process of the ringmaster 1: eyes

As promised, here's the first of a series of behind the scene posts for the FLIP sting entry we made at Sector5 Studios. I will also use these to compare my skills with the skills i had when making Caged so expect a lot of comparisons.

For this post, I'll focus on the eye as there's a huge leap from Caged. For Caged, the eyes were shaded through basic material colours. For the Ringmaster, I decided to UV map and texture the eyes following the philosophy that the eyes are the first thing the viewer will look at in a character; so it was important for me to kick the bar higher that I set for myself with Caged by putting in effort in to the eyes.


Render comparisons of how they would look in their final state

The results were noticeable straight away but there is still a massive room for improvement as I was treating the Ringmaster as a test subject for texturing the eyes. For example, the iris can be improved a lot in its texture.


the ringmasters eye was originally going to be plain colours which I've labelled Caged style


The next big change is in the blend shapes. In Caged I created blend shapes for the pupil to increase and decrease in size but it still didn't look right. The reason for this was that the iris never changed in size. For the Ring Master I made sure to do this which meant extra blend shapes were needed for the iris, eyeball, and the cornea.



The difference is subtle but pays off in close shots as well as adding to the characters personality. In this case it exaggerates the ringmasters crazy personality with the blood shot eyes.

 Whilst there's a big improvement in the eyes in comparison to the eyes i made for the characters in Caged, there's still a huge room for improvement. Perhaps in the near future, I will have another comparison between a new project and the ringmaster.

You can catch both the FLIP Sting and Caged at this years FLIP festival later this month. For more details visit: http://www.flipfestival.co.uk/

Caged completed

It feels really weird but Caged is finally complete totalling at 4 minutes 50 seconds (including credits).

Really excited about showing it this Tuesday for the last presentation in my course (*sniff* If only the course was another year or two longer).

With the completion of the film ,my focus will now be aimed at it's promotion for the student show. With a poster concept ready to be printed, I can start designing the space I will get for the student show (hopefully with a life size cut out too)

Here's another screenshot of the film:



Enzo isn't happy despite his surroundings...



Caged Trailer now online!

With my film almost complete, I have uploaded the first trailer for Caged:



I will be re-editing and spending more time on the trailer once my film is finished, for now I quickly put this together to promote my presentation on May 10th. Can't wait!

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