Hair/Fur Simulation and Recommencement of Filming for Bones of Essimer!

In my advanced animation paper, we have been learning hair and fur simulation. We started by making some spheres and adding fur and hair systems to them. We then played around with the different attributes, such as the length, colour, hair width and stickiness. Here is a screen shot of my experiment with the spheres.

The far left sphere has punk fur on it, the middle sphere has a mixture of punk fur and a hair system on it and the right one has bear fur on it

The next experiment we did was to make grass using the grass attribute in the fur menu of Maya. We then made a sphere into a passive collider and made the grass react with the sphere accordingly. Here is a screen shot of my experiment with the grass attribute.

Grass Attribute with sphere as passive collider

We then attached a hair system to the head of a character. NURBS curves were drawn were drawn onto the head of the character to create a specific hairstyle. All the curves were selected and then "create a new hair system" from the nHair menu was selected. Once the new hair system was created, the paint effects brush was assigned to the hair system. From here the different parameters (attributes) could be adjusted to create the simulation and look that was required.

Screen shot of customised hairstyle

The final simulation required hair or fur to be modelled into a customised hairstyle

and attached to a modelled character. For this simulation a skull cap was created and

modelled into the shape of the required hairstyle. Once the modelling was completed,

it was smoothed off. NURBS curves were then drawn onto the modelled skull cap in

the orientation that was required for the hair creation. Then an experiment was done

by adding a hair system and playing the simulation to see if all the curves were all

going in the right direction allowing the hairs to be attached at the right point to the

geometry. This was done in the surfaces menu and “edit curves” was selected.

Skull cap with initial hair system attached

After all the curves were edited accordingly, the actual hair system was created using
the method mentioned before, by selecting the curves, creating a new hair system and
assigning the paint effects brush to the hair. The parameters were then adjusted to
make the hair react correctly.

The first parameter that was adjusted was the stretch resistance. First of all, it was
turned off altogether which resulted in the hair going crazy and growing out of

control. The stretch resistance was put up to 200 which was the maximum. The bend,
compression and twist resistance parameters were also adjusted as far as they could
go as the hairstyle chosen required the hair to stand straight up because the style was
in a Mohawk type style. The amount of hairs per clump was also adjusted up to 100.
All these parameters helped to give the hair the required simulation but there were
still some hairs that were swinging around in a manner that was not required. Editing
the curve attract and the attraction parameters helped to solve this problem.

Here's a video of the final simulation:

Final Hair Simulation

We have now started to learn fire simulation and so far it looks awesome. I will post about fire simulation when I have some cool stuff to show off.

As for this big collaborative film project fondly called Bones of Essimer, we are about to start filming again this weekend. After the weather issues we had, we have decided the best thing to do to get this project completed is to film on a sound stage, which is essentially just a huge warehouse that we can put our huge portable green screen up in. This means that there is going to be a lot more compositing done now, which is when the animation team will key out the green screen from each shot and add the backgrounds and some other set elements. All the backgrounds and set elements will be integrated into each shot seamlessly to make the audience believe that it is all real and not CG (computer generated).

To get prepared for filming, we have had to bring dirt into the warehouse, so that we can put in a ground layer, that looks like the ground of the real location that we wanted to originally use to film, as we do not want to try paint the ground in green screen paint and we also do not want to have to key out the floor because we will have all sorts of problems with green spill on our actors/actresses and also shadows. We spent two days shovelling dirt onto a trailer from the quarry we were going to use for filming in the first place. It took four loads of dirt to cover the area that we needed!

The crew stopping for a break from shovelling dirt

So, everything is going to be full on for me again as we begin to film again. There's cast for me to organise and keep in contact with and crew to organise. I have logistics to help work out and I just need to make sure that everything and everyone is organised and running smoothly! Also, I still need to keep our followers up to date on all our social media. It's all good, I'm still alive, so that's a good thing right? Seriously though, I am looking forward to filming this weekend and completing our awesome project!

Recharged & Revived!

It is the weekend and I have been catching up on stuff I needed to do around the house and catching up on sleep! I managed to spend some time with my daughter which was really cool. I am feeling recharged, revived and ready to go again after having a crazy, busy last few weeks. Having some down time has given me time to think about all the things I have worked on for the last few weeks.

I have had to learn rather quickly the happenings on a film shoot and what is needed. It's been an interesting experience and I have enjoyed learning it. I have learnt that in this industry it is good to be somebody who can problem solve on your feet. Sometimes things just don't go according to plan and immediate action must be taken to turn a potentially nightmarish situation into a workable solution. On our first day of filming, we had a tiny hiccup because the van that we were planning on using to transport all the film gear, broke down the morning of our shoot. Luckily, reshuffling people in vehicles and vehicles taking gear out was not a huge problem. The weather however, is a big deal and played a little bit of havoc with our exterior shots on our second day of filming. The whole team was really awesome and pulled together to turn our weather issues into something useful and we even though things didn't go to plan as we had hoped, it was still an awesome day and we got some impressive footage that we are able to use!

The weather forecast is looking like it is going to be atrocious, so we have made the decision to shoot the rest of the film on a sound stage which is just a huge warehouse type space with our portable green screen up and of course all the lights and camera gear. This means that we do not have to contend with weather and that all cast and crew should be able to stay dry instead of battling the elements.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I was interviewed by two of the local community papers, The Southland Express and The Eye. I organised to get this media coverage to let our community know what was happening and what we were trying to achieve, in the hope that local businesses and people would like to get involved and work with us. I was quite nervous, but I think I managed the interviews fine. 

The piece written in 'The Eye' about Bones of Essimer. Photo of a Bone Cultist costume.

I have been given the role of 3rd AD (Assistant Director) while on set. As far as I have been advised, this means that I have to look after all the extras. It kind of made sense for me to do this because I have been working with the cast right from the beginning. I called all the actors and actresses to ask them if they would come to our character auditions and then I contacted the people from that group who were cast into roles. I have also liaised with all of these people to get their availability, details of any dietary or medical conditions they may have, calling them in for costume fittings as well as trying to answer all of their questions. All of the people that we have cast are very talented and supportive people. Each one has been patient with us and has been very helpful and encouraging.

There is so much organising and liaising that I have done with people and businesses that I can't remember every detail of it but I know there is a lot! My biggest challenge has been working with heaps of different personalities within the crew and trying to make sure everybody is where they should be, what is going on with everything and also making sure that everybody is happy and to solve any issues quickly. Communication is the key to the success of any project that involves a team. If there is no or bad communication then generally speaking, the project will not be as good as was intended. We have had a few communication breakdowns but it is all a part of our learning!

In my advanced animation class, we have been learning hair/fur simulation. I am due to hand in an assignment in approximately five days on this very subject. I have to do a report on the different type of software available for hair/fur simulation as well as having playblasts of my experiments. The report and simulation is worth 20% of this paper. I will be using the same model I used for my cloth simulation. I am going to give my model an interesting hair cut - a mohawk and weird bits of hair around the ears. I will use Maya to do this simulation. I will put up playblasts of my own experiments with explanations of each one once I have handed in the assignment.  

I think I have talked about everything or at least I have discussed everything that I have been able to remember. I will be posting again soon and will have some exciting stuff for everyone to have a look at but for now, I need to get some more rest because I have a class first thing in the morning. Peace out peoples!!!!!

Too Busy To Blog!

So..... it's been a while since I have blogged and this is due to the fact that I have been super busy! Too busy to blog in fact! 

Not only am I the External Producer for the Third Year collaborative but I am now the Project Manager for the entire game cinematic project! My work load has been huge but I am enjoying it every step of the way! It has not been without its hurdles though - the weather for film shoots, making an ambitious project on a zero budget and working with so many different personalities under one umbrella!

All Third Year Bachelor of Digital Media film and animation students have combined to form our very own production company. The idea is for us to try and operate as an industry production company would operate. We have called our production company, Physical Realm Studio. Our brief is to create a game cinematic (which is essentially a short film) from a game concept that our group has created. 

First of all, I will give a brief description of what our Third Year game cinematic is all about.

We have named it, Bones of Essimer. In a world recovering from a devastating solar radiation burst, Kristana, a reclusive slave trader, is to undertake a dangerous quest to rescue a kidnapped child from an evil, deranged bone cult. The Bone cult has a terrifying leader called Osseous. They pillage villages and towns and they take the bones of the people they kill to integrate them into their clothing and weaponry. The story takes place in the town of Essimer where Kristana is trading her slaves. The Bone Cult kidnap a child and leave the father for dead but Kristana saves him. The pair go on a journey to retrieve the child, along the way they traverse the dangerous environment and battle Cultists, Bounty Hunters and vengeful slaves.

Here are some character designs that were drawn by Physical Realm Studio's Art Director, Jade Patterson (she has given me permission to show these on my blog).

This is Kristana the reclusive slaver.

This is Osseous who is the evil cult leader and Collidus who is his head henchwoman.

This is Collidus with two evil cultist henchmen.

We have a full cast of 28 and all of our character roles have been filled. We started off by having just a general casting call that we could make a database up from for all film and animation students to be able to access. From that we called back actors/actresses from the original casting call and held character auditions specific to our project. The actors and actresses were chosen from these auditions to fill the roles we had available. It was quite a long process. I spent my time organising the auditions and advertising them by putting posters up at shops all over town, approaching schools and even a martial arts dojo to find talent for our auditions. I went into the TOA Fighting Systems dojo and gave them my spiel about our cinematic. This resulted in getting seven fighters to come along to our character auditions. We have cast six of these fighters in our cinematic and the TOA fighters have also given us a hand with choreographing some of the fight scenes. The TOA Sensei, Pete Thompson also gave us access to the TOA dojo, so that we could work on the fight choreography in an environment designed for fighters to practice in safely.

I have also been busy with creating a website for our production company. Alastair Bowes-onions is the name of the web developer we used for this. I pulled in our Art Director, Jade to do the graphics, designs and art work for each page and I designed the layout and liased with Alastair and Jade to complete the website. Go and have a look at our amazing website: www.physicalrealmstudio.com

Here's some of the basic background designs for two of the pages that were drawn and designed by Jade Patterson (again I have permission from her to put these images on my blog):

We need money for this project, so as part of my role as External Producer, I have put a Pledge Me project together to try to raise money to make our game cinematic. We needed to make a video to introduce our team and project and to ask nicely for money to fund our cinematic. The original video that was created came across as an infomercial and was not down to earth and real as we had intended. At this point I took over the making of the video. I made it slightly light hearted and warm so that the audience watching it could connect with us and realise that we are real, normal, everyday people. This would hopefully encourage the audience to pledge money to us. I also worked with a couple of people from the team and we came up with different rewards for people who pledge a certain amount to us. These include concept art, crew photos of thanks and copies of a behind the scenes dvd. Check out the video that I directed for our Pledge Me project on Physical Realm's Vimeo Channel. Link: vimeo.com/channels/physicalrealmstudio/92390968


PledgeMe 2014 from Leeana Boyd on Vimeo.

Our Pledge Me project is due on the 20th of May at 11pm. If you are feeling generous then please go to our Pledge Me project and make a pledge and choose one of the great rewards!  
Link: www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/2042





After we had the script green lit, we headed into the workshop (fondly named the Tin Shed) and started making props sets and costumes. We worked right through Easter weekend and every day during our study break. Lots of hard work and many hours were put into these two weeks. I spent a lot of time during this time organising people and making sure that every department was on track and to find out where everybody's progress lay. As well as this, I helped with costuming, prop making and set making by just doing little bits and pieces. During this time I also carried out my External Producer duties. I posted on Physical Realm Studio's Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest profiles.

Screen shots from Physical Realm Studio's Facebook page.

Screen shots from Physical Realm Studio's Tumblr page.

Screen shot from Physical Realm Studio's Pinterest page.

Then we started filming on Friday 2nd May. I helped organise and work out logistics to get everything we needed to our location in Bluff. It was a mission and a half because we had so much stuff - props galore, costumes and set pieces and we also have a very big crew. Callum Lewars and I managed to devise a plan to get everyone and everything to our location. I organised catering for the entire cast and crew for Friday 2nd May and Saturday 3rd May. It has been my job to contact all the cast about availability, costume fittings and scheduling. This has been a massive job in itself. I have enjoyed dealing with all the cast though. They are all a lovely bunch of people to work with and they have all been really supportive of our project.

On top of all this craziness, I have still been trying to complete my other assignments and work on what I have been taught in class. I am sure that I have missed a few things so I will be blogging again in the next two days (because I have a little bit of time during the next two days) with the work I have been learning in my advanced animation paper and anything else that I have forgotten to document. Better get back to being busy again!