Simple screenshot, showing most of the layers used for editing and compositing.

Blogger has been down, so its only now i've been able to post any updates, after our deadline.

On the thursday me and aaron stayed overnight in order to get rendering for the imp and train sections done. Thankfully there were not too many problems and thanks to rendering on several machines at once it was done in no time.

The morning of the hand in, i was mainly working on the compositing and editing. It was a bit of a rush and last minute as i was also waiting on some other scenes which just had to be coloured.

Finally handed it in and i went home with the intention of sleeping.

(I shall post some screenshots of the after effects work in the next few hours/day)

Finally Finished

The Imp Express from Liam Kirkman on Vimeo.

I've spent numerous hours editing and testing, and once some of the finishing touches were done and the sound added, i think it looks awesome.

Its going to be tough

So while i write this, it is the day before hand in and were virtually no where near finished.

The way of looking at it at the minute, is that we have all the individual Elements but its not together yet. Today is gonna be a long day.. and night... and early morning.

Various after effects shots are easy to do, but i just need the scenes off the people creating them. Hopefully this can be all done and dusted.

There might be a few things that we have to leave out for the hand in but put in for the degree show. One of which being the Imps painted texture instead of his plain red shader.

Quick Post

Cloud Sequence 4th Draft. Alternate Version from Liam Kirkman on Vimeo.

Updated umbrella scene as promised
Group response is good and they are pleased with the result. Minor feedback about the clouds fading at the end should be shorter so i will do that in order to make it better.
I am quite happy with it and with some tweaks can look even better.

Although this may go against the title name "quick post" i feel better for including this image here instead of a new post. Anyway its a current render of the scene with the imp included. The shadows have been softened according to feedback from Aaron.

Updated First Train Shot

1st shot with added motion blur and shaky cam from Liam Kirkman on Vimeo.

An updated version of the first train shot.
A suggestion from a group member was to make the background shake aswell, because at the minute it just looks like the train shakes. So i will change this.

I've been working on the cloud transition, the first train (over camera) shot, the level crossing shot and also playing with the lighting in the imp scene. More updates to follow

3rd Draft

Cloud Transition to Imp Second Draft from Liam Kirkman on Vimeo.

This is the 3rd draft of the cloud transition. This is much better then the previous versions however it has been brought to my attention that it should almost be the exact opposite of this. so the next version will probaly look completely different.

Just another scene shot

The Imp is lit, however a bit more work is still needed on it.

Lighting

Today I've been experimenting with the lighting and hoping to get a nicelit scene for rendering out. The image below is using 4 lights currently, a main one above the scene, a yellow tinted fill light aswell as 2 others to help bring out the scene.



The scene looks much better and a lot less blown out when Ambient occlusion is added



And just for fun and because i like the look of it, I've included just the ambient occlusion layer.

Draft of Umbrella in clouds

Cloud Transition to Imp First Draft from Liam Kirkman on Vimeo.

First draft of the umbrella and cloud transition.

After manually saving every frame out of photoshop I imported them into after effects as an image sequence. Added the clouds and some movement and opacity keyframing. This is the current version so far, but awaiting some feedback from the rest of the group.