Work in Progress

Some work from the past few days. Obviously it's very rough and still needs a lot of work but it's nice to see progression :)

ps see my Playblast Codecs post to see more work

Playblast Codecs

I've never really been taught anything about codecs to I thought i'd post up the results of a quick test that I did this morning. All test were conducted with the same PC on the same playblast settings, see below for details

MS-CRAM codec

The MS-CRAM only takes a few seconds to playblast, even at HD (1400x788) resolution. As you can see the quality is pretty good and this 3 second clip uses 47.0MB. I would highly recommend using this Codec because of the (relative) high quality, quick render time, and small file size.

IYUV codec

This codec produces similar quality results as the MS-CRAM codec. However the time it takes to render out is a lot longer than MS-CRAM. However, it is worth noting that this is only really noticeable at higher resolutions, when I did a quick test at a lower resolution the time taken by IYUV and MS-CRAM were much the same. The main problem with IYUV is that the file size is a lot lager (127MB), 2.6 times larger than the CRAM file. I would recommend this codec but only for low resolution playblasts.

MS-RLE Codec

This codec has the worst quality of all three that I tested and although it renders quickly, it is no faster than MS-CRAM. The main benefit to MS-RLE is the tiny file size, just 1.28MB, but this does come at a heavy price and the poor quality causes the video to be almost useless as it is difficult to see what is going on in the scene. I would only recommend this Codec if disk space is a serious issue, otherwise it is best left alone.

I did attempt to use the MS-YUV codec and the Toshiba YUV411 codec but both caused the following error message in maya:

"// Error: Unable to create video track. Check format. //"

I hope this has been helpful

Project Diary - #3

Progress Report

Production progress

· Production pack is distributed, updates to follow. System in place to deal with these changes.

· All environment assets are locked, they will not be modified unless:

o They pose a serious detrimental problem to animation production

o Animation is completed and there is time to re-address problem areas

· Character Rigs are set up with basic controls. More controls will be added as required but rigs are acceptable at present.

· Props are undergoing testing, basic rigs are in place but it is necessary to test them in production to see that they are performing as desired (ie automated wheel turning is working)

Academic Progress

· Questionnaire research ongoing - timeline to be discussed with Robin

· Concern over professional practice role – how best to record my contributions to the showcase (currently they are not tangible)

Agreed action points

• Layouts and depth boards for predicitions of problems area's in 3D to be completed for next meeting (03/03/11)
• Practical work (animation) to continue
• Introduction and Literature review for dissertation to be started (by addressing comments and feedback)
• Arranging participants for the experiment stage of the project (showing the animation and using questionnaires to measure presence)

Questionnaire Research

Notes on Questionnares

Witmer and singer

Contains questions that might be confusing/ not entirely related to the subject. Eg: “Do you ever avoid carnival or fairground rides because they are too scary?”; “How physically fit do you feel today?”

However some questions do seem to be asking the right things especially to establish how immersed people get in everyday scenarios, a selection of possible questions for use in questionnaire follows:

1. Do you easily become deeply involved in movies or TV dramas?

a. Not sure about the use of “deeply”, seems a little ambiguous.

b. Could be rephrased as: “ Do you easily become involved in movies of tv dramas”

2. Do you ever become so involved in a television program or book that people have problems getting your attention?

a. Could be rephrased to: “Do you ever become so involved in a television program or film that people have problems getting your attention?”

3. How frequently do you find yourself closely indetifing with the character in a storyline?

These sorts of questions could be used as part of a screening process to identify people most likely to feel presence or immersion in the film.

IPQ

This mainly focuses on VR questions but they may be adaptable to the questionnaire about film. All use a 1-5 scale (agree/disagree etc)

Particular examples that could be used:

1. In the computer world I had a sense of “being there”

a. Could be adapted to: “how much did you feel that you were “in” the film.”

2. Somehow I felt that the virtual world surrounded me.

a. Could be adapted to: “I felt that the film surrounded me”

3. I felt like I was just perceiving pictures.

a. GOOD QUESTION FOR QUESTIONNAIRE!!

b. Needs little adaption because this is what the study is trying to measure.

c. Adapted to: “I felt like I was just perceiving pictures while I was watching the film?”

4. I was not aware of my real environment

a. Could be adapted to: “when watching the film how aware where you of your real environment i.e. the room you were sitting in?”

Helen Petrie immersion questionnaire

This was developed for games but some questions could be adapted for use in the questionnaire

1. To what extent did the game hold your attention

a. Could be rephrased to “to what extent did the FILM hold your attention?”

2. To what extent did you lose track of time?

a. This may be useful to establish how immersed people are in each version of the film

3. To what extent were you aware of yourself in your surroundings?

a. This is similar to 4. In the ITQ section, although this version of the question is in plainer English and may be easier to understand.

4. To what extent did you feel that the game was something you were experiencing, rather than just something you were just doing?

a. Could be rephrased to: “to what extent did you feel that the film was something you were experiencing, rather than just watching”

b. Again perhaps similar to previous questions but also benefits from being in plain English.

5. At any point did you find yourself becoming so involved that you were unaware you were even using controls?

a. Could be rephrased to; “At any point did you find yourself becoming so involved in the film that you were unaware you were even watching moving pictures?”

b. Perhaps better phrasing is needed “...watching a film?”, or “...watching an animation?” may be better/clearer.

6. At any point did you find yourself become so involved that you wanted to speak to the game directly?

a. Could be rephrased to: “at any point did you find yourself become so involved in the film that you wanted to help the character(s) directly?”

b. This assumes that people are able to get involved in the story in powerful way. May not be able to generate this kind of response in such a short animation.

It is unclear if these questions are lifted from another source or are the authors own work.

Production Pack

Met with my animators Soňa Geracsek, and Iain McCallum today to give them the production pack they'll need with all the models, rigs and textures.

Exciting times ahead... :)

Progress Report

Here's a quick update of how i've been getting on this week:

Alfi Model (courtesy of Andy Rennie) needs blendshape and skinned but i'm doing that today

All but a few minor environment assets are in place

All key props are modelled and textured, some of these need to be rigged.

Mum model is done (again from Andy Rennie)the rig is started but needs some alterations

the jist of all this is i'm about a week behind with my project plan (it's been a difficult week personally) but i feel that sometime during next week i can begin getting the animation started, to start fixing a few timing problems. i think that the main thing is to get a bit of animation done and just cut my losses with a few details that would have been nice to have in (ie more clutter to add to the world).

Animex Festival 2011

Pictures from Animex Festival 2011

Dundee Railway Station going to Middlesbrough

Teeside University Building

Animex Festival Registration

Me and Ed Hooks after the Workshop

This was a fantastic experience and I would recommend anyone to go see Ed, the author of Acting For Animators, if they get the chance.

Old news

These are some notes from a meeting i had with John Harrison a couple of weeks ago. i should have typed these up at the time but forgot, so they're kind of old news.

John suggested that I needed to exaggerate the unevenness of the houses and shops, including leaning the shops in towards the road.

I also need to make the pavement uneven too as it looks out of place in the rest of the environment.

John also pointed out that i needed more "clutter" in the environment, it looks too clinical at the moment. This is a difficult area because I don't want to spend too much time on minor details that are not essential. However, not having these kind of objects like guttering, wires, aerials, etc could be damaging to the overall quality of the animation. John also suggested that I have some minor characters to add a little more depth to the animation, but I really don't have time to do concepts, modelling, rigging and skinning for any extra character. this is something that i might come back to when i've finished the film to complete my academic requirements.

I'm meeting John on Friday so hopefully I'll get some more feedback that I can use to improve my work even more .