I have a Showreel!

Taa-dah!
If you have a minute (+4 seconds) to spare, have a watch (:


Rachel Man Showreel 2014 from Rachel Man on Vimeo.

Client Project - Blocking and more environment modelling

Seeing as I have the inside environment pretty much finished..I figured I might as well do a little blocking...here's a little playblast in super bad quality...(and no sound apparently, apologies)

Need to get the lip-sync in next!

Hospital has finally been built as well and I'm pretty happy with it (:

Working on getting Jess animated into this scene - started to block out some of the skipping animation at the start of the scene, hopefully..this should be done and smoothed out by tomorrow.

Client Project - Environment Modelling

Lots of modelling has been done! Aside from the front of the hospital now, everything for the inside of the hospital/MRI room has finally been built!

I've had to do a little rescaling of some objects after referencing my characters in and realising the models were a little too big in comparison to both characters.
I think it's time to start animating now...

Client Project - Completed MRI Scanner

I have a feeling I'm going to come back to this to make changes..something doesn't feel right about it, but I can't quite pin-point the problem yet.
Anyway, after speaking to my tutor, I smoothed out the bed so that it kept in style with the MRI scanner and my characters as well - the edges were too harsh before and a little distracting and then added a few edge loops to the base of the MRI scanner and the front of the scanner to give it a more uniform look.

I've added in the head rest as well, just so it doesn't look like my characters lying on a..plastic plank?

The space below the head rest on the actual bed means that the head coil will be able to slide straight over Jess's head when I start to animate. Progress is finally being made!

Client Project - Modelling the MRI scanner

And so the environment modelling begins...trying to build a MRI scanner as quickly as I can at the moment.

Client Project - Rigging

The rig is in! Almost...I need to finish off the interactive skin bind...but then she'll be ready to go (:

Client Project - Blend Shapes!

I may have gotten a little carried away doing this...and made some rather pointless blend shapes that I won't use...but blend shapes for Jess are done!

 

Mudbox decided it didn't like me after the seventh blend shape..so I stuck to reshaping in Maya for the rest.

Migraine is an understatement for this...

Client Project - Recolouring...

Finished recolouring Jess this morning!

Also decided to go for a different hair colour for Sam as well and did a bit of remodelling on her chest. My tutor mentioned that she looks quite androgynous, which I completely agree. I thought I'd try and cheat a little by leaving her chest flat..but it does look a little odd. Working with the existing topology I had on her chest/lab coat wasn't the best, but I've pulled out some of the vertices to give her a more 'womanly' shape, although it hasn't come out very well in this render.

I think I may have to make do with it for now though and move on as I'm aware that I've lost quite a bit of time from modelling.

Client Project - Flat colours and ambient occlusion

I've finally painted my characters! Sort of...I need to make a few changes to the little girl and then I'm ready to blend shape and rig both characters.

Introducing Jess, the young patient who will be having an MRI scan! This was a quick colour..I'll have this coloured properly by tomorrow.

And Sam the radiographer. I'm still debating over her hair colour...

I've used the hypershade in Maya to colour both characters and then added an ambient occlusion layer. I was looking for a flat colour world style and this looks really nice and cartoon-y, which is exactly what I was after (:
It's finally starting to come together!

Client Project - Onto the second character...

I got some feedback from a couple of people today about my first character model - both said her head looked slightly too big for her body, so I've reduced the size a little:

Added a small parting in her fringe as well so she doesn't look like a complete bowl...and then started working on the second character (at last)!

Collar definitely needs a lot of fixing...I'm tempted to take it out and redo that part because it doesn't look like the collar of a lab coat at all.
I was just about finished with the trouser leg and about to save when my computer decided to crash...so the last screenshot was a quick 15 minute rescale of the leg and I'm going to finish working on that tomorrow. Should've known better and saved more often! And not relied on the incremental saves...sigh.

Client Project - First character!

It's only taken me...several weeks...but first model is done!

Time to move on to the next one..hopefully it won't take as long as this one has.

Client Project - Still modelling...

Had a few set backs over the last couple of weeks..but with just over 8 weeks left to go, I'm trying to get everything sorted as quickly as possible.
I've got my voice recording done for one of my characters, just need to finish modelling and get her painted! Working on her face and hair at the moment...

After speaking to my tutor yesterday, I've also decided to change my radiographer from a male to a female character, as I think there might be a few potential problems there regarding safety for a female child patient (without trying to be prejudice in anyway).

Client Project - Modelling the first character

Trying to model my characters as quickly as possible, so that I can allow myself as much time as possible when it comes to animating.

I tried to keep the design of my characters simple to make it easier to model - so far so good, I think? Although (according to my 'time plan'), I'm already running behind schedule...I told myself that I'd have both characters modelled by the end of this week, then paint and rig them for next week and get on with modelling the environment. Sigh, anyway...

Current progress looks a little like this:

The plan would be to finish off modelling this character over the weekend. I just need to stick to it.

Research Project: Artefact 3 - Shifting Power Centres

After looking at whether my focus group was able to identify a character's power centre and define their personality through a series of still poses, I decided to look at the shift of power centres within a character.

Through this artefact, I wanted to see if my audience was able to see where a power centre was shifting to and from within the character and what they thought might be happening in the clip.

These were the clips I presented:

 Having presented these to my focus group, I found that most people were able to identify the movement of the power centre and generally had an idea of what the situation was. However, as I finished this artefact, I realised that I've gone slightly off topic from my research question, so I'll need to try and refocus my artefacts for my 4th and 5th artefact.

Negotiated Client Project - 'MRI Scanning for Children'

Quick post - just starting to model my first character...

Hoping to have this finished by next week, fingers crossed.

Research Project: Artefact 2 - Power Centres

For my second artefact, I will be looking at the importance of using power centres with characters - they help us to define a character and also affects a characters "tempo/rhythm".

I want to find out whether my audience can identify a character's power centre by their body language, without any facial expression, and whether they are then able to define the character's personality through these poses.

These are my 11 poses: