Time is short as LexiConquest nears completion. Major things to look forward to at this point are the Library Node and the Cards which were ordered last week.

Mike – Worked on Composites, Announcer V/O, Game progression outline

Ben – Went to War with Shave (and survived!), Rendered Billy, Spell card art

Hessam- Worked on the library, and contact forms of the site

Jason – Game outline, LIBRARY NODE, animations programming, attack Desc programming

Lauren – Re-rendered Tiny Tim’s animations with hair, did final edits on cards, adjusted Hp bar design

Tracy – Re-rendered Frankenstein’s Lightning, Rendered more flames for Graveyard Daemon, worked on fixing Deus Ex Machina in post & composited all of these. Minimally worked on coding while rendering was happening. 14.5 hours @ 90%

Time is getting short and LexiConquest is getting finished. This week I spend time compositing and working on the announcer voice over. I feel like I have done very little this week. I have in fact finished the tasks I set out finish and I have made substantial progress on the other tasks that I have planned to make progress on. I guess just the fact that the project is wrapping up and as I finish things and get them off my plate they are no longer immediately being replaced by new tasks feels kind of strange to me. Below I have included three of Arthur’s six animations.

Arthur Damage from Mike Ambro on Vimeo.

Arthur Arrival from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

Arthur Attack from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

I need to go back into King Arthur’s attack and add some blur in Nuke.

I have the compositing listed as being 50 percent complete, really I think it is a little over that, I marked it at fifty because I want to go back and tweak Arthur’s attack and only three videos are in movie form, I plan to have the compositing done early in the week, Tuesday at the latest.

Below are the samples of the Announcer voice over. They have had slight reverberation added to them to give an arena feel.

Battle_Begin

Billy Pilgrim

Deus Ex Machina

Frank’s Lightning

Graveyard Daemon

King Arthur

LexiConquest

Personification

Robin Hood

Time Shift

Tin Woodsman

Tiny Tim

Tipod

Victory

On Wednesday night we had another work night. Jason and I spent what seemed like forever going over the game play. This has not been done since last term and we wanted to make sure everything was good. We soon discovered it wasn’t. We revamped the way the player would play through the game.

Game Outline

In all this week I spent about four hours on audio, somewhere between one and a half and two of that was spent recording. I spend somewhere in the ballpark of six or seven hours compositing and I think Jason and I spent something on the order of three hours reworking the game play.  In all this week I spent about 13 hours working, completing 90% of what I wanted too. I wish some more compositing had gotten finished on the other hand the way I have been working has gotten all the animations near completion. This coming week I have listed to finish compositing the animations, like I said earlier I want this to be done by Tuesday at the latest. I need to print the playing surface, which I should get final dimensions and design for tomorrow. Other than that I am providing my bit of content for the website and some renders for our poster.

Alright, interesting week. Kind of. Sort of. Not really at all actually. There was one event of note, the announcer audio files are gone. That was a little bit of a setback this week. I have contacted the talent we used for the first recording and I am able to get him again this Tuesday to re-record. I put some hours into finishing King Arthur’s arrival animation and I also started compositing his idle animation. The rest of the week I spent preparing to all my files for rendering or re-rendering. I started rendering Thursday night and have been all weekend since. The Library pass for King Arthur’s arrival animation is still running as of now. Based on the last time I checked the render time per frame the Library pass should be done around 9:30AM tomorrow. I also would like to re-render two of the shadow passes that I have done. All rendering should be complete by days end tomorrow

Below I have attached some samples of the renders that have been completed.

This is a sample of King Arthur’s Idle (Character Pass)

King Arthur’s attack (Character pass)

King Arthur’s Damage (Character pass)

King Arthur’s Defeat (Character pass)

King Arthur Idle (Shadow pass)

Okay so this week I put about 13 hours into King Arthur’s Arrival animation to finish that up. About 2 hours into compositing his idle and another 4 or 5 hours getting all 15 render passes set up, talk about tedious. Other than that the rest of my week was spent searching for disappearing audio files and rendering. In all I spend about 20 hours this week working on things and many many more rendering. I would say I accomplished 90% percent of what I wanted to get done. I know I did no work on audio but the main focus for the week was rendering and I got a little bit of head start on compositing. Next week I am pushing to finish or almost finish compositing and I want to finish up the announcer voices as well as ordering the cards.

Til next time.

UPDATE: We have a near-finished version of the Battle Theme done as well, courtesy of fellow Drexel student Shaun Cerborino:

LexiQuestRough2

Things are starting to really come together. We planned on finishing our rendering by this week and moving everyone into compositing, in the coming week. We are also planning to orders the physical cards this week after out meeting with Ted on Tuesday.

MIKE: Finished King Arthur’s arrival animation, finished rendering. No work done on the announcer audio.

Hessam: Finished Robin’s arrival animation, and all the other renders, and composite all the animations. Worked on the functionality of the site, and browser testing. Total Hours: 17.5 Total Percentage: 97%

Ben: Tin Woodsman Compositing and Billy Pilgrim “bang my head on the desk” type technical issues

Jason: Programming ‘one button’, character glyph artwork and programming. 17 hours @ 95%

Tracy: Rendered out last spell effect (personification), implemented the Quiz game, composited the Time Shift spell effect. 16.5 hours @90%

Lauren: Put together playing cards, re-animated and rendered arrival sequence, and rendered library for attack animation. 23 Hrs, 90%

Week Four.

It seems like things are starting to come together. Renders are being completed and we are moving to compositing. Below I will show you the newest book playblast and a playblast of King Arthur’s arrival animation. This week I also worked on tweaking King Arthur’s card art which you will see below as well as his revised quiz. I have also worked on more rendering this week, samples below as well.

Here is the newest book animation. We have changed the dynamic simulation to something more pleasing to watch. I have also increased the speed at which the book enters the scene.

Final Book Animation from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

We feel the book landing on the spine and falling over is much more interesting to watch than the original spinning toss.

Below is a sample of King Arthur’s Arrival. In the Gantt chart I have planned another week for this. In reality it will be done within the next day or two.

King Arthur Arrival from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

The following images are sample renders.

This is the revised version of Arthur’s card art.

And lastly are Arthur’s quiz questions.

1 Who cares for Arthur when he is born?

A. Merlin
B. King Uther Pendragon
C. Sir Ector
D. Druids

Answer: C. This establishes Arthur’s childhood for the reader, allowing Malory to skip most of the mundane details a move on to the important parts of Arthur’s adolescent years.

2 Why did Arthur first remove the sword from the stone?

A. To give to Sir Ector’s son Sir Kay
B. To become King of all Britain
C. To steal it
D. To use it as a weapon

Answer: A. This gives the reader insight into Arthur’s respect for his “older brother” and his want to help others. Later we will see Arthur become a benevolent leader loved by all.

3 How many times did Arthur remove the sword from the stone?

A. 1 time
B. 3 times
C. 6 times
D. 8 times

Answer: C. This might have been an attempt at humor on Malory’s part. It does however illustrate his point that Arthur is the true King of all Britain very well.

4 Arthur’s first battle at Caerleon was against who?

A. The Duke of Tinagil
B. Merlin
C. Sir Badouin
D. The Six Kings

Answer: D. This will show us Arthur’s true character in battle and illustrate why he is so successful. This is the first true test of his abilities and power.

5 When does Arthur meet Gwynevere?

A. After the Battle of Gaul
B. After the Siege of Wandesborow
C. After the Battle of Bedgrayne
D. After the Battle of Camylarde

Answer: D. This will be one event that becomes a major centerpiece of the Arthur saga. This also illustrates the power of the King to take what he wants, much like his father before him.

This week I plan on finishing all my rendering and beginning the process of compositing all the renders. I also will begin the process of getting our cards printed. I plan on setting up a meeting with Ted to discuss the and get me head around his suggestion for prototyping cards. I will also start working on our announcer audio clips.

Ben – Designed book opening visual effect, finished Tin Woodsman’s Arrival Animation, Billy Pilgrim’s Attack

Hessam – Finished damage animation for robin, and the left over renders. Worked on the Image cycle gallery, quick facts callout, user profile page, style for the gallery, and generating font for the website. Total hours: 22 Total Percentage for both the site and 3d Stuff: 95% accomplished.

Jason – Tripod renders complete and all ready for compositing. Defending implemented in code. Hours: 19 @ 95%

Mike -Worked King Arthur Arrival animation, finished the final Book animation continued rendering. 17hrs @90%

Lauren – Finished rendering attack animation character layers, reworked particles and attack animation, animated and set up render for arrival. 19.5 hrs, 85%.

Tracy – Finished rendering 4 of the 5 spell effects and their library backgrounds – they are ready for compositing. 17.5hrs @ 80%

Rend-O-Rama one went well!

Ben- Finalizing scene for render, organizational steps for rendering, Tin Woodsman Rendering, Attack UI

Jason- Tripod re-animation, Tripod rendering, Maneuver programming. — 21 hours 90% of goal

Mike – Finalizing Book Animation/Integration, Finish King Arthur’s Attack, King Arthur Rendering

Hessam – Render preparations, tweaking animations, and fixing new issues. Working on the navigation of the site and image galleries. Hours 29.5 – 90% of the goals total. 80% for the 3D stuff and rendering, and 100% for the website.

Lauren – Edited scenes for render, created new shave hair setup, began rendering, finished card art and finalized UI screens.

Tracy – Preparations for rendering, rendered most of Graveyard Daemon (the rest should be complete and on campus waiting for me!) and rendered Time Shift.  The rest are still in the works.  Basic coding tweaks while I wait for final artwork for the in game menus.   Hours – 16.5 – 80% of my overall goal (100% of my programming goal since I didn’t set out to complete a lot this week and about 75% of my 3D goal due to long render times).

This week I did deviate from my Gantt chart a bit, as explained below. There are two videos below that show some samples of what was done this week.

First up is the book animation. As you saw in previous posts there were issues integrating the book into the rest of our animations. With this newest iteration of the book some things have changed. The biggest of course are the integration issues, now everyone can translate, rotate and scale the entire book animation. The second biggest change in the book comes in the form of dynamics. The toss in section of the animation is now a dynamic simulation that has been baked into the scene. I still do a switch between a high and low poly version of the book for the transition from toss to page turn.

Book Toss/Opening w/dynamics from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

The second video I am going to show you is the newest playblast of King Arthur’s attack, the sword tip particles have been added. The animation is now ready for rendering, provided there are not any more final tweaks that are needed.

King Arthur Attack from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

In my gantt chart you will see that King Arthur’s arrival animation was supposed to be completed. That has been pushed back to this week due to the issues with the book animation.

This week I have worked 20 hours. I would say I accomplished about 90% of what I wanted to this week. I say ninety percent because even though King Arthur’s intro is not complete the book has been redone, which was not originally planned. I wish I could have gotten more rendering done, even so a good chunk has still been completed. In my Gantt chart for next week I will be working on King Arthur’s into and more rendering.

We have a lot planned in the coming weeks, highest on the list being finishing the project of course.

This Wednesday, the Biblionauts have scheduled an “ALL NIGHTER” (dun dun dun!) in which we hope to complete a large percentage of our rendering. Because most of our animation occurs over a relatively low number of frames, there’s shouldn’t be any issue completing most of what we need done. By being in one room over a set period, we will be able to ensure the most consistency in terms of lighting, camera angle, etc. And if any problems occur, there’s a large support group ready and willing to troubleshoot issues. Hopefully, when all is said and done early Thursday morning, we will have made amazing progress and will be able to move into paying attention into the next step of the project, namely the printing of the physical cards and the game programming.

But enough of that and onto what we did this week:

Mike: This week I worked on more of King Arthur’s animations and the Book for the intro animations.

Ben: Library Arena completion, Tin Woodsman attack and render passes, beginning of Billy Pilgrim animation

Jason: Defeat and arrival animations for Tripod. Attack button programming to check maneuver requirements. Hours:14  % complete vs. anticipated: 90%

Hessam: Attack animation, and working on the site (cleaning up the codes and add the accordion effect to Drupal) Hours: 18 hours % complete vs. anticipated: 80%

Lauren: Attack spell and animations, arrival animation, card render and finalizing interface. Hrs: 22.5, 90% of weekly goal complete.

Tracy: Main menu coding, reading PDFs into flash, card navigation, fixing Time Shift animation and editing Frankenstein’s Lightning animation. Hours: 17   % complete vs. anticipated: 88%

This week I have been working on more animation loops for King Arthur and the book toss in animation. Below you will find a sample playblast from King Arthur’s attack which is still a work in progress. I have also included a playblast of King Arthur’s damage loop. I have also included a playblast of the book, more on that later though.

King Arthur Damage from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

King Arthur Attack WIP from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

Book Toss In and Refined Pages from Michael Ambrozaitis on Vimeo.

So the book, lots to say about the book. The first being that after watching this you should disregard most of it. There have been some integration issues cropping up and though I’ve been working to fix them I think it is time to bite the bullet and attack this from a different angle. Which of course will have me redoing the toss in. I should be able to salvage the book opening animation. Which is where you should direct your attention in this video. The pages have been redone. The new toss in animation Will be slightly different from the current one. The angle the book comes from and the angle at which it lands will be changed. I also plan to speed up the throw itself.

This week I worked about 20 hours. Regrettably about four of that went to trying to fix the integration today issues today. As you can see I do not have anything up for King Arthur’s intro animation, mostly due to my issues with the book. For this week I would say I accomplished about 85% of what I wanted to.

In the comping week I plan on finishing up King Arthur’s Attack and Intro. I also plan on tweaking King Arthur’s other animations and working on finalizing the book.