web bow, hook string modelled

jenny modelled the hook to add for the last wind up web shot and i modeled the web bow and string to hang from the hook which will have toys hanging from it.

UV unwrap change, Environment problems and textured environment part 1

For the moment no more animating has been done as the characters are still being rigged but we have come across some problems to keep us busy. We found out that there was a problem with the UVs in our environment as they were not right for when we give them to harriet to texture. So me and jenny adjusted the UVs for the objects that needed to be detailed in the animation so that they are now right to be textured. We then updated the objects in the environment however for some reason which we can not make sense of everything decided to move around and disappear and do all sorts of weird things. So jenny ended up moving everything back while i applied the textures that harriet had finished for the ferris wheel shot that jenny animated. Then i tried to open the environment when the textures were applied and it froze my computer =/ so we will have to see if there is something that we are doing wrong when we next see georg. I will put up an image of the environment with the textures applied so far soon.

animating shots so far

so far i have animated

• the ball flying through the air after being shot from the catapult,
• the end web wind up scene (without web at the moment)  
• POV jack in a box scene. 

The POV jack in a box scene i enjoyed animating the most as it was fun to make that come to life. The problems i had with this scene was getting the movements to be more exaggerated without pushing the rig to far. I feel the timing is working well with this scene. Another problem was getting the camera angle right for this shot as he needs to jump out at the audience but think this angle works well. It will be interesting to see what this shot looks like when it is textured and lit.

The end we wind up scene needs to be added to as we need to add the web that winds around the pencil display. We have had a talk with georg about it and he said he was going to think of ways to achieve this. In the meantime though we have decided that we want to make this scene more interesting for example we were going to have the web tied up in bows and hanging through washers to keep it up. Also we are going to add some hooks around the pencil display on the shelves so that the web can wrap arond these and hang some toys from them. So far though the scene is working well the main problem i had with this shot was getting the camera to run smoothly as for some reason there was a hiccup when it was rotating around. I tried looking at the motion trail (which i have never used) to see what was happening and i sorted it out by looking at the movements on the graph (which i also couldn't remember how to use as haven't touched since first looking at it opps) and worked out how to make the movements smoother. It was a lot easier adjusting it on the graph so this scene ended up being a learning curve. 

The flying ball scene is also not finished yet as we need to add Frankie who also needs to be added in the web wind up scene.

Im looking forward to getting to be able to animate sally and frankie.

animating jack scene