Sound task 3

Layered sound task.
30 Seconds long.
The more I mess around with sound software and effects the more I like it, I really didn't think I'd be that interested in this type of work but it's really quite interesting to try and get the mood/ atmosphere of a sound-scape right.
Basically we had to gather,layer and mess around with sound ambience to create a setting. I chose the shoreline, hopefully from the audio up there you can kinda picture that or at least piece it together from the noises and effects I used. Also used were echo effects and panning to try and alter the piece to make it sound how I felt it should. Its strange that by doing this you can actually create a detailed narrative through audio only. I'd definitely recommend this task to anybody interested in storytelling as it could really get you to think differently and maybe more out of the box instead of confining you to just pen and paper or visual practice.
Most of this piece was done on Mac software Soundtrack Manager Pro. A very fun, and I found user friendly, programme which I got the hang of quickly which is something as I'm a bit of a technophobe. Sounds were layered and altered using effects then exported over into Adobe After Effects to make a MPEG 4 file ready to be uploaded on to my blog.

Lip sync Rough final & Maya

Finished - for now. I attempted the entire lip sync of my scene. after studying the phonetics of the speech and a earlier trial, I feel it came out OK.  Its a first try at lip syncing for me so it was a steep learning curve, there maybe...countless issues with it, but for now I am happy with it and I cant wait to improve further, If anything the challenge of doing it was really quite fun.

I did all 3 points of view, im not quite sure how i got them finished nor how i got Flash to work but eventually it fell into place, after an awful lot of cursing (the air was blue :/ )

I think the mouth shapes need...better definition and shape and id love to, once i have the time clean this up and line it properly maybe even colour it....and remove the under anatomy that gave me alot of laughs though so i'l be sad to see it go.

Maya Update:

Ok so the actual checker patters has been applied to all now.

There were some ridiculously annoying parts to do such as all the small fiddly bits I couldn't seem to select at times.

I guess that will have taught me a lesson, the small things probably could have just been texture mapped in and not had to have been modeled, it would have probably saved a lot of time. 

One of the most annoying pieces was the grenade. I don't know why or how but things just kept going wrong with it. I shut down Maya and rebooted it ad like magic it stopped being a nightmare and worked properly. Every post,sandbag,support,spade and munitions box/crate is mapped.

As you can see the pic ect had to be mapped individually, i thought as I had grouped them maybe I wouldn't but I did oh well :).

Lip sync test 1 & Maya

Ok so our next little project is to animate a lip sync on a character profile/frontal view.

I decided to be stupid and made my facial model maybe a bit difficult, but hey ho a challenge is good right??

Frontal/3 Quarter turn: Please excuse their scruffiness these were the preliminary sketches before finalizing them in digital line work.

Profile.

I decided to have a go at all three purely to see if I could manage them all at once, If I become strapped for time then it may be that one drops off or is not completed, none the less I really want to see if I can pull this off and wonder how it will all turn out....lets be pessimistic and say badly that way we avoid a jinx

Finalized lines done using Paint tool Sai which is ridiculously fun to line work in digitally, I'm the biggest technophobe around but I enjoyed this far too much. As you can see our guys a bit of a heavy bruiser, If you know me or have followed my crappy DeviantArt  profile http://shadowraze.deviantart.com/ (I don't use it anymore so its old... incredibly old) then you'll probably recognize the character. I'm not normally someone to simplify character designs but its pretty fun to do and for animation it's probably a hell of a lot easier. 

The only thing I find is that when I line work it tends to lose..something? Personality I guess? Movement for sure...I just like sketchy work more...then again maybe I'm just bad at lining ;). Never mind, maybe i'll get there in the end.

Ok so this is a really rough key frame selection of the first part of the audio "Is It Safe?" I have not edited in the audio yet so bear with me while I get the rest of the phrase sorted and hopefully I'l have more for you soon.

Maya Update: UV Mapping.

Never done this before and its a bit fiddly to do, time consuming too.

Started simple with just a rectangular plane polygon, I think the whole point of this is to by adding a hyper shade texture, to make sure none of the surface warps and would then disrupt the texture that you apply. The chequer texture is ideal for this as it gives you squares with which you can easily spot the disruption in pattern. Pretty cool.

The basic layouts finished with minimal warping, i sewed most sides together leaving the 3 main component pieces of the sides free just in case anything went too badly wrong. There are one or two areas where the pattern does skew a bit but luckily its out of camera shot so I think I can get away with it.

Here is the finished layout textured.

Some warped areas to follow:

You can see in the center of the side planes some of the patterns twisting a bit oddly.

Luckily like I said before this isn't visible in the shots i'l be using.

Run Cycle Practice & Maya

Run Cycle: Practice

A really...really messy run cycle I repeated it 2 or 3 times so you could actually get the motion as I'm not too sure how to loop it in render... that's something I will have to figure out when I'm next bumbling around on Flash. I loved messing around with this although the shading on the back leg/arm is maybe a little bit confusing so this is in need of a good clean up. It will be used for reference for the opening scene of my Maya project.

Maya Update:

So finally the basic layouts been done. Hurrah.

I know have to try and make various clutter to go about the environment. I had written down what may be used in a WW1 trench earlier as part of my planning process so that came in handy. I had tested modelling a trench spade and a jerry can earlier as a bit of a training exercise only to realize like a idiot that jerry cans appeared in WW2, historical accuracy disaster averted I modelled some basic block shapes as munitions crates, boxes etc.. Also had a go at some sandbags which I smoothed over to create a rounded effect then piled up onto a ledge.  However it’s all pretty simple just boxes nothing I could have a go at properly constructing apart from the spade which I made from 3 separate polygons. I didn’t want to go too wild as I know a lot of the finished aesthetic of the model will be texturing, a good texture map can really made a mundane box turn into something else.

The only thing I really had trouble with was messing around with a grenade, which is to be an animated prop. Getting the right bits of a spherical polygon to extrude all at once can be so very annoying but I got it done and I’m pleased with the results. The grenade neck, and pin were created with separate cylinders and torus shapes. These were then grouped and parented so when one component of them moved the rest followed and avoided separation.

Animatic v1 & Maya

Animatic for Maya Project:
Ok so this was my first concept animatic for the current Maya project we were given. The important factors we needed in the storyboards and in the final run is the change of emotion, lip sync to speech and an entrance and exit for the character rig Norman.
This was a bit fiddly to do, never having used Flash before it did come as a bit of a pain to figure out and do, I think at one point I had spent a good part of 3 or 4 days messing the first couple of attempts up. I'm about 2 seconds over the limit of 30 secs, but I'm hoping to edit and cut back the frames as I can see that 3 or 4 scenes last a bit too long.
None the less is what good to see it move...even if it just jumps to the next image.
My sound file was cut using the programme Audacity which is a handy little tool.

3^rd Update:

Ok so I spent an awful lot of time trying both options. Firstly I had a go at remodeling .It just went badly somehow when I wanted to extrude about 10 different faces extruded outwards? How?? I have no idea I don’t know what I did wrong it just doesn't want to play ball.  So after much deliberation and not wanting to get behind I decided, even though apparently it was a lost hope, to try and fix my other model work. All in all I merged over 150 vertexes. It took about 3 hours checking included. I was pretty happy with the outcome. Took both projects in to get the checked over by the technician who had no idea why the new project extruded ten times over from one plane. Apparently it was my fault though (: s) When I showed the other project he wasn't very positive even though I’d spent far too long fixing it. He found a few places where I hadn't split the polygons and merged the planes to each other, but to be honest I feel I’d done a bloody good job mending the stupid thing.

Premiere pro Project

Premiere Pro:

OK a practice run for what I assume will be a final piece at some point this term. I struggled with this an awful lot, as I'd never used a editing or compositing programme before so this was a real learning curve. I thought I'd go for a bit of the dramatic atmosphere so I chose the historical city of Jerusalem to be the scene to which to experiment on. Set to Adrian Munsey's epic musical piece The Forgotten.
I think I probably went a little overboard with the panning and I've just noticed a...odd blurriness when the image does move around so I might go back and have a go at fixing it soon. A very interesting little side project, even if it was a bit of a uphill battle to make, luckily I had a good friend to show me around the programme even though she had never used it before only Adobe After Effects, but she felt familiar on the interface. After her tutorial I'd say I'm more or less confident that I could do this again, hopefully with better results.
Had a fight uploading it to the blog too :s
Had to change it to a different file as the original I had exported it as was far too big to be uploaded.
Only issue I cant seem to change was that when setting the project, like a complete idiot I set the screen setting to Pal DV not Pal DV widescreen an unfortunately I can't seem to change it, however I will not forget for next time.

StoryBoards Round Two & Maya

Edit speech lipsync is:"Is it safe?" "Yes its safe, its very safe, its so safe you woul'dnt believe it".

Ok so hopefully these storyboards will explain better my idea and will be ok for use in a animatic which is the next step Hurrah.

 2^nd Update:

I followed my floor plan by importing the layout into Maya which was pretty cool. However I don’t know how but apparently I extruded it all wrong. Bit disheartening to say the least but hey ho it’s how it goes. After trying again I then tried to extrude the walls of the trench upwards, I thought I’d done a good job until I asked the tech if it was ok and the response wasn’t very good. Again I’d managed to do it all wrong; the vertices weren’t joined so the whole model was unattached to itself. Meaning I could either go around and merge every vertex to the corresponding corner or edge (some needed the polygon splitting so it could attach itself). Or I would have to remodel the entire thing again, to say that I have just started using Maya I’m very fast becoming fed up of it. I guess I will try and remodel the entire thing again; the tech advised that the other work was unable to be saved unless I wanted to spend a lot of time merging vertexes.