Rat model continued

I made sure my rat fit to my reference as close as possible as I wanted the scale to match the environment.

I checked to makre sure it looked acurate to what I wanted once  smoothed it over and I have to say it fit pretty well.

I then created the leg separately and attached it with the create polygon tool.

I repeated this for the back leg and moved a few vertices to get my model looking more realistic.

This is the completed model of my rat. I added the ears, eyes, nose and tail to give it more form. I feel that I probably could have done more to give it some detail, such as the toes and a bit of muscle grouping but given the time I had and the timing I gave my self? It wasn't the most important part of our animation.

This is my attempt at rigging my rat and it was going pretty well, the only thing is that once again because of the time constraints I had, I didn't get to finish the rig properly.

What I was left with is a rat with a bone structure but no handles. I spent a good while looking for a appropriate auto rigging tool, as all tutorials I had were disks lasting about two days in total, which was time I hadn't enabled my self to have.

I found that this is ok anyway, for the fact that the rat moving isn't so important, just as long as we can have it appear where it needs to be at one point or another.

As we decided that the camera view for our animation would be from a rats point of view, I decided to start modelling a rat to rig and texture. I started by drawing a reference image for Maya but because Sarah owns two rats, it made more sense for her to draw them as she knew the anatomy better than me.

From there i started to model.

V&A Museum

Once again I thought the framework for this structure could be used as a reference point for modeling and lighting in our animation, but also I took close up for textures later on.

V&A Museum

I took close ups of these images so that they could potentially be used for texturing or referencing textures in the future for any clothes hanging up in our street.,

V&A Museum

V&A Museum

V&A Museum

I saw this and liked it allot for the windows of some of the buildings. The only problem I found is that the dating of it is a little after our era.

V&A Museum

I thought this would be something useful if there was a church or monuments needed in the scene anywhere.

V&A Museum

These images are from the V&A. I found these interesting as they would be placed on the outer walls of Gothic style buildings. I thought this would be useful for maybe a main building in our animation.

V&A Museum

Here are more images of the heads that would be found on more Gothic buildings. Once again I took a close up for the texturing stone if this is used in our animation.

Research

The main idea of when we have set our project is around the 1350's ( The Black Death)

Here I found a article from the History channel, on the Black Death:

It began almost like the common cold. Within a day, fever took over, black swellings the size of baseballs appeared on the neck, and then the coughing of blood. Few lived more than two days after infection began, and very quickly the simple disposal of the bodies became an overwhelming job.

The year was 1347. It was the worst biological disaster in the history of mankind, shaking the very foundations of human order. Almost half of the population of Europe died, and it brought out the best and the most terrible in the people caught up in it - savagery and panic, true heroism and self-sacrifice. Perhaps above all things the Black Death serves as a mirror for our own time, forcing us to question the stability of our own society should such a catastrophe strike again; our own vulnerability should some new killer microbe appear, whether through changes in the ecology or through bio terrorism.

It was said the Black Death began in the most remote regions of the Mongol empire, and spread along their trade routes to the Black Sea port of Caffa, from which it spread by ship to Italy and all of Europe. It was caused by a deadly microbe - Yersina Pestis - carried in the stomachs of fleas infecting the common rats which so heavily infested the towns of the Middle Ages. As the disease killed the rats, the fleas moved onto other hosts - human beings. Once the humans were infected, they themselves became highly contagious, spitting and coughing contaminated blood. In some cases, death came within a day, taking whole families between one morning and the next.

I found this quite interesting baring in mind it started off so small and in turn killed of half of Europe. I think this gives us as a group many routes to go down while creating our environment as well as many options of how to explore the environment. 

what first comes to mind is the idea of the streets being covered in filth and muck from the waste people threw out there windows at the time. Then I see slippery looking stone payment with a grey and slightly blue tint to it. It has that cold feel to it that can only be shown with the right colour balance. I then see a sunset in the background, so it's not morning, mid-day or not, but just as the sun is setting. I think this is the peak of when you really would get the feel of the grub and dirt, especially as that's when I would presume the rats would start becoming active.Oh and the rats! I see tones of rats everywhere. Not out in the open but stealthy moving on the outskirts of the building grabbing any food they can get weather it's an apple or a corpse decomposing.

One thing I'm not one hundred percent sure about for the group though is when it will be set. whether it is pre plague/ mid-plague/post-plague. I think this is a important part for the entire animation as it will determine the overall look to it. whether it is:


Pre - crowded with market stalls and people and dirtiness


Mid - Sick and ill dying. Plague doctors roaming the streets


Post - pauper's grave graves being dug, men collecting the dead on carts and the very absence of life it self as half the country is dead.


I actually kind of like the post-plague idea but for some reason I feel that it has probably been done many times before. The main idea I like is the pauper's grave,  which was a grave that was produced for anyone who couldn't afford to buy a private grave or was autonomous. This would pretty much be a open whole which the bodies in bags would be dump in and then covered in lime to try and conceal the smell.

These images I found as a good starting point for the design of the buildings back in the 1350's. The main thing I have noticed is that the streets tend to be be pretty narrow with the front faces of the buildings protruding forwards.

Deons take on the Brief - I agree

Project Brief

For this project you will be working in teams of four of five students. You will all be working towards a final collaborative short film but will have the opportunity to fulfil clear and separate roles within the team.

- You will be working to create an animated environment
- You will be collaborating with the other animators in your team, but research, and your drawn responses to that research.
- Your research will form the starting point for your work.

This environment will be modelled in 3D, UV mapped, textured, and lit based upon the research of materials, architectural and aesthetic motifs, in order to create a visually consistent and coherent digital environment that will contain animated elements as well as providing an arena to support animation and interaction by characters.

Your environments by virtue of their virtuality are unreal, they will be designed from a starting point of real world research and drawing. You will be expected to provide visual and contextual evidence to support the development of your designs. This research will consist of practical site visits such as the drawing trips to London based venues and associated drawing and photography, as well as academic research via the web and the LRC.

This environment must demonstrate integral animation, it could be mechanical such as machinery, doors, windows, windmills etc, or it could be more organic, and atmospheric, such as the effects of wind on plants, weather conditions, etc. It could be a much more long term animation to show the effect of years passing, rather than minutes. For those of you who can focus upon contextualising the designed environment by populating it with characters using that environment, it may be that the environment is being used in an unintended or unexpected way that has evolved through public interaction with the space.

Animations
- Changes over time
- Changes in weather or lighting
- Changes in use of the environment

Visual Aesthetic
- A historical period
- An artistic movement
- A geographic or cultural idiom

Blogged design journal is needed.

Things to focus on

-Understand how lighting and colour affect the appearance and mood of an environment.
-Reflection upon, and analysis of, individual performance in a group context.
- Analysis and replication of a real environment of implementation of a designed environment using 3D visualisation software.
-Build a computer generated environment, using modelling texturing, lighting and character interaction to a consistent visual aesthetic.
-Contribute successfully to a collaborative visual aesthetic.

Assessment criteria

- Evidence of the identification and analysis of the aspects of colour, shape and light that contribute to the successful simulation of a particular environment.

Colour - Self explanatory. Why are the colours we're using there in the first place? What relevance do they have to the scene. What effects do they have on the environment, as well as the mood and atmosphere of the environment. How will colour help us to convey specific mood changes / atmospheric effects as well as how it could be used to indirectly link symbolism.

- Evidence of reflection on the student’s personal contribution to the project.

GUYS. SPECIFICALLY AS THIS SAYS. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTION. MAKE SURE EVERYONE IS AWARE OF WHAT THEY CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS THE GROUP AS IT WILL CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS YOUR FINAL GRADE. BEING SAID, DO NOT TRY TO STEAL OR CLAIM SHARED IDEAS AS ONES OWN. THIS IS AN ASSESSMENT CRITERIA!

- The degree to which the CGI environment represents a successful replication of a real environment or implantation of a designed environment.

How awesome is the final project going to be? We will be sort of replicating a real place so it should have a feel of the place we're going to replicate. How will that actually affect our final outcome? How well is this going to be pulled off? What is the final finished detail of the project going to be?

- The consistency of the styling of the environment.

How correct is the environment that we're making? Remember, no mindfucks. Make sure that all this stuff has / currently exists, or is at the VERY least extremely feasible to create. How well does this fit into the theme of what we're doing?

- The degree to which the lighting of the environment is appropriate.

What is the purpose of light? Both literally and how it affects an environment / mood of a character / environment. How can we use light to correctly convey various viewpoints of the audience? How can we use light to portray a sense of isolation / suspense / power / beauty?

- The degree to which the environment is used to successfully demonstrate appropriate animation.

What is appropriate animation? Simply put, neccessary animation. Why animate anything that the camera is not going to see? Why make a bird do a backflip followed by a running jump if the original intention was for it to just fly away? Random? Yes, but there are contexts for these things. It's all appropriate if it fits with what is required.

ANI09206 Digital Environments/Visual Studies - T.A.S.A.C.D.W.S

This is from Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. I liked the curvature of the road as a reference for our layout, as well as the cobbled road.

These images are from the Fable series. I mainly took the top image as a big idea of what i see our project leading towards, as there are many things that could be animated within our environment.

London whores, Fable style.

These were my first thoughts of what came into mind after we completely went through the brief as a group. My ideal scene is the streets of London a few years before the Black Death.
This allows for a lot of research to be done as well as detail to historical fact, to give a very good and believable environment.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of old London is, dirty, dull, wet, infested. Which is what I aim to portray in my work for the group.