Update...

Got the sound files Anita, but haven't haad a chance to listen to them yet. Will have a looksy tomorrow lunch time....

Gene is skinned (at last), and I have established registrations for all his textures. Haven't been able to complete them yet, but they update automatically when you save out the UV Jpeg out, so they can be done last. Have a few morph targets to finish tomorrow....will get wound up tomorrow so we can incorporate thiss guy into the scenes. With Sean on hand should be able to finalise stuff pretty quickly, but want to get into class and just work.

I've had a spate of emergencies today regarding a complete meltdown of communication between my game students, who are making a major presentation tomorrow....so we have been communicating back and forth via another blog, and trying to move forward and stop finger pointing....fun...

...and another little 'thing' came out of left field....but I'll not write about that here.

See you both tomorrow night...it's going to be a busy week...aaaaggggghhhhhhh...it's hurting!!!!

Audio files

Did you guys get the audio files I sent you? Let's talk about them tomorrow night, I'll bring them just in case. My Photoshop keeps crashing, so if this keeps up I'll have to spend tomorrow night texturing at school and animate all week.

Got my new Wacom though! It's HUGE!

...helloooooooooo..

Hi Guys....sorry for the radio silence. For some reason or other I could not log in on Thursday....go figure....and the rest of the week has been mental!!!

Warren, the scene really looks the business...the lighting is awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing it up close and personnel, but yeah man...well done. Maybe a cactus or two is all it needs......

One small suggestion, crit...thought.....should the big sign be closer to the road and set at 90 degrees to it, so you can actually see it as you approach each way along the road. Unless there is any specific reason in the storyboards (I don't think there is) is it possible to move it that way? If not, nevermind.....

I'm nearly done skinning Gene....I have all the key bits done but just need to refine around his shoulders and fingers and toes.....a bugger of a job. I'll probably preserve my sanity this arvo with some texturing...as soon as I have something to look at at I'll post.

Until then....

Gas pump

Hey Anita,

Thanks for your comments :) If you could email me your gas pump textures and the bell logo you came up with I'm happy to texture it. I have some pretty good examples of dials so I'll get that out of the way this weekend.

Any rough examples of Chuck on the phone would also be good, that will then give me the chance to place some objects around him.

Can't wait to hear the sounds! Nice work!

Oh, the scenery!

That's looking great, Waz, really cool! Luurrvvee the cactus. :D I couldn't see the background until I tilted my screen, and then it looked ace, but it will probably turn out fine in the animation. Could just be my screen settings.

Yes, I'd really like you to texture the petrol pump please if you've run out of things to do; I think we were on the same tack with it, the rust and all that, in the Bell Gas colours. Tonight I will shoot you the textures I found that you could use. It also needs to have the ticker dials put in to be animated spinning, with a textured panel, but I'm not sure if we need that for the 'short' version for the immediate assignment.

I've almost finished skinning Chuck, now I just have to texture him (hopefully have my new Wacom today which should make it a lot easier!) and then he will be ready to animate. I'll make the phone too, so that I can just parent the receiver to his hand and that's that. So yeah, if you want to give the petrol pump a go, please do, so that I can concentrate on finishing the Chuckmeister! Tonight I'll throw him into a 'on the phone' pose and email him to you (draft version) so that you can work around him in the booth.

Btw, recorded some great sounds and voices yesterday from the exceptional voiceover artist Damian Nicholas, so I will grab a few examples and email them to you guys so you can tell me what you think.

:)

Chuck's World

Evening folks!

Thought I better post the scene up so you can see I'm still plugging away! I want to add a few items in the booth which I'll try to whip up tomorrow. Really need Chuck in there though so I can get the placement of items correct. I think the light is good and probably just enough rocks, signs and yes you guessed it! "cactus"

Anita, are you going to have time to texture the petrol pump? I found some good reference images for the front panel so I'm happy to knock that up if your still working on Chuck. A phone is also another item we need to model. I'll email u guys larger pics. Go team!

Chuck's man boobs

Just for a laugh because I love man boobs! Bwwwooohhaahhhaaa! (Chuck told me he's embarrassed that you all saw him nekkid but I told him no-one would be making fun of him. I lied.)

Order of character creation

As we discussed today, here's the list of the order in which to do things for character creation so as not to have to go over old ground.

All behold the word of Shawn, teacher of students and pelter of maps:

1. Model
2. Pelt map/unwrap
3. Create morph targets (don't apply them at this stage, just create them and hide them in another layer)
4. Re-check the checkerboard on your unwrap for accuracy to ensure everything still sits okay after your morphing (in case you had to go back and change your geometry)
5. Skin your model
6. Add morph modifyer to skinned model
7. Unhide morph targets and 'pick' to apply
8. Apply texture
9. Animate

And so it was. And yea, they looked upon their work and saw that it was good; and they did rejoice.

Back to the old pelt mapping board...I'm still on number 2!

Pelt Mapping

Hi guys

I thought the easiest thing for me to do was to post the instructions for you to pelt map. so here's everything in writing.

Pelt Mapping

1. Apply a “UNWRAP UVW” modifier to you object's modifier stack

2. Untick the box that says “show map seems”

3. Press the little “ + ” on your unwrap modifier and select faces

4. Scroll down the modifier list select “edit seems” or “point to point seems”

5. Go through your model and draw the seems of your maps

Now it's a matter of selecting the different area's to pelt.

1. Making sure you are in faces mode, select one face on your model and press the “exp. Face sel to pelt seams”

2. when you see the desired area selected/highlighted, press the “pelt” button, Then press the “edit pelt map”.

3. When the new window opens, keep pressing the “simulate pelt pulling” until everything stops moving. If you find that your pelt bunches up at the corners, select your scale tool and scale the border larger (circle around your pelt) and continue to press the “simulate pelt pulling” until again everything stops moving.

4. Close the pelt options dialogue box and press the “pelt” button in the unwrap modifier (make sure it is not yellow other wise you will not be able to move the areas of your map).

5. Now you treat everything as if you were back doing your normal unwrap.

6. Begin by relaxing each individual area, remembering to change the iterations to 1000 for the fastest result.

See you all on monday

Genes coat

They are great Matt! Hardest thing is narrowing it down to one...Can we see one with the baby seal fur coat? :) Pisser! I think I'm leaning towards numbers 2, 4, 6 or 10. I do also like 3 in the red! he'll match the big ass Chucks sign then. Love ya work!

I unwrapped the booth boomerang sign last night and started adding a metallic red texture to it with an embossed Chucks title. It's coming along well! Show you Saturday

...the lighter side of....

Just taking a moment out and found this little gem....


...that got me thinking about peltmapping....I hope it is as stright forward as you say Shawn! Someone told little Timmy here that rounding the diamond to second base was straight forward. Do think little Timmy still believes that?

Gene's outer wear....

OK, so a few hurdles got in the way today, namely the full time job and a few unforseen problems. but having swept that aside, I present a range of new season colour options for our unfortunate alien. These are a starting point and are open for discussion, so hopefully on Saturday when we are all occupying the same space and Shawn is handing out the beers, we can discuss/debate/decide upon a colour scheme for our extraterrestrial friend. Personally, I'd like to see him in a baby seal fur coat, but there are a few pinko leftys who'd have a piece of me, so I guess it has to be technicoloured pixels for our friend.......ahh well, maybe next time.....

PS - Don't mind the horns right now....I've got some reference in mind.....the focus here is skin colouring.....










Miranda Kerr....Jennifer Hawkins.....bah......

Spectacular Chucktacular

Great work Anita

Chuck is looking excellent. The way he's coming up is is exactly what i wan envisioning him as so keep up the work.

In regards to setting up morph targets for his arm opposed to skinning his arm........ sorry but I think not. Just because it will take so long to get the morph targets perfect that you might as well of skinned his entire body in the same amount of time. also you will be restricted to only doing movements based on the morph targets you have made, which will make it harder to get the animation perfect and animating chuck realisticly, opposed to lifelessly.

If you like leave the eyebrows and we can decide on anything further in class next and it would be great to see some renders of his body.

Just reminding everybody that we're on for this SATURDAY at 10:00am-4:00pm so i hope to see everybody there.

cheers guys, keep up the great work

...still more about Chuck....

Am I going to have to separate you two?

He is looking top shelf Anita, really, really good. The hat finishes him off just so. I reckon the only thing that would need to happen here is to grey his hair out a bit, and give his texture some wrinkles.....not the variety you find on an elephant....the type that says he's seen a few things.

Looking fantastic, and for a few days work...hats off!!!!

Shawn, I shall acknowledge those fine and supportive words both in person and at a later date, but in the interim....thankYOU!!!

I'll have a heap of piccys up a bit later on....in the meantime, back to it.

M

Chucktacular cont'd

Stole it from you? I like to think that I 'acquired it through alternative means'. ;)

Thanks Waz. He still has a long way to go, but that's the mock up before bed last night. So glad you and he are friends already, ha ha. I really like him too.

Can't wait to see your kick-ass, whizz-bang cashier booth on Saturday so that when I have the rest of him finished, we can see what he looks like in there!

oohhhhh yeah!!!

BLOODY AWESOME!!! That is great Anita!! I'm so glad I won the coin toss to model Chuck, then you stole it from me! :)

Chucktacular cont'd

Still a major WIP...

Chucktacular

Gee whiz Shawn, thank you for those awesome words of support for the three of us. I can truly say that personally, I have gained so much from this class, not only in skills but in enjoyment. It's great to have a passion that one can let fly with in the company of like-minded, talented people. Having your praise and support along the way has been so important too, so cheers! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my Monday and Tuesday nights when it's all over...time to learn Spanish perhaps!

Re the Chuck prototype guys, thanks for the suggestions and comments. Mat, I was thinking about the eyebrows after seeing yours and reading your suggestion, and I think I can follow a similar principle, except instead of making Chuck's eyebrows blocky like Gene's, I'm heading toward making a similar shape but trying to give them an opacity mapped hair texture, so that they are fuzzy when rendered instead of opaque. Or I just hair up his brow because it seems that because Chuck will have that caveman brow, I will still have to move some of the geometry instead of relying on the eyebrows alone to give him his deep expressions; it will just come down to figuring out the balance between eyebrow and eyelid. At least I only have to make five morphs or so at the most, instead of the amount Gene will need to have. P.S. I'm loving Gene - I concede, he's totally cute. Can't wait to see him textured.

Re the head shape Wazza, yeah, I agree, he needs more forehead and perhaps less cheeks, or at least they need to smooth to his jaws better. I think more head will balance the lower part out. The eyes I'm still figuring out, because the shape makes them shifty, but rounder looks less nonchalant...still playing with that one. The smile I'll figure out too, but I think as long as his eyes widen with it, it will work.

By the way, I was thinking that perhaps I don't even need to skin Chuck; perhaps intead of skinning his hand (the only one that really moves) I could just morph target it...since it only does about three things. Tell me what you guys think, Shawn too.

Will post some updates later this evening.

GREAT WORK GUYS

Hi guys hows it going,

For those of you that don't know me...........lol just kidding. Guys......I wanted to see how the animation is going and might I say that I'm mighty impressed. The blog looks great and it's good to see that you have some pre-production images up as well as some work in progress renders. I want to take this time to thank-you all for being sooooo committed to this project. You are all posting work and commenting on each others work which shows me you are all working well as a team. Keep the constructive criticism up guys and i'm sure you will all be impressed with what you can achieve (in such a small frame of time) just from working with your peers (as well as me when needed, lol).

I'm also really impressed how you guys have such a positive outlook on the project and even though it's going to incorporate "alot" of work(not trying to imply that you havent done ALOT already, lol), you were all more then happy to do so and pitch in, both in your own time and course time to get things done and make sure that we steam along.

You guys are a really talented bunch and I say in full confidence that the end result will look like a professional short that's come straight out of an animation studio. I can't wait to have the final animation in my hand so I can start showing it off to everybody within the AIE as well as outside the school to backup the fact of how good you guys really are.........YOU ALL ROCK!!!!

It's been a real pleasure working with you lot over the course of the last few months and i've had an absolute ball. However unfortunately all good things have to come to an end. Now that we're in the midst of you guys graduating, I look forward to spending our last dying moments polishing and completing our "masterpiece" as well as proving to everybody what you guys are capable of.

Thank you so much for the fun times guys, it's been a pleasure and keep the work up.......YOU ROCK

Kind regards,
Shawn

Is Chuck the "Other Man"?

I reckon he's looking great Anita. No problems with any of him. I think once you get some heavy eyebrows on him, and his truckers hat, he will pull together. If you have any concerns about how he will fit in with Gene's style, I'd recommend establishing simplified, blocky eyebrows. I designed them like that so when it came to establishing morph targets, we are only moving an object that is attached, not manipulating a mass of vertices. This will mean you can create the necessary expressions and appropriate morph targets quickly and easily. That is of course if we can get that style of eyebrows to work, but I think it should look OK.

Here are some pics of Gene up to this stage. I'm hoping to get a heap of concept colours completed in the next two days. I just have to get some Teaching and Assessment homework out of the way today (as it was all due two weeks ago and I have been neglecting my other course.....yuK).

I may be quiet on the blog today, but tomorrow I'll be posting bucket loads....

Chuck

Hi Anita,

I'm happy with how he's coming along. At the moment I don't see him working on the Billboard with a big smile. Never know though, a big smile will change his appearance quite a bit.

I think your right and he is a bit cavemanish, maybe the check bones protrude too much. Bringing his forehead forward might also help.

I think the eyes are a good size. He looks quite thoughtful! Keep up the great work!

Naked Chuck possessed me

Okay gang, this is going to sound weird...

This naked, ape-like (clearly untextured and totally work-in-progress with a watermark of my name on it) version of Chuck kind of...made himself!

I remember starting him, and I remember getting to this stage, but then I went into a trance and the middle is kind of a blur...I think Chuck possessed me! Help!!

I'm a little freaked out...and he keeps looking at me like that...


Seriously now, he's a lot more realistic than I planned (wish I could do that by accident all the time!) and not really like my drawings at all, but I figure if Mat's alien, Gene, is cartoony in shape but realistically textured (which, knowing Mat, it will be) then I think once this guy has a rubbery skin texture, some stubble, bushy eyebrows, big mutton chop sideburns and a trucker's cap, we'll be in business! I might make the top of his head higher and end up making his eyes bigger and rounder if he doesn't look cartoony enough by the end of it, so let's wait and see. He kind of looks like a perturbed caveman at the moment with that flat forehead and dodgy eyes, but, after all, he is a hick! (He could just be the guy at the show that operates the ferris wheel...carnies...small hands....) But he needs to match Gene so we can look at that down the track.

It's all an adventure! Let's see what else makes itself!

(Think it's too late for me to hand this one in for my head assignment?? Only six hours of work as opposed to two weeks, god dang!)

:D

Gene's colour

Hi Matt,

Thought I'd pop this image up to show you the colour I was thinking about. Hard to say how it would look on him.

Chucks Booth!

Morning guys! I made a start on Chucks booth over the weekend and had some ideas. I started off with a square shape but found it quite boring so decided to move towards a more retro looking cylinder design.

I also tried having large food signs like hamburgers and hotdogs on the roof which I felt moved away from the focus of Chucks being a gas station. This is when I thought - let's stick a giant petrol nozzle on the roof with the pipe going into the booth itself! Making it look like a giant petrol bowser! It's still quite basic, I'll need to speak to you guys tonight about signage and colours. The ice cream sign is just an example.


Another angle of the design, (no petrol nozzle) you can see where the glass will sit at the front. And a couple of signs I was making. Ohhh I just had a thought! We can use the nozzle Anita is making for the real pump...sweet!

Sign

Hi guys!

This is my first crack at the sign. I still have to self illuminate all the small globes around it to lighten it up better but I think it's getting there. I'm not sure how long we'll actually see it for, so I'm trying to get it out of the way quickly. Just noticed my stars are looking a little distorted, will fix them up. I've changed my login details to a gmail account. please still use my yahoo one if you need to email me anything :)

Still more Chuck...

Definitely agree your top left one is apathetic, no worries there. I would have thought having the guy expressionless would help the humor as the spark goes off when he sees the opportunity at the end of the film. This way his expression can shift subtley, and he is revealed as a shrewd operator. Up until this point I reckon it would be ideal to keep him as bland as possible...make it seem that he is just there to populate the film, and the focus is retained by the alien. I hope this is all making sense. Chuck sets up the whole punch line of the film, and so the transition from lethargic oaf to cunning oportunist has to be really spot on....the 'boringness' of him sets up the sucker punch.

I think he needs to be old....kinda Vietnam veteran old....he's seen a bit....you know what I mean?

The big cheesy grin for the sign is cool, and the cheesier the better...

- Mat

Chuck cont'd

Hey, could you guys please put your names on your posts if you don't have your email in as an author, otherwise I'm guessing at who I am talking to!

I think my top left Chuck is pretty apathetic, don't you? - the happy, alert one is for the sign at the end, as I think having the difference would be funny, as he wouldn't be doing a thumbs up on a billboard with a flat expression. I'd expect it would be the only time he would look that 'up', though. I think he still has to have an element of personality about him, to be such an opportunist. Any less and he would just be too boring. I was intending on all the gungy details going in later, like the stains and gross stuff. I could 'old him up' then too if you both think he's too young - there are plenty of younger rednecks out there though...!

I think a lot of that will come out when he's modelled and textured, and with the morphs, as the pictures are limited by my drawing ability and are pretty simple.

No email....

Hi guys, just to let you know my email is likely to be down for the weekend, so i'll be looking at the blog for updates and communication......

Chuck for President!

Chuck....

I reckon the drawing is looking great (and you both said you couldn't draw...). I think the style is awesome, the tatts etc all good. I just think he is too young and hip (by redneck standards). This guy needs to look like he's been around a bit, and maybe has tomato sauce stains on his shirt. The Chuck here looks pretty youthful, and alert. I kinda picture him being totally apathetic, self interested, and not likely to move for anyone...

Micheal Moore could be a starting point (don't make him look happy...)


...this guy has a good look...


..and I've circled some suggestions below...


I hope this helps a bit....

Revised Chuck stir-fry

Okay I think I have a new boyfriend.

I revised Chuck during my hair marathon, and this is what I came up with. He's still cartoony, but a little more serious and nonchalant, even mean if he wants to be; except for his billboard snap of course, which makes me laugh when I look at it. (Egotistical to laugh at your own pictures?)

Let me know what you think. If you like him I'll try to whip up a profile view.

Cheers

Anita's Chuck

Nice work Anita! Love the tattoo! Adding that little bit of extra detail is a great idea. I think you're spot on, we need a bit of combination stir fry...mine looks like a harden criminal and I think people would take advantage of your Chuck. Might just be the eyes are too puppy dog-ish! Great start though! ohhh the baseball cap works very well! Feel free to model the petrol pump!

I'll continue with the sign then make a start on Chucks "office" :)

Worked out how to post images...

Here's Chuck from the email I sent you, just to get him on here. It was hiding the pop-up from me! See my email for Chuck details, plus my comments on Wazza's Chuck that I only saw later.

Adding authors

Hey, just found that in settings we can add our gmail addresses as 'authors' so that we can log in with that and then our names will come up, instead of 'certificate' etc.

And you think we should make the blog private?

Signage

Thanks Matt, yeah that looks much better! I'll create the sign this weekend and then try to get onto the chucks office. I spent about 2 hours today (at work..sneaky...sneaky) tracking down fonts to use. I think that was the best of the bunch! Enjoy your beers! I might even tip the doggies this weekend! :)

Even more about ears...

Yeah, we could animate the ears thinking about it. At first I was skeptical, thinking about rigging etc, then realised we could easily set up some morph targets for them. The way I'm considering modelling them would make that quite simple. Even a little waggle in them when he's walking....

I'll begin modelling on Saturday...although I have just been informed we are hitting Motorstorm on the Playstation tonight, so Sunday mat be more productive than Saturday, as Motorstorm sessions are usually accompanied by beer....lots of beer....Go Doggies....

Signage....

Nice work Warren...had a little play (hope you don't mind). Just trying to fill that space a bit and put the text on an angle, and maybe even break the border a little bit. Loving the overall sign, and the choice of font is....well....choice!

New Ears

I love it! I think we could animate them to show more emotion as well e.g down when he can't pay. Up when his whistling adding the petrol! Love your work Matt! Check out below the updated sign image with the font I've chosen.

More about ears...

I reckon you're right Warren. I think the ears really improve the character as a whole (definitely improve his silhouette). I hope I have interpreted what you were meaning correctly. Either way, these should be pretty straight forward to model, and will involve a separate unwrap to the rest of his body. We'll just need to be conscious of the joins when texturing.

Feedback and crits welcome....

Ears....

Ahhh, lunch is a long time. Anyhoo, had a think whilst out and about getting rained on, and looking at the ears again, they may work. They look a little bit goaty...

My main concern is keeping the unwrap as easy as possible, so was picturing more of an ear hole, or simply none at all. Let's see how it goes....

Front sign

I've modeled the front sign guys. I just extruded shapes out and added spheres for lights. I based it on the one below. Just need to tweak it a little and it will be ready to texture. Font is Wild Ride, I canemail it if you guys need it. I'll upload a render probably tonight. waz

Adding Posts

Hi all. i just accidently deleted something out of an earlier post, not realising what had happened. Can we add new posts if we want to bring something up (like the ears)? This way we are moving forward and not having to surf back through the posts to see comments etc....

I'm still not sure on the ears....if outvoted all cool, but for mine it's a no....sorry...

Chuck key shapes...

Just breaking Chuck down a bit into shapes. Only a quicky before lunch, but might help in simplifying his design....

Gene Ortho - final?

Sooner than expected, but time is definitely not on our side. A first draft of the Gene ortho. I'll have a look at it again after class this afternoon, so any suggestions to improve it are welcome. I'm aiming at beginning modelling tomorrow, so get the feedback through....
I'll also be putting some more spaceship art together. I'm thinking of keeping it pretty close to the initial sketch...


...I'll be focusing on the interior moidelling and how we actually fit Gene inside. At this early stage I'm figuring that round bit underneath just allows the character model to 'stand' inside. Making fanccy chairs may complicate the model, aand if we are smart with our camera set ups, we should be able to cheat it easily....

toodles....M

Gene Orthographic

The final ortho for Gene should be finished today (Friday). Most of the workis done, and am just finalising arms, hands etc. Stay tuned for a new post with pictures later today....

Chuck and Telly....

He's looking really good Warren. I like the Telly Savalas connection. Telly played a really opportunistic character in The Battle of the Bulge, running scams left, right and centre. A bit like our boy Chuck...


...and while I was looking for Telly images, I couldn't resist this one. Do you think Telly loves Telly?


Back to Chuck though, I think the foundations are all there. Look at the key shapes being formed around the mouth and nose, under the eyes, and really simplify them down to primitive shapes. Reduce some of the details loke wrinkles (we can always add these back in), and start to define the shape of his eyes a bit.

I reckon Chuck is well and truly on his way.....GO CHUCK!!!!

Chuck!

Hi guys,

Here's my first concept for Chuck. He probably looks a bit like a criminal at the moment. And I'm not sure how he'd look as a smiling sign. He actually reminds me of an over weight Telly Savalas!! What are your thoughts guys? I'm going to start modeling the sign for the front of the shop :) Go team!
I based it off this 3D head I found on turbosquid.com

Some inspiration....

OK, some pics worth looking at. Pixar, always a good benchmark, these pics are from Lifted and the petrol station is from Toy Story....




...and some other odds and sods....

The First Post....

So three intrepid adventurers - Anita, Warren and Mat, under the tutleage of Shawn, set out to make a short 3D animated film in a ridiculously short time frame.

The film concerns an unlucky alien's need to fill up his space ship at the nearest petrol station, and finding himself the victim of an unlikely entrpreneur.

Over the coming weeks vast amounts of caffiene will be consumed, pillows will be neglected, and gray hairs will be produced. Stay tuned for constant updates, dear reader....

...and in the meantime, some early concept pics.

Early concept sketches of the hapless alien fellow. I'd like to think of him as Gene.


Hey Matt / Anita what do you think of adding small ears on him like above? I won't be disappointed if you say no. Just thought I'd show you what I meant on Tuesday.

...and Gene's space ship (at least, and early drawing).