2nd December 2015

Managed to find and chuck together some animated clips I did last year, and one that I did this year. There will be a title with contact details to go at the front and back. 

I have chosen my performance study from this year to go first because it's my best work. It most accurately reflects my skill in animation. Second is just a basic walk cycle. It's a little stiff, but I don't have possession of the working files any more. (This is why I've had to use play blasts.) Not too fancy. My weight animation from last year is right in the middle. Though the content is more complicated than the two walk cycles, I've put it in the middle because I think it's the worst piece. It's stiff and lifeless, and the weight doesn't feel natural. The fourth piece is a sassy walk cycle. It's one of the better pieces, but still not top tier. it shows personality in a character which is nice. The fifth piece is a 20 second dialogue piece I did a year ago. It is a full body piece, and is probably the second best there in terms of getting an entire character to be in motion. 

20th November 2015

Getting really close to finishing this trailer now.

Fixed up some timing issues today, and polished up the blink, and worked on making the flow a little nicer between content.

I will be re-recording the video and audio this weekend, and will be working with my brother to nail this music track. I will be planning all 3 sound related things together because it is important that I do not create jarring or conflicting moods/feelings with the audio.

19th November 2015

Today I have been updating my animatic further. I have edited the music levels a little so it's not so empowering, as well as improving the animated shot. I also made the title screen more thematically appealing. I will still be rerecording the video of me talking, along with rerecording the audio of me talking, and the audio will be tweaked to fit the mood better. I will also be improving the blink so it actually flows well. I've got the gist of how it's going to look/sound.

I encountered a problem with premiere today, where the blink was working fine by itself, and the rendered video was working fine by itself, but when I placed the blink on the layer above the render, ONE frame would be missing from the render. I couldn't figure it out, so in the end I just had to cut that one frame out. It was during a still moment so it's not noticeable whilst playing the video. 

18th November 2015

Today I have been doing research on how to get flat shading to work, and have also been in correspondence with my brother who has been writing a music track to use in my trailer.

This is how it's looking right now.

16th November 2015

I am currently using SCRUM project management to work through the trailer.

Today in the morning I did a quick audio fix up before rushes. My previous audio was choppy and didn't really convey everything I thought needed to get across. This is the animatic I took to review at 10:30:

I wrote down a list of things I thought needed to be changed, as well as a couple things that I personally think could be better about it.

I got:
- Talk more about business stuff, and elaborate on my game mechanics
- Music/ambient noise

- 3D turnarounds
- Polishing 3D environment. Rocks etc.

- Idle animations

- Making title screen exciting

- animated fire/flickering light

- flat shading

I have included my updated animatic for today's sprint based on SOME of the things on the list. I will further work on it in the next few sprints. 

Friday 13th *dramatic music*

I have updated my animatic to the second draft. I plan to complete a better video and audio, but for now I have a good overall idea of how it's looking. 

12th November 2015

I have created a very rough planning animatic. The timing isn't completely solid but I have a fairly good idea of what I'm going to say and when I'm going to say it. 

During the few seconds at 16 seconds onward where it's looking at the ceiling, there's going to be a cliché looking blink. This animatic is also missing some short fades or maybe a swipe between parts to make it flow better. 

11th November 2015

I have been creating assets for my trailer/pitch (mostly toward the animatic at this stage), and have read both briefs (DDM and BAR08) to make sure I'm within the criteria. I have thrown some phrases and ideas on to paper. I have also started on a makeshift animatic, just so I can visualize my trailer while I think about it.

10th November 3:30 pm

I have started planning out my video trailer.

10th November 2015 12:30 pm

Just finished my kick starter mock up.

3rd November 2015

Today I have been working on my kickstarter template. I have done a few renders to make it look nice. Getting the lighting to be consistent has been the biggest obstacle, especially on the floor in one of them. I used a downward directional light to combat that.

Full sized image: http://i.imgur.com/Mbr5zX1.jpg 

30th October 2015

Today I have been building the world for mockups. It is currently using place holders for a lot of the textures. I will be replacing these later with better textures.

I have done a test render using the temp textures.

23rd October 2015

Today I spent the majority of my day working on my literature review for bridging.

I spent time in the afternoon working on my skinning. It still needs further work, but it's getting there.

16th October 2015

Today I have worked on my skinning. I am very close to having this character done. Considering this is only five day's progress I'm very happy with how it's gone.

15th October 2015

Aiming to have this character done from scratch in one week, and so far I'm absolutely smashing it.

Character modelled  -  ✓

Character textured    - ✓
Legs Rigged             -  ✓

Spine Rigged            - ✓

Arms Rigged

Face Rigged
Character Skinned

14th October 2015

Today I worked further on texturing, and slightly altered the face shape to look more androgynous.

I am trying to use solid black lines in a similar fashion to games like wolf among us. 

13th October 2015

Today I worked further on my model and began texturing. I plan to have this character all ready by Friday.

12 October 2015

I have been working on my model today. I will be using it for my graphics, as well as the trailer

10th September

Catch up mode now. Been powering through my mood boards and whipped some concepts out as well. 

4th September 2015

Today I worked on concept thumbnails based on a board of mine on pinterest as well as a mood board I made for character. I tried to choose strong poses, and use non-sexual design elements to set my designs apart from many other games that have female protagonists. 

26th August 2015

Today I decided it was time to think pragmatically about my production and planned everything out according to my briefs. I wrote out plans on paper and sellotaped them to my computer tower. I have gone on to start nailing out the narrative of my game so that I can complete the rest of my tasks. 

19th August 2015

Today I have worked on some planning for my idea. I have spent a little bit of time troubleshooting the more ludic aspects of the game. I only have ideas for narrative in my head right now, but I still have plenty of time to work on that.

18th August 2015

Today I've gone back to the drawing boards about my idea. I think that the fantasy RPG idea that I was thinking about last week is too complicated of a project, and a little cliché. My new idea is a puzzle type game set in a 3D environment. Your avatar walks around in a cube, and can walk on any surface, including on the walls. As soon as they walk onto the wall the room turns so that it becomes the new floor. There are large blocks around the room that will fall down once the room has rotated. There are pressure pads that you would have to try to press using the cubes. The pads would be magnetic so as soon as the cube hits the correct pressure pad it gets stuck. You can then use that cube to line other cubes up etc etc. Once all the pressure pads are pressed a door will open in one of the walls. I have some other ideas for it too, such as coloured pressure pads, maybe depending on the colour of the cube you need, or even different difficulties per colour. Maybe there's 3 doors based on the difficulty or amount of pressure pads, and they would open up to harder rooms perhaps. It's still a work in progress but I think it's much more manageable and original than my other idea. 

14th August 2015

Today I have continued my visual research. I have also created a mood board for the camera angle of the game.

13th August 2015

Today I continued my visual research. I am taking my time this week so that I thoroughly think about each aspect of my project. Here is a mood board with some style choices I think could be nice for my project. 

11th and 12th August 2015

I have continued with my visual research and created two mood boards. I have a good feeling in my head of what I want but I'm going to continue doing some other mood boards nad brain storms so that I'm not limited in my choices.

Character design mood board:

Architecture mood board:

10th August 2015

Group project is over! FREEEEEDOM

Started on the game concepts individual project by looking at reference, and coming up with ideas. I am currently keen on creating concepts on a dark open world game. Medieval fantasy is the theme that I'm currently set on, but that's subject to change as it's only the first day.

I have started creating boards on pinterest to load up with reference material. 

Final week of group project

This week I focused mainly on lighting and rendering of my shot. I also fixed the textures that were neglected, and fixed a couple of background models, e.g. the trees.

27th July 2015

Today I experimented with post infinity cycle with offset, but couldn't manage to line my torso up with the legs about 60-80 frames down the line. I ended up having a maya crash when I was close to solving the issue, so I just went back to my previous run and had a go with that. I have to add a couple of seconds to the animation to finish it off.

22nd July 2015

I have taken the animation out of stepped to show it more effectively. I am still in the process of blocking the animation out in the stepping process. 

My main focus for now is on the legs and hips, the arms are not blocked out.

21 July 2015

Today I did some more to my stepped animation. I redid the arms and legs from scratch as I felt I wasn't putting the controls to their best use. I have redone a lot of it taking into account the parent spacing and other attributes.

I also made and rigged the trapeze quickly today so that Zack can do his shot properly.

14th July 2015

Today I worked on skinning in the morning. I then looked at reference in the afternoon and started setting the scene up for my animation which I'll start tomorrow.

24th June 2015

Today I have been texturing the male character, and have made significant progress towards his completion. 

22 June 2015

Today I re-rigged the female character from scratch, and have made some progress on the skinning. there is still some work to do but I have made a solid start.

19th June 2015

Today I finished the male rig, including facial controls. Apart from textures he is completely ready to animate.

18th June 2015

Today I started off by working on facial controls. I have got the jaw working, and have been working on the eyebrows so far. Sean has also taught me about curve controls during the day which I will be finish off tomorrow.

I am having some issues at the moment due to trying to use a wrap deformer to try and bypass a problem I faced, so I've decided to just work on texturing and look at the facial controls tomorrow with fresh eyes.

I have also done a little more texturing.