Elephant Character

Mr. Elephant is finished! ... His mesh was finished a while back but I haven't uploaded anything on here for ages, so here you go! :)

First I got to say Thanks Very Much to Amanda for building the Elephant as part of her Collab work for me!! Unfortunately I had to change a few things, mainly because of animation purposes, for example:

• Rebuilt the wheels so their pivot is central as they don't rotate properly otherwise

• Reshaped the trunk so it's pointing out straight so it's easier to Skin

In the end I used Amanda's mesh and cleaned it up and reshaped it a bit, making him rounder and chunkier to make it look more like my Turnarounds ... I'm a fussy bugger, aye :)

Turnarounds :

Before (Amanda's Version) :

Amanda's Elephant Turnaround from Aled Matthews on Vimeo.

After (My Version) :

My Elephant Turnaround from Aled Matthews on Vimeo.

Play-Doh Fun!!

So ... I went to my local Tesco's not long back to get some booze, as you do, and on my travels around Tesco I saw some Play-Doh! Of course, like every 20 going on 21 year old student I was like "ZOMG! PLAY-DOH! MUST BUY!!!" So I did :D

Now, obviously it must be pretty strange for a student to buy alcohol and the amazing Play-Doh at the same time cos I got some right dodgy looks off people!!
A teenager in the queue, for example, was with his mother and STARING at me and pointing and whispering to her ... I was like WTF?! haha!
He was constantly doing it so I actually turned around and said it was for my uni project, kinda. He just looked at me and carried on whispering, so again I was like WTF?! haha!

Then the girl at the till first scanned all the booze I was buying, then when it came to the Play-Doh she picked it up, turned it around a bit in her hand and just looked at it funny as if she was like ... WTF?
So ... I thought I had to explain myself why I was buying Play-Doh at the same time I was buying some booze by telling her that it was for my uni project. She just said "Oh, uhhhh, Ok then :)" (aka I don't really care, why are you telling me this)

Anyway, I thought it was very amusing and just thought I'd share my eventful trip to Tesco with my blog readers :)

After getting home I made my Bee character with the Play-Doh because that's how I want my CG character to look like in the end ... made out of Play-Doh ... so I thought it would be a good reference to use while modelling. Tesco only had Orange and Green so I had to make it out of them. I think he looks kinda cute :)

Pre-Viz

PRODUCTION BEGINS!!
After Advanced Tech was over I started on the Pre-Viz for my advert.
For anyone who doesn't know what a Pre-Viz is, it's basically to help figure out what camera angles work best to frame each shot, and also to help time each shot out for the animation and music.

Because I'm doing a Compositing project all the Environments/Props in the Pre-Viz has to be to scale, so when I stick a camera in the digital bedroom, for example, I know I have enough room in real life for the camera to take the shot.
It was lots of fun measuring out my housemate Danie's bedroom (where the scene is gonna be shot) going back into my room to build it all up, then realising several times that I hadn't measured something, then going back into her room to bug her again and again after forgetting again and again to measure something up before I finally had everything measured!!


Anywho ... here's a diagram of the 3D Environments & Props measured to the nearest inch:




Here's my first (and definitely not last) take on the Pre-Viz for my Anti-Bullying advert:

First Pre-Viz from Aled Matthews on Vimeo.

• A lot of the shots are very quick and some of the camera angles are terrible! Some are too far, others don't frame very well or just need rewoking all together. Soooo ... time to work more on my Pre-Viz i guess!