Shutter Doors.....

"Shutter Door Test"


A quick test animation for shutter doors for the major project's location.
There will be a couple of these in the location.
Its has a NURBS slider to animate the up/down of the shutter to make it easier to animate.

Followed this tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygj3XlUVT-0

To make it better:
more door panels to make it seem more fluid,
a tighter coil at the back,
textured, fully modelled panels,

3D Visualisation Test....

"Laser Room of Doom"

Just a little animation of a sketch.

Thought it would be the area between delivery and production

rooms to kill germs and thingys.

I'm thinking nice glass, and a good way of making a sterilising field.

And I like my box.

For the final though, I think pure white for the conveyor,

maybe blue for the light field,

need runners/rail for the light box to run along, 

maybe circular spinning light field, 

figure out dirt for the glass.

An Up is Mocked.......

"It Becomes 3D"

Well, using AutoCAD wasn't working too well, not being able to export simple jpegs for reference views.

So decided to start by making a mockup of the locations in Maya which is giving me a much better understanding of the scale of the place.

Going for simple colours to keep with the few thumbnail sketches I've done.

Much further to go though, gotta;

find a way for tram to return to the start,

check somehow to see if the scale of the robots will actually work with the story,

and more stuff.....

First Shot Roughest Draft......

"The roughest of the rough"

At the moment I am visualising the story through the most sketchy of thumbnails.

Using them in Premiere to look at the timing and the flow of the story.

Trouble is it's hard to tell what is happening in each shot because my drawing isn't too great.

So I'm going over it in PS to brighten it up and make it nice and clear.

I'm thinking this is the best way to time out the piece because I have no idea how 

long a second really is while looking at the screen.

Shots be so varied.

And so while doing this, I'm thinking that there is room for a 

few more shots that will help with the flow of the story.

Is 10 seconds long for a shot?

I think I'm going to watch a chapter of a film and count the seconds for each shot.

Thant should give me a decent idea for timing i hope.

My Idea.......

Okay, so finally decided to post what my idea should be, still hoping it's good enough to fit the brief.

Concept:

Breaking free

Premise:

A semi-sentient production line robot strives for freedom from a decaying factory.

Hero: 

Factory production line robot

Character goal: 

To escape, be free, see the outside world

Motivation: 

Bored/tired of the monotonous existence, trapped as the last working robot, has no purpose anymore, lonely, 

Conflict: 

Vs. Environment - unable to move because stuck to floor

Locations: 

Factory Production line - old, falling apart, left on automatic for years, rusty, no human contact, dark colours - brown, black, rusty red, olive green, 

The outside - overgrown, wild, full of nature, remnants of civilisation, broken city in background?, brighter natural colours - greens, blues, grey floors, earth browns, 

Time period: 

future of the future, after autonomous semi-sentient robots are used, mankind  has gone; either from this area or completely, 

Target Audience:

Maybe from 12 upwards, some references for older audience

Going to have to wait for a title though, something that fits very well and that at least give an idea of what the story is vaguely about.

And....

One of the many plans for the locations. Trying to get everything I need in the place while keeping the free space for camera shots and keeping the design relative to the action, not designing the action around the location.

"One of many...."

So many ideas for how this is going to work.

This one is by no means final but I am liking the right side of the image

where the conveyors come from other room onto the track.

Also needs a airlock between robots and outside.

And..... grey makes the whole thing look dirty but at the beginning it will be spotless white.

More ideas coming soon...

AutoCAD....

Downloaded student version of AutoCAD for Mac last night.

http://students.autodesk.com/

A decision of good and badness...
Good:
Makes designing and planning the buildings and other models easier and more tidy
Not too hard to learn to use (if you can find the tutorials)

Bad:
Soooooo many buttons
Haven't found a decent tutorial yet
Still need to know what the buildings going to look like in the first place....

Update....

So today I have sent off my story idea to see if it seems ok, should hear back soon this week I hope.

I've also started on a shot list spreadsheet, I got shot number, shot description, notes, sound, transition, and frame numbers. I do believe spreadsheets make everything tidy.

Today I've gone from random note in Pages to written scraps of paper to Numbers.
Scraps are easy to rearrange, add to and visualise what exactly's going on.:) I like my ideas!

I've realised 2 minutes is 120 seconds and therefore 3,000 frames of goodness.
At the moment I have 19 shots at 6.3 seconds / 157 frames each. Of course each shot should be different times for pacing and whatnot.

Tomorrow will see a plan of the factory area and the finishing of the shot list, which may involve adding a shot or two for smoothness.

Looking forward to trying to give card building a go. I think a small model of the factory will help realise the possibilities and camera angles and everything else I've forgotten!!

Further Sketcharoos.....

"Outside The Factory'

Quick Sketch.......

I thought this blog looked a bit bland so decided to add a sketch of the idea thats been haunting my mind.

Not very detailed, I know, but I just had to get it out there. 

"My Idea begins"

Quick sketch in pensil. lined and coloured on iPad Sketchbook Pro.

This weekend will see the finalisation of the story, hopefully and the checking with tutors.

I have most of the idea thought out, beginning and end kinda, it's the middle that's causing ponderance.

Need to stop getting distracted.

Ooh, I have managed to find plenty of reference images for now, quite a bit of copyright stealing, but I guess it's ok for inspiring/reference. I think merge them all together according to time/location/emotion maybe.

Mood boards!! That's the word for it, starting to gather why their a good idea. 

Loving this idea....

This idea is coming along nice and well, reading the book while thinking of the story really helps.

It's actually more reading the book and ideas pop into my head as I go along. It's amazing.

I do hope the idea will come together nicely, because this is getting exciting.

As soon as I finish the book the story should come along with it, well the premise, then comes the starboards. Should be interesting.....

I may have chosen an idea......

Ok, I've been trying to think of more ideas but the one that keeps coming back to me is the robot wanting freedom.
Buuuut, if I'm going to do that it has to be special not just the old cliché of a robot.

Today I must complete the actual story and ask uni peeps to see if it's acceptable.

I think go through aLl the needs of a short story and write down how it will be shown in mine;
character, character goal, conflict, resolution, location, style