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.