Liftamundo....

"An orange fork-lift"

So far what I've done today, Not enough but I'm liking my wheels.

So many little details I can fit in but not sure if their necessary enough.

Worried now that my human characters won't fit in the seat.

This takes effort.....

So it seems to be hard to care about keeping this blog up to date....

Stage 1 presentation been and gone. All good.

My story has been more or less finalised now so that's a good thing I guess.

Everything is now focused on the seed, showing its oppression and its need to break free and grow.

The story being told from the point of a CCTV camera is liked but thinking it should be destroyed somehow with the rest of the building leading to a floating camera for the last few shots of greenery.

Feedback says people like nuclear holocaust instead of asteroids as its more man versus nature. Asteroids seem to be giant natures in your face.

Also from feedback it seem as though I do have characters in my story in the form of the location, the camera and the seed itself.

So now I have lots and lots and lots of modelling and texturing to do, Mostly fun but can get tedious. Got a cardboard box and a shipping container done though.

"Le Box of Card"

I'm liking my cardboard boxes, making them taught me how to make double sided shaders, gave me a chance to make some specular maps to make the Sellotape shine.

"Help... my cargo's getting old!"

This was fun making and fun finishing 'cause it means I've actually done some work.

Made one to begin with, then copied the file, and modified the geometry and texture file.

From this I've learnt the good use of UV space fitting the whole container into one 2k file.

I think it turned out quite well, might have to add a bigger bump map to the stage 3 (destroyed) level container but then again, it will only be in the background of a few shots.

Just the overgrown version to make and that's the first prop stages finished.

"Stage 1 Model Reel"

The amount I've done so far in my modelling,

not enough really, 

I have almost finished making the fork-lift though.

Must do it non-stop over the next few weeks!!

And now for my Leica Reel!!!

Its makes sense almost, needs more seed action at the beginning, zooming in of the crates and stuff, camera focusing and following individual seeds from the offset.

I like it and I also liked making it, using Photoshop like it was MS Paint!!!

"Final Leica Reel"

It's amazing.. I know!!

From just looking at this again I think i'll go ahead and build up the interface 

for the camera in nuke right now!!!

Should be fun making the assets in Photoshop and bringing them into a big Nuke Node Tree.

Seed sprites.... of doom.....

"Seeds from Heaven"

To day involved trying to finish off the story idea...

Going alright but tis hard work,

Can't decide between flying camera of using the factory's security cameras to tell the tale;

Ooooh! Like bits in ODST!

This above is my seed dispenser that will get burned to a crisp.

Using Particle dynamics with a seed shaped sprite.

Only 15000 particles/sec....

My first bit of useful Maya Expressions:

particleShape2.spriteTwistPP = rand (540);

particleShape2.spriteTwist = noise(time)*800;

particleShape2.spriteScaleXPP = rand(0.01,0.05);

particleShape2.spriteScaleYPP = rand(0.01,0.05);

Making sprites change shape is complex.

Might look a bit like leaves at the moment but will have

to use actual seed textures in the end.

Useful info:

To get rid of square shadows for transparency maps:

Open the raytrace options for the material and set "shadow attenuation to zero....

GeoConnector > Resilience:

Bouncyness of interaction between particles and geometry. 

Useful site for Maya expressions:

http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/info/maya/manual/UserGuide/Express/ExpressFunc.fm9.html

For sooth, another tale hath arrived.....

"A Toyota L&F Fork Lift Truck"

Will be nice and rusty soon enough.

Troubles so far are finding lots of different photos of it,

Iv'e gone for a slightly older model and taking references for the newer version.

Should at least accidentally make it my own design.

So to finish the model, make it slightly futuristic-y and carry on to the next model....