Project Evaluation

This project has been a huge help to myself. I've learnt a lot about managing my time, techniques and different skills required to make such a project like this. All of which can be used in the future.

I must say I'm incredibly happy with the final outcome, and I'm also very happy with the response from everyone I've shown! As I had intended it has caused quite a few laughs amongst the people I've shown it to. I believe I managed to animate the UFO quite well, especially considering I did not use Maya Live. As I had mentioned earlier on in the blog I wanted to animate it without using Maya Live since I believed Maya Live would've caused a lot of issues for me. I also like to animate things manually instead of something that is automatic and bound to cause issues for myself. I believe a fair few also did the same in this sense since it may have been a bit too hard to learn a new thing such as Maya Live in such a short amount of time.

I did however encounter a few issues on the way, most notably with the rendering side of things. For example, I had to render the film twice on Maya, which was quite a pain. The way I animated it required me to have the film in the background to keep the same focal distance. It took quite a lot of tries, and I realised rendering without the camera was not possible in the time I had. For some strange reason it was moving the model around to places I did not wish for it to be. In order to rectify this I rendered the film once with the plane as it was originally shown, and once again with the spaceship. In After Effects I had to mess around heavily with the cutting to ensure it was as I had originally envisioned.

If I had the chance to do this again in the future I would make the animation a bit smoother, since I had a few issues with the blocking out of the spaceship. But honestly it is nothing that I couldn't have done, I just didn't have enough time to work on the issues. Especially since I had the environment project along with this. Overall a fun project, and I'm extremely pleased with the final outcome!

A brilliant term I must admit!

After Effects progress!

It's taking much longer than I thought. But this is mainly due to the fact I have not really used After Effects that much before, so it's no wonder it's taking a while! It is good since I am learning a lot about After Effects, and the best way to go about things. In order to show what I'm doing, here's a sneak peak of the lasers in the film composed directly in After Effects!

An issue I had was making sure the spaceship was over the plane properly to hide it, but so far I believe this is going quite well. I look forward to showing everyone the finished product in the next few days!

Maya progress so far!

Here's the progress of the animation! So far I'm incredibly happy with what I've created. I have successfully (in my eyes) managed to pretty much line it up with the plane in the background, and for that I'm happy.

I only have a bit more to do with it, and I'll post it on here when I'm done!

Animation is now accomplished!

Wow that took much longer than I assumed it would. I'm really very happy with the final outcome, and I'm also glad I did not use Maya Live since I believe it may have caused a few issues along the way. I went with something I knew, and that's why I animated by hand since I felt it would be the most beneficial to me to do it like this. I hope everyone will also agree with me in when they see the final animation!

Sound? Sound!

I have been looking on Sound Dogs and I believe I have found some sounds which suits the feel of the movie. I have also ensured the sounds are somewhat 1950ish to fit in with the time the film was made (1959). I wish to go for sounds that are somewhat stereotypical and tacky, and I believe these fit that very well.

Engine sound

http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/2186/mp3/172093_SOUNDDOGS__sp.mp3

"Swoosh" sound

http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/58/mp3/549527_SOUNDDOGS__sw.mp3

Lasers

http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/2186/mp3/172021_SOUNDDOGS__gu.mp3

More lasers!

http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/50/mp3/567031_SOUNDDOGS__ra.mp3

Target shots!

Here are two target shots of how I want the piece to look!

Now to continue working on it...

Model is now accomplished!

Here is the finished model! I had quite a few ideas for it, however in the end I just went with something basic, and something that everyone would find suits a UFO well.

I chose not to texture it for several reasons, but it was mostly because I felt having a nice clean spaceship would probably look best. That and since it'll be going quite fast on the screen you would not be able to see any of the textures I was going to apply to it.

Modeling has begun!

I'll be getting the shots of the model up soon, but I have officially started modeling!

Maya Live?

After being taught how to use Maya Live, I truly wonder if I should actually use it for this project or not. It would make things easier in the long run, but I'm always up for a challenge. Since I wish to become an animator, and since the shots from the film are relatively static I think it could be worth "manually" animating the flying saucer.

Flying Saucer research

Since I'll be changing the plane into a flying saucer, it's best to do some research! I want to get a design that fits nicely into the world, so instead of the typical cartoon type flying saucer, I want something that looks "real".

Type of spaceship?

I still have not yet decided on the type of spaceship I'll be going for, however because I believe it'll fit into the environment I may end up making it a UFO since it'll fit the style quite nicely methinks.

North By Northwest Industry Exercises piece

For our Industry Exercises 2 project, we have to take a live action piece of footage and implement CG elements into the piece.

After much consideration I'm planning on doing North By Northwest.

I will of course be doing the famous "Crop Duster" sequence, or in laymen terms the scene with the plane.



Instead of the plane chasing the main character, I will instead be adding in a spaceship.

The piece in total should run for about a minute or so.

Schedule

I believe in using this it will truly help me progress further with this project, and give me a greater understanding of what is needing in the many industries out there. It is incredibly important to have practice now, especially since I will be creating one for my film in the third year!

Possible films!

Here are a few possible films that could work for the project! Hopefully I'll be able to narrow it down within a few days.

Dr. No



2001: A Space Odyssey



North By Northwest



Blade Runner



Star Wars

Project Brief

The purpose of this project is to build upon student's existing animation and compositing skills. The project will also help to plan and execute a project in a productive manner, thus enabling students to learn to manage their time within the time constraints of this current project and future projects. This project will also help to improve both animation and modeling skills so that students can show off their skills in an interesting an engaging way.