Finally

So i was finally able to get my video uploaded.  My scenes i color corrected in photoshop are not uploaded yet tho sadly.  I am having problems getting the still frames into an image movie sequence.

I have one scene in there where the dog walks sort of unrealistically and i probably should leave it out of the video, probably go back and fix him.  But i did get one scene where the dog is running really fast to look good.  Well at least a lot better than it used to.  The dog has the correct technique way a dog moves, i spent about 3 hours just trying to get him to animate correctly, and i watched many videos.  Ive come to the conclusion tho, with the dog model and rig i am using its difficult to get my dog to look realistic.  

I am very happy with my room scene, that is the one that needs the color touch up in photoshop still, but i think it already has a great color balance.  I wasnt able to incorporate a special effect to my scene sadly.  I am hoping to at least have it done by the end of the semester, im not saying that counts for anything, but i would like to see myself finish this one through.  I created my window using that as my atmospheric effect, and i created a fog on the spot light acting as the sunlight.  But the fog atmospheric effect actually didnt come through that well with my export. 

Well here is the link to my video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9LxKfuES18

Sample image

Here is one of the JPG images i rendered out in my room scene

Im not sure if you can notice the motion blur in it yet. 

 I need to get my layers rendered out so i can work on some color and atmospheric effect.  I still have a work to be done, and im never gonna have it perfect, but i want it to at least fill the requirements.  

Trouble with Layers

I finished my main scene with the table the chairs and the atmospheric affect.  But i ran into a problem where when i rendered out the layers in the batch render editor all the layers came out black.  I used an ambient occlusion on the objects in each layer (1 object per layer). And i also set the color of each object to pure white.  Im not sure what the problem is, im sure its very simple i just must of forgot a step and i cant think of it for some reason and i feel really dumb.  

Although i am happy with the way the scene came out.  i created the room all by myself.  I used planes to create the walls and i used a combination of cylinders and planes to create my window in the room.  Which you will actually never see in the video.  The walls in the room i believe look like they have depth to them, i used a useful image on them to texture it and i think it did the trick.  I also added motion blur in this scene to the ball.  I havent put the frames together yet to see it all rendered and played out, partly because i cant render out the scenes in layers but i am excited to see how it comes out.  

I did render the master layer out as a jpg and for a quick mental ray render i am very proud of the result.  Im gonna try and tackle Adobe After Affects tomorrow to see if i can use that program to play my scenes together.  I sort of want to write a code myself that will open up the images and play them at 24fps.  I cant see how that can be that difficult and im sure it will be a fun task. The great part was if i would be able to code something like that, and actually export it as a quick time file lets say.  Idk just thoughts, that may be harder than i have time for or maybe not, i will take a look into it.  

Homework

Character animating

I needed to work on my dogs animation even more.  I spent a lot of time on it the first time around but it still does not look up to par.  Ive been playing catch and frisbee with my dog the last week to check out how it moves.  It seems like the back legs never really bend and they dont move as far as the front ones. So even though the back legs move back and forth the front one are doing this at a different pace.  It is very hard to notice this when watching a dog.  i had to look for hours and i still dont think i understand.

I found a good video on youtube of a dog running in slow motion.  Here is the link to it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeErz1pl_mc&playnext_from=PlayList&p=828DD3C9C0403D5B&playnext=1&index=29

I also am very frustrated with blogspot because i cannot copy and paste into this selected area so i know that that address is probably not gonna lead anywhere.  The top of the video does have an advertisement or trademark for something called lucid movement which i bet i will check out later and may have some good stuff.  The reason i searched for dogs running on the internet is because even though i watched my dog for a long time it is still very hard to understand all the movements that is going on. And luckily i found this great clip that i hope will help me out.  If i could get the animation to look real that would be fantastic.  

Anyway i still have a lot more to add to my animation, including atmospheric effect.  If i could get dust on a dog that would be great, but i dont know if we are gonna cover that in class and i may not be able to do it on my own.  But if not im thinking of just a window and some disturbed light coming through