Caged progress report

Things are moving at a good pace, although I have only finished the first half of the film, I only have one more environment to create with the rest being lighting so I am very close to finishing.

Alongside a screenshot, I've also posted what it looks like whilst working in maya. Enjoy.



Enzo is captured and dragged back by his feet



A special guest

Here's another screenshot of the film, this time featuring a special guest from my past work.

Can you SEE it?

Any guesses?

got any more boxes?

Here's another final render from Caged, quite proud of this shot, the shadows really enhance this scene:

Enzo lands beside Bird as their journey begins...

Enzo explores the crystal caves

Another preview of what Caged will look like with this render of the crystal caves.

shiny eyes....

Here, Enzo has followed Bird to keep him safe from the vicious Overlords.

This screenshot is different in the actual film, which is using a different camera angle.

Building the World of Caged

Now in the process of building the environments and lighting ready for the final rendering.
Here's some test renders of what the film will look like in the end. Some of the metal textures like the minecart's a missing however:



intro scene



Enzo meets bird for the first time

Caged poster

In preparation for the student show, I've designed the following poster:

This is a design that I've drawn in my sketchbook when I first began the project and before I began blogging so its great to be able to create it in its final form.

The poster also features the logo for the film which I spent today working on since I was taking a break from maya.

Caged update

its been a while since my last update and have been wanting to update the blog during that time but with deadlines getting close I found myself neck deep in work, work that is beginning to pay off now that I am getting closer to completion. 

Caged is now in a complete animated form, albeit being mostly rough playblasts and blocked out environments. With constant reminders of the deadlines and concerns from others on whether or not I could complete it were quite heavy as I had to make sure I proved everyone wrong and hit that challenge. However, I definately believe I can hit that bar that I've set myself over the past year or two, completing Caged is much more to me that just "a 3rd year film".




A still from Caged in its current rough/ early state.


2 university deadlines passed today and it definately feels relaxing even though I have less than a month for the next pair of deadlines. It isn't going to be easy but the support and feedback I have been getting is awesome motivation.

One of the deadlines was for the credits of Caged which is fully rendered and in the final state and it's something I am proud of, being able to fully realise my vision and not having bland credits. I have always wanted to experiment with credits in my past films but was either stopped by time constraints or just the inability to get exactly what I want from my mind to paper. But, the credits system is definately how I imagined it should look like and its definately a goal for me to hit for my final film; to make sure it stands up to that quality.

A Still of the credits for Caged

Anyways, after 21 solid days (and by that I mean 2-3 hour sleeping) I have the animation complete (there are a few tweaks to make however). I can now focus on making it pleasing to the eye by creating the environments, lighting each scene and rendering it out in Mental Ray.

I should have my credits uploaded by next week (out of upload space for this week on vimeo).

The student show is also fast approaching early June, so its time to start thinking about that too. I have ideas in mind such as a design for the film poster and preparations being made for a life size cut out of Enzo and Bird too.

wow, wall of text for todays blog post. Will resume my weekly-daily blogs again with screens now that a lot of the stress is clearing.