almost finished

the animation is far from perfect, but I’m out of time. I just need to add the chroma studio stuff and it is finished.   dt

added clouds using particles in 3d max

render 43

I’ve been playing around a little bit to try and tweak the image while i’m figuring out some sequence rendering problems

green screen practice

I made into the chroma key studio finally and did some filming.  I took some footage of the guy who runs the studio and I put him into a scene with Adobe After Effects.  It all worked out okay.  After my studio presentation, I will begin working on putting together a shot for my final animation.

more city progress

I haven’t posted for awhile, but I’ve been working. The 3d max work has been slow with the lighting because it takes a long time to render. I’ve devised a new strategy for working with 3d max. I’ve decided to work with the buildings and lighting separately. When everything is together, the progress is much slower, especially with lighting.

Anyway, here is my latest picture. I finally found an acceptable form for the groundscrapers. i’m beginning to work on detailing other buildings. I think the greeble plug in that i used to initially generate the buildings is good for background buildings, but more detail needs to be put into the foreground stuff.

progress picture

The lighting is coming along. 

city pics

I’ve been working on the city model.  It’s been taking a little longer than I anticipated.  I was caught up on the lights first.  Then, I was having trouble with the ‘diamond walled groundscrapers.’  I’ve included a picture of the material i finally came up with.  It looks great (picture, far right side).  It will still need to be put into place.  The other buildings need some individuality also, which I have just begun playing with.  Working in 3D max can be a pain sometimes.  Its difficult to build something from the imagination and have it look as imagined.  I’m going to keep trying and see what happens.  

I finally met with the guy who can help me with the green screen stuff.  I need some way to rig up an elevated dollie and I found out that I also need to get a camera from somewhere else.  I’ll look around the art and design school again and see what I find 

city updated

I’ve been working on my city model again.  I was a little embarassed about posting the two previous pictures which were done in a short time period, so I spent a little time improving it.  I’m trying to get the lighting right which is difficult.  I want to light the bubble and city weill enough to see them but I don’t want the light to overpower the city lights too much.  The rendering time is getting pretty long.  I’ll have to switch computers soon probably.

bubble city preliminary study continued

I’ve been spending a little time drawing up a preliminary bubble city idea.  It still hasn’t gone very far but the lighting is a little better.  The buildings were just a mock up and I’ll probably eliminate all the current ones as i put in the real city.  However, I was trying to test out the grid material as a possible way to light the window of the buildings in the city.  I found that the grid material can be manipulated to give different grid pieces random brightness levels.  It looks alright.  A little too dark.  I over compensated since the earlier version.  With a more work though, it can be pretty good I think.  I still haven’t heard back about the chroma key studio.  I called the dean of the mass comm school.  He said I would hear from him in a few days.  That was last week.  I’ll call him again on Wednesday.