Last day, but little need to celebrate really

Well, its the end of the project... I came in this morning at 8 to edit everything together, and surprise, the batch render had only completed about a third of most of the 200 frames set, while a few completed completely. Because Im leaving tomorrow and the rendering wouldnt finish before the new year at this rate, Ive edited together everything we've got and playblasted a full version of what it sohuld look like... At the end of the day, Im very happy with the project, just slightly dissappointed in the rendering process. I wish Id allocated more time, but I didnt think it would take this long or we would run into any serious prolbems iwth the render farm(like the fact it didnt work for us). Ill post later the two versions of the movie, and Ill keep posting over break with some photos I took recently or some sketches... To see some final rendered stills, check Jac's blog from the roll on the right.. Merry Christmas!!

Qualms with the Farm

Im in college today(saturday) checknig up on the renders... yesterday we spent the whole day tryng to get the render farm to work, but in the end to no avail. Alex could see anything wrong with the setup or file, but the farm just wouldnt render the images, just spat them back as failed. in the morning, i set 3 computers upstairs batch rendering 200 frames of the 1st camera each, hoping theyd be just a back up, but by 5pm it was obvious that they were going to be our only way to render, so i set the second camera rednering on 4 different computers doing 200 frames each as well. i came in today to chekc that they were still rendering, and while they are, they are only about a third of the way through the whole process. with any luck, theyll be odne by 8am monday when im in to edit it together(which should only take an hour), so we will see then... anyway, ehres a still from the opening shot just after the cmaera has come through hte mist( which i mentioned in another post) im really pleased with my lighting and the camera movements that i worked on over the past few days, they arent exactly as i had hoped when i wrote the shot list, but they are as good as could be done without hiding sections fo the models and whatnot. the render settings are looking pretty good to, i used motion blur and fiddled with mental ray until i got what i thought looked good. hopefully ill be able to post the full thing if the render happens on time...

nearly done

!!

Deadline Looming

Today was spent in the worst way, rendering and reloading crashed copies of the final Maya file. I spent alot of the day working on dynamic effects, getting a good steam to come out of the vents, adn a good looking cigarette somke. By the end of the day, now about 9, Ive got the steam and cigarette smoke down, but for some reason they wont duplicate which means Ill have to redo each one individually tomorrow which is a massive pain. Jac came in in the afternoon and worked on animating the enviroment, the fans spinning look excellent and make the diner feel slightly more alive... Other than that, I was hoping to get the cameras animated today sicne the moves are pretty straight forward, but it looks like that will have to wiat until tomorrow.... Below are a few images of the steam from today, Ive no idea why the diner sign has suddenly gone blue, it keeps happening, along with teh lights on teh jukebox.

Steam still looks a little blotchy from the top, but fixing that can wiat until tomorrow

moar lighting

today I got in at about 1, and started lighting right away. through the course of the day, i finished up some loose texturing ends here and there as well and think that those aspects are pretty much wrapped up now. In terms of lighting, its all pretty straightforward, the hardest part was to try and get lights on the floor as if they were shining from the diner windows. i tried putting a series of spotlights inside the diner adn changing the shadow settings nad light linking them all with the diner frame, but in the end, it proved easier to move them to just above the roof, and using the barn door settings to give the illusion that it was coming from iside. Inside the diner, the setup is extremly simple, three point lights with quite low intensitys and not casting shadwows, and then a small area light over each table which provide a bit more brightness and also cast the shadows of the objects on the table. other than that, the only trying part was to try adn get a nice decay effect from the bottom fo the buildings up to the tops, which is currently proving harder than i thought it would be. I initially had a large area light over teh whole scene, but have sicne moved it to the ground to try and get the effect. Ill work on that more tomorrow... Below are some render tests and a screen grab to show the lighting setup...

~The table setup, something is still wrong with the floor and the glow on the jukebox is insanely strong for some reason~

~The outside of the diner, the street still seems a litlte brights, but Im happy with the glow from the windows~

Rounding off the texturing

Today was spent finishing up the textures, which at the moment im pretty happy with except for a few little glitches that im sure are easily fixed, i just dont have the know how... I spent alot of time trying to work out the glass textures for the diner windows, and ended up using 2 mental ray nodes linked together to get a glass that is opaque from the side, but clear from straight on. I thinnk it worked out pretty well in the end. Other than that, asphalt was a big one, i used a layered shader with some noise and cloud textures along with a noise bump to give it some depth... the diner floor was the same idea, except that i used a standard checkered texture for both the colour and bump map. One texture Im paticularly pleased with is on the awning of the deli, i painted some water-damge type effects in photoshop and applied them as a bump map, and it worked a charm. Overall, a good day, ended working on some fog effects to surrond the block, but at teh moment they are being slightly trying to ill leave them to tomorrow. Lighting is the next big step, Ive all ready added a few lights here and there, but i need to focus on making it dark, but visible. tricky buisness. anyway, some pictures below of the work from today, ill update again tomorrow with lights and things! (First picture is the asphalt texture, second is of the deli sign and the third is just of a few lights put in place for now...)

Below is a little render test of the glass...

lightning lighting!

Just working down the alleys of the project today, along with cleaning up a litlte bit or the history/grouping some things together.

whew!

Well alright! a pretty good day today, stayed late but got in early so it all worked out... today has been spent finishing up the alley buildings, they are done now and looking pretty fresh, and i did a few things for inside the diner aswell, mainly the cigarette pack. tex did the outside texture, and i went on to texture the cigarettes with the litlte brand on them.... i hadnt used the UV editor with photoshop before today, and i was really impressed with how easy it was to export a layout of the object, draw over it in photoshop and then import it right back in. anyway, theres a few pictures below, ill update later in the week!

Tea for the Tillerman

An enjoyable week thusfar, just finishing up the larger parts of the scene as well as taking a litlte look at some texturing, especially in the lighting of the windows. I thought it probably best if there werent 100 lights behind each individual window in the larger skyscrapers, so Ive been adding a pane of slightly reflective glass iwth another plane behind it that has a slight glow texture to it, then using a duplicated version again and again. So far, it seems to be working out, although due to time i havent been able to really vary the windows from building to building as much as id like. Below are a few pictures of the whole scene coming together...

Wednesday

Came in this morning for the guest tutorials, chatted with the tutor and spent the afternoon working on more parts of the diner. Added a few new textures and things, added some detail and decided to move the kitchen into an unseen room in the back of the diner... check Jac's blog for more detail on the models hes made, adn to see them all together in the diner..

More Diner Work

Finished up the sign today, added some rails behind it to support it above the diner. Spent most of the morning working on the interior of the building, cleaned it up nad added some walls to cover the back of the exterior model. Tomorrow(or thursday) should be spent working on the roof, adding AC vents and fans, as well as the counter in the bar. The project is really ocming together now, Jac has been working on alot of the details, chairs, tables, cutlery, coffee machines etc, and we are both looking forward to putting everything togehter adn getting it textured... theres a life drawing from this afternoon at the bottom aswell, I was pretty pleased with it and was just getting warmed up when we took a break. No one came back after that though, so it just ended there which was a downer.....

Diner Madness

Been in college all day today, workin on the diners exterior panelling, and then on the neon sign above it. Yaniv showed me a good trick to import illustrator files into Maya as curves, so the sign was pretty straight forward, but a welcome change from working on the building. I also edited the texture from the top of the post box(on the last post) for a nice neon glow. pretty pleased with the way its looking so far....

Modelling and Texturing

For the past week, Ive been modelling a few things for the project, along with texturing some of Jac's work. Im really pleased with the way that the coffee pot came out, as well as the post box.... theres a few other buildings which look nice from a distance, but if they were added to the layout(which im currently working on) then i feel like they would look undetailed and messy. Below are some renders of the two models, quickly lit.... go over to jacs blog for more modelz.

Scan Tingz

Scans from the sketchbook pertaining to the project, and a page from the trip to Dennis Severs house(the first image)...

Designing

A quick design done last week, thinking about the diner sign, along with a little design for either the side of the seats, above the I or the top of the sign...

Hong Kong

After my trip to Hong Kong last month, I thought that some of the pictures I took there had a good feeling when it came to portraying advertising, and an oppressive modern city.