Monday, November 29, 2010

W.A.A.R.T - Will

Hai!

I'm Will and I'm one of the members of team W.A.A.R.T. I am the T in team W.A.A.R.T. for Thomas as each letter represents our surnames. CLEVER!!!!

Matt is our Producer but that is the main job role assigned to this project. We are all researchers and artists. We all contribute in different fields to achieve the best work we can and to allow us to gain a broader knowledge of skills in the animation work flow and to see which jobs we enjoy doing.

As Matt has explain we are working on a Construction Site (MY IDEA - GLOAT) which is the Ravensbourne building and are animating its building process over time.

We have all researched into the building. I have looked into the texture of the building as it is quite complex and also looked at time lapse videos of building sites. While looking at the time lapse videos I also came across animated time lapse videos similar to ones we want to achieve that we can look into for inspiration and to see whether there is anything we can do better.

At this moment in time I have been given the Job Role of creating the worker on the site. I wont go into too much detail in this blog as I have done so in an individual blog I have created for myself about this project, which I will post a link to at the end of this post.

This job is good for me because it allows me to practise modeling, UV mapping, texturing and rigging, which I want to practise and look in to. I will also hopefully get a chance to animate as well, which I haven't had a chance to really practise this year yet.

For more information on my contribution to the project follow the link beow:

W.A.A.R.T - Will

Ed's Progress So Far!

I'm Ed and I'm the R in team W.A.A.R.T. So far I have conducted my own research which has helped me to contribute to the group. I started off by researching into interesting buildings around the world. I then narrowed down my search as i discovered that we would not be able to realistically visit these buildings for research due the time left this term and the buildings destinations. So i then researched buildings in London  that intrigued me. However as a group with the thanks of Jared we eventually settled on the idea of using the new Ravensbourne building for our digital environment. I moved onto research time lapse as that is the technique we are going to use,  i tried to find time lapse's that showed weather and its effect as well as time lapse's of buildings. I am currently working on modeling a scissor lift which is an import part of machinery that was used to help create the Ravensbourne building. It was used to put the tiles up on the exterior of the building. So it will be in most of the animation. Once I Have finished modeling the scissor lift i am going to move onto attempting to create a digger or crane.

Here is a link to my blog:  http://ed-digital-environment-project.blogspot.com/

Below is an image of my progress of my scissor lift model so far. 

Nat's Progress

I'm Nat... or Natalia for those who could be confused by the abbreviation, and I'm one of the A's in Team W.A.A.R.T.
So far I have been allocated the task of creating a basic model of the Ravensbourne building. I managed to find some useful reference images online which helped me when it came to creating the shape of the building. I also experimented with some UV mapping and used a generic Penrose pattern but this will have to be created from scratch and the colours will also have to be adapted in order to be an accurate representation of the real building. In addition to this, I will also have to add windows and also work on adding more detail, especially for the finished product.
As well as this I have started to model some of the props which would be found on a construction site. At the moment I have created a shipping container and also a pile of sand... but there will be more to come!

Here's the progress so far:




Go team go!

Welcome to the Team W.A.A.R.T blog. Team W.A.A.R.T is a crack team of talented individual who produce professional and high quality animations and models. Our aim is to be the best of the best. And we do it all whilst being damn attractive and charming too.

Team W.A.A.R.T's current project is documenting the construction of the very building we study in: Ravensbourne College on the Greenwich Peninsula. It looks like this:


Pretty sweet basically. And I think it's something we can reproduce faithfully fairly easily. Of course just modeling this building isn't enough. As I said, we're documenting it's construction in computer animation form, so we'll be showing it from foundations to finish. And yes, that is alliteration I just used there.

So step one was track down the time lapse footage that was made of the construction. Useful stuff, that, we can use it for direct reference. Turns out management had forgotten to get that off the people they paid. Good job guys.

Lucky we were there to remind them, gosh we think of everything don't we? So with that in hand we can get started properly! I would put it up oh here, but I'm not sure we're allowed... More on that later!

The plan is to have a fluid moving camera through a static environment that periodically changes to reflect the passing of time, so after a good look at the foundations, for example, we then jump ahead to the cranes bringing in the building's skeleton.

With that in mind we've got to get someone to do a storyboard so we can figure out what's going to be on camera most and then prioritize what to model and when. Until the Storyboard is finished people can get to work on the things that will definitely feature prominently, like the scissor lifts that tile the building and the shipping crates that feature in the early construction. Also needed is a basic model to represent workers, so we can show how their work habits change depending on the weather and time of year.

Oh, and that's a point: Need to think about how weather will affect things like lighting and activity. I found some examples of weather in time lapse, see it here:



So as you can see when it's raining there's an increase in traffic but a bit of a decrease in work speed. During the construction of Ravensbourne there is rain, fog and snow to deal with. Work continued but not at the same rate. When it rains the ambient colour becomes much drearier, and washed out whereas during the snow the effect is everything seems much brighter.

Interesting... So anyway, on with the work!

Team W.A.A.R.T go!