5(?) Days until Deadline.

Don't really have time to talk. Must. finish. Badass. Animation.

Here are some pictures for your perusal:

Toonshading.

Hey cats!
Here's my late Saturday night/Sunday morning post for the week. We've got some great and exciting news.

1. 12 days until due date.

2. Matt got an external hard drive, so now our project exists in three places. I pray that's enough to avoid a catastrophe this close to due date.

3. 90% of the backgrounds are completed and dropped into scene files. They look awesome, and we've been getting nothing but positive feedback from everyone we show. In addition to that, Matt's expected to finish phase one of the cleanup tonight. That excludes two particularly long sequences, but aside from that, all the cleanup will be done.

4. We've just about completed the biggest crapshoot step of the process. We're lazy, so we decided that instead of drawing a biplane, we would animate it in Maya and composite that into the ToonBoom file. Sounds great, but we had no idea how we were really gunna pull it off.

I guess we always knew we would toonshade it, but I was super skeptical about toonshading because I almost universally hate the effect. The shader creates a "2d" looking image, but the shadows/shading still moves like a 3d object, so it looks like crap. With that in mind, I came up with a solution that I think works pretty darn well.

Note: the BG in this scene is a temp. The David is also rough and uncolored. The plane effect is completed.

STEP 1:
We start with a simple model from Maya.



STEP 2:
From there, I use the toonshade effect in Maya. This makes all of the colors a flat tone. No shadows or gradients that are usually present in 3d images.

I intentionally rendered it as one tone. It is possible to render a toon-shadow, but as I ranted above, I think it looks cheap and crappy, and I found a better solution.



STEP 3:
This is where I was sold on toonshading. Rather than using the above-mentioned "3d shading," I imported the flat toonshaded biplane into ToonBoom and applied a "highlight" and a "tone" effect to the image, giving it shading/highlights that are consistent with the rest of the film and that move like a 2d image, rather than a 3d model.



This isnt the coolest render of the effect, but those ones would be spoiler-ish. Anyway, Matt and I are really happy with the effect, and we're even happier since most of those scenes are finished now. I've got two left, I think.

Speaking of scenes left, I'd better get back to work. Look forward to next week, because if we dont have some clips and/or a trailer to show, that means this film's f**ked.

-JJ

Hey folks! Is this actually an update on Saturday? Eh, technically its not, since it's 2:30 on Sunday morning, but close enough, eh?

Here's some final, rendered stills from "David Hammerfist: Hammerfists of Fury." Matt and I are pretty darn excited with how well this film is looking, and I certainly hope you all are too!

Anyway, words are boring, so enjoy some more stills from our thesis film!






-JJ

background Backgrounds BACKGROUNDS!!!!

Hey guys!
I've had a really great night, so I thought I'd drop a little update!

First thing's first: Garlic Scrambled Eggs.

Incredible meal. I needed a 12:30am dinner, so I cooked these babies up and said "Hell with it! Garlic works on everything!" I am one step closer to proving that idea. Three eggs with Garlic and Tomatoes shall be my new favorite meal.

Next: I'm finally starting to get into a groove for Sequence 03! Last night I got five BGs done, and tonight I got six! To put this into perspective, the most I'd completed in one night was probably 3... yeah....

At this rate, backgrounds will be done by next Wednesday. I'm giving myself until Friday though. I like buffer zones.

Lastly: two completed scenes from "David Hammerfist: Hammerfists of Fury" were screened on Wednesday in Mayer Theater as a color test. Sadly, I had class and Matt passed out, so we missed the screening. Good news is that everyone seems to really, REALLY like what they saw. So, expect a still or two show up with this weekend's "Saturday" update.

Anyway, time to move the computer chairs into bed position and get some sleep. Naked people class is at 9:30!

-JJ

87/158

That fraction represents the number of completed background over the total number of backgrounds. I've got a long way to go, but I'm pretty confident that I'll be finished in the next two weeks. We'll see about that...

Anyway, I thought I'd hook you guys up with a background from sequence 03 that I did last night. I think it's pretty keen!



Anyway, I'll try to update a little more frequently.

Matt and I have some help with coloring the images, so we might be able to cut a trailer pretty soon. We'll keep you posted on that! We'll certainly have a trailer up before the screening, which is on May 7th.

-JJ

Hammerweek= semi sucess

So it was a grueling week, but I got a lot done. I'm not into the stages of coloring just yet but I did get a few people to start prepping for the color jobs. I'm not completely done cleaning up either. I still have half of sequence 3 to do. But I got a lot done. And it will look all the more rad when it is finished (yes, I said "rad").

JJ is hard at work on backgrounds too. Those are looking better and better each day. All in all the project is running semi-smoothly. We don't get outside much, but it is still fun.

On a completely different note, I'd like to take a moment of silence for one of the most manly of men to have ever lived: Mr. Charlton Heston.








I don't think it is a far assumption that the manliness of David was somewhat inspired by Mr. Heston. Everyone loves a character with a "I don't give two shits" attitude.

And David does have that attitude. David is the type of man that will dine with the devil just to find is weakness.



And on that note, I will return to working like hell to finish this movie.