Sweet shot

Personally I like this picture quite a lot. There are things still wrong with it which are on the maya side, Like the strange yellow'y blurred bits on the right but apart from that its pretty close to the look I'm going for.

I edited it a little bit in after effects, which would reflect the final composition and look.

Some lighting experiments

Been experimenting a little with lighting in the diner, I'm not quite sure the best way to get Final gathering to work so will probably have to place some physical 'fake' bounce lights to light the rest of the diner. I've included a couple of shots i like that are not necessarily the exact lighting choice/style i will be using for my final film

More chef work

Still WIP but i wanted to get something up here.

Chef Turnaround

Not exactly finished by a long way, but currently I added a t shirt and also the apron. both of which need actual fabric qualities, such as folds and seems.


(ignore the blue)

Some face sculpting

Been doing more on the chef character in the past few hours and late hours of last night. Basically watched through some of the mudbox tutorials on autodesk's help files to get me properly into it. Then basically tried to use those techniques in creating the chef.

I started doing a bit of the face, but its hard to get it looking right. I am looking at some reference and also amy's character sheet she did for me a little while back.

Some Feedback

So we had the formative review with Pete and Neil on tuesday. I think mine went quite well. Both seemed to really love the ideas and like my progress. The only problem came when i told them honestly, I didn't think I personally would be able to get all the characters done in time for the end. Which would be a massive shame and detract massively from the original 'Who dunnit' scenario.

So a few ideas came about from peers and the tutors. Some I will list.

1. Passing off the rest of modeling and texturing of the diner and models to other people.

2. Getting others involved with creating of characters

3. Using base meshs in programs like mudbox and zbrush and sculpting characters straight from there.

4. Starting from Scratch box modelling in maya and making all the characters. (Most work required for this option)

So i tried on option 3 last night. Only finishing this post this morning as it was quite late. But this is what i got after a bit of sculpting on the chef. Not detailed though.


I've also done a little more texturing and have a quick WIP picture to show. Used some reference and also some cloning of some of that reference.

UV Mapping

I have been creating a few more models for the details of the diner, and also I think the actual structure of the diner is more or less complete, So i decided to uv map it and get on with texturing it at some point.

I was having trouble UV mapping it, because normally you uv map something looking from the outside of an object which caused some difficulty. However i worked out i could reverse the normals of the diner, which means it inverts how maya sees the computer from a texturing perspective.

And to double check it worked i quickly wrote on all the parts in photoshop, brought it into maya and saw that it all aligned up.



And yes, It does look like its from a saw film or something.

Texturing of Jukebox

Just posted this picture to show a bit more texturing of the jukebox. Looks a lot nicer with the interior close to finished.



Also today been working on more interior models for the diner. Working on randomizing the sofa's a little more. Creating assets for the kitchen and some general clean up and scaling.


Current Lighting on the diner


Kitchen Models

The kitchen models are basic at the minute, However I am not sure how much detail i will put into them as currently there featured extremely little in the animatic. However this might change if I don't have the characters in it. Which is likely :/

RIP External HDD

So it seems all good things come to an end. My hard drive suffered for the last month and just now I have given up on it and pulled the plug on the life support machine.

Here lies Freecom 320GB external hard drive.
2008-2012

Anyway enough of the sillyness, As my hard drive was breaking up, I had to quickly back stuff up. A lot of files on it were corrupt so it was tricky to back it up all at once. I managed to get some of the most important files so should be okay and no delay in work.

However I don't have much to show, probably til wednesday or thursday, So should hopefully get a couple of posts up then maybe an animatic if I'm lucky for fridays presentation.

More Colourscripts

Just spent the morning doing a couple more colourscripts. There quite helpful and wish i had of done them earlier. Mine are still very basic as I'm not great with drawing I'm taking a render of my 3D scene so far then painting over it. But its getting me closer to the idea i want it to look like.

Studio's and Experimenting...

Today I've spent a few hours looking into animation and visual effects studios. I'm keeping a list jotted down of the websites and contact details so when i finally do have a show reel and a finished CV I can send it off to all the companies looking for internships/work experience or if I'm lucky, straight into a junior 3D Generalist role.

After a little more exploration and slightly side tracked i found myself experimenting in maya with some effects in the visor. I've stumbled upon a good cigarette effect which i might adapt slightly and use in my diner project.