Mission Complete!

*edit* huh wth? The blog updated itself, hmm... */edit*

Just wanted to say that I'm finished with my degree project! I'm very pleased that I managed to hand it in before deadline and I can finally take it easy. 6 months of hard work... I'm really exhausted...and I caught a cold in the process too. What a great timing! Must be my award of my hard effort or something.

I'll soon post the full-video up, I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings regarding this project:

Good stuff:
+ Achieved lot's of experience in Maya 2009, among with Adobe After Effects and other hardware programs.
+ I had lot's of fun creating this project! It was weird to see my characters interact with each other in a 3D environment...they're aliiiiiive!!
+ I recieved a lot of grateful comments and critiques! I appreciate all the visits and comments here <3 Thank you so much for stopping by!

Bad Stuff:
- I could have used my time more wisely next time; I had to cut a lot of moments in my animation, but it looks okay anyway~
- I had troubles with the hardware programs. I don't know if I should blame them or blame my Vista for acting up all the time...
- I hardly had time to draw anything else during this process (or play games, it occured rarely..).

Summary:I enjoyed working with this project all alone and I don't regret a thing. I'm glad that I chose my old comic project Desert Rose as an inspiration to this degree project.

Also, special thanks to all of you who had left a comment, visited or watched this blog! I truly appreciate every single thing :) Thank you all!

Until next time, the finished product will be available!

Video preview!

I managed to finish one clip! It's more like a test to see if the dialogue looks good. I can't decide if the text should pop up or just flow along... What do you guys think? If you compare the first one to the rest you'll see a difference.

By the way, this is a scene from the ending part. Azrael was rescued by his friend Monsieur from getting slashed to death by the vampire. But the vampire managed to escape, but before he escaped he revealed something about Monsieur that Azrael wasn't aware of..

Random question: How can a vampire survive the heat? They can't withstand sun!
Answer: I know, I know..but this vampire has a certain stone attached somewhere on his weapon, which makes him invulnerable to heat, garlic and other things vampires cannot endure!

Character Previews

More character images! This time on Monsieur and Azrael.

I have to say..I'm really happy about Monsieur: I love how he turned out!

3D modelling, part 4

It's........ alive!!!

The environment is basically done, but I think I won't touch it for a while since I need to focus on other things, like animation.

Aah, the stress is coming!! :(

Stupid problems, part 1

..AAAAGH!!!
How many times do I have to re-skin Azrael?? I just wished he and the program Maya 2009 would stop acting so stupid that I can animate yoooooou....Sigh.

Sorry for the nag, but it's really frustrating that this will be my 3rd time skinning the same character. I also made a huge mistake on the bartender too, which results in remaking the skinning too. AND the riggning...

Uuuuugh...first nagging for a while. Had to get it out. I'll probably never finish everything I planned on time.

Grrr grumble grumble..

Shading process, part 1

I was just playing aound with his pose, I'm not rather happy with the cellshading..I don't know how to make it better. Maybe I should remove the toonshading and add something simple instead.


The main character Azrael in T-pose. I can't seem to have the thick black lines around with while rendering with Mental Ray..hmmm. Maybe I should skip the thick lines?

Otherwise, It's going fine with the project. I feel a bit stressed with the animation though, which is not good. But I did finish the storyboard at night! (Yeah, I'm a night wolf...)

Blendshapes!

I think I'm done with the blendshapes part! (expressions for the characters)



Silly expressions for you all!