writing in his note book.

scene one wording problem.

On Saturday I showed my boyfriend my finished scene. he watched and then told me that the wording for each of my newspapers were wrong and that i should change them. I was a little upset and annoyed about it because i had merged all the layers together and didnt have a file were the text was separate from the background.

So what i spent my whole time on was using the Clone tool in Photoshop and getting rid of the old text.

I think now the text is a lot better and makes more sense. I also tried working on my outside scene in Photoshop and had a bit of a problem getting my perspective right.

Also with the transitions between each newspaper i have noticed there is a circle type spot. I cant really explain it. but if you watch it you might be able to see it.

Promotion: DVD Slick and Disc.



This is my DVD cover and Disc that i did for my Promotion class.

I would like to thank Seanmundy for getting both of them printed! And i would like to thank Jarrod for making sure my blurb made sense. 

scene one... a few more touch ups

Today i spoke to Darren about how long my animation went for. He had a look at my running comp and said that the pacing of it is perfect however there is a few stuff ups that i need to fix up.

Mostly the seed when it opens is too slow, i want the seed and tree to open up fast. so that should make the time of my animation not too long.

Darren said that my first scene is a bit too slow so i made it a few seconds faster. I like it but there is a few little things that i will need to fix up. Like having a bit of a feathered dark edge around the papers.

I also started the rough outline of my Outside world matte painting. I will also need to fix up my running comp.. a few little errors to change and then i will render it out and put it on here.

My milestones will be done by the end of next week :)

animation test and running comp.

After Uni i continued working on my animation test and running comp.
Flash worked fine for me at home and i got it all done... however After Effects was being a bit of a pain and did crash on me a few times, but i did usual saves and i didn't lose much work.

According  to my running comp my short film goes for 3:52!!! That is way too long! I did try to render it out but it failed so i'm going to try at uni to render it tomorrow and hopefully get it up on here. The plan that i have is to talk to my teachers about the length and i am already going through what I will need to cut out. I really like my story and the way it flows but i understand that i have to get rid of a few things.

As for my milestones i am way ahead with my running comp, scene one just needs some writing on the newspapers and fade in and out between the shots. The outside world photoshop scene needs to be started.

error..,do you want to send a report?

NOOOOOOOOO!

Last night i worked on my test animating and also worked on my running comp.
I got a few errors yesterday while doing my comp and lost a few of my shots. So today i was fixing them up and After effects worked fine. Then i went to get my other line tests to add to the running comp and i did'nt have any sooooooo today I had to redo the animating.

while working on the line test and doing a save as, the program crashed! i tried 3 times!!!! and i lost the same shot.
So now i am going to stop with the test animating and do some other work. Jack said i should fix up the first scene because its too flat and needs some depth and different angle to it.I will do that now. It shouldn't take me too long to fix.

When i get home tonight after Uni I will try test animating again, hopefully its just the computers at uni that are the problem. It's very annoying but thats just the way it is...   

scene one almost done.

over the weekend i worked on finishing off scene one.
the only thing i have to do is write out a few things for the paper. Then i will need to put them into After Effects and do some editing between each shot.

I had a bit of a play around in After effects and found some cool effects which i will need to test.
I also worked on doing some test animating in Jacks class! I went to keep working on it at home but then realised that i had forgotten to save the file as a CS4. The file at uni is a CS5.5 so it didnt work at home.

Animation Production Milestones #1.

AIM: To demonstrate that production goals are being met.

For my Production Milestones I will prove that my short film horologium arborium (time of trees) is on schedule and show progress of my work.

The work that will be completed at the end of Week 5 are:

-  Scene One

• all shots completed in Photoshop.

-  2D Outside World

• Working on throughout (partial completion)

-  Running Composite

• Developing throughout.

These items of work will be my goals to have complete at the end of week 5.  

tool&jars.

In Jacks class i worked on making a tool for Edgar to use and some jars to place around the study room.
I was trying to work on it on my own but i was doing it really badly so Jack came around and taught me a different way to make the tool.
First of Jack made a nurbs cirlce and then added in extra vertex points, then he selected every second vertex and scaled them so they made a star shape. then it was duplicated and moved put to make the shape of the tool needed. After that was complete he then selected the circles and lofed them to make a whole shape.

So when he finished teaching me this new trick i decided to make a jar using the same tools. And of course i was doing it wrong. So Jack taught me a different way to make it. by using the CV curve tool and then using the revolve to make it a whole shape. 

scene 1, shot 4 newspaper.

Yesterday i worked on the last newspaper and finished it off. Im really happy with how it turned out and it only took me 3-4 hours to finish off. I got two images that i really liked and placed them the way i liked it. Then i just used a solid paint brush and went over the areas i liked.

 This is the final painting i did. I also used a cloud brush and selected three different types of browns and painted them around.

After i finished that off i started on the last shot of scene one which is the piled of failed work. After that is complete i will add the writing to the newspapers and sepia tone them. Then i will add them to after effects and set them up in my running comp. 

Everything is coming up Milhouse.