Almost final version of my film

The cheeky Magician (almost finished) from JIDE JOHNSON on Vimeo.

This is almost the final version of my film, but I am yet to render another properly animated and textured version of the film.

another vanity still

Here is another still from my movie which I rendered recently. The final version of my movie will follow after I figure out these exporting technical issues

vanity stills

Here is a vanity still from a complete versin of the film. At the moment Im having some exporting problems from my adobe premiere file. Other images and my final film will soon follow.

Skinning

I had some serious difficulties when it came to this section

Fully Rigged

All the controllers are in place now.
Both characters at this stage are now fully rigged

Wiring parameters gone wrong

I experienced major problems when attemping to rig the fingers of my characters when it came to scripting, so I had to devise my own methids ofrigging them and surprisingly, they worked quite well.

Foot Roll Parameters

I had to wire the foot and do some scripting here so that I could have a slider that enabled me to give my foot a foot roll.
I did this process for both characters.

IK handles

Here I am testing out the IK handles on the leg of my magician. Seems to be working fine ;)

Fat Volunteer Rig

I thought I may have some problems with the fat guys belly, but all in all I jut kept editing the bones so this fitted his body differently to the magician and HIS rig.

Rigging

Rigging must be one of the most difficult problem prone processes to get around, however I know its essential for a good animation, one must have a good rig.
Here I have just begun creating the bones for the magician. everything was fairly straight forward. I knew all I had to do was keep everything roughly inside the mesh and it was safe.

Magicians Hair in Z-Brush

I tried to go into quite a bit of detail here, just to all to the crazyness of his look.

Magician Z-Brush

I didnt want to over do the painting of his skin, so I was pretty calm here, the main thing I was concerned about when it came to the magician was his hair to be honest.

Z-Brush

Here is a Z-brush image of the fat volunteer.
I really treid to paint in the detail of things like creases in his head and pores in his skin, not to forget the hairs on his moustach and eyesbrows. I think this wasnt done that badly, although I experienced some mesh problems. Nothing too major though.

Magician Fully Unwrapped

This is the image of my magician fully unwrapped. It wasnt long after this that I got texturing in photoshop.

Pelt Mapping

Using the technique of pelt mapping Pelt mapping got me around some of the problems I had with unwrapping, so I knew to do the same for the Fat man.

Unwrapping

Unwrapping took my a while because of how complicated my mesh was in some places, when it came to my magician, but it all got sorted in the end. I wanted to make sure the unwrap was perfect for my texturing to come later.

Wire Frame Turn Around of Magician

Untitled from JIDE JOHNSON on Vimeo.

Here is the the wire frame turn around of my Magician character.

Clay render Close up of the fat volunteer

Here is my clay render of the fat volunteer character.
I think Ive modelled his eyebrows and moustache in an over complicated way that could have easily been dealt with in Z-brush, but then again, I suppose it adds to the style of it all.

Neon sign ALMOST accomplished

After a little more research, I managed to find a mental ray method for neon lighting, which made me realise its not even ABOUT lighting, but material shaders etc... This is my first attempt at lighting up the sign. Im going to tweak some of the pararmeteres so that the light is not too bright and the colours come through more. Now I just need to figure out a method for making the lights flash on and off continuously.

Magicians Neon sign

If you watched the previs from my earlier post, you may remember the sign that the magician pointed to which is on the left of this image. However, this was just a rough version of what is actually supposed to be modelled. So on the right Here is a screen shot from what Ive modelled in 3ds max. Im now trying to find the best way to make this sign light up like an actual neon light sign.

Smoothed over Magician

Smoothed over clay render of my magcian model. Now Im off to z-brush again to paint in minor details. Hopefully this will not take that long.

MAGICIAN

Clay render of my magician model in 3d.
Ive actually modelled this guy in an unorthadox way. Ive modelled his coat, bow tie, shirt and glove seperately from the rest of his body. But I am currently looking up a tutoriual where this type of modelling can easily be rigged. So I guess we will see what happens. lol

Smoothed over fat volunteer

Smoothed over clay render of my fat volunteer character.

FAT VOLUNTEER WIRE FRAME CLAY RENDERS

Here are some wire frame clay renders of the turn around images of my fat cgharacter finally rendered in 3d sudio max. Rendered using mental ray. Ive tried my best with the edge loops whilst modelling. Now Im off to Z-brush to paint in the basic details like his belt buckle and dungaree straps.

"THE CHEEKY MAGICIAN" PRE-VIS (no sound)

The Cheeky Magician from JIDE JOHNSON on Vimeo.

Here is my pre-vis of a rough outline of what is going to happen in my film. I thought Id get on with this whilst Im modelling my characters. and texturing the environment in full. Soon to be improved on quite a bit.
The magician calls up for volunteers to come forward and challenge him to pull ANY object out of his magic hat, so an overweight man steps up.

THE FAT VOLUNTEER design ("THE CHEEKY MAGICIAN")

Here are the turnaround sketches of the volunteer who steps up to the magician on the stage. I tried to make him look annoying and a little geeky, with his dungaree straps and high trousers. His glasses are supposed to add to this also, aswell as his egg shaped head.
I used fat albert and the nutty professor aswell as loads of images of overweight models to conclude this design.
The 3d models of each will soon follow along with my pre-vis of a rough version of what is to happen in the film.

THE CHEEKY MAGICIAN (Animation I am currently working on)

"THE CHEEKY MAGICIAN" is a 3d animation I am working on for an end of year project.

It is a story of how a magician calls up for volunteers to come forward and challenge him to pull ANY object out of his magic hat, so an overweight Volunteer steps up. Here are my initial sketches of my magician character and how he is supposed to look. Half traditional, half modern.