Finito

So it's done, 7 hours of rendering later and a hectic day hand in day, and its finished. The final footage is on the team blog courtesy of Ms. Fabian who i think really deserves a pat on the back for all her hard work and extra hours spent on this project. Not only did she work on her own piece but she picked up the slack from others and even though we really had to cut our loses on this project, i don't think i would have been possible to even get the footage that we have without her.

After a discussion with Lydia I feel that this project has been a very big learning curve. I think the only thing we needed was a leader. Someone to take charge and make the decisions. I feel this term we have been treading on too many egg shells and trying to make everybody happy and the result was a loss of time. Time that was crucial in the development of this project. It was a shame as I found towards the end of this project I just lost motivation as I knew we did not have to time we needed to get the finish that i had in my head.

Though the final piece was not what I wanted, I think it looks fine, and shows off a lot of the hard work in the animating and modeling we put into the piece. I feel this project has taught me so much in all aspects of the production. I feel I have learnt so much more about the process of modeling and using other tools in maya to get the desired affect, such as deformers and duplication. I also learnt how to texture. And this i am really very proud of as the whole process daunted me from last term when i experimented with the 3d paint tool.

Looking back I think our time management could have been improved severely. Yes we lost 3 weeks due to weather but it's not really an excuse. I also think our group dynamic should have been more organized and I feel sorry for the compromises we have had to make in our work over both projects to get this done.

Overall I enjoyed the project, even though it was very stressful and the final outcome wasn't what any of us had in mind. But I do think I've developed my skills and Im very happy about that. I am also glad that working in a group this term was my chance to show that I do work well in a team as the last time in 1st year completely fell to bits.

So now this is the end, and I want to say thank you to my team mates, and for all the help of the tutors.

I'll leave you with this final quote, "You can't polish a Turd!"

Rendering.

Because of the time restraints everyone has had to render out some scenes, and as the render farm is down, we have had to use our laptops. This was a terrible idea as it threw our team into deep panic as our laptops were crashing left right and centre.

I finally managed to get my cameras rendered through mental ray. It took 7 hours.

Unfortunately this has set me back on My other project for Steves Unit. Ahhh the learning curb. Better luck next time me thinks.

facebooking 2.

So here is the facebook messages from the final stretch of our project.

Oh the drama.

Lydia Fabian 23 February at 09:36 Reply

Hey guys,

just thinking we havent come together in a while.
how's everyone's work going or not as it may be?

Sam Mcguire 23 February at 13:15 Reply

well ive done more texturing keeping a basic palette for the clone wars look

Lydia Fabian 23 February at 14:31 Reply

i've done some texturing just to set up the uvs. roughly added.

you in tomorrow?

Sam Mcguire 23 February at 14:59 Reply

yeah of course we're meant be in, dont worry unless we get 10 inches of snow i will be there

Matt Vadis 23 February at 15:46 Reply

'Sup y'all. I wont be in tomorrow, working on steve's unit from home. But i'll def be in on thurs so we can catch up.

Hayley Allen 23 February at 17:02 Reply

I wont be in tomorrow. im having trouble rendering the oil think it may be my laptop, bt otherwise its going ok. if my textures are too complex i dnt mind simplifying them. hope everyone is getting on ok are we going in everyday next week?x x

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Lydia Fabian 26 February at 18:41 Reply

hey im planning to have my textures all done by monday when we meet.

hayley what texture is complex?

im going to stick some stuff on the blog by end of tonight for what iv been up to .

sam are you good for texturing?

i worked the lighting so i will take some screenshots of the lighting in the file you gave me n andi yesterday yes?

on our to do list we have

Lighting
Texturing
Storyboards
Animatic
Animating
Rendering Maya scenes
Compositing
Rendering final movie

So if we crack texturing thats one off the list. and im lighting now.

Andi Bennett 26 February at 18:56

just finishing texturing... going quite well... still have to work on my womaaaaan.

Lydia Fabian 01 March at 21:11 Reply

Hey guys, i know we were all planning to go in tomorrow, but i'm wondering if we could not just get on with our work at home?

Me and sam lost time today that we could have spent on the other project because we went in college, the idea was to come into college today. I know matt was in, andi had the plumbing issue and hayley was maybe finishing up her bits..

but if we want to get this finished rendered AND composited (which falls on me and sam) by friday then we need to pull our act together.

I plan to have completed my camera moves by tomorrow ready to render in mental ray in the DOCK by the end of tomorrow.

What do you guys want to have finished by the end of tomorrow. lets make a schedule and stick to it. Allocating time for steves work too.

Maybe plan to have all scenes, lighitng, textures, animation finished by wednesday so that we can have thursday to render perhaps?

Lydia

Andi Bennett 01 March at 21:14

im gunna be working from home tomorrow as im tinkering with my statue. should be good just to hand over all files on wednesday though.

Matt Vadis 01 March at 22:35 Reply

Me too, will be working at home tom. The sooner I finish Steve's unit the sooner I can help with what's left to be done. Doing animation this late is out of the question. I'll try and get some sort of animatic done for thurs, but I wouldn't hold your breath, sorry to disappoint. Leave me a message if you need something before thurs.

Hayley Allen 02 March at 01:34 Reply

Hey guys, sorry i didnt come in Ive had a very productive day at home. Pretty much everything is done for me, just got to play around with the water reflectivity, and also where do you want the wall hangings placed?
Tombs are done, fire goes around the main section, just got to animate the oil a lil bit. erm water is there just doesnt reflect, boat is built and ready to be animated - what sort of time frame do we reckon for it to go through the entrance to Lydia's section or shall I wait until weds? Lydia I also did fire for ur section if u want to use it or not i do not mind. The sword is textured ready to add to Andi statue too.
Sooo... im good to go just need to put all the bits together. I will help with the compositing too.
Hope everyone is well :) xxx

Hayley Allen 02 March at 01:36 Reply

Oh also it will be best for us to render in layers i reckon or diff sections, so we can have all our laptops rendering different things at the same time. I reckon we should get it all done by the end of weds leaving thurs to composite.
Btw has anyone looked into sounds or music? If not I will get some sfx tomorrow xx

Lydia Fabian 02 March at 08:55 Reply

Hey, sound isn't actually mentioed in the brief so we wouldn't be marked down but it'd be nicer to have it. thats like if we have spare time.. so whoeer wants to they may work on that.

rendering as layers works for me, i dnt fancy my mac being unusable. we're in mental ray too..

unless sam doesnt use the light i created and something else about the fire i whipped up. mine or hayleys to use im not fussed either.

anyone set up on renderfarm yet? i dont get it :(

Lydia Fabian 02 March at 21:49 Reply

EVERYONE - in tomorrow at 11?

alex is ill so we can set up renderfarm ourselves or render from our machines.. it's not at shit as people say.. well not from what i've been doing. just means we can sort our blogs whilst rendering if need be, or just hit the EMERALD lab and render on those machines. sounds better that way actually.

Hayley Allen 02 March at 21:53 Reply

Hey yeah thats fine by me :) am quite excitd to see it come together x

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Andi Bennett 02 March at 21:55

ditto.

Matt Vadis 03 March at 12:24 Reply

hi guys, didn't see much point in going in today since I have nothing to render or add to the scene, however before you all throw a wobbly, will you have a video file of everything by the end of the day? I mean the fly through FOR ALL SCENES done and dusted without compositing, because if you do then I should grab it off you so I can draw over it, that's the only way I can animate.

If yes, then please send it to me, or if it's too big i'll come in late in the day bout 3ish if any of you are still about. If no then there's not a lot I can do, only a storyboard. I'm finishing steve's unit today, if i get the video fly through by the end of today, i'll devote the whole of tomorrow to the animation, so we can then composite on friday, if everyone's okay with that. If not then just assume that I don't have any work and get your stuff ready for hand-in.

Matt Vadis 04 March at 12:59 Reply

Okay I've made a decision and you're not going to like it, I won't have any work for friday, i'm working on steve's unit and having a load of problems with syncing frame rates, making the backgrounds transparent etc. so I will have my hands full with this. Not much more I can tell you except i'll be glad to see the back of this unit. I don't like letting you guys down, nothing personal and if you don't like it don't work with me next time. Peace crackers.

Lydia Fabian 04 March at 13:56 Reply

so are you not going to help us render out then i presume...

im thinking its no skin off my nose if you don't produce any work.. just maybe we all couldve done things differently.

good luck with steves unit

Andi Bennett 04 March at 21:57

GUYS EMERGENCY!!!

tried loading up the files i nicked from sammy, none of the textures are there on mine... ?

Hayley you copied the file are yours working? I tried all the files, they just come up white on mine. Is it my MAYA? Is it time to panic?

Lydia Fabian 04 March at 21:59 Reply

did you set the project.

Andi Bennett 04 March at 22:14

... lydia, when you die may i shag your brain?

Lydia Fabian 04 March at 22:41 Reply

lol. i have been your little savior for the past few weeks lol

Andi Bennett 04 March at 23:22

i shall bake you something... soup? cake? i could place a stripper in the cake with a bowl of chorizo soup?

Lydia Fabian 04 March at 23:39 Reply

screw the stripper.. soup but maybe we should make a cake or something new on sat?

Matt Vadis 05 March at 00:00 Reply

This is what i'm talking about, quite dark in one camera. Light in another

Matt Vadis 05 March at 00:00 Reply

Matt Vadis 05 March at 00:01 Reply

Hayley Allen 05 March at 02:02 Reply

Matt i cant see your pic on my phone, andi if you are stil up you need to select each object, go to the lambert etc in its attribute editor, go to where you upload files n then find the 1 it needs. they are all in the source images folder x

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Matt Vadis 05 March at 02:15 Reply

thanks hayley, i'll look into it a bit later, but i don't want to skank it up further than it is. Not sure which objects to select or what lambert it needs, prob best to wait till the morning so we can do it right.

Hayley Allen 05 March at 02:19 Reply

U wil need the ones whch are white. and when you get to where you upload files the names of the pics will already be there so u knw what to assign :). 2mz is guna be fun... x

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Matt Vadis 05 March at 02:36 Reply

ye that's what i thought to do, but if there's a mistake it'll be a waste of time, and time that i'm now using to finish steve's unit. I'm leavin it till morning, It'll be tight but it took under 3 hours to do it once, so i think we get it done.

Andi Bennett 05 March at 07:09

hey guys... my render took 7 hours. the textures on the stepping stones and the the base of the fountain remained black. I can't rerender as i now need to do steve project. It doesn't look so bad, i figure if i blog about it it explains it.

Sam Mcguire 05 March at 07:28 Reply

hey im getting in fo 9.30 unless everyone got a perfect render last nite i think we need to cut our loses and just playblast cos tbh we still need to edit an we are having too many render issues i dont like it but its all we can practically afford to do. cos you all know if we try to render we will go past the deadline im just thinking practically

Lydia Fabian 05 March at 08:35 Reply

i didnt render as i knew it wouldnt work.
hayley its not that the textures arent htere. the scene isnt white. me n matt have the same file. its not that. the textures show in the render view window.. soooo..

matt do ou know how long it took to render your three cameras?