End of an Era

Well for anyone still attached to this blog, this is my final post just to say that IT'S FINISHED! All future correspondance will now be taking place over at www.hallsworthfx.com - head over there now to check out the final film!

Cheers
Rich

bwahahaha

so.. i finished animating this 4 second scene, and i was so happy with how it'd turned out i thought fuck it, i'm gonna comp it now. I knew i wanted particles in it so begrudgingly rendered out a million different passes, which took forever, but now, with particley goodness sandwiched between 15 layers of animation gold, i give you, the chase sequence, part 01:



you know it's odd looking back over previous posts in this blog. To you it probably looks like "shit, he doesn't do much" and then when something looks vastly different it's as if i completely change my mind about art direction mid project. The thing is there are really gradual changes that've happened, and whilst I've felt this thing evolve beneath my very eyes, when I look back over my blog now it's a bit like.. "WTF!?" Things have changed loads! I guess that's a testament to how long I've been working on this thing.. I have changed over the last year, and so yes, I feel I've got better, and quickly. But now this is a fully rendered scene, ready to drop onto the timeline, and so this video here is the best representation so far that you or I have seen of my final film aesthetic :) Anyway I'm rambling, it's late. More to come soon.

Texturage

I'm churning out scenes now like a chipmunk on speed, and it feels goooood! But to take a break from the madness I thought I'd have a play with some textures for various elements. I've explored this before, and didn't really get anywhere.. my pit set has seen many a guise none of which I've been happy with, but I trawled through my collection of photographs and found a little treasure that I believe was shot down by the fossil forest at Lulworth cove (Lully Lully Lully!) made it tile-able and stuck it on the pit walls, and eureka! I'm pleased with the results!


So, back to animating.

ANIMATION

Haharr, there be animation at the end of this tunnel!

I've finally, finally managed to crack out my first little snippet of animation. That's right. So here's a whole 6 seconds in fully rendered glory - there's some things that need changing, like adding a bit more to the facial expressions, and fixing some 'popping' with the curve editor. And editing that terrible grass. But consider this my first, keyed out sample. My gift to you. It's been a long time coming. Stay tuned for more!


Untitled from Rich Hallsworth on Vimeo.

Still coming along....

Well things have been inevitably slow, but progress is being made! The hunter model is finished, rigged, just need to do the morph targets for facial expressions and he's laughing, the girl is getting there... the bear needs some edge loops reworking and then a basic rig, which shouldn't take too long........................ ahem.

As for locations, the cave is finished as you've seen, and the pit is just about there too. I figured out the best way to model trees.. and this is how it's looking. Without lighting might I add, so excuse the shoddy render - but you get the idea. I'm thinking I might make the leaves not cast shadows, and use an ambient shadow map instead, or my GPUs gonna melt. Anyway, back to the grind stone.

Smoke screen

Just a quick little Comp test - using particle effects in AfterEffects for maximum control AND the glow on the fire also comped as a seperate layer, with the 'wiggle' expression controlling its Opacity. I think the smoke needs slowing down a bit and being a bit whispier, but for a first attempt I was quite happy.

Also lowered the daylight a bit to make the cave slightly more visible.

edit: However the more I look at it the more I think I prefered the light in the previous shot, had a lot more character. Ahh well, I'll change that back.


cave test from Rich Hallsworth on Vimeo.

Cave-tastic!

Here's a little test render, but riddle me this, it took 6m23 to churn out. That's partly down to my slow ass PC, but is that acceptable? I don't know, I'll have a little tweak I think.

Bear Necessities

My male character model was stressing me out, so I thought I'd get the bear out of the way as a) I knew it would be easier, and b) I actually enjoy modelling anything that isn't human. It needs a rig still but for a days work, meet: the bear.





It's not looking too fearsome at the moment but I put that down to it's stance. And besides, who said it had to be fearsome, the bear's the victim here!

Animatic v2.0

In all honesty, not a lot has changed in this version, the timings are slightly different to accomodate for a title at the beginning and the end section has been shrunk a little to allow for more action in the middle. That and a little bit of colour has been splashed in but things have been admittedly slow and so I'm really only putting this up for the purpose of the music composition.


Hunter Animatic v2 from Rich Hallsworth on Vimeo.