Special bonus to tide you guys over during the hiatus: My first EVER animation - JUST A THOUGHT.
The inspiration for this came from an ex-school teacher who would disguise his 'Nam flashbacks as a fondness for terrorizing students. Ex army man, great bloke, and could not tolerate nonsense.
Pity really, otherwise we would have gotten along famously.
So when unsuspecting student would exclaim "But I thought..." he would quickly counter with "Thought? You know what THOUGHT did? He stuck a feather in the ground and thought he'd grow a chook!"
What a wonderful premise. Please enjoy this short film, which I discussed in last week's podcast. Oh - and I apologize for the poor quality. Back then I had no real work flow, and disregarded the keeping of a "master", so the only copy I could dig up was in *gasp!* REAL MEDIA FORMAT (why Paul, WHY!?). So I salvaged it sans original audio, and restriped it with a royalty free track from garageband which was very similar to my... then fantastic live guitar playing. Not. :D
A special note to my iTunes listeners - any new subscribers to the show might have noticed that the episodes were HUGELY out of order. Has got to do with how blogger, feedburner, and iTunes logs their entries and enclosures. I rectified this today before the release of this podcast, so you might noticed that all the podcasts to date were released uh... today. I apologize for this glitch, but I have retro-fitted with the older posts with some funky new buttons. The episodes should now appear in the correct order. When I get back, I am looking into setting up an ogg/theora feed (archive.org compressed my work into these formats as well as flv and 64kb mp3 all at the same time) but it is more likely I will just begin having a "download ogg" button after every post.
Well the fifth draft is now complete, and not a moment too soon. It is my favorite draft so far, and while I don't want to give too much away, I will detail below how I used the standard 3 act structure in order to make it easier for me, while still maintaining a coherent and original action story.
I don't shy away from structure, despite the trend I was subject to throughout my university career. I did alot of textual analysis at university, and the subjects on narrative were always the most fascinating. I learnt about everything from the basic structure of the hero's quest, to the experimental structures of feminist literature - an unsual genre that deconstructed the conventional 3 acts because many claimed it was developed under patriarchal systems, and therefore was inherently male.
Throughout the subjects where I learnt about the film making process, I was surrounded by many students who wanted to break the rules before they had learnt them, and would often make nonsensical films that lacked any sort of narrative, but was just a collection of shots based on random streams of consciousness.
My opinion: this was lazy film making, where there were excuses for not learning the rules. If you go out and shoot a bunch of stuff, edit it together and throw some funky color filters on it, the audience will interpret it anyway they wish and therefore, it is "art" of the purest kind - or so they claimed. Personally, I thought it was an easy way to earn a credit without taking full advantage of the tools and opportunity we were presented with.
I happen to like the rules. I happen to like the 3 act structure because it is by far the best way to tell a story that people will be entertained by. Many of the students I would have studied with saw structure as a crutch and believed that it was more difficult to come up with your own way of telling a story, and so claimed that was more artistic.
I claim that the structure is merely a platform. If you learn how to use it, you can tell an effective story with a message and communicate with your audience on a level that allows them to discover your message.
We are inherently creatures who are obsessed with patterns, symbols, signs and meaning. To produce something devoid of meaning and without structure is to make something that will not capture interest and will go unnoticed in the annals of story telling.
An the outline as put out in one of my "bibles" Character Design Studio:
ACT 1:
Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Refusal of Call
Mentor
First Threshold (first turning point)
ACT 2:
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Approach to the innermost cave
Ordeal
Reward
The road back (second turning point)
ACT 3:
Ressurection
Return with Elixir
I have used some plot points to change the sets around, because I thought it would be goodto be literal. For example, I was originally going to have Aziz in a tent in one of the furthest corners of Market, then I read the line "approach to the innermost cave" and it is a perfect description of what happens to Marcus before we get to the first turning point, where the hero's path is altered forever. And so... I made Aziz' tent a cave. There, Marcus learns something of the mission he was on, and of himself, too, and there is great temptation to abandon his friends, which only hightens the conflict, and makes us aware of the stakes.
Other points of description helped me write key scenes too. Combined with a terrific exploration of possible religions that could help motivate our characters, this really helped me get plot points laid out in the right order, and then finish the pilot script to my satisfaction.
I now have a great little piece that works all on its own, and also function as a platform to kick-start the series. It introduces not only characters, but the world, key events that are important to the overall script of 13 episodes, and it tests our heroes so we understand where their loyalties lie.
So the story is going to begin to happen. It would be great if all of you could begin to spread the word about the process diary and Character Development. Here are a couple of banners you can use to post on your own blogs, websites, or sigs on forums.
I am also going to be ready to record a read through in July, so I am beginning the process of looking for voice actors. If you are, know, or wannabe a voice actor, get in touch with me: flawedprefect@gmail.com and I'll send you a character outline, some script excerpt, and notes on how I wish them to sound. Preferrably, I am looking for Aussies, but since the dawning of the age of the internet, we are all part of a global village, now. All I require is the ability to do as culturally neutral an accent as you can.
There's going to be a bonus episode this week before I leave for Vietnam. It's the short film "Just a Thought", which I mention in the podcast this week. I will return min-June with the Process Diary with character concepts - the part I've really been waiting for.
Thanks for listening these past few months. Your numbers have increased to a minor cult following, but I am hoping to reach a wider audience.
This week, while I am working on finishing sets, I thought I would take some time to discuss some things that I have been reflecting on as I redraft the pilot script. Each time I redraft, I up the stakes. Recently, however, I found that I kept writing myself into a hole. I kept changing character's actions to further plot rather than allow them to be what they naturally are.
Conflict is a fickle thing. If you do not properly, you will find that you have created a plot in which your characters - interesting as they may be - work against their nature in order to further the plot, and then the whole house of cards falls flat.
I said in an earlier podcast, a story is like an equation: the characters drive the plot through their conflict.
If you put a pair of pit-bulls in a ring, each with a back story, each with drive, passion, and a goal, and you let them at it, the winner is the fittest, the one who wants it more, and the one with nothing to lose and everything to gain.
There was a line from Gattaca, where Vincent would race his brother, Anton for a swim. Anton was genetically superior to Vincent, and they would swim out to a buoy and back. Vincent would beat his brother, and Anton later asks "how come you always won?" to which Vincent replies "I never kept anything for the swim back".
He won because his goal was to reach the buoy - not return alive. Each has a different drive, and are pitted against each other, and only one comes out on top, but each could equally win and tell a compelling story.
If you write with the goal that it will be the underdog that will win the day, that's fine - but give him a worthy opponent who would seem as tho he would have just as much to lose. That way, sure it's rigged, but it still tells a compelling story.
Where I - and most - fall down, is in creating really compelling characters that have nothing to do with the overarching story, and struggle to find a place in your opus, so the story becomes disjointed, and falls flat. Your audience sees a character in search of a plot, not someone who belongs in the story.
So this week, I wanted to talk a bit about what drives characters right down to philosophies, religion, opinion - all that stuff which is so difficult to talk about, because it invokes questions about our own philosophies, religious beliefs and opinions.
I quote a Ron Sexsmith song which rings true: "We live in times where choice is frowned upon, scared to even raise our voice in song/Or speak our minds for fear of falling on the wrong side of opinion - where has freedom gone?"
I couldn't have said it better myself, but however much I would love to talk about my own beliefs, philosophies and opinions, fear of losing an audience prevents me at this time. However, there have been instances in the past where no matter what the background of the author, we have still been compelled to read on, because while some of their own philosophy is present, the story is still the thing that is most important.
Perhaps when the story is done, you can ask me what I aimed to say with Character Development, or if there are any views therein. I prefer not to speak of these things yet, as they are of no consequence to the process of the story, but at the same time, are ever present.
In regards to my characters, yes, perhaps it is time I thought about what they believe, and explore that angle to give extra weight to their decisions, but not make it the crux of their drive.
Human beings are complex creatures, and many things motivate us. The most compelling and iconic characters in literary history describe the human condition, and have a flawed perfection at the core of their very being.
Religion, philosophy, opinion, politics - these things might be at the core of the story, but personally, I think they should only add to the character's own textured history.
Finally - some apologies: as of recording, I had a mental blank about the name of the producer of the BSG reimagining. It is Ronald D. Moore. (Trust me, I have no idea who Richard Brooks is or what he does, he just sprang into existence) Also, in regards to Mormonism, the parallels are taken from the book of Mormon. Read the wikipedia entry linked for more information.
The Promo today is supplied by cue the film - a fun-filled movie review show.
Yet another short - but to-the-point post this week... oh - and it marks my 50th post to the Process Diary. I supposed I should have a beer or something...
I got some feedback this week from David Gustafson. He writes:
"My name is David and I live in the United States. I just wanted to email you and let you know how much I enjoy watching and listening to The Process Diary podcast. I found your podcast one day when I was looking for podcasts about Blender on iTunes. I have found it very enjoyable and insightful in terms of the modeling methods used and look forward to each update that comes. Keep up the good work! :) I'm also looking forward to watching the "Character Development" episodes when they come out!"
Thanks so much, David! Good to know I'm under "blender" in the iTunes music library. That is encouraging. If anyone else uses iTunes to download the podcast, why not leave a review on the iTunes page for the process diary? Good or... not so good, I am always interested in hearing what you guys think of what I am putting out there.
I am also looking forward to seeing what Character Development ends up looking like when it comes out too, but let's just keep that between us...
This week, I wish to discuss a point that makes a program like Blender such a joy to work with. Now, i am aware that its bigger brothers in the 3D tool arena have similar applications available to them - I'm not saying this is a reason why Blender kicks their asses. It's merely helped me in producing sets and populating them with objects that will be referenced several times and in several scenes.
I am, of course, talking about objecting appending and linking.
To append an object, you simply import it into your work file, and that becomes yet another object you tweak and edit, and use as part of the whole scene.
To link, however, is much more useful, especially in a team environment, or in those situations where you need to get approval from a client. You still append as normal, but linking references the .blend file in which the master record of that object exists. Doing this correctly means if your client needs you to change a color or a texture, or the size, shape, age or sex of that coffee table, and you've referenced it 100,000 times in your coffee table army that is about to swarm the gates of Mordor, all you have to do is open up your .blend file in which you created that coffee table, tweak it, and the next time you open your scene ALL your coffee tables have been updated.
Of course why a coffee table army is gonna swarm the gates of mordor is anyone's guess, but you get my point.
So this is where we look at Aziz' cave this week. It's just a NURBS surface with some basic objects in it, and this week, I take you through linking proxy objects in for the purposes of creating an animatic, or roughing out a scene before final sign off have taken place for each individual object.
So here are the objects I will append to the scene:
And here is the scene with some linked in clutter:
Not much to look at, but you get the idea. I will be improving this set this week, as well as adding the tunnel outside it, and maybe detailing the elevator and shaft. After next week's podcast, I think it's gonna be time for some re-evaluation, and checking off of scenes which I have created in relation to the pilot.
Apologies for the audio change at the endof the vidcast this week, folks. I've had some trouble with GTKDesktop Recorder, lately, where it cuts out audio recording after a few minutes. Hopefully when I upgrade to Hardy Heron next week, this might resolve the issue. I'll also look at programs like Istanbul to record as well. Please leave comments and/or experiences with desktop recording if you have done this before. Would love to hear of any tips or tricks you guys may use. I use ffmpeg to then convert the ogg/theora file produced to an mp4 so it can be compatible with iTunes downloads.
A sort of "part two" to the constructing Market Entrance, only expanding into the further reaches of the set.
I modelled much of this set this week at work, as my boss was away, and I had little to do.
This is a massive set. I incorporated a number of techniques (duplicating along a path, more curves, booleans etc) in its construction, but overall, you may notice from the pictures here that there are large flat surfaces, wide curves of plain grey. Nothing too intriguing, except in its size.
There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is because lots of the detail will be in the texture - lots of rock faces, carved stone, and patterned mosaics. The second is that it serves more as a backdrop to scenes which are complex enough, and I don't want to distract the eye away from the main action.
The main goal here is to have something that shows two type of architecture: ancient and ... well, in the context of the story - MORE ancient. The other goal is size. This place is freakin massive. The entrance alone has a ten meter high ceiling, bit the main arena at mezanine level spans almost 200 meters. So end to end, from one entrance to the other, Market is some 300 to 400 meters long.
Like the sketching process from a few weeks ago, I discovered alot about this set by going backwards and forwards between 3d and 2d. I would sketch something, model something based on that thumbnail, then discover a better design in 3D... but then I neede to sketch a different angle.
This best described how I came to the elevator design, and the choice to make Aziz dwell in a secret cave rather than a tent. The cave and the elevators have set up a new scene where I have transplanted Min's confrontation with Corben to an earlier scene, and use her as the catalyst for tension - we know Marcus has to reach Aziz in secret, but can't because now there is another party in the elevator that mustn't know about the plans Corben and Marcus are up to.
So there will be a further vidcast on this set in later weeks - possibly after the character conceptsand models. It will deal with the next stage of development: Props.
I have found that Blender has a fantastic way of appending objects called "linking". All objects, characters, rigs, etc will be "linked" into scenes - not merely appended. This has the advantage of being able to make changes to the base file (say: hammer.blend) and have it automatically updated within the scene.
Maya and Max have tools such as this already, so this is nothing new, but it is great to see Blender incorporating this very vital of scene-constructing tools.
Hi guys. Just a short one, this week. Unfortunately I did not have time for a full-blown vidcast, or even much progress. But I DID find time to sneak in a few hours of touch-up, test render, and re-conceptualization of some sets. The biggest change is in the cockpit. Instead of dropping down, the chair simply rotates 180 degrees, and slides forward. The mechanics make more sense, and I have tried to incorporate some of the proximity to the main Sand boat turbines into the shape of the cockpit itself.
The navigation tower has a few more fittings built in, but there is still some detailing to go.
I've added stairs and the main door to the Market entrance - this is still in progress, as there will be a railing, as well as some sort of delivery system for goods built into the sides. I also need to add some blast shields which rise up from the floor, as this will serve as part of the pilot's climax.
All in all, I am happy with where these sets are headed. If I find that I am time poor until the four week hiatus in May, I might just update you with some WIP videos instead of full-blown vidcasts of me modelling. Quite frankly, I prefer to download small videos to long rambling videoblogs, but if you really REALLY want me to, I shall keep recording them.
I am currently in the process of re-scripting the pilot. The climax brings Minauld more into the fore, introduces a bigger role of Izmir - Aziz' right hand man, and sets up a plot point for Sal and Marcus to settle their differences... or die trying!
I am anxious to go onto texturing these sets, while still conceptualizing the rest of Market, and Aziz' tent, but I know I still need rto complete all concepts before moving onto the next step.
Left to do:
Market entrance exterior
Aziz' tent
Market trading floor
Market desert exterior
Miscellaneous gangplanks above Market, and at least two corridors for Sandboat interiors.
When I get back from the four week Hiatus (it's coming up fast now, folks!) It'll be straight into character concepts, modelling, and texturing. Once all is done, I think it'll be time for a script polish, and a sound session with the actors... or me, doing all the roles, which-ever I find myself doing when the time comes. Either way, it'll be a blast.
Before I get into this week's post, I want to use this opportunity to tell you all about a few brief but exciting things that have been happening.
First off, a company named Flying Bark had an open house the other night. They invited anyone who had an interest in the animation process to come and take a look. They encouraged people to bring their showreels and portfolios along, as well.
Naturally, I could not pass this up, so I went along, had a couple of beers, and chatted to some of the producers there. I got to show off some early Character Development sketches, my showreel, and talked a lot of shop.
My weakness, unfortunately, is UV mapping, and texturing. I understand the concepts, but the practice has always yielded less than favorable results.
Luckily, I have an unofficial mentor in Steve Ogden, who's podcast series on moon town has proven to be invaluable in asuaging my fears. I won't be reitterating what he has already taught, so I urge you: if you want to know a good texturing practice, check out moon town, if you haven't done so already.
The books are brilliant, also. I am sure if you've been an animator for some time, they are already on your shelf, but if you haven't gotten those books, they are a vital investment.
Thirdly - well let's just say life takes priority over personal projects. Unfortunately, I must work my day job to pay bills and a mortgage. Because several projects have come to a head, I've been doing late nights and early mornings. This has taken me away from having time to produce work. I had an intro to do for a reputable Mac-modding website, and a documentary on a musician friend of mine to complete this week, as well. I am happy to say the intro has been completed to my satisfaction, but is still awaiting approval from the macmod guys; the doco is more than 75% completed. I will be sharing those works with you as soon as I get them complete, as they are well worth the look.
So I find time where you can. For me, it's been on the bus, or in bed before I go to sleep. I've used that time to re-draft the script, doodle some ideas, and plan some changes to the project.
I can tell you now that there will be two more sets I need to conceptualize, and I have re-scripted the ending to be much more dynamic, and links in some new discoveries to storylines that will impact on the rest of the series. It's also taken on a conventional A-B story structure which I am very comfortable with, and I'm sure will engage you all in the action more readily.
I now have a story which will propel the characters headlong into a fight for survival on all fronts. Everyone involved has got a purpose, no matter how twisted (Like Aziz) or noble (Marcus) or just personal (Corben).
At the same time, the backdrop to the story is a world where everything is failing and grinding to a halt: the orbit of the Earth; humanity; necessary supplies; morale, etc. Our heroes are fighting a losing battle, no matter what their plight, and I want to express this in the pilot more than currently.
Now: onto the vidcast - which very nearly did not get made! I've used this introductio to show you how Blender booleans work, and how they can be very useful when creating irregular shapes. I like this method, because it allows me to go beyond the basics, and still achieve a low-poly model that renders quickly.
The Market interior is a place where one of the climaxes of the episode occurs, now - a confrontation between Aziz, Corben and Marcus. We learn a little bit about Marcus which gives motive to both him and Corben throughout the series. We also learn a bit about the world they inhabit, too, so the architecture must reflect many facets of history, as well as clues to why...
hmm. Better keep my mouth shut or I'll give too much away.
So this week, I will be working on constructing the remainder of the sets, sketching out some new scenes, and I will put together another quick podcast before next weekend. I hope to continue this set as a "part II" next week. I think I am finding the sweet spot when it comes to these vidcasts, but please tell me if the 'casts are too long, too boring, too big in file size, too low in quality. I see from my stats you guys download them by the bushel, and no one complains. Where I come from (which is Planet Earth) silence is a form of affirmation.
I apologize for getting this vidcast out late this week. I had an opportunity I could not pass up on Friday night, and that meant all my plans for the weekend had to be pushed back. Luckily, my wife is the best person in the world, and let me have some extra "Paul time" on Sunday, and I decided I would show you guys what I've been doing with the cockpit set.
Now - according to the script, we only see parts of this set, but I have something very specific in mind for how it all works. I have been very careful in my modelling not to get too bogged down in the mechanics of it all, even though I have to build some into the model to make it work.
So this week's post is all about building only what you need to so that your audience assumes the rest exists.
The pilot's chair has alot of moving parts. The primary part is a platform which it sits on, and this swivels around 180 degrees, and drops a full storey. The secondary part is the chair itself - driven by the revolving platform, it reclines, and pistons push locks into Marcus' suit to lock him in place. The third part is the control panel. It swivels on two massive gears, revolving down and locking the platform in place, while providing Marcus access to the controls.
So I made ALOT of gears for this set. I learned my lesson from the cockpit set, where making them out of polygons ate up too much rendertime. I modelled the cockpit ones out of curves. In fact, the majority of objects in the cockpit are (and will be - it is still not complete) curves.
I keyframed some of the animation during the vidcast, and while this isn't the time to really get it all timed, it does help me render some tests to get timing right in future, and se that it all works well together.
The most important part of setting up mechanics is knowing where each object's pivot point is. Blender gives you a pink dot to show you where it is, and gives ou three neat tools to align your pivot easily. These are found in the EDIT menu:
You can use these in conjunction with your "snap to" menu to get alignment working perfectly.
The other technique which is vital to getting your mechanics right, is parenting. A quick primer for those who aren't familiar with this concept:
Parenting is setting up a relationship between objects which makes one object the "parent" and another (or several other) object the "child". Wherever the parent goes the child always follows.
To give you an example from this set: the chair is the child of the large gear, which is the child of the platform. If I move the platform, the gear, and subsequently, the chair, all move with it. If I rotate the gear, however, oly the chair rotates with it - not the platform.
Parents do NOT follow children.
This is perhaps the most basic linking technique known in 3D and it is present in all packages: Maya, Max, Lightwave, etc.
Now I could have chosen a more complex set up if I wanted to. There is a brilliant system in Maya called "driven keys". I think Blender can do something similar, but I have to research this, still.
In essence, the theory behind driven keys is brilliant: use the properties of one object to define a specified property of another. When the properties of the parent object are altered, the child's properties change in proportion.
Example: object A is a block which moves in the Z direction (up and down). What if we could tell a ball to move in the X direction (left to right) everytime the block moves? We only have to animate ONE THING. Because of this relationship, position, the speed in which the position is altered, and the direction are all taken into account.
In Maya, however, it requires some intermediate knowledge. You must set it up using a driven key dialogue, and know exactly what it is you wish to relate. For instance: the position of object A can alter the COLOR, the transparency, the scale - in fact any keyframeable or changeable value you choose. The applications of this are endless, but the set up can be a bit time consuming.
So it's a trade-off. Should I have used driven keys for this set? maybe I could have; but all I had to animate were four objects. I deduced it would take me less time to set up the pivots for those and just key frame them than to try scripting a complex set of instructions which told each object what do to when the platform reached a certain stage in its rotation and descent.
Yet I still get a fairly complex looking scene.
The final thing I wanted to talk about was modelling ONLY WHAT WILL BE SEEN. It is way too much fun creating gears and cogs that fit together well and push and pull and drive and steer other objects, and I could create the entire pneumatic and pulley system which drives the chair up and down and throws locks into place... but it would take me a REALLY LONG TIME. And all for what? So I can stick a platform over the whole thing and cover it up?
Nu-uh. Animation is all an illusion. I want you - the audience - to assume really complex things are making this all happen, and for that, I merely need hints. So there is a gear protruding from the platform, which rocks the chair back into a reclining position; there is a gear on the floor which is half visible and the larger gear rocks into place - but do you SEE the whole gear? Of course not, and neither is a cameraman if they were trying to film this platform going down.
So I modelled a partial gear - only the portion that rocks. Of course, it makes sense to model the whole thing and then just delete the bit you don't need, because otherwise you don't get perfect circles and shapes that describe what you don't see.
So when the thing is animated, the chair rocks back into position, the gears grind a few degrees, and the platform drops - and we assume that a lot of stuff must be happening below that platform in order to make it happen.
The neat upshot of this, of course, is that the computer doesn't have to calculate the faces, positions and other properties of unseen objects during rendertime. Yes - if you have an object on set, regardless of whether the camera sees it or not, it is calculated in the render.
Ok, I hope next week to compile a few test renders together for you, and then following that, we might look at some of the sets in Market.
Today's video shows the construction of the elevator shaft. Again, I use further curve-modelling techniques, and quickly create a cage support for the elevator to move up and down. Here are some final renders of the cargo bay where I added a spiral track for the elevator, and shelving. The shelving was achieved using two curves, and two bevels.
These renders are with Blender's internal AO settings. I bump up the sample to 12, and turn on distances to 1.0 in the world settings. There are no lights in this scene.
I am going to further detail this area by adding Sal's desk and exterior of his quarters (the interior need not be modelled for the pilot); the store of crates, and the over hanging forklift.
While doing these videos, I have been somewhat distracted by recording as I go. I try to work things out consciously first before I do it, and so while there is some element of my original intent to show you what goes on when I am modelling, I am beginning to see that it is distracting me a little from the actual creating.
I will pick up the cockpit vidcast next week from setting up some mechanics of Marcus' chair. This way, I will have most of the stuff already modelled and in place (would you believe I managed to get most of the chair done just yesterday in about two hours? You'll be impressed when you see it), and the video will be much shorter. For those of you who've sat through these past couple of weeks - kudos to you: I could barely go back and watch myself model. I am glad it is done, however.
A four day weekend does wonders when you have nothing much else planned, and your wife needs to take as much time-put as you do. Anh happily read on the couch while I busily modelled and rendered tests; compressed video and blogged.
I got around to finessing some of the Navigation Tower set, too. I replaced Corben's chair with curves rather than poly's; replaced some of the lighting set up (I wanted something that wasn't too complex, because lighting is a whole other chapter for later on down the track) and added some new fixtures.
When I am done with the cockpit, I think I'll give you guys a special short vidcast showing the current renders, including some test animations showing the mechanics in motion (the elevator looks wicked as it spirals down to the cargo bay floor).
For those of you who remembered my episode on budgets and deadlines - have you been keeping tabs? Am I on schedule? I think I have been most productive this month. I am definitely proud of what I have achieved on my own. By the end of April, I should have the sandboat interiors textured and lit, and will be well on the way of completing all the sets for the Pilot before May.
I think it's only fair to warn you of an up-and-coming hiatus. In May, my wife and I travel to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand for four weeks. It was a holiday months in the making, but we're finally going. I cannot wait.
For those of you just tuning in to the process diary, use that time to catch up, leave comments, tell your friends, or share some advice. When I get back, it'll be straight into character concepts. That's where the fun REALLY begins.
Today's video shows more curve modelling techniques. One of my favourites, in fact, in which one curve is bevelled around another. I use this method to construct a tubular elevator, then cut out a door segment.
I detail a band of rings and use path animation to duplicate around the circumference of the evelator.
I will continue to detail this elevator, but the majority of it is there, and I am very happy with what I have achieved in a short amount of time. Here are a few renders of what I have been remodelling since creating this video:
Paul Caggegi is a Sydney-based Video editor and 3D Motion-graphics designer. He is currently working on a short sci-fi anime vidcast series entitled "Character Development"
