Final Animation

The Knights Templar: The Temple Church

A more compressed and lower resolution version of my final piece. The quailty is not as clear as my submitted animation due to file size requirements for the blog.

Covers

DVD Cover and Disk

Rendering and Editing Update

After a long few weeks of rendering, I finally began the editing process for animation. so far the all but the open and ending scenes are in place, with sound. the opening scene I plan to start over the weekend and the closing scene is currently being rendered as the animation is not long enough and the brick work in the final shots are to lower bump depth to be seen. This scene so far has had the longest render time so it could take a few days as it needs to be rendered twice with the two types of brick work. While waiting for renders to finish on my computer I will now spend time updating and finishing off my PDF document which will accompany the work on dads PC (which is to slow for renders). For the first time in a long time the stress levels for finishing the project in time are at a manageable level.

No Panic Problem Solved

Not sure how or why, but I have sovled the problem over night and have the final camera rendering. It appears that my AVG anti-virus software was causeing interfence with that one render, as by turning that off seems to be the only thing that let my renders work. This has been very strange, somthing I will talk to Alan about at some stage, but not today as the camera is rendering now.

So once this camera is finished its on to post production, and getting my printer fixed. Its always towards the end of projects that things break down, oh well onwards and upwards, smiles all round.

Why does the end always go wrong?

I am on the last render stage of my last camera and it wont render. Weel to see it wont render full stop finish is a bit of an exhageration but heres the problem, il start from the top.

1. all my cameras are set up exactly the same to render differnt parts of the church.
2. the occlusion layer is set up exactly the same for every camera.
3. 4 of 5 cameras have successfully rendered the occlusion layer but this last camera will not.
i have tried on all computers at home.
I attempted to render at uni. which worked (but extremely slowly compared to every other render i have done at home. (150 frames over 5 and half hours)) i got home to carry on with the render which began fine to have the same problem at home. all the setting i can find have been set the same way at home as at uni but still not working. I have even tried setting up a new camera to render these frames. this problem is just baffeling. Looks like il have to render on the uni comps if it wil work tomo, unless anyone has any suggestions ?

The end is drawing near: Updates

With the end of the project looming here's just a quick update of my progress as it has been while since my last post. Over the last few weeks I have been rendering out scenes from my project, some have taken longer than others, and as always there have been problems with rendered scenes which have need to be rendered out a second and sometimes a third time. I jumped ahead with rendering at home for fear of the bad weather forecast for the next weeks and not being able to get into uni to use multiple computers. I am glad I have done so with the latest forecasts of snow. With two render passes left, the planed completion, of the rendering process, is by the end on Monday giving me enough time for post production and creating the pdf. files to accompany the project at the same standard.

Transition test

After spending last week preparing and starting renders I have put together one final test to check the transition from Rag stone to Bath stone. This is one test that could only be seen and checked properly through caring out complete renders of the last camera shots, so a lot of faith went into it working. Rendering itself has taken up a lot of time over the last few days, I have found that the occlusion layers are taking a far longer than any other layer to render and I will need to allow more time to compensate.

Test for final shots (low detail and strange ratio, due to movie maker compression to make file small enough for blog):

Rag to Bath

Almost ready to render. Final checks for lighting, textures and camera work.

Nave:

Chancel:

Rag Stone:

Bath Stone:

Fadeing Windows

Transition is in place for the build of the chancle. After trial and error the windows fade in while still being transparent as windows should. There is a slit problem with the aspect ration in this render which has occured after running the video file through movie maker to compress the file small enough for the blog.

Experimenting Works

I have put my alpha channels on a ramp shader, and animated the ramp to show fade the window into shot when required.

Another way to do this would be in post production with multiple renders of the scene with each layer of elements fadeing in in turn. ( this will be a lot of layers)

Tests will need to be carried out to see if its the best method.

SERVER WEATHER

Due to the amount of snow and ice on the roads and delays on trains I will not be able to make it into uni today for the extra time kindly provided by Phil and Alan, hopefully it will clear up and i will make it in tomorrrow.

Luckly, up to now, the only question I had for Alan is about animating alpha channels for the windows. What I want is for the windows to fade into shot, in turn with the other elements of the chancle.

Stained Glass Windows

Its been a long snowy day!!!

Today I started working like any other with snow on the ground and kids out playing. I worked through the making staine my staine glass windows when a power cut hit Dover stoping me in my tracks, giving a short break, enough time to enjoy the festive weather.

With all the set backs, the snow has brought, and the power up and running once again, I am back on track. Staine Glass Windows are made and in place. Alphas are still need for the right transplarency, and the colours need working on to fit in with the surroundings.

Stained Glass Windows

From Stencil to Texture

As my camera Angles have now changed so have some of the details which are needed. A number of close shots of windows has made its way into the shot sequence, so stain glass window details for some of the windows have been added to give the audience a focus point within some of these longer sequences. The alpha is still to be added to allow the camera to see through the window and tweaking is still to be carried out on the bump texture walls.

Shot Cam 4

closing camera. still to be tweeked

Shot Cam 2 and 3

A playblast of the new camera set up. Still to be tweeked.

Cameras

With all animation the camera goes through a process of slowing in and out of each move movement which softend the transition for audiences to watch. Maya has a facility in which to calculate and proform this process easily by flatterening the taganets (maya controls for keyframes). This flatterning of tagents for my animation appears to not only slow the camera move in and out of each key frame, it also appears to pause the camera movement for a moment, resulting in a very unsmooth motion of the camera.

Flatterened Tangents:

From this result I decided to try the plateau tangent setting, which similar to the flatterned tagents softens the motion of the transitions between keyframes but also maintains the continous motion.

Plateau Tagents:

The Camera is still to be refinded.

Decoration

Decorative Umbras. Likely to have been decorated with the crucifix and candles for worship.

Opening Camera

My previous establishing shots have been pretty bland. My lastest camera attempt adds a sense of scale, however the camera movements need fine tuning and moves a little fast in places.

screen tests

There we the bump is better, strong enough to see but sutble enough to create distance. (basic render preview)

Screen tests

All lights on - brick work still a little to deep in bump map

Chancel lights on

Nave lights on