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Category Archives: Monty’s Quest
Roman Centurion Project
Continuing on with the 3D modelling of characters and vehicles for ‘Monty’s Quest’, this last week I have been working on a Roman Centurion. There are still a few more characters to build and, quite possibly, a re-working of the Centurion but this is where we are now.
This video shows the basic design of the model done in Photoshop Elements and then used as a front and side plan in Blender 2.58a for the 3D modelling and rigging. It is still very rough but the process is giving me a chance to further develop my skills in Blender 2.58a.
Next week, I have plans to build two real-world 3D jigsaws of the Notre Dame and Capitol Hill. We will be recording this in time-lapse and using the models as a photographic guide for building the models in Blender 2.58a. So watch this space.
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Posted in Blender 3D, Monty's Quest
Tagged 3D jigsaw, 3D modelling, Blender 2.58a, Photoshop Elements, rigging, Roman Centurion
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Day Twelve – Exploring Blender 2.58a’s Games Engine
Day twelve – catch up on what has been happening on the animation side of Monty’s Quest. As well as modelling an aircraft carrier, I have been exploring how to use Rigify and how the games engine can help with falling buildings.
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Posted in Blender 3D, Monty's Quest
Tagged 3D modelling, aircraft carrier, animation, Blender 2.58a, Games Engine, Monty's Quest, Rigify
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Day Five – British WWI tank produced in Blender 2.58b
Day Five – and I have produced a model of a British WWI tank. Again this model is going to be used in ‘Monty’s Quest’. Hope you enjoy this fifth short video.
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Posted in Blender 3D, Monty's Quest
Tagged 3D model, animation, Blender 2.58b, British WWI tank, Monty's Quest
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Day Four – URG2 Missile Launcher Model
Another important model created today for ‘Monty’s Quest’. There are a couple of shots that require this model so hopefully this will speed things along a bit in getting the animation done for the film.
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The Second Progress Report on the M113 Model
The second progress report on the M113 personnel carrier produced in Blender 2.58b. This time I have managed to get all the wheels to rotate as the vehicle is moved across the screen.
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The Creation of a M113 Personnel Carrier in Blender 3D 2.58b
This video is a quick update report of a 3D model M113 Personnel Carrier I have built for several animated sequences in ‘Monty’s Quest’. At this point (Sunday 17th July 2011) there are still some 150 shots to produce in animation, so I may still be working on this project throughout the next academic year.
This model was produced in Blender 2.58b.
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Testing new Sony CX115E and FCPX
This video is a test shoot using my new Sony CX115E camcorder and edited in FCPX.
Share on FacebookLive-action edit and animatic production
Funny how time flies. It has been over ten weeks since I last wrote anything on my site. It has been busy. To start with the new semester began and I have had to get to know a whole new intake of students. This year the standard of work being produced is much higher. I am also teaching performing art students a unit on Film & TV Acting. This is great research and development for all future feature films I have in mind.
The last two days of August were taken up filming Monty’s Quest, I was such a joy to have the main live-action completed. Over the past few weeks, whenever I had a spare few moments I continued on with the editing. Now I am avidly watching the rough-cut on DVD and noting where I want to make changes. I showed two group of student what I had so far and got some good feedback. One of my sons also saw the film and made a few blunt comments, which I have taken on board. All in all, though, there has been a lot of useful feedback and I am tweaking things here and there. Some scenes have become shorter and have more punch. I have also begun to generate animated sequences for the animatic. With each shot produced I have been fitting them into the film. When the animatic is finish it should help piece together elements that did not make sense in the earlier version of the film. We will also be able to share out sequences for other animators to work on some time after Christmas.
If that was not enough, I have also been working on Billy Dixon’s book ‘Striping It Back’. Billy was enthused over the Summer and produced a lot of written material. We are now editing this and setting it up in the DTP. So it will not be long before we have our first non-fiction book ready for publication. Things are looking good and are definitely getting exciting.
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Tagged animatic, Billy Dixon, DVD, editing, live-action, Monty's Quest
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Rotascope Test Sequence
We have completed Day 17 of the filming of ‘Monty’s Quest’. Over the next two weeks we hope to have three more filming days to complete the main live-action material. Further shoots will include live-action to be used for rotascoping the ‘Jealous Husband’ sequence and a range of other scenes that will combine both live-action and animation.
In preparation for this next phase of the production, I have been looking at various software packages. Due to this production being on a micro-budget, I have opted for Open Source applications. To produce the sample rotascope animation above, I used Pencil.
In addition to using Pencil, instead of using a mouse, I used an AipTek Slim Tablet 600U Premium II and stylus. This allowed me to sketch out the artwork in a similar fashion to using a traditional pencil on paper.
To begin the animation test I shot a short piece of video using a Canon IXUS 100. The 1280 x 720 pixel video records at 30 frames per second. Apple’s QuickTime 7 Pro was used to expert an image sequence and only those frames I intended to sketch out were imported into Pencil. Using the sequence numbers, it was easy enough to place to images in the timeline at the correct frame. Once all the images where added, I selected a vector layer to draw out the character. The line tool was used by clicking on the image at various points, like designing a dot-to-dot drawing. The Bezier curves could then be manipulated by using the finger tool in the tool palette.
Once all the outline drawings were complete, I added a second vector layer to for the skin tone and then used a second bitmap layer to paint the eyes, hair and mouth details. The finished sequences was exported out as a series of JPEGs (though PNG files can also be exported with alpha channels) and the sequence was imported into Apple’s Final Cut Pro (not Open Source) to match up with the audio from the video clip.
In all, the project took about 16 hours to complete. This would mean quite a mammoth task of completing MQ, so I am intending to get a host of volunteers to help produce the animation. Effectively, each volunteer would be given about 8 seconds worth of material (200 frames) with the images sequence added to the Pencil file. All that would be required is for volunteer artist to sketch out the keyframe images and paint in the character’s colours. Over the next few weeks I will record a training video to take each volunteer through the procedure. The process should take each volunteer about 16 hours to complete their section of the final animation. Though we have no-budget, each volunteer will be given a credit at the end of the film.
In the meantime, keep up-to-date by revisiting the website and we will let you know how things are progressing and dates for when you can get involved in this rotascoping experiment.
Thanks for visiting this site.
All the best
George
Posted in Monty's Quest
Tagged animation, Monty's Quest, open source, pencil, rotascope
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