Troll = 0, Team Juan = 1

We now have a non-stomach-deforming Troll

WIN

Week 14: Compositing Crew

So it is all hands on deck for compositing our film! Luckily we have another week - which has definitely been needed as we're having a few issues with our renders - some of them have been coming out blank and some of them are failing in the render-farm which isn't cool.

We have about a quarter of our shots left to render - and the priority is to get these out asap. In the meantime Amit has also given us all a crash course in compositing in After Effects - as we felt this would be the most user friendly for us all considering the time we have left.

Amit feeling triumphant with the new 4K monitors

We're pretty much following the same set of instructions and modes etc so every scene is consistent. We also have a few extra effects to add in likes dusts and particles which Yannis will talk us through as this is something he's added into the credits - which is looking pretty damn awesome.

There's still lots to be done effects wise, but we're getting through these as quickly as possible.

Now to the not so good news... the troll has turned on us and he is deforming in Maya, we're not sure if its the reference of the model etc, but he's been deskinned and reweighted a number of times and he's still not liking us much.

In some cases it's ok, but in other's where is stomach is visible the deform is really obvious... it's working fine in playblasts, but when its rendered out the issue remains. Bimpe, Sushma and Natasha are doing a couple of tweaks to see what can be done animation-wise, but with the time constraints will will probably be something that we have to mask in post-production.

Woe is us.

The attempted art of Sabotage

It's safe to say that we've had a more than semi- successful week of rendering! Amit, Bimpe and Natasha have been setting up the passes - we're using Indirect, Diffuse and reflection - as well as a couple of custom ones - ID, ZDepth and AO.

All pass have been completed and have now been thrust gracefully into the render farm.

A couple has gone through earlier in the week, but Amit had spotted some issues with the outputs - some of the passes weren't showing what they should have shown, and them some weren't showing anything in After Effects, but were working fine in the glorious Photoshop. He's gone back into the render settings and saw a couple of things that may have caused the issues, so fingers crossed they should be fine now.

we are organised and ready to render!

 A few of the shots have been successful (huzzah), so Ritchie and Cristina have started the compositing process in After Effects and it's all looking pretty good so far. Cristina had worked on a new Matte painting that was similar to the IBL we had in place for renders and its really exciting to see it all fitting together!

A very happy compositing Cristina

We wanted to give ourselves as much flexibility (and detail) as possible when it came to compositing (hence all the passes) and due to time / experience, we want to keep our comps simple, but more importantly we want to make sure that everything still retains the same look and feel - especially as nearly all of us will be comping so we need to make sure everything is still unified.

With all the technical stuff rolling along, we're turning some of our attention to our credits. We want these to have as much thought and care as we've had with the film, we also want t have fun with it! We've been throwing around some ideas, and settled on a really good one from Yannis which will involve some 2D animation (his speciality). With that said.. no more spoilers

Oh and we also attempted to spread the good word of Team Juan with Team 2... but they were having none of it.

We can't be held accountable for our characters actions...

Week 13: We Reserve Our Right To Render

T-Minus 2 weeks...

Key things to do this week:

1. Completely finish and sign off all animation
2. Set All scenes to render
3. Start compositing completed renders

No biggie. We're gonna kick into Super Saiyan mode and start tying these things off! Amit has started working on a test composite scene to get a look at what we should be aiming to do.

We've run into a couple of tweaks of scenes which was to be expected, but nothing to major, if anything its been extra useful to make these changes to make sure the film makes sense and fits together.

One of the main points of discussion has been the 'hero' shot for the biggest goat - to try and get this to fit better Natasha has been tweaking the camera angles to establish the best shot, one that works well for the film, narration and the over all introduction of the character.

Loreal's finest #1

Loreal's fines t#2

Loreal's finest #3 

All in all it has been decided that the Loreal advert look wins every time, and so far #3 (the combination between #1 and #2) is winning.

In terms of music and sound, Yannis has done a great job of getting all this together, and all that's left is to do a final bit of production and our sound will be ready to be edited to the footage.

As we know that there's only a bit of time left, we're going to split the team slightly to do different things - hopefully by Monday all scenes will be completely rendered (and ok!!), once this has happened Amit, Bimpe and Ritchie will be compositing, with Sushma and Kaitlin ready to start editing all the scenes that come through. In the meantime Yannis, Natasha and Cristina will be working on our logo and credits design. They've got a strong background in this so the aim is to have that done in a day so they can jump on to compositing.

Playing and having a Blast

We are nearing final stages of this projects, and we're still finishing/tidying up animations, but its really important that we get a look at how all the shots look together!

We'v been working on the shots individually, and we're aware they everyone has slightly different styles/experiences so we''ve playblasted the shots (the ones that are finished atleast) to see how it all looks!!

Yannis has almost finished working on the music - its in the final editing stages, but Sushma has edited this all together for now.


Still lots of bits to work on, but so far we're all really happy with how this is turning out and the renders are looking good! Amit's planning on doing a test composite of one of the shots over the weekend to get a feel for what we'll need to do, and he'll feed this back to everyone so we can start work on it.

Sushma looking happy before the Troll turned on her...

It's all plodding along, but it will probably hit overdrive in the next few days are we whizz around (and sleep very little) in order to get everything finished! We know it's important to get as many hands as possible on compositing so we avoid it all ending up in Amit's lap!

Week 11: Render Me This

Soooo were are definitely nearing the stage where we can start rendering our first shot!!

We're churning out animated scenes like theres no tomorrow (a slight exhaggeration but one that definitely one that fits the context) and should hopefully be done by the end of the week.

Sushma has suggested everyone playblast their animated scenes so we can then stitch theme together and view them as a whole. This is definitely a great step to take as we need to make sure all our animation scenes are consistent and that our individual animating styles don't differ to much from the scenes that follow each other. We've already noticed a couple of instances of this with the troll so we've been working together to tweak these.

HAPPY FACES!

This will also be useful so timing - to see what shots we need to cut down and so the music and narration can be edited to it. Annnnddd this. Also works as a second animatic. Huzzah.

Bimpe and Natasha have pretty mych finished their scenes so Amit will now be talking them through the render set up process so he isn't left to tackle this alone once all the shots have been completed.

Also now that the scenes are coming together we've been re-reviewing the goats textures - as the troll now compliments the environment almost perfectly. We've   been tweaking the saturation so that the goats still pop, but don't look missed matched with their setting.

Feel free to stay tuned for the stitched together playblast when its ready!