The Final Film

February Snow™ from Ben Murray on Vimeo.

final screenshots

Here are three final screenshots from the film.

Below is an early piece of concept artwork to compare with.

final tweaks and changes...

The film reached a completed stage last week, but i'm spending some time going over a number of the shots and tweaking and ajusting bits to make sure that it's looking its best.
The film has been shortlisted for the animation expose awards show this June and will be appearing on the UH Animation 09 DVD. I'm really excited and hugely thankful for everyone who has been a part of this in some way. The final film should be posted sometime at the end of this week so come and take a look then!

The Final Shot

the final shot is finished. the film is complete! Just got a few more days/weeks
of tweaking and re-editing then i'll post some finished screenshots and the film!

we're on the home straight

Above is a screenshot from some of the fusion work i've been doing on the penultimate shot with the whirlwind. I literally took the objects out from max spinning round a central pivot then i've looped certain passes in fusion such as clouds, particles and objects, animated them over time and you get a continuous whirlwind of objects for infinity. Result is pretty good. Since this shot i've reworked the background and i've also put a big light in the middle - the speed of the objects and the eskimo layered over gives a really energetic feel to the shots.

below isn't a shot from the film - this is just a pass i rendered because it looked quite nice.

Anyway. I'm now onto the final shot of the film where he lands back down on the ground. Should take no longer than a day to animate and get the cameras into the right positions - next day rendering and doing the post-production stuff. Then i have the final part of the week to do one or two tweaks before i save the film out for hand-in.

promotional screenshot

this week's work

We finally made it to the final third of the film. This is the fast paced electric climax of the film in which the eskimo lands in a floating mine field, sets a mine off and it explodes in light.
Here is a simple environment render. The sky colour changes dramatically to this chaotic red. The mines are almost completely silhouetted to give as much eye-grabbing sharp contrast as possible. And the eskimos blue coat works as a dash of complimentary colour to each composition. Here are some screenshots into the lead up.

update | screenshots

Here a few of the latest screenshots from the film. There are a number of shots i feel like i've really rushed through this week. I planned a week-by-week schedule for the production of the film and given that i lost friday to monday this week for Easter celebrations and other things i had to speed through alot of the MAX work and there's only so much 'healing' you can pick up in post. I may come back to the arrow shots if i have a spare moment next week and post some shots up.
I'm working on the falling shots the next couple of days and have to pray that it all goes smoothly so that i'm definitely on to the big climactic final scene by the final week of the Easter break ready for the BETA on the 29th. This is the dramatic bit in the film where the palette changes dramatically (the prodominant blue palette with hints of complimentary red/orange switches round to prodominant red/orange with the complimtary blue of the eskimos coat). Screenshots to follow this time next week.

New screenshots

New screenshots from week starting 06/04/09.



I also revised the silhouetted shot from before - I've deliberated quite a bit over this shot but i've decided it looks better with the transmitters in. So here we go.

Flight Test

Flight Test from Ben Murray on Vimeo.

screenshots

Screenshots from work i've done today.

Long Shot

Oh yea... and that long silhouetted shot i spoke about earlier -
i've rendered all that out and it looks sweet.
I took out all the transmitters in passes and i turned them off for a moment to check the character animation was smooth and realised how much more striking the whole shot was without all the "noise" in the background. So now it's this simple shot with just the boy and the balloon - which seems to work well.

More Fusion Work...

I've put together the first 10/20 seconds of the film now fully rendered and composited.
Alot of the 'effects' in the film are done using Fusion simply for speed and effectiveness.
Instead of putting blur, depth of field, fog and big particle dummies into my scene in MAX i've taken things out in layers and passes and done all that in comp. It's incredibly quick and allows me to render out new scenes whilst compositing (which is still quite slow... but possible) which is a great time saver. Particles in this scene are done entirely in Fusion.

Spurious images

Here are a couple of random images i've rendered out from MAX for no particular purpose; they're not from the film, but i thought they looked quite nice.

I also changed the hue of the image here to see the film in a totally different colour scheme - looks pretty crazy and surreal - quite cool.

Updates

I've been working away on the first 6 shots of my film for the past few days - i've been taking them into fusion in passes and applying effects and post-prod stuff as i've been going along.
The first three shots are now totally done. I'm now slotting them into premiere over the top of my pre-vis / alpha (image below). One of the shots looked particularly nice so i turned it into a piece of concept art; i rendered it out portrait (below).

The shot i'm working on at the moment is a bit tricky getting it to look exactly right. It should be a pretty dynamic shot - a very illustrated graphic look - below is a quickly drawn up version of what i hope it will look like - but better and obviously with particles and a vignette etc to spice it up. The shot shows the Eskimo boy walking (not running like in this image) across the plane in sihlouette and shadow.

I'll post a screenshot when this is done. Finally, my promotional postcards are designed and ready to be sent off for print. (image below). It's actually a rendered 3d image - but i adjusted and exaggerated the shaders i'm using in my film to get that "2D" look.

Oh yea and here's a quick video showing the rope reactor stuff i was working on. I got rope reactor and gravity and wind etc etc working fine now so my balloon is now all systems go.
http://www.vimeo.com/3841807

shader style shots

Here are a couple of screenshots rendered out from MAX today (not passes yet).

I'm pretty happy with the shaders and the general look of the shots so i'm going to move forward with it. I'm taking out passes for the first 10 seconds today to put into fusion and do some post-prod.

Quick shader test

Quick shader test | turnaround from Ben Murray on Vimeo.

3D character maquette

Hi everyone. Thank you so much for all the comments on 3d hit today after the alpha showing - great stuff. I have my character fully rigged and skinned now and pretty much all the models ready to go. So now i need to start building the scenes together and putting the final cameras in place. I also need to work out a few shaders, particles and how i'm going to animate the string on the balloon. i'll keep posted.

Basic rig test

Eskimo Boy Rig from Ben Murray on Vimeo.

Early 3d Work

my 3d scene in MAX.

3D Snow shader i created in MAX (rendered).

Early particle system, curved floor and transmitters.

camera view for 3d concept piece.

This image is a screenshot from my previs (alpha).
It is essentially a very early simple 3d version of my film - there are no passes and it is very simple lighting - but it lends a visual idea of what the film will ultimately look like.


Here is another 3d render of the mines. This hopefully gives everyone an idea of the style and how i ultimately want to get the 3d working in a more motion graphics / 2d style for parts of the film. The orange is just a guide that worked nicely here - the pallette for my film is likely to make this a deeper orange / red.

Early 3d work

Here's the character in 3d - standard lighting.
He will probably be given a shader to keep the offbeat 2d/3d style i'm going for here.
Great bit of influence for this film is the Arcade Fire - power out video - check it out on youtube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqGiCXtvokM&feature=related

Character turn arounds and storyboards

Here are some early character turn arounds, environment concepts and the storyboard.

The plot and some early concept artwork

The film is an incredibly exciting project - the driving force and inspiration for the film largely comes from the piece of music of the same title written by Phil McNinn and the Oxford based band 'Fell City Girl'. This film contract basically allows me to visually represent this music as a short film (less of a music video) and express it in a striking, punchy, concise and energetic piece of 3d animated film. The film is about nostalgia. We're introduced to the story of a small Eskimo Boy who meets a mysterious floating balloon that whips him up into the crazy and surreal skies above him. When the adventure gets a little too much for him, all he wants is to have his feet back on the ground.

The visuals are quaint and offbeat; the score is masterful and incredibly energetic - with a massive climactic summit that should perfectly mask the morphology of this short plot.

Here are some early concept pieces that inspired the creation of this film.

Welcome

Hey Everyone! Welcome to my blog!
My name is Ben and i'm a freelance graphic designer and film artist. I'm currently studying for a degree in 3D Digital Animation at the University of Hertfordshire.
At the moment i'm working on a short 3d film called 'February Snow' due for completion mid-May 2009. This blog is here to trace a load of the work i'm doing during the creation of the film.

Thank you so much for looking at the work. Hope you enjoy looking at it and you'll watch the film when it's done! The first few blogs should bring you up to speed with the current pipeline - please see my blog on 3dHit (www.3dhit.co.uk) to see earlier concepts and ideas.