The rise and fall

overall I was very pleased with our final piece and believe we all did very well and that our final submission reflects that though personally i felt as though i could have done more as my modeling skills and my final models weren't great and that will be a personal goal of mine to improve this as i was quite slow at times when it came to creating models. Though i do believe I have learnt a great deal also as before i found it incredibly difficult to even get my head round modeling though i know that I want to stick with more pre production aspects of animation as i find this much more enjoyable and less frustrating which for me is a must because i occasionally became very agitated when I couldn't work maya or find a reason why it didn't work. Also if there was more time i would like to have done more animation in the environment and also improved the animation that was done though this is something that wasn't a major concern as it was always the environment that i knew had to take centre stage and the whole group managed to produce a great piece of work.  

Music

The music was a bit harder to find then expected as we all knew it needed to fit perfectly otherwise it would have spoiled the atmosphere we were trying to create so i took some time over it trying to find something that every one would like. I found spotify to be the best choice for looking for music and the selection is massive and its free to listen to meaning i was able to source a wide selection. the first song was easier to find as that song had to be something of the time and i already had some knowledge of music from this era so it was just a case of finding something that fit the mood  and the best i found was Tommy Dorsey : OPUS ONE which was written during the time period and fit the swinging feel we were going for for the opening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7QjMZ4ckZc&feature=player_embedded#!

the next song was more complicated as it was much harder to find something that worked well to keep the mood and i went through quite a lot of music to find something but in the end it came down to simple trail and era and when i got to last chances and i knew i wanted something with a film noir feel to it. When I typed those words I got what i was after, Alexander Lasarenko-On the courner which fit perfectly.

Lighting in the animation

Since we want to create a particular mood and atmosphere the lighting of the characters will need to be dark and create sharp shadows to help give that film noir feel which is what were going for so having low lighting will help with this. I used spot lights to pick out certain areas to light which allowed for some great shadows especially on the groggy rig.

A cold stare from an unknown individual 

a darker side of max

at this point i had also done some basic texturing of max to help him fit in as he was looking a bit naked before hand.

Before

After

Testing the water

I made some play blast to test out some animation before adding them to the final scene so i could get a rough idea on how it would look in the final scene.

max kicking door

max kicking door full scene

max full scene with hat parented

groggy peep hole scene

Animation start

My next task was to start animating and originally we were intending to have a more animation but due to time we felt it was best to cut it down to something that works and just added that little bit of interaction with the scene so se settled on 1 sequence starting with a knock at the main entrance to the bar followed by the door being kicked in. for this there wouldn't be time to create and rig an original character so used the free rigs available of creative crash, those being max and groggy.

Max

groggy

Only the finest

Next i move onto helping others texture there models which i found to be a much more enjoyable thing to do as it gave me more time to find better textures and in some cases create my own.

Cigar box & cigars

Rob had modeled a nice cigar box so firstly i used a basic wood texture which was obtained of Deviant Art which was another good source of material that people were will to share without asking for money which is always a plus in my book. The cigars were a bit trickier as i wasn't able to find any good textures so i knew it would be easier to make one myself so i found a free paper wallpaper for a desktop which i then edited in photo shop to make it much darker and add a tint of brown to give it a more cigar texture

old paper texture

From that i then duplicated the texture and place them over each other a t a diagonal to create the cigar look and finally finished it off with a band around the top to really give it that expensive look.

Final texture

Coat stand & Stool

next was some basic texturing on a coat stand and stool which were very simple wood textures with some slight bump mapping just to add that little extra texture them.

Table lighter

This was a bit trickier as it was a completely shiny object mean i spent some time tweaking the textures to get the right look between the chrome and the marble. luckily at the trip to the Tate Britain Rob took some photos which helped with texturing.

Wall phone 

Finally was Harry's wall phone which i textured by simply adding a low reflective blin and bump mapping stone to which came out looking very nice and just goes to show that sometimes just experiment can come out with some good results. The numbers were done by just making font in photo shop and then adding each number to the correct hole by using plannar mapping and the UV texture editor.

  

aaah modeling my nemesis we meet again...

Next i was tasked with doing some modeling which is neither my strong suit nor is it some i remotely enjoy  doing but sometime i guess you gotta do what you gotta do. First i design a filing cabinet which was to go in the  back room which we felt was need to add that little something extra to the bar. i found a website (www.antiques-atlas.com) which had a nice selection and this was the best and best suited the style.

I used this a my base for my cabinet.

this is the model i came out with which i was quite pleased with, especially the wood texture which I found at (www.pixelab.be) which proved to be a useful site for finding tillable textures and the brass was made from a tutorial found on creative crash I mealy copied the values for the colour spectrum to create it using a phong texture.

next i moved onto a revolver which was initially going to be held by our character but since we decided to cut most of the animation as it wasn't all necessary for the animation but i did start modelling the revolver in part so it would be usable and while in the end it didn't matter i felt it was still worht while as it would make gd practice for future projects as i'm 100% sure i will create an animation where firearms will be used.

Webley schematics 

perspective view to help with shape

I decided to make my revolver around a webley revolver, a common service pistol during that time and one which i felt has a slight art deco look in itself so i felt it was most fitting. The thing i found most hard was trying to find a front view of a revolver as it would have made modeling a lot easier but sometimes we can't always have everything that easy. This has made me come to the conclusion that it would alway be easier to design of make my own scimitars for objects as it means i can do that extra view to help speed up and make modeling easier. 

Final outcome and will make the note that i would have liked the texturing to have come out better though i found with this that really i should have created my own textures as anything i found didn't look completely right but with the time frame and not wanting to spend too much time on it this was the best attempt and it came out fine and it worked for this as it was only place on a table rather then being used by a character and therefore would have been in view more.