Screening Prep

Posters are printed- Ran with original design, so not to mess with the readability of the figures.

Also hammered out a fire animation for the Screening intro animation (in about an hour or so, not great but hopefully usable.)

Business Cards are being printed at the moment, thanks to Instant Print and Copy at Springwood for their help. Images to come.

Last day of film making

Well, It's 5.25 am and I'm still at uni waiting for the render to finish for the film. A long-time-to-discover corrupted file was stopping the film mid render and after several attempts including a long hour or two moving scene files around from hard drive to hard drive and then relinking the files to the premier doc, and then re rendering the corrupted scenes again took forever. The render just finished so Id better check it so I can whack it into Quicktime to prep for Mastering.

I think I will go home and delegate the mastering. I'm only doing stuff like this at the last minute because the schedule was blown out. But hey, we're done. I am sad that I couldn't use the music that Ben was kind enough to spend time on for me. The film ended up being longer than the animatic, even after cutting some shots or scraping altogether. I couldn't manage to edit the film into the dramatic beats of the music so I decided to use the public domain Scott Joplin music and the Rabbitohs march. It works ok. I'm actually wanting to use Ben's music for part of my demo reel or even a superhero piece which I think will be perfect for it. It's really epic-sounding and I love the layers he created. It's a same I didn't have all the animation in time for him to time music to, It's was hard for him when only my stuff was complete. Either way, I already had the credits rendered so I left Ben's name in there anyway.

Anyways, I want to go home and have something to eat and sleep. I now have the impossible task of getting my folio done before Wednesday so I can write it to DVD for Thursday. Fingers crossed. And I'm really worried I am suppose to have a 3-4 page essay in to student admin by 10am today but because I was compositing and editing all weekend, I couldn't get that done either. Now I'm just over typing my thoughts because I'm sleepy...see? I'm still doing it :P
It's 6am now and I'm just waiting for the .DV file to finish for mastering. I reviewed the film, there's nothing I can do in regard to inconsistencies, I tried to cover up hook up errors by re-inserting title cards that I planned on taking out. And maybe I'm just sick of looking at it but there is a heap of stuff I've done in compositing that I don't think look that fantastic once rendered. I think it looked better blurry and rougher than the final thing. Anyways....

Credits rough

Taking forever to render on my machine at home, but this is the rough render.

Film Poster- 2nd Draft

Looking towards something like this.

couple of updated screen shots

Grain and old film footage. Completed shots rendered like this.

Still shots

Some of these are missing the grain and 'old film scratch" overlay, moreso just to see when rendered what looks ok and what doesn't.

...ok, I'm cool

Ok, I'm alright now. The project isn't due tomorrow, just 70%. I think I've done that so I've had my panic attack and moved on. Thank Joe Quesada, John Romita Jr and the rest of The Marvel crew for distracting me long enough to calm down. This isn't to say I'm not still pissed and that the group still needs to keep soldiering on, but at least we're getting somewhere.

I got taxes to do, and editing/compositing/rendering to do tonite and there's no gurantees it's all going to be there but we'll see.

Lost

Well, I thought I'd better update the blog. Basically my shots are done, I'm just tidying up what's missing from some, like grass etc. But truthfully, Im at a loss as to whether the film will be done because I have only a handful of usuable shots from the group and have no idea what to expect before final film review thursday. Utimatley, I get the blame on assessment day despite the stupid amount of work I've done to get this far.
Basically, Im also at a loss as to what to do now. Ideally, I would have liked the shots a week or 2 ago to start adding backgrounds, animating clouds/compositing all then edit and add the music track. Then I allowed to get the shots as late as yesterday, giving me 1-2 days to then composite/assemble bgs and edit. But since that didn't happen. Im left to render my shots out, not knowing exactly what to do with them. I can't tell a story with them alone, and even though I insisted on knowing beforehand of what realistically can and can't be achieved by the date so I had time to readjust, create extra drawings for stills if needed etc. I now have no time to do that, and really don't know what to ssay or hand in on thursday. I dont even think the half a day Im going to have tomorrow with the shots from the others will be enough time to do anything with them plus my own rendering/editing.

So that's it. I have outside work due today which I'm behind on, and despite the idea of extention, I have work coming up for the next 4 days after thursday so I dont know what to do. I kind of wish I had planned for a smaller film and gone solo or had jumped onboard and gone with someone else's idea and would have saved time, sleep and stress, plus all the sacrifies I took this year. Ultimatley, I dedicated this film to my pop, and I'm embarrassed it won't be what I initially intended it to be. maybe I'll just sling a trailer together, and complete the film in my own time. Anyways, gotta go.

Grain test 2

Ok, you can't tell that this is in 1920 x 1080 res, cause this is Youtube but, I added the extra missing elements in the bg and the black border, which luckily came with the old grain overlay. Anyways...

Update Colour code

#717171 is the grey colour for Norton's Jow/crest.
I realised the colour I listed below was the older colour.

Also, I couldn't save the action to email in regard to the linework, all I basically do is make sure that the levels make the lines black and the whites white to rip the white out of the picture. Another way is that I just crank the brightness/contrast up to 100%. Play it by ear. Basically, I'm trying to keep the linework black and roughish.

Gotta run.

Old Film Grain Test- you tube

Youtube quality not fantastic and the background elements are slightly incomplete and/or missing but you get the idea.

Colouring part 2

I'll be quick cause I just got in from work and Im really tired.

Basically to expand to what I previously said in regards to colour, I'm using photoshop as that way I can colour the areas that I want, leave the rest transparent and after effects will recognise the transparency.

the first example is for a well lit shot, the example with norton the rooster is for those shots that need to be a little darker in the lighting respects. Use your discression, but the storyboards give an indication of the lighting/shadows, the major light source is to the right of raymond's house (as in the afternoon sun) but I can show examples of where I've already coloured shots to give an idea of where it's at.


First layer is line work (transparent)
Second layer is the flat colour (see previous posts for colours on characters)


Third layer is shade layer (50% opacity) with black airbrush. To stay in the line area use the magic wand tool.





Fourth layer is the highlights (40% opacity) with white airbrush. I use the wand tool again to stay in the area between the black line and the shaded areas.
for a character/shot which needs a darker black shade; same steps as above but there is an extra shade layer.

(Transparent line layer)

(Flat colour layer- watch for pixel gaps between colour and line that the "bucket fill" tool might not fill- I set this layer to "multipy" so that I can make touch ups with the pencil tool without colouring over the lines.) (first shaded layer)

the second shade layer (69% opacity) with Black air brush. This layer is used to make some of the previous shaded areas darker. This doesn't cover the exact same areas as the previous area but allows for a gentle gradation between flat colour/shaded area/darker shaded area.
(second shade layer added)

Hope this makes sense. Ill get some examples of old film look up on youtube today too.

(finished frame- highlight layer added)

Background- experiments

I'm thinking to get the closest look that I wanted for the background elements I will use a combination of the 3d lighting for the elements within Maya, and then using various opacity layers in Photo shop, just enhance the areas with a "Permanent marker Medium tip" which gives it a soft but not as clean shaded look (as per above), which will hopefully look closer to the "chaplin" backgrounds that I'm trying to achieve.





Above are some failed experiments with part of a scene with attempts to give the 3d elements a "rougher look" but using filters...I guess there's a reason why most comic book colourers barley use them...

What I believe will add to the overall look will be the post production elements such as the film grain and the vertical noise lines from the old style films.

Image and rough paint numbers

Rough colors. Still experimenting with black shade layers as quicktime throws out alot of the "blackness" of shadows that I wanted.
I'll get back to that shortly.

Grey scale: airbrush with 0% hardness (?)

I'm no expert but I tend to work on 4-5 basic layers layers.
setout in this order in the "layers" tab. the colours in brackets are just a key for my eye so that I know when I look at it what that layer is. (can be set via "layer properties")

Highlight (yellow)- magic wand inside line- highlight/rim light areas
shade layer (2) (purple)- Opacity TBA black : this layer is for the darker black areas if needed
shade layer(1) (blue)- 50% Opacity black
flat colour layer (red)- multiply
line layer



Norton:

suit: 636363
Highlight suit: c0c0c0
Shade: black with 50% opacity (overlaping shade layer tba)
feathers: e2e2e2
Highlight feathers: white
Jow/crest: a87272
Beak: white

Ray:

pants: 888888
fur: cbcbcb
shirt: white
Highlight fur: white

Latest Line Test update

This is missing several shots that I haven't had time to assemble yet but it's starting to get somewhere or at least show the idea. Some shots need some sort of hold for extra time but all I can do at this stage is to keep churning out the roughs and worry about the colouring and backgrounds later.

Colour scene test- with muted colour

Still leaning towards a straight black and white with red and green on the rabbitohs.

Colour tests for final film

Poster/Credit Images update

Latest line tests- 30-7-2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1t-HY1h1-Y# In Case this video doesn't work. For some strange reason, I was unable to post my Youtube video here so I uploaded it straight to the Blog page...*shrug*

Anyways, this is still missing 4 shots that I havent had a chance to assemble yet, and not counting the ones I'm currently working on sitting on the lightbox which are to be scanned over the weekend. (Hopefully).

Back to the Front :P

Poster Images/Credit Images for Film

More 3d experimenting- Work in Progress

Examples of experimenting with Ramp values to shaders to try and create soft black and white background elements for the film that won't clash with the foreground characters like you see in the above examples from the Chaplin film "City Lights". These look ok and will not be a huge main feature in many shots, but the problem will be the main house which I will have to continue re-modelling when I don't have alot of time to do. It's hard to do all the BG stuff AND animate 2d and colour at the same time....shrug.

The Battle continues...

New Blog for Portfolio work

www.paul-mason-folio.blogspot.com

This is the link for Portfoilo work seperate to the short film.

Thanks

3d Elements thus far

Just a quick one, Have more 2d shots to scan, assemble, and throw up here, but heres a few quick pics on the 3d elements