Completed!

The composited film is now completed!

Final editing, title animation, credits, DVD menu and cover is all done in the past few days. This work load was separated up to make it more efficient, at the very end, we put them all in premiere before the final rendering.

Before final rendering, we decided to ask our supervisor and lecturers for some comments. With some useful comments, we decided to cut down the film from 6 min (approx) to 3 mins (approx)and also added some extra bits inbetween to make the movie flow better and easier to understand.

After editing some parts, we all watched the film and all approved to render out as a final film and burnt it on to DVD.

Asset folder is all now together inside a folder, DVD will be burnt shortly, separated to the film as the files are too big.

Completed film and assets files DVDs will be all handed in first thing on Monday

-Mary

Post Production and Final Editing

In the last 3 weeks, all animation and editing is completed. Gremlins are all animated, shadowed by adding lighting and planes (which is set as background texture) in Maya.

Throughout animating, some problems were involved. We went back to the library to record some more footage and also filmed outside of the library for us to use for the beginning of our film.

Each member has now rendered out their own work in After Effect. All Maya files were rendered as .iff files then import to after effect for more post-production. To make gremlin and the props look like they are part of the footage, we use tools such as masking and effects such as blue, grain and brightness to adjust.

Each member produced their own individual scenes, and also worked together on scenes when more than one gremlin was shown. Once composition was complete for each scene, it is all rendered out with the original footage in high quality QuickTime format (.mov).

Sound is also recorded in Garageband; this includes sound effects and gremlin voices, which were rendered as mp3. (We all record our own sound for our gremlin)
Soundtrack has also been made in garage band.

Because Harn is took less part in animation, she has been organising the footage together in Premier pro, putting the footage in the layout of the animatic, staying true to the original idea. Sound is also being worked on and is currently being added into the film.

The final editing will be completed as a group, this will involve organising titles, adding credits, DVD menu and cover and making sure the film flows before rendering out it as final film-This will be discuss and worked on tomorrow. After final product is produced, very shortly we will organise an audience testing to get feedback.

-Mary

Post Presentation and production

The Presentation passed by and it went well, we presented our 3D models and in the last few weeks have been completing animating.

The edited library footage has been imported into maya and projected through a camera so we can animate our gremlins against a background. Each team member has animated their own section of the film using scenes, and we will be putting all individual bits together at the end. In parts of the film where a group of gremlins are shown we will be doing shared animation - sharing the maya file and adding each gremlin in individually.

What is greatly important is shadows and lighting, which is what we are currently working on in our scenes now that animating is pretty much sorted. Use of the two will help to make the gremlins look more real and also like they are part of the 2D footage, which is very important!! We have been looking into methods of adding shadows in through maya and also through after effects, to see which will give us the best results.

We are also looking into a soundtrack and thinking about what kinds of sound we will be using :)

-Harn

As the deadline has passed for the final models to be completed I thought it was about time I uploaded my rigged gremlin.

Progress is going well within the group. I believe that all gremlins are rigged and are in the progress of being animated ready to show in the presentation. Have gone over today what needs to be covered in the presentation and are going to spend the day tomorrow to go over the presentation ready for Thursday.

- Chérie

Filming Done!

As expected filming was completed by tuesday 5th, footage is now captured and in the process of editing. To reduce the time of editing, each group member has an indivdual part to edit, at the footage where their gremlin will take action in.

Last gremlin is in the progress of rigging, once completed, the three gremlins is totally complete and ready to animated. As we do realise we are a little bit behind with our schedule, we will be starting animating shortly, and hopefully will have one individual scene completed by next week.

Here's some print screens of my gremlin and some other bits...







-Mary

This weeks progress

On monday we went back to the library to finish up filming. In this session we filmed all of the areas that we will be animating our gremlins into, for example, bookshelves, desks and trolley's. Overall we were filming for an hour or two and we managed to get all of the footage down. We then extracted the footage on wednesday, separated each team members bit from all the footage and we are all editing our own section of the film. This will allow us all to have a go at the editing job, and also set the scene up for personal preference by each team member.

However we are unhappy with some of the footage, and so are going to re-film some parts on tuesday 5th to correct this. We intended to have our footage edited by friday, but because of this set back we are unable to get this completed until next week.

However our gremlins are close to completion and it is important that we finish up the editing so we can get into animating.

- Harn

Scheduling!!!

This is our project plan, which was drawn up at the beginning of the project.

Unfortunately with a very busy christmas holiday all group members are slightly behind on the completion of their gremlin. This has therefore put us behind. We are now ensuring all modeling, texturing and rigging is completed by 1st February. This will allow us to start animating on the footage which is also to be edited by the 1st February. Once these two pieces are complete, animating can commence. Therefore we must ensure that we stick to or stay as close as we can at least to the times we have organised.

We are now having weekly meetings to check each others progress and to re-address our schedule and plan, to ensure that we are keeping ahead of what is required for this project.

Other dates include:
Beginning of Post Production on 11th Feb
Final touches on 3rd March
Begin render on 10th Feb (1 week ahead of schedule to do test renders)
Complete project on the 4th April


- Harn