Catch Up Time

Ok so things have gotten really busy round here, I now have a team working for me and its taken some time to get everone organised so they have all they need to do what I need. Its going to be great having some extra help, although at has been a bit of a slow start and not as much has been done as I would of liked. I undersatand they have had there own work to do but I just hope things will get better as time is running out. Ok so trying to think what I have been doing since my last post. Well I have added some materials t the set that I built, its nothing fancy just a few bumps and specs just to hopefully get it to react to the lighting the way it should. I havent really been able to completley test it against the lights but I have one shot that kinda shows a comparison.

No Material
With Material

This is a shot that emma lit and I really like it, she has captured that dark eeriness that I wanted and i think will be really helpfull when seeting up the base light for my shots. I have also moved onto animation which has been really great to get started on that, things seem to be going smoothly in that area haven had any problems wit my rigs which is great, did have to tweak my ncloth slightly but that suprisingly hasnt given me much problems yet. So one problem I do have when it comes to animating is spending way too much time on a shot I have the habit to keep tweaking things to try get it perfect and then someone will mention something thats probably really minute and Ill then spend ages trying to fix it. So my aim for easter is to not do that. I have moved on to another shot which I really didnt spend much time on so hopefully I can keep that up. It will be quite nic to have this easter break as I will be able to spend all my time animating with no distractions (hopefully) which will help me get things done sooner. Again I am a little worried about my helpers, they said they are fine to work over easter but I just hope they will be able to get the shots that I gave them done before we get back. They have begun animating whihc is great but I havent seen a completed shot yet whihc is a bit of a worry. Well heres my animation.

Another thing i have been trying to complete is the texturing of my characters. I have been working on rolley and he is pretty much done now. I am happy with how he is looking but I kinda feel I could get him looking better but i dont really have too much time to spend. I did use mudbox on his face just to break up the spec but Im starting to thing that it may be quicker and easier just to do bumps from now on. I dont really want much detail so mudbox might not be the best route for me. I am really happy with how his skin came out, used mental reays skin shader for this and its really made such a difference, its taken away thet plastic look that you can sometimes get with cgi characters and Im really happy with it. I am also happy with the eyes and how they have turned out. I spend quite a bit of time trying to get them right as they say the eyes are the most important thing and that where everyone looks. I decided to create a fake specular high light which I can control as i found thet there was before when using a blin to achieve it there was alot of glare and unwanted reflection. And now I have done one I can use the same eyes on the rest of the chracters and just change the colour.

ok well I need to get back to work I want to try get all my charcters textures done so that is out of the way and I can soley concentrate on the animation. Peace out :)