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A boy and his hog
A short animation I'm working on about a chav (uk-bred special-brew drinking tracksuit n cap wearing type) who decides to modify his old motor into a supercar. All assets for the animation are done by myself in my spare time modelled, textured and rendered in Maya. This is a project I'm working on in my spare time usually an hour or two every other night.

 

January 2007
These images were created at the end of 2006 but I thought they'd be a good point to start a WIP page on my site for this project. I concentrated on the lighting and interior details of the garage mostly as my animation was initially going to start inside...

February 2007
After some storyboard work (will follow in a later post) I decided to start working on the exterior outside the garage. In my storyboards I have my character turn up early outside his garage so I set about creating an environment that feels kind of back alley ish...

March 12 2007
I started fleshing out the area outside the garage adding a wheely bin, bits of trash and grass surrounding the garage. There isn't a large amount of detail in these elements but I think it helps it along...

March 17 2007
A couple of image updates below. I changed a few textures on walls from simple to a more realistic texture and added bits of bump mapping to some parts. I added a lens flare from the sun using after effects on this image just to see the effect and some subtle glows on areas.

March 23 2007
I like to create a render and put simple notes on it for self crit. I took a look at this image and decided on what to amend. I also modelled a bus stop in this shot...

March 25 2007
Spend half the day working on some new elements based on my last self crit image. I decided to re-texture the bg city, add some variation into the pavement kerb and small puddles on the floor. I also added a sunrise style sky with a subtle glow which I think really enhances it. I also quickly textured the garage door and bump mapped certain spots. The ambient occlusion dirtmap shader is plugged into some of the floor elements and the bumpmap seems to really enhance it...

 

October 1st 2008 !!!
Okay well since I now have a shiny new laptop I thought I'd put it through its paces and see what it renders out - well it turns out it isn't too shabby at the ol rendering which I'm quite happy with seeing as I just wanted one to run maya for animating purposes!! This image took about 1min to create FG points, 30secs to render and then 30secs for Occlusion pass so less than 3 minutes in all. My old desktop PC took about 10minutes and that was no FinalGather and no Occlusion and rendering 800x450 as opposed to this 1280x720 render below!! How times have changed and I reckon I can get it quicker than that too with some shader optimisation!! I have to say I'm rather chuffed with the lighting in this shot and its only ONE spotlight just outside the door and NO shadows either!! There are two 'bounce cards' just beneath the lights which are set to cast FG points, but not be visible in any way such as reflections or hovering in the scene strangely! Anyhow see what you think!

here's another render from a different angle - again this took about 3 minutes tops to render so I'm fairly happy with that. I'm busy working on the character for the scene at present so this is going to take a back seat for the moment till I get further into the character rig and wotnot.

January 19th 2010 - Picking it all up again!!!
HOLY POTATOES I haven't picked this project up in how long?!?! Well its high time I did something about that. After sitting down and giving this project some thought I figured it would be nice to do my usual 30second to 1minute piece and see where it goes. I thought it would be really cool to do a v.short quick interview with the main character, as he talks about his project car that he's built in his garage. I want to have him talking to the camera with a bit of surfs up style on-the-fly shooting documentary style and cut to flashy shots of the car - maybe in an infinity curve (white bg) as if the car was in a photo shoot, or maybe just in the garage to keep the feel in one locale. He will be blithering on a bit like Buzzcocks from youtube with his north east chav accent and a cig in his hand. I thought it would also be fun to show him in the past as he's working on the various tasks on the car as photo snaps... things like jumping on the bonnet to squeeze the engine in, and the car falling on him whilst trying to change the wheels!
Once he's finished chattering about his car he decides to show the small cam crew what the car can do so he takes off out the garage, up the road and straight into the path of a performance car parts delivery van! The irony is delicious heh! Anyhow (I use that alot I've noticed lol!) I thought I would put up some of my latest renders which are using an adjusted light environment (a more british grey-sheet-sky), FinalGather rendering and occlusion. I've also been working on the ridiculous quintupal turbo charged engine which I think looks suitably OTT and adjusted carpaint shaders to work with the MR architecture that exists. Close up of engine bays are taking about 4.5mins per frame on my laptop so I'm quite happy...

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