Timing of the time lapse

I've narrowed it down to 2 versions. You'll notice some jumpy bits at the starts and ends. These parts are where the music will change pace, giving meaning to each other.
In version 1 I have a test piece of music that will inspire my musician. I'm looking for a grand orchestral sound.

Version 01

Version 02

Mt Coot-tha Sunrise Time lapse

HDR Time lapse with CG elements

The crux of the short film is based on the ability to render 740 individual Image Based Lighting setups in one scene in Maya.

All that I've seen require only one.

For example, if a live shoot is set up inside and is shot for about an hour, only 1 High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) will be captured. This is because the lighting during that one hour won't change much, especially if it's in a studio with lights.

In Rokk Mann the lighting will change constantly throughout a 12 hour period. This change is from several causes, sun rising, sun setting and cloud cover. Therefore lighting data will need to be captured throughout the entire period.

To do this a chrome ball must be captured along side the time lapse images. Not only does the ball need to be photographed but it needs to be captured as a High Dynamic Image (HDRI). So for every one photo the time lapse camera take, 5 photos at different Exposure Values need to be captured.

Camera and chrome ball setup for the backyard shoot.

 In the above photo the smaller camera is shooting the chrome ball that sits at the top of the stairs 5 times at different exposures. At precisely the same time the larger camera is taking only 1 shot for the time lapse sequence.

With much research I have completed the first, and very rough, HDR time lapse with CG elements.

Advanced Body Mechanics - Class 3

This class was very fun. It started off with a blast animating to some dance music which turned out pretty good.
My mentor was John Nguyen who has worked on Transformers 2 & 3, The Mummy 3, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Tron Legacy, X Men... just to name a few.

Short Film Animatic

I have 2 versions of the story board/animatic. The difference is in the acting choices for Rokk Mann. The first one I just had him struggling but it had no real climax. So on the second one he's reaching towards the sun in some sort of symbolic way.
Also, you'll notice that towards the end it looks like he drops and then trips over. The reason for this drop is that the rock he is emerging from is thick mud or soft clay to him, so as he puts his weight onto his foot to lift his body, then the mud/clay gives way and he drops.

Short Film Music V2

Update on the music. I asked him to strip it back to the bare bones bass and drums so we can build it from there. It's pretty close to what I'm after already, I think it needs more of a build up to the middle of the piece and then a sustained high, then a sudden drop off...

Rokk Mann Texture example

During my expedition to the location earlier this year I photographed some examples of the rocks on Mt Maroon summit. Using Crazy Bump, it can produce some really nice looking textures.

The night before the actual shoot I plan to acquire more textures using a more accurate method for normal maps. It's called Normal Map Photography. The name and method was created by Ryan Clark on his website - http://zarria.net/nrmphoto/nrmphoto.html
Basically, the method is to photograph the subject 4 times from one angle in complete darkness. In each of the 4 photos a light source is positioned at the top, bottom, left and right, respectively.
In Photoshop these images are changed to represent a normal map. It can also be used with crazy bump as the author is the same person.

Short film music

I have commissioned my brother to write the music. I'm looking for something epic and orchestral.

My brother came up with this in about an hour and a half....

So, I'm not sure if this is exactly what I"m looking for. I think the pulsating violin is reminding me of a circus. But I'm looking for more of a long drawn out sound from the violins.
I've asked him to just send me a stripped back version of the piece, just with the drums and bass and we'll work from there.

Character Development

Since the main character is suppose to be an ambiguous figure, finding a character online was going to be relatively simple. I went straight to my favorite site for fully rigged characters - www.animationbuffet.com.

I looked for a generic human male figure. I found this some what scary looking androgynous character - http://animationbuffet.blogspot.com.au/2008/07/rudy.html

The starting base for the Rokk Mann character

 I'm not sure who created it, so I can't credit the person. But the original file can be found here.

So Rokk Mann will look like a rock - rough and jagged... not an androgynous figure with human skin. He will also look a little more asymmetrical, having distorted limbs and head. I will also add some seams as observed with the rocks around the shoot location.

Rocks around the shoot location showing seams through the rocks. This would have been formed from the volcanic activity in this region a while back.

Also, some elements will have to be added to help with the small story plots that progress over the 30sec film. For example, a limb, or at most 2, will be dismembered during the short. I am inspired by renaissance sculptures especially Michelangelo's, and how their limbs are never finished, mostly cut off below the shoulder, or legs buried in the marble (unfinished).

Unfinished sculpture by Michelangelo. It look like it's emerging from the rock.

Venus de Milo. It looks like it suppose to be armless considering the cleanliness of the stump, but it's assembly was never found and complete.

Torso Belvedere by Apollonios son of Nestor. One of my favorite sculptures. "Legend has it that Pope Julius II requested that Michelangelo complete the statue fragment with arms, legs and a face. He respectfully declined, stating that it was too beautiful to be altered, and instead used it as the inspiration for the majority of the figures in the Sistine Chapel..." wikipedia.

 Inspired by the great sculptures of the past, Rokk Mann will emerge from the rock and, from the brittle rock, sustain a severed limb, which will be his demise.

Within the thirty seconds of footage I will try and weave a small narrative through the movements of Rokk Man. There will be 2 main phrases, firstly the birth and rise of the young, impatient Rokk Mann. Youth, impatience and his fierce attempts to exit the rock will be his down fall. He will sustain a severed limb while attempting to stand.
With the injury, we move into the second phrase, which will coincide with the afternoon and setting sun. Rokk Mann cannot stand any longer and as the sunsets so he does back to the rock from where he came.

Rough sketches of how the rock and seams will look.

A more refined sketch, but looks a little like fabric rather then rock.

Visualization of how the rock texture will look.

Time Lapse

So first of all I decided that I need to learn how to do time lapse photography. The concept is quite simpe - take a series of photos and then string them together to make a film. Well there is a lot involved as usual and I was quickly coming to the conclusion that I would need extra devices to control the camera.

I don't know if you've ever thought about this before, but when you're on top of a remote mountain there isn't many power outlets for camera's and computers and phones etc. I was thinking I would have to lug a generator up the mountain or buy a huge amount of batteries for phones and camera's and a laptop. I was thinking that I could control the camera with my smart phone using some sort of DSLR remote controller that would give me time lapse functionality - an intervalometer (interval-o-meter).

After doing some research I discovered that there are people out there that are as disappointed in canons DSLR software as much as I am. But they actually did something about it. It's called MAGIC LANTERN, and it's a life saver. It has built in intervalometer and HDR, and you can ever combine the 2 at once and have a HDR time lapse. But I'll get into HDR in another post.

I recommend it for all canon uses to have. It will open a whole new world of opportunity for canon DSLR photographers.

Favorite shot of the day.

So here is what magic lantern allowed me to do.....


A morning time lapse test run for a Uni project I'm working on. I plan to hike up a mountain and shoot the entire day in one go. I'm testing the settings on this shoot.
Filmed in Brisbane, Rochedale South on Baroona street, 22 June 2012.
Equipment - Canon 550D, EF-S 18-55mm, 1/200, f-4.5, ISO 100, Circular Polarizing lens, x-rite color checker.
Canon firmware enhanced with Magic Lantern.

Music: Window #3 by Two Bicycles (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Two_Bicycles/Beko_Crash_Symbols_1/07_Window_3)

University Assignment

So after so many years I have made it back to uni to finish off my degree. Yes, I have left it till the last moment. I started it back in 2002 and now it's 2012. There is a limit to finishing a degree and that limit is 10 years, so as you can see it's the 11th hour.

As always I have chosen the hardest thing to do. I have a keen interest in VFX shots and how they are assembled. So for this project I wanted to create some animation that fit nicely into live action footage using VFX. I've been studying techniques on how to do this for the last few years in my spare time, so we'll see how much I've learned.

The premise is composite a 3d character into a time lapse. Mountain tops make great settings for time lapse so all I needed now was a character. And Rokk Mann was born - an ambiguous figure that is formed out of rock and then after much struggle collapses back to the rock. The short film will go no longer then 30 seconds and will comprise of a time lapse from a mountain top of sunrise to sunset.

Office Mayhem

Office Golf

Advanced Body Mechanics

Here is the lastest of my assignments on advanced body mechanics...

Psychology of Body Mechanics - Class 2

My assignments from Animation Mentors class 2 - Psychology of Body Mechanics. Also, one assignment from the fist class. This is actually my submission for the student showcase of 2012. Fingers crossed I get at least one piece in there.

Psychology of Body Mechanics, Weeks 4-7

Weeks 4-7 was the same as the first 4 - Pick from a list of actions, plan your shot by using video reference and thumbnail drawings, block your shot, do several passes on it to have a polished, physically correct animation. It was loads of work but very rewarding to see the final piece...

PSYCHOLOGY OF BODY MECHANICS

So term 2 for animation mentor brings us body mechanics.They haven't touched on the psychology of it yet, but maybe they'll do it later on in the term.
Weeks 1-4 was all about choosing one little piece of animation and polishing the heck out of it. We started simple with a ball on legs. So we didn't forget all the ball principles learned from last term.

Week 1 was to pick an option from a list (I chose a roundhouse side kick), planning it out with thumb nailing and video reference.
Week 2 was about blocking it out in Maya. Like drawings on paper we had to pose out each key drawing, then go back over it and set up break downs. It's at this stage that anticipation, squash and stretch, and overlapping action has to be built into it. By far the most meaty amount of work is in this second stage.
Week 3 was all about moving inbetweens... commonly known as splining. I like to keep with the traditional terminology because the pencil and the computer is only a tool which could quite possibly be superseded before I retire. So splining could become redundant in animation whereas inbetweens will always be there. So emphasis was on favouring a key frame, whether the head lead the action, or the head followed the action.
Week 4 was split into 2 sections. Firstly we had to finish off any changes our mentor has suggested and then plan another shot by choosing an action from a list, shooting video reference and thumb nailing it.
So 4 weeks to do 100 frames of animation... pretty luxurious. But it's all about getting the basics right at the start.
So our mentor Ray Ross has asked us not to do anything extra with light, textures and props. So striped down to the basics this term.

AnimSchoolBlog: AnimSchool Webcast: Tom Bancroft, Part 1

AnimSchoolBlog: AnimSchool Webcast: Tom Bancroft, Part 1: Last Tuesday, AnimSchool hosted a live webcast with 2D Animator, Tom Bancroft. In Part One of this webcast, Tom reviews his over 25 years ...

I chucked this up so I can remember to watch it later.

Week 12 - Animation Mentor Basic Foundation Fall 2011 Show Reel

 

Week 10 & 11 - Basic Foundations - Introduction to Walks with character & Walk-through Spline Editing Part Two

Planning for exhausted

Planning for the balance pose