PROJECT FINISHED

Overall I have thoroughly enjoyed this project. I think that me and Matt worked very well together. We came up against a fair amount of problems and we managed to over come all of them, this is one of my proudest achievements. Another thing that I am very proud of is the improvement of my modelling, UV mapping and texturing. I have learnt a lot about these areas and gained a much greater understanding. I am extremely happy about the amount of models I managed to create, I have never created that many models at once. Another subject area that I learnt a lot about this term is rendering. I learnt a lot about the importance of setting up your rendering settings correctly. I also learnt about what some of the different rendering settings mean in Maya, AfterEffects and Premier. I gained a greater understanding of AfterEffects and learnt lots of new things such as the animated background in the solo shot. I had never used Premier before this project and I got to use it a fair amount so I have gained a fair amount of knowledge there. Premier is a piece of software which comes in very handy and I have no doubt that I will be using it a lot more in the future.

One of the main problems that we had was that we had to cut two shots because we did not have enough time. One shot was a close up of a facial expression and the other was the character strumming the guitar once. These two shots would have improved the film and I think that it would be extremely worthwhile putting them in before handing over to the client. Then we obviously had all the rendering problems and the problem in Premier. If I were to do the project again I think that I would try my hardest to complete the project a little earlier. I think that we completed the project in good time but I think that it would have been nicer if we had completed the piece a little earlier because then we could have included the two shots that we missed and the problems that we encountered would not have put as much pressure on us. But despite all of this the project ran fairly smoothly. I am extremely happy with the overall piece, I especially like the style. I think that the piece fulfills its role and that we have created a piece of work that the client will be happy with and that we can be proud of.

SHOWREEL

This unit also requires me to put together an individual interactive DVD showreel. I think that the showreel that I am going to put together will not be the showreel that I send out to employers as I need to improve the standard of work that I am going to include. I have gone through the work that I have created over the past two years at Ravenbourne and have decided what work I think are the best pieces and are worthy to go into my showreel, and what pieces of work I consider to be weaker and I will not be including in my showreel. I don't think that my work from my first year is that good especially compared to my second year work however there are some pieces that I will definitely include as it adds a variety to my showreel. Here is a list of the work that I am going to put into my showreel:

• Bouncing Ball 2D
• Bouncing Ball With Tail 2D
• Bouncing Ball 3D
• Bouncing Ball With Tail 3D
• Walk Cycle 2D 
• Perspective Walk Cycle
• Walk Cycle 3D
• Scissor Lift Model 
•  Industry Exercise 1 3D Character Model
•  Lampost Model
• Bin Model
• Amp Model
• Basic Guitar Model
• Rad Guitar Model
• My 2 Animated Scenes From 'Crunch Time'

I had a variety of 2D Bouncing Ball animations and Walk Cycles so I went through and picked the best two. Another piece of work that I did not include was my term 3 lip sync project I wanted to include this to show more of my animation ability but I thought it was not a strong as the other content in my showreel so I decided to Leave it out. I also left out some of the work I did on a first year project where we created an animatic. This work also showed up as very week compared to the rest so I did not include it.

As we were required to create an interactive DVD showreel it was important to include menus that would give the view of the showreel different options as to what they wanted to watch. So I thought I would split my showreel up in to these different menus:

• Play showreel - this will play the whole showreel
• 2D animation - this will play a video that just shows my 2D animation skills.
• 3D animation - this will play a video that just shows my 3D animation skills.
•  3D modelling and texturing - this will play a video that showcases my modelling and texturing skills. 
• Life Drawing - this will take you to a slideshow of images of my life drawing. 
• Final Pieces - this will take you to a sub menu that will include the final pieces that I am most proud of. You will then be able to click on one and you can watch the whole finished piece. I am going to use the 3 finished pieces of work from this year hear, these are my digital enviroment group project, my post production group project and my latest 'Crunch Time' promo group project.

I think that these menus show a variety of my work. Creating my overall showreel showed me that there are areas that I certainly need to work on. Looking back I think that there are pieces of work that I would now take out but I am happy with most of the work that I put in. Some of my models need to be re rendered as they do not look as crisp as they should. I did render in HD though perhaps I would have benefited more if I rendered using mental ray. I also had to edit the speed of the turn tables of my models I did this in AfterEffects. A big problem that I had was my interactive DVD showreel would not burn to my DVD disc. I spent a long time trying to figure this out. I went to Alex for some help and he knew the problem straight away. Some of my video's were mp4's, they all needed to be .mov's in order for it work. So I had to export all of my mp4 videos to .mov's. So I was cutting it fine but I managed to hand in in good time. Another problem that I have with my showreel is that the different content in my showreel such as the two animated scenes from 'Crunch Time' are not the same size as the other content in the showreel video.

Overall I am happy with the showreel that I now currently have. However I am definitely going to update and re work it in order to improve it. I am going to taking out some of my work as the specialism that I would like to go into is modelling. So I will now focus my showreel on my modelling skills. I also need to include a little title page before my showreel starts that states my name, e-mail address and my specialism. I thought that the whole process of creating a showreel was extremely beneficial as I now know how to structure my showreel, what to include, how important the choice of music is and what industry is looking for. I can now take this knowledge an improve what I have already created.

BROADCAST REQUIREMENTS

Due to the fact that this project requires our piece of work to be fit for broadcast we have to meet the broadcast requirements. We were given the broadcast guidelines and they state that we have to have 10 seconds of black screen, followed by 10 seconds of colour bars and tone, followed by 20 seconds of a counting clock. The clock must include product number issued by our heads of post aka the unit number, the title of our programme, the producer/ producers name, whether it is SD or HD Master, 16:9 Letterbox or 16:9 Full Height Anamorphic, whether the audio is stereo or dual mono and the start and end time of programme for example 10:00:00:00 - 10:00:15:00. The there is 3 seconds of black screen then your piece will play, then it will end with 10 seconds of black screen.

So I manage to put all of these things into Premier, I edit the text of the clock so that it is relevant to our project and set everything out as it is suppose to be. It all seems to be fine the only thing left to do is change the start time of the piece to 10:00:00:00. Premiere wouldn't let us do this we tried experimenting for a long time, we searched the Internet for answers and we asked some fellow class mates but unfortunately we could not find out how to do this anywhere.

Matt went off to find a solution while I held base and he returned with the great news that he bumped into someone that he worked with on another project. He had the great news that his friend from broadcast had offered to help us out. The broadcast student aka Matt's friend has Final Cut, we gave him our files and he imports it into final cut. He then changes the start time and we are ready to go. We export it being extremely careful again to use the correct settings so that one our video works and two we meet the broadcast standards. Another problem solved and our work completed in perfect time.  

TIME TO RENDER

Now everything has been animated it was time to render and then edit it together. So we are not far from the finishing line. Firstly we rendered out our scene's as a Tiff sequence in Maya. We then took those Tiff sequences and rendered them in AfterEffects, this now meant we had a 1080p HD video of our animaiton! The next stage was to put our rendered scenes into Premier so that we could add the sound.

However  we then encountered some problems. The first problem that we came across was that rendered shots did not fit. One of the reasons for this was because we picked a non standard aspect ratio. We did this because it worked better for the client and the purpose of the promo, but this meant that the video did not work in Premier. Another reason for this was codec that we used. We used apple intermediate codec, this worked fine out of AfterEffects and Premier but as soon as we put the video with this codec into those programmes the video would squash. This made our footage look slightly deformed. We tried using other codecs and still had the same problem. But then we asked a fellow colleague and we got told the correct codec that we should be using. So that was that problem sorted.

Due to the fact that we were having this problem Matt decided to edit all of our work together in AfterEffects. This was not ideal and took a lot longer than it would have done in Premier. Due to us editing in AfterEffects we came across another problem. This was that when you add in multiple audio tracks the sound goes slightly out of sync. Another reason why the sound went out of sync was because we forgot to change the default settings in Maya so we animated in 24 frames per second. This meant that when our animations were put into AfterEffects they played differently to the audio. So now we had the major problem of the audio playing fine with the animation in Maya but when putting the audio and animation into AfterEffects they did not match up at all. So both myself and Matt were frantically editing the audio and experimenting in AfterEffects in order to match the animation and the audio back up. We were unable to match them back up exactly how it was in Maya but Matt found a way of stretching the audio so that it fitted, along with some other additional sound effects it works fine now. Its not perfect but it pretty much there.

Now that we had finally sorted out all of renders after the grueling process of re rendering a couple of times, and we had sorted out the other problems that we had. It was now time to render out all of our footage, of course making sure that we used the correct settings and codec etc. This will finally give us our final video. The next stage was to fulfill the broadcast criteria, but we will tackle that tomorrow.

ANIMATING

The rig was now ready and whilst having a few issues such as wrist twisting up if you moved the rig too eccentrically it worked really well. I was looking forward to animating seeing as I hadn't done any since my first year. I really enjoy animating but I don't think it is my strongest skill and there are other things that I enjoy more. The shots that I had to animate were the beginning were our character is playing guitar badly and the shot were the character flips the switch on the amp from 'off' to 'crunch'. Another piece of animation that I am responsible for is finding an animated or moving background to put behind the character when he is doing his guitar solo.

Animating took me a fair amount of time but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learnt a lot about animating and especially learnt a lot about the graph editor and its importance. I had to practice out my scene a few times myself to get the key poses right in my head. Matt had also recorded some reference footage of himself playing the sound that we were using. This was extremely helpful as I am not musician, I do not know anything about guitar's so the reference footage showed me where abouts the hand would be if the character was actually playing the notes from sound. It also showed me how regularly you would need to strum the guitar in order to play this piece of music. Below are some images of the two shots that I animated.

Above is an image of the first shot that I animated. It is the scene where the character is playing badly.

Above is an image of the shot of the amp.

Above is an image of the shot that I animated where the character flips the switch from 'off' to 'crunch'.

Above is an image of the animated background that I created in AfterEffects. This is the background for the shot where the main character is doing a guitar solo.

Overall I am very happy with how my animation turned out. Its not perfect and there is plenty of room for improvement however I think it works really well with the style of the promo. I am also very happy with the animated background that I created in AfterEffects, I think that it fits perfectly with the scene. I only really knew basics in AfterEffects but now I have developed some more knowledge by looking a tutorials and experimenting. I have learnt some new skills that I can definitely carry forward onto another project. Everything is now starting to come to together and am very happy with how things are turning out so far.

RAD GUITAR

There were now two tasks left to do before animating. These were modelling the rad guitar and rigging the character. It was decided that Matt would learn some rigging and I would model the rad guitar. I would like to have learnt how to rig but we were now on a tight schedule and there was not enough time for us to both learn to rig as there was still a model to create.

As per usual Matt knew exactly what type of guitar would best suit our idea. The guitar that Matt had in mind was a 'BC Rich Mockingbird' and I must say it does have a very cool shape and I was very excited to model this. Again providing a next step up which would hopefully again improve my modelling skills. It turned out that modelling it was very similar to modelling the basic guitar. However I still learnt a lot and feel that my modelling skills did improve. As they say practice makes perfect. Below are the reference images that I used. I found them once again via the internet, but never the less they were still extremely helpful and helped me to create my proudest model yet.

 

 This reference images very useful. Especially the second image above. Without these images my model would not have looked any where near as good as it does. I did have a couple of other reference images that I used but they were having trouble uploading for some reason. Once I had all of my reference images i followed the same procedure of opening up Maya, setting the scene and I begun modelling.

 I followed the same process as when I created the basic guitar as both guitars are very similar. However this model did take me a lot longer as it has more detailed parts and a more detailed shape.Which heavily effected the UV map as it meant there were hundreds of pieces. Below are some images of the completed model.

Above is an image of the front view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the right side view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the back side of the Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the left side view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the top view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the bottom view of the completed Rad Guitar Model. 

Above is an image of the perspective view of the completed Rad Guitar model.  

It was now time to UV map and as I said before this contained hundreds of little pieces that needed to be sewn to their shells. This was the most challenging UV map that I have ever had to do. This was due to the fact that their were lots of shallower faces on certain parts of the model. Therefore creating more faces. Below is an image of the UV layout once I had automatically mapped it. 

As you can see from the image above there are hundreds of pieces. I then narrowed down some of the sewing work by individually UV mapping certain faces with the required UV technique such as planar mapping, cylindrical mapping etc. This took a very long time as there were lots of faces to select. Even after this process I still had a lot of sewing to do. This took me a long time, however I finally completed it. I took into account what I learnt about UV mapping from the basic guitar model and kept all parts of the UV shells on one UV layout. I then just increased the size of the UV snapshot when exporting it. Which in return lead to me creating one of the best textured pieces of work that I have ever done. Below are is an image of the completed UV layout.    

As you can see from the image above the UV layout is now a lot clearer. The textures will now fit perfectly to the model. Now it is time to texture. I took images of textures from the Internet and edited them in photoshop. I think that with this model my texturing improved a lot and in my opinion I managed to create one of my best pieces of textured work. Below are images of the completed textured Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the front view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the right side view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the back view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the right side view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the top view of the completed Rad Guitar model. 

Above is an image of the bottom view of the completed Rad Guitar Model.

   

Above is an image of the perspective view of the completed Rad Guitar Model. 

Overall I think that this is one of the best models that I have ever produced. I developed my modelling and UV mapping knowledge, and especially developed my texturing knowledge and ability. I think that this has a realistic look, I also think that it complements the other models perfectly and that all three models will work really well together in the promo.  

UV MAPPING CHARACTER

Matt has now completed modelling the character so it was time to UV map it. Seeing as UV mapping was something I am very familiar with we decided I would UV map the character.

Matt gave me the character and I put my UV mapping knowledge to good use. The image below shows what the character's UV layout looked like once I had automatically mapped it.

As you can see from the image above the UV layout was a mess. So I had to select certain faces of the character such as front, back and sides and planar map them one at a time. I then took the different shells and sewed them together to create a good UV layout.

Below are the images of the completed UV layouts.

Above is an image of the UV layout for the Shoes of the character. I am very happy with this UV layout and think that it is one of the best character UV layouts that I have ever produced.  

Above is an image of the UV Layout of the body of the character. I am equally as happy with this UV layout. 

Above is an image of the UV layout of the hands. I think this UV layout is a lot harder to make out however it does the job. 

Above is an image of the UV layout of the Characters head. I think this is one of the best head UV layouts that I have ever created. 

Above is an image of the UV layout of the hair. I think that it is hard to make out that this is the UV layout of the hair but like I said before it does the job. 

Below is an image of the completed UV mapped character. I am very happy with the UV layouts that I created and I think that they are potentially some of the best character UV layouts that I have created so far. 

As you can see from the image above the textures will now fit perfectly around the character. I thoroughly enjoyed UV mapping the character despite taking me a fair amount of time I found it very beneficial as it made me realise how much my UV mapping has improved since I started.   

BASIC GUITAR

Now the amp model was complete it was time to move onto the next prop. While Matt continues with modelling the character I am going to model a basic guitar. The basic guitar model is going to be used in the beginning of the promo where the character is playing guitar badly. I am very excited about modelling this as it will be a challenge.

Again due to Matt's musical knowledge I did not need to research different guitars. Matt knew exactly what guitar to have so all I had to do was find some research images so I could begin modelling. The guitar that Matt said would be best to use is a basic 'Fender Squier Strat' guitar. Below are the reference images that I found.

The reference images that I got contain images that show me the shape of the guitar. They also contain some close up images of specific bits of the guitar, this is so I could get a clear look at the different parts and details of a guitar. After all the details add realism to the model. I was now ready. I set my scene in Maya and began modelling.

The modelling went well I hit a few barriers but I over came them. The whammy bar on the guitar caused me some trouble however it helped me to improve my knowledge of the non linear bend tool. I also picked up other modelling techniques. I was very happy because the guitar felt like another step up. I already thought that I had improved my modelling ability with the amp model then I created the guitar and I felt like I progressed even more. Below are some images of the Basic Guitar Model.

Above is an image of the front view of the basic guitar model.

Above is an image of the right side view of the basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the back view of the basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the left side view of the basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the top view of the basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the bottom view of the basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the perspective view of the basic guitar model. 

Once the model was complete it was time to UV map. I decided to extend my UV mapping knowledge further and look into creating and using UV sets. Once I had done this I then found out that it was not necessary as you can increase the size of the UV snapshot export, this is something that I did not know so again I learnt another new thing. I also had to learn a bit about the UV linking relationship editor and how you can link textures to the different UV sets. I have again improved my knowledge on UV mapping and improved my UV mapping ability. Again I used automatic mapping to UV map the whole model. The UV layout now contained hundreds of little pieces so again I had to use different UV mapping techniques on certain faces to help create a neater UV layout. I then had to sew all the excess pieces to their correct shells. This was probably one of the hardest UV maps that I have ever had to do. Below is an image of the UV layout before I UV mapped it. 

As you can see from the image above there are lots of little pieces that need to be sewn to their correct shells. Below are images of the UV sets that I created. I thought it was logical to separate the different UV's of the different sections of the guitar so that I would have more room to apply more detailed textures. Little did I know this was unnecessary. However it was not a complete waste of time because I learnt something new.    

Above is an image of the UV set for the Neck and Head of the guitar and the pieces that come with it. 

Above is an image of the UV set that I created for main body of the basic guitar model and some of its buttons. 

Above is an image of the UV set that I created for the middle section of the guitar and all the extra parts that come with it, such as the whammy bar etc etc.

Now that UV mapping is completed it is time to texture. I created a blinn material for the model, this is so the model and textures would get that shiny glossy look that a real guitar has. I turned down the reflectiveness of the blinn to make it more subtle so that It looks more realistic. I used the same technique as the amp for texturing. I took existing textures from the Internet and edited them in photoshop until they were appropriate. I also made my own metal texture in photoshop. I then applied the texture to the UV snapshot in photoshop. Once I applied the texture to the model in Maya I had to use the UV linking relationship editor to link the texture to all of the UV sets. This was a new technique that I had to learn.

Now the model was complete, below are some images of the completed basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the front view of the basic guitar. 

 Above is an image of the right side view of the basic guitar model.

Above is an image of the back view of the basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the left side view of the basic guitar model.

Above is an image of the top view of the basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the bottom of the basic guitar model. 

Above is an image of the perspective view of the guitar model.  

Overall I think the basic guitar model looks very nice, it has a hint of realism. It also has a similar style to the amp so it will fit nicely in the promo piece. I am also very happy with how much I learnt and improved my knowledge whilst creating this model.