This has been quite a slow week,  I've thought about possibilities for my major project countless times and I'm always in a different place by the end of the day. I've now weighed things up and think I have a proposal which will allow me to achieve what I want to in the coming weeks.

My proposal is to portray an alternative history in which Britain wins the space-race, propelling the 'British Empire' to claim the moon. As I stated in my initial post, I wanted to create something largely historical but still wanted the  aspect of creativity and being able to imagine something. Researching alternate histories throughout fiction and reading of the possibilities, it seemed a good angle to take a short animation. The main idea of the 'Ministry of Space' is derived from a small three-issue comic series by Warren Ellis, a well-known comic book writer, author of 'Red' and 'Transmetropolitan'. This comic was a brief look at a world where Britain stealthily captured the German scientists, famed for creating the 'V2' rocket during the occupation of Europe, thus preventing America and Russia from constructing their space programmes. This paved way for the 'Ministry of Space', known as the pioneers in space flight, sanctioned by Winston Churchill.



As for my project, I would like to use the themes of the time period featured in Ellis' writing, but it would not be a straight transcription , rather an imagining of the same history. As it originates as a comic, it tends to be quite 'pulp-fiction' and action-orientated. I would rather portray a more realistic and technical world, mixing fact and fantasy.

As of now, I have a rough plan of three acts, bearing in mind that my emphasis this project will be a refined piece focusing on compositing. These are:

- Act One: An explanation of the past, revealing to the viewer the events which differ from history and the effect they had on the period after. In this case, the introduction will explain, with the use of 3D shots, the British claiming the German research and preventing the USA and Russia from a quick technological advancement.

-Act Two: How the technology was used, here I'd expect a small montage of construction and blueprints, most likely in After Effects will some help from Maya. This part will introduce 'The Ministry of Space' and show the unique British take on space-flight.

-Act Three: The dramatic result of the alternate history, preferably this will be the British space rocket launching or perhaps a glance at it constructed and almost ready for launch. This could feature it reaching the moon or perhaps end with the flag planted.

This is quite rough as of now, as with anyone's idea, it makes sense in a cinematic way in my head, but to others, im sure it seems quite jumbled. It needs a good storyboard stage for refinement and I'm sure a tutorial will do this idea some good early next week.

The final act of the course is here and the Major project has began, another 15-week project with a self-initiated open brief, with huge importance. I haven't given my major project much thought over the last couple of months with my focus being on completing my minor project and that lengthy dissertation, however over the last week I have been trying to pinpoint what exactly I want to focus on. My initial thought is to focus on compositing and rendering a 3D short environment, with the focus being on how to present it, using not only Maya but also After Effects and some match-moving. Since the end of the minor project, I've been delving deeper into After Effects and Auto-desk Match Mover along with experimenting with 'Mocha' a plugin for AE which allows a different method of tracking. This is something I'd like to include in this current project, not necessarily as the lead method, but definitely something to consider.

My first reaction to the project is to create an another environment piece, similar to the last project, using the environment as a character itself, with it's own movements and features as animation (e.g Cloth, dust, lighting effects) but for a different purpose. As this is my final CG Arts project I want the topic to be something I enjoy and have interest in, which should also benefit the morale through the next weeks (As if working towards graduation isnt enough...)

I want to work on a historical piece, of which I'm not yet certain. The brief I want to create for myself is to artistically envision a past place, building or area based on historical accounts and art and link it to the modern day. I've been worried that this might seem a bit convoluted, hard to follow, but the target audience of the brief should be a good point to work to, knowing what sort of audience I am aiming the animation at. I think this idea would give me a good range of pipeline - from the research, to the style and concept through to quite a technical production stage and  in-depth post-production.

The closest examples of what I imagine are below. Firstly, something everyone is familiar with, the technical, education-based animated features which tend to be included in every history documentary and TV feature. These tend to focus on perceiving the locations in a very engineered and stream-lined way, giving the viewer a overview of how a place was built or how a battle was fought. An example is the one below, used for a History Channel documentary on Osama Bin Laden

The deadline for the Minor Project is fast approaching. Richard and I have been working on final shots over the past week and getting everything rendered and up to standard for Friday. We still have some shots to finalise and render, but the bulk of the animation is rendered and almost composited with some more effects to add such as blowing sand to add some depth and realism. Below are some of the final renders along with some shots from After Effects. The rest of the week will be quite hectic but Rich has been working on a refined Making Of document which should compliment our animation well. Hopefully we'll have time to do some quality control and assure that each shot has the effect we intended.





For all shots we are using a Beauty, Ambient Occlusion and a Depth Layer. Most shots have the Beauty all in a single layer, however more complicated shots such as the Opening long shot of the town have about 4 or 5 separate rendered layers, allowing a lot more control in AE as well as being easier to manage in Maya. We also have the background Cliff and Sky on a base-layer.

Beauty Layer

AO Layer

Depth Layer

We're getting closer to rendering stage now, with most of our buildings and props completed. We still have some construction left to do as well as some lighting and texture tweaking. Below are some more final shots of a few areas, still with changes and improvements to be made. Rich and I will now be working on merging areas together and setting up final camera movements.

Some alley shots are below, the street will soon be placed along with more refined terrain textures.









Nighttime Lighting Tests

A New Year has started and a deadline approaches, the next few weeks will be challenging to say the least, but with some determination and good time-management, I'm hoping we'll achieve what we wanted to with our Green Octopus project. Over the last week I have been working on the 'Alley' setting, the tight, cluttered market area of our environment. The opening street scene is getting closer to completion, but the overshadowing us at the moment is the Courtyard area, which although we'l be using a lot of the assets we've already created, hasn't been produced yet. Considering this area was our most ambitious, we knew we'd be using a bit of trickery to present it, mainly with it being a night, lit by a series of small lanterns and candles. Hopefully this will still be achievable. 

Over the last week, Rich and I have been working on a final scene of the street, each taking a side to build using the props and buildings previously modelled. It is taking it's time to get to the quality we're aiming for but it should pay off in the end, and some hard work over Christmas we should be able to achieve what we set out to do. Once the street is completed, we'll pull together to build the alleyway, which will be much more compact and manageable, then onto the courtyard, which  considering the way we want to portray it, should once again be much easier to construct. We'll also be re-using as much of the props and buildings as possible without it becoming too noticeable.

Below are a few shots of the right-hand side of the street, which I've been constructing. Alan has also helpfully given us some tips over the last week in regards to lighting, which has made things much clearer (Though the shots below aren't using the photographic camera that we've been experimenting with)

The clothes/sheets will be blowing in the wind, In a separate scene where they were modelled, I set-up some Ncloth using transform constraints on the rope-lines, which created a nice result. Calculating this in the final scene might be a bit of a slog, but I'm sure it'll add much more movement and realism in the animation.

The lanterns have a simple colour on them for now, they'll be much more detailed when textured.