Salford City CollegeEccles Sixth Form CentreBTec Level 3Extended Diploma in Creative Media ProductionGames Design

Final Major ProjectProduction Log

Name Cameron Hignett

Date CommentsTuesday19.02.13

I started my secondary research, I also arranged a meeting for each week with my project manager and finally I cleaned up my schedule.

Wednesday20.02.13

Continued with research by creating Surveys which were posted online and handed out to people. The responses were recorded and put into a file.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Task%202%20-%20Viability

Thursday21.02.13

Again Continued with research, I rounded up all survey results and stopped recording them after. I also started researching the type of product I was working with.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Task%202%20-%20Viability

Friday22.02.13

Set up Blog for my FMP on Blogger, I also added all labels and posts as well as design the layout. I continued with my research about the product.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk

Saturday23.02.13

Collected all work done during the week and uploaded it all to my blog for my FMP.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk

Tuesday26.02.13

Continued my research, I started searching about free lancers in the game industry, mainly animation free lancers.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer this is where I got the information from.

Wednesday27.02.13

Have meeting with project manager and find out a few more things to research about.

Thursday28.02.13

Researched new topics for Task 2Product competitionAbout the productMovies that I could relate to.

Saturday02.03.13

Collected all work done during the week and uploaded it all to my blog for my FMP.

Tuesday05.03.13

Finished up on ideas generation and started preparing the pitch.

Wednesday06.03.13

Give pitch to project manager and upload to blogger as soon as I could.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Task%204%20-%20Idea%20Development

Thursday Start on task 5 and look into the task.

07.03.13 http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Task%205%20-%20Pre-Production%20PlanningFriday09.03.13

Started working on Task 5.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Task%205%20-%20Pre-Production%20Planning

Tuesday12.03.13

Started and completed storyboard for my animation.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Task%205%20-%20Pre-Production%20Planning

Wednesday13.03.13

Updated production log and schedule

Thursday14.03.13

Continued working on task 5 for FMP by making budgets.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Task%205%20-%20Pre-Production%20Planning

Friday15.03.13

Continued with task 5 again by finishing up on the budget and starting other work.

Tuesday19.03.13

Updated blog with completed work. Finished Task 5 and updated blogger, as well as update schedule.

Friday22.03.13

Started planning on what I will do during the two weeks which is to start on using bones for the hand model I have already and learn more about how they work with parenting and flexing.

Saturday23.03.13

Updated blog with completed work

Tuesday26.03.13

Began working on a model with the bones etc. I used a Light wave book which helped me get the basics of using bones and what I had to do, it started by telling me to use a square block and learn how to move the bones how, how to rest them, how to parent and so on. I found this kind of helpful but not much as it didn’t feel big enough when I was using and moving the bones around like it would in my final model.

Monday01.04.13

This week I began working on creating my first part of my model which was the head, it is nowhere near finished but it is on its way as I am using the book used to learn about how to use bones in layout to create it as it has a section on how to create a human head in modeller. I have started by creating the first half of the cage which is basically skeleton. I first started off by creating the eye area, then I started creating the left half of his face.

Saturday06.04.13

I completed the skeleton for my head and carried on using the book to help me get through it; this is when I was told to start patching the cage. I had no idea how to do this as I hadn’t used it before because I haven’t needed to, so as I started I was a little slow but I managed to pick up what I had to do to be able to patch areas I didn’t complete all of the patching.

Tuesday09.04.13

I came back into college and started getting all my work together just to make sure there was no loose ends as I went into final production to create my animation. There was a few bits of research missing from my blog which I had to find again and just put onto my blog. After I had done this I was able to make sure all my stuff loaded etc.

Wednesday10.04.13

I had a meeting with my project manager in which I shown him the head and other things. It was all clear and I am on track. I decided to start creating parts for my suit using the skills I had learned throughout the two weeks I had off. When I started off, which was the boots, I found reference images for, although this wasn’t a great idea as I found out the images were the same yet they were a little unbalanced so I couldn’t use them to create the boots. But I was able to look at them to get an idea of the shape and how wide and thick certain bits of the boots were. This helped me hugely to start.

Friday12.04.13

I Carried on making the head for my model, when I left of I started on patching the cage and giving it ‘skin’ I got straight back into it with hardly any problems, the only problems I really had was forgetting things every now and then but this was a simple mistake to fix. After I had patched the left half of the cage I carried on with the book and had to mirror the head so it duplicated the right side this was simple as the book gave me a guide all the way through. Once I had mirrored the face I left it at that and decided to continue on Monday.

Monday15.04.13

Since my actual head was complete I looked around the model for gaps etc. this is when I had problems. As I was looking around I realised there was many gaps and certain parts were not in the correct position which affected the overall effect of the model. I didn’t have the time to create the full head again so decided to move points around stretching the patches so they cover gaps and connect. This did take a short time as I had to be careful what I was moving and make sure I wasn’t moving something else. This did take a few hours to fix. After this I decided to add the ears using the book, I struggled a lot with this as I didn’t know exactly what I was doing even after reading the book thoroughly, so the ears are very basic and just the shape.

Wednesday17.04.13

Now the Head was completed I decided to add coloured eyes using the book, this helped me understand about nodes and how they work using layers and so on. I had no problems with this apart from one when I linked the node to the wrong part of the object this was a simply drag and drop to repair and carry on with what I was doing. I decided to give the model green eyes as they look more natural and easy to notice the colour.

Friday19.04.13

Now my head was complete I decided to leave that alone for the time being and start creating the clothing, I am falling behind on schedule but hopefully I should be able to catch up. I decided to carry on with the boots and finish them off, as I was used to using patches and stretching them I found it much easier finishing the boots, also once one boot was complete I had the other straight away just by using the mirror tool. I added the textures to make the boot look more alive in a sense as with just a grey colour all over or simple colours it wouldn’t look as good. I found leather textures and more these made the boots look much better than they were.

Monday22.04.13

Using my Skills I have learned from creating the boots and the Skeleton, I decided on creating the legs of the suit first and work my way up. I found it much easier getting started this must have been because of my experience. But there was one problem as I started with the ankles I had to make sure the ankles fit in shoe perfectly and didn’t come through the shoe giving the effect away. I managed to do this by putting the boots in a background layer and doing the ankles in the front layer. I just simply carried on creating most of the bottom half and left it at that.

Wednesday24.04.13

As I finished creating the pants I noticed there was a big problem with the groin/hip areas of the model so I knew this had to be dealt with. The problem was them areas were not creating patches as it couldn’t register the sides. I have no idea why I didn’t recognise those sides or maybe there was too many. What I did to fix the problem was make my own sides using the same points, this worked perfectly as it patched them areas I couldn’t get to. But then another small problem was gaps again so I decided to do the exact same I did with the head and stretch the patches. Admittedly I had a few problems because I forgot to turn on symmetry so I had to do each side separately. This just made it take longer than I needed to. Once I had completed the pants I left it at that and checked they fit in the ankles correctly.

Friday26.04.13

With the pants and boots completed I decided to start on the final part which was the top half of the suit, again using the skills I have learned using points and patching I decided to do the same again with the top half of the Uniform. Again I found it easy with the odd simple mistake here and there woo many points so on. But I did struggle when it came to the arms as I didn’t know whether to come out early or later. I decided to judge it using my eye I believe I got the position right as the arm looks fine and looks like it’s in the same position as a normal sleeve. I did make sure when I started that I was creating the top half so it fit with the pants so it is a simple, merge of the points. Once the Skelton was complete I decided to quickly patch everything as I knew what I was doing and had the time so decided to get it out the way then check next time and left it at that.

Monday29.04.13

Now all my models are created I decided to check over my top half model to check for holes etc. I did find a few holes in the shoulders so I just again stretched them and covered them, this worked fine. What I did notice one problem the sleeve ends were to small so what I had to do was widen the entire arm so it still looked the same just wider for the hand model to go in.

Tuesday30.04.13

After I had widened the arm and sorted out the problems with holds and sizing I decided to start merging the objects leaving the head out. There were certain sections that needed resizing so I just simply changed the position of points which was easy after I had merged all the objects I just looked around the model to see how it looked. I noticed a few things the sleeves were too long; the character from the side was way too thin and too wide. Again these were just simply move the points or delete a section and merge the points. After I looked around again and made sure everything was ok, that was it for the day.

Thursday 02.05.13

I decided to give all my objects textures or colour depending on what it was, this was a simple task and was easy to do, and once this was done I decided to go back to my model head. I wanted to add hair to this making it look more lifelike, I done this by using the book as it shown me how to do what I needed. I actually found it quite easy using the book as the guides were clear and easy to do. I then decided to leave it at that once the hair was put onto the head.

Friday03.05.13

Seen as though the hair was working fine on the head I then decided to add it to the model of the suit. There was a problem the hair didn’t save unless you saved the scene so I had to add that onto it again when I attached the head to the model. This was easy as I knew what to do. But then ran into another problem; the head alone was able to support the hair plugin, but when I tried with the suit in as well it turned out it couldn’t be used. The reason being was because the plugin was only a demo version and couldn’t handle so many points at once. So I looked online the price was too expensive so I have decided to just leave the hair out of the model as it isn’t actually needed.

Monday06.05.13

As my character is ready to go into animation I decided to start adding bones to the model, at first I started slow again not understanding much as I carried on remembering what I done from the 2 weeks I had off. I managed to insert all the bones into the model and parent them, once this was done I left it at that and checked all of the bones were positioned correctly before I decided to start the animation.

Tuesday07.05.13

I have run into a possible very bad problem, the software I use to create my animation at home is the same but is Layout 9.3, whilst the one at college 9.0. this means I cannot load the animation in college as I have been using it on a newer software but this shouldn’t effect anything to much as I can just continue at home and tie up loose ends in college.

Thursday09.05.13

I started creating animation, its going slow as I can’t seem to get the thigh bone to move how I want it to and only use the hip bone. Again this isn’t a major problem but I also don’t know how to use the bones to much so it’s a little hard to do. I have been using side views mainly to see the leg move and so on.

Saturday11.05.13

As I carried on moving the bones etc. I started to get a little more used to it, I was starting to find it much more easier to move the bones around and hopefully my final product will look how I want it to.

Tuesday14.05.13

As I was in college and couldn’t work on my scene what I could do was insert the bones into a model again and practice a little more with moving them creating an animation. What I ended up doing was creating a little animation of my model jumping and doing a flip. The model I used was a headless one as the head wasn’t important whilst practicing with the bones.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_f86cZB25A

Wednesday15.05.13

I continued with my animation at home my animation was completed all I need to do is upload it to YouTube, but I don’t know how to render it as of yet so I will be waiting until I know what to render it as.

Thursday16.05.13

I decided to check up on my blog and begin to start posting things on there and also do my presentation which was my final product with a little description but as I haven’t uploaded my product yet I have left the video out.

Friday17.05.13

I have ran into a problem, whilst making my animation I was never aware of the time and now I have rendered it out and uploaded it is way too short (4 seconds) I am deciding to add more onto this instead of recreating it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a70stEEQ5kc

Sunday19.05.13

I have added another 20 seconds onto my animation, I found it fairly easy as it wasn’t as hard whilst I knew what I was doing so all I need to do is render my scene and upload it to YouTube.

Tuesday21.05.13

With my video rendered and uploaded to my blog I have no decided to start my evaluation, I have gotten off to a good start and will continue tomorrow.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob0a7NdJbxc

Wednesday22.05.13

My evaluation had been completed and is two pages I have explained pretty much everything said in this production log and a few other thigs. I will now just be rounding up any missing things and handing this in on Friday.

Friday24.05.13

I have handed everything in and my blog is up to date I have met my deadline and completed my FMP.http://ch-fmp.blogspot.co.uk/