Evaluation

In this unit at the beginning we all had to come up with ideas for a story which our environment could be set in. After this we pitched our ideas and we could choose which ideas we liked and get into our groups. Mikes idea of an underwater encounter was interesting concept to me. So I decided to join his group. In the end there was 5 of us in the group. We each picked roles, I chose visual effects, I had done very little before but was interested to learn more.

We went out sketching to get ideas for the environment . We all did storyboards and picked the best from each followed by a group animatic. We communicated with each other by creating a Facebook Group to share ideas.

We started making props and the environment. We all worked hard doing this even if it was not our specific role, for example we had to build cliff edges, rocks, fish etc. When putting the environment together we had some issues with scale. This is not a problem with geometry but is more a problem with animated and rigged objects.

After creating and texturing the environment I could start putting my visual effects into it. I had some problems with scale importing the effects. In most cases they had to be re-made in the right scale for the environment.

We did not have long left before the deadline when it came to rendering. As a group we all chipped in and did parts of the rendering. I enjoyed the challenge of getting the work completed and working together as a group to ensure that it was all completed by the deadline.

One of the problems that we had was time management. We started off well and were ahead of schedule. We seemed to loose impetus in the middle of the project but all pulled together to get it completed on time.

I was ill for a while during the project which meant I lost track of what was going on and I did not communicate well enough with the group. I felt bad about this and have endeavoured to help and contribute more in the final stages of the project (for example the rendering) as well as my visual effects, which are not incorporated into the project until its latter stages.

It is the first time that I have worked in a group where we have had defined roles, rather than just completing a small section of a project and piecing it together. I really enjoyed doing this and I now understand how this works and my role in the group. I think that I was uncertain about this to start with, but now feel much more comfortable about it and by the end, this week, I am really enjoying the challenges.

I am really pleased with the project now it is completed. Obviously there are areas for improvement, but I am happy with what we have been able to achieve as a group. 

Final Video

Add in Sky

This scene that the group had already created, but after rendering it from Maya and putting it into Premier we realized the sky was alpha-ed and came out black. So I took the file into After Effects and added a blue background to the clouds that were already there to correct this problem.

Caustic wrong render

This render was really annoying, because of what is in the scene it takes a long time to render, and had been rendering for over 24 hours. I noticed that the pre-set caustics, not the caustics I created had rendered. I had to cancel this render and start all over again, with little time to spare.

Cave render problem

Here in the cave scene the particles are mucking up.

Render 1

Here are the rendered scenes that went wrong as the particles were mucking up. When the beams from the submarine light shone onto the sprite,the whole square showed.

My render farm!

On Monday when we went to uni we realized that we had a lot to render and the render farm was very busy. So we decided that the best thing to do was to render some, or all, of it ourselves. This would mean that we could keep an eye on it as it rendered. It also meant that if the sections rendered on the farm went wrong we had backup.

I took responsibility to render the majority, which was over 3000 frames over 48 hours. Some of these frames took a long time to render. 

I set up 4 machines for rendering, I was rendering the same scenes on multiple machines so that I could render them as quickly as possible.

Out of the 3000 frames that I rendered we only ended up using 730 of them. The reason was that the particles reacted strangely to the lighting. So we had to cut them and re-render these scenes. 

The last thing we had issues with was the the caustics did not come out using one of the computers. This was very irritating as it had been rendering this one scene for over 24 hours!

Images of the arch scene with coral and weeds in place

In these images you can see that the caustics are working and that I have added the paint effects and custom weed and anemones to the scene. This is now looking more like the final version of this scene.

Scene with particles and bubbles

Here is the scene showing the particles and the bubbles without coral, weeds etc. I am quite pleased with these effects. I am not 100% happy with the particles but I have spent hours trying to adjust them and this is now the best I can do.

Particle Test

The particles are quite hard I had quite a lot of problems with them. I had problem adjusting these particles they were either too big, too small or they would be too bright or even invisible.

Paint effects scene test

I was populating the environment with paint effects, seeing how they looked and where they should be placed. It gave me good practice using the CV curves. I found that these paint effect objects would not render out in mental ray. I need to sort this out.

Submarine Model 2

This is the final model of the submarine. It is not very high detail as the scene is low light and a low poly count will reduce render time.

I had a problem building the submarine, as the mesh kept breaking, although it was a simple object. This meant it took longer to make and more attempts than I initially thought.

Custom anemonies

I did not want to use paint effects for all my coral . I wanted to experiment using customized movement. I tried applying a turbulence field to it but I could not make the object work. I then went for a simpler approach using a bend modifier and experimented with expressions which I have never used before but found very useful as it is very adjustable. Initially the coral bent far to fast and I had to experiment with the expressions to get the right speed.

Test Scene

I was testing out and experimenting with paint effects and how you can customize them for example turbulence, shape, how many fronds there are the height and thickness.
In this scene there are two different types of bubbles that I was trying out. Behind are the paint effect bubbles and in the foreground are the custom bubbles. These look much realistic and can be altered if necessary.

Inspiration

This is a picture that I liked, I was watching the frozen planet and this was a screen shot from it. I like the light, depth  and the darkness under the ice.

My test environments

Here is a cliff edge I made I wanted to test a drop off.  

Here is another test scene I made. I created a terrain using sculpt  geometry tool and applied a tubulance field to the particles I created on the plane to give it a random bumpy surface.
I was using the Maya underwater preset and adjusting it to get the underwater atmosphere.
As you can see a caustic pattern on the bottom has been created, you can see it looks generic is too geometric, without randomness and it animates too quickly.

Here is another bit of terrain created in the same way as before.
I tried applying textures to it.
Below you can see a caustic pattern I created to use instead of the preset.
With my version it is more random, less generic, can be scaled and speed adjusted.

Models I have made for our environmentThis is an anemonie

This is an anemone that I modeled. I am going to try and animate it so that it moves and bends.

Here is a fish I modeled it is based on a marine angel fish. 

This is a low poly rock to put in the distance.
Below are some more higher poly rocks and a column, for the foreground. 

This is a pillar that could be used in the cave.

Here is a submarine I have been working on it is not quite finished yet. The geometry is not mirrored yet and I am having problems with it. I may have to start again with this.

Here is some type of wan weed. I want to apply some type of physics to it so that it bends.

Research and Inspiration

I like these pictures of the undersea environment it shows the rocks, corals and particles.

It gives me ideas of the light, draw distance and coral colours. 

I like the picture of this underwater city. I like the light effects and glow underwater. 

This is where flood water goes in Japan, but I like the feel it has for a cave scene, it has vast proportions and I think it has good atmosphere.

Hard Hat Diving

These are photographs of hard hat diving. I thought it may be possible to have something like this is a scene. The design of the helmets, with the rivets is like the construction of the submarine.

Character Ideas

Each member of the group produced ideas for the characters in our project. 

This is my idea of a marine biologist, he is well built and I tried to give him a hair cut a bit like a fish to make him more interesting.

I do not really like my character of the son, I find him rather boring. My idea was to make him a bit scrawny and weedy. I do not think I have given him a strong enough identity. 

Group trip to the Aquarium

As a group we went to the London Aquarium. We wanted to get a first hand look at the rocks, fish and corals for our project.