Maya: Changes and development to the model phoenix

Whilst working on the Ident today Ben and Ralph decided that the wings and tail of the Phoenix needed to change. The old tail and wings didn't have much detail so after looking at some new sketches I started building new wings and adjusted the tail so it was flush with the body. I think the new wings give the model a more mechanical feel and will look a lot better when we come to animate the phoenix.

Animated Exeter: CG modelling

At the end of this week it was my aim to get all the CG elements of the Animated Exeter ident built so that next week we could start bringing them all together and experiment with textures and lighting. I was very pleased with the work that all the Maya guys done and luckily we have all the models built. In case the contemporary crafts students cant make the Phoenix in time me and Andy completed building a CG model of the phoenix. Ralph was able to draw up a design for the phoenix but it is very dull so me and Andy added some nuts and bolts to the model in Maya to give it more character and make it appear as though it is made from scrap metal. I took responsibility for building the body while Andy concentrated on building the head. I used a variety of methods creating parts of the model but mostly it is all created using polygon cubes that have been shaped by altering the vertices's. I was glad to be able to refresh myself with building in Maya because recently I have struggled using the programme after forgetting most of the software over the long summer break. This year i intend to be completely competent using the software.
The zoetrope and cogs were built in Maya by Dan, Jacob is building the clock face which is probably the most complicated part of the building structure and Sam was able to build the whole clock tower. Originally the top of the clock tower was going to be built as part of the set for the stop motion guys to work with and the wooden owls were going to be placed on top but we thought that the pan up the clock tower and change form Maya to real life wouldn't look quite right so we decided to build to top of the tower in Maya and Sean offered to build the owls in Maya. The owls were original small wooden 3D puzzles that the consumer builds. We took the stencil of all the pieces for the puzzle and Sean created them Maya he then spent long hours putting these pieces together so it was kind of like doing a puzzle in Maya. To see the owls visit Seans page
I have also been working with Alex and Mike for the Background design thay have been coming up with design ideas that will be completed by next week so that the background and moving elemants of the background are finalised and can be passed on to the special effects team and compositors.

The Pitch: Designing the website

Over the last couple of weeks I have been developing web page designs. Using the logo and flow chart we were able to create a design for the website that reflects music, animation and an urban lifestyle. The layout of the pages combines the profile elements of facebook with the graphic style of 123 Klan. We needed to include design pages for each genre of music and animation`as well as a profile page for the user, an animated introduction to the home page, a registration page, a watching page (for users to watch a larger screen), a chat room for users to communicate and share music, animations and ideas. The user will be able to create there own profile dedicated to one or more genres of music. They will then be able to upload there own songs or animations so that they can be listened to on the users profile page. By using the chat room the idea is that musicians and animators can communicate with each other so that a musician and animator can work together to produce an animated music video. The user can also download animations and music from another users profile provided they have access and permission from the user to work on there music or video. Any completed music videos are then placed onto the genre main page where they can be viewed by anyone but not downloaded. Users then give the videos ratings, the video with the highest ratings and most viewed will appear on the short animated show.
For the designs i focused on urban lifestyle and graffiti. Each page includes the 2dchoonz logo as well as our edited city image and wall.
This is some designs in development. When the characters for each genre of music have been finalised they will be included.