Weeklies

The Last Weekly (#45): June 26, 2015

30 June, 2015 |  5 Comments | by Elysia Brenner

Welcome to your last weekly write-up for the Project Gooseberry pilot production! The animations are final, the edit is all-but, and the final renders are underway. You can check it all out below in the livecast video and the highlights. Then continue to watch this blog, the Blender Cloud, and the Gooseberry Twitter, Facebook, and G+ pages for all the Cosmos Laundromat-related tutorials that will be coming your way over the next month!

 

 

The Highlights

 

Gooseberry Guests

In addition to Martijn and Sybren, and Sybren’s wife Marit, this week we were joined by Hizkia Subiyantoro (better known in the Blender community as HizaRo) and his wife Chonie, the couple behind the largest (open) animation community in Indonesia, including the Blender Army. Since they were in Europe to present the film they are working on (about the truck drivers and entertainment district of the Roda Pantura on Java Island) at the Annecy Animation Film Festival in France, they decided to swing by Amsterdam to join the Gooseberry project’s last weekly presentation.

 

Back to Paris

Our director Mathieu spent his last week in the Amsterdam studio working on shots, tweaking lighting, and working with Andy on the tornado (see “Super Sims” below). Starting this week, he will be doing his final film and sound editing from his hometown: Paris. Check out some pics of the team saying goodbye with Champagne and a viewing of the film to date in today’s other blog post.

 

Final Animations

Windy cable

This was the week of fighting with the cable from Victor’s headphones. First Beorn made sure it would wave in the rising wind as the tornado appears. (Head to his Cloud folder for this week to see the animation.)

Victor at home

Then Hjalti spent the weekend painstakingly animating the cord in the laundromat scene, frame by frame. You will find the final animation, more advanced that what was shown during the weekly livecast, in Hjalti’s Cloud folder this week. Note there is also more jacket movement (which Beorn has continued to work on this week) plus a new ending as Victor realizes, oh shit, the timer is going off! (SPOILER ALERT: Never lighting his cigarette…ahem.) On the Cloud, you’ll also find a reference video for this final shot, featuring Hjalti in what Ton calls his “Mission Impossible” shot.

Caterpillar discovery

Sarah completed her final animation for the project: Franck waking up in the jungle. Note that the leaf now moves a bit, too. (See it in her Cloud folder for this weekly.)

Jungle fever

Beorn then wrapped up the animation of this jungle sequence (i.e., the spin-out) and added flittering dragonflies to the background of all the shots. You can check out this sequence in his weekly Cloud folder.

 

Super Sims

Victor summons

Who likes colorful tornadoes? Good, because Andy has been working more on them. He’s added swirly clouds to Victor’s summoning, worked on Franck’s first view of the storm from below, and matched these two shots for continuity. (He also did another quick grass-sim test and fix.) But really he spent most of the week working on the sim where Franck gets picked up. See how he’s progressed, in low-res animated renders, in Andy’s Cloud folder for this week.

Wind in their fur

Beorn also finished the hair sims for the sheep flock shots — now with more wind for more uniformity! The tricky part will be rendering all this sweet, memory-sucking hair-sim action. Of course you’ll find these windier sims and animations in the usual place.

The storm in the machines

Manu has been working on the sims of the colorful tornadoes in the machines, testing and adding that characteristic washing-machine shake. Visit Manu’s weekly Cloud folder to see these sims in action. There you will also find a new laundromat render from this weekend with color reflections from the machine storms.

 

Grooming Models & Sets

Hello, motofly! The dragonflies are back, teasing the action longtime followers know will follow in the next chapter of Cosmos Laundromat. Beorn has added new shaders and textures to the model. (You'll also find a version with the jungle backdrop on the Cloud.)

Hello, motofly! As mentioned above, the dragonflies are back, teasing the action longtime followers know will follow in the next chapter of Cosmos Laundromat. Beorn has added new shaders and textures to the model. (You’ll also find a version with the jungle backdrop on the Cloud.)

A better belly

As the caterpillar’s belly wasn’t originally going to be seen, not much work had gone into the grooming of that part of him. Sarah started out by smoothing out the seam running down the middle of it. She then added more veining, and then more spots. See each step in her weekly Cloud folder. This is still a WIP!

A better belt

Meanwhile, Manu has transferred the texture from Franck’s timer belt to his caterpillar form.

Jungle foliage

Remember Sarah’s fantastic trees and foliage from November and February? It’s time to work them into the jungle scenery. Sarah has created a new jungle backdrop, using Andy’s splash-screen creation as a color guide, by adding leaves to the trees one branch at a time to create a mix of 4 different trees.She then added more leaves and reflection to the forest floor, going on to use these elements to dress the jungle set. See 4 more shots of her process in her weekly Cloud folder. (Sarah is still continuing to add details now.)

Jungle bubbles

Pablo has been working on the lighting and details for the jungle shots, trying yellow grading and adding bubbles, etc. In these shots, found in Pablo’s weekly folder, you can get a closer look at Sarah’s jungle work as well! Including a rendered version of her final animation (without the dragonflies here).

 

From the Developers

  • Francesco, Pablo, and others are, of course, deep into rendering. This will continue over the next month.
  • Antonis has been making more magical things, though they’re not quite done yet. Watch this blog over the next month to see what’s he’s been working on!
  • Lukas’s new feature, called Forceviz, allows you to visualize force fields with field lines. No more guesswork with invisible forces! (Very helpful for de-bugging, especially.) For example, in the screenshot below, you can see the field lines collapsing in turbulence, which is perhaps why there was all that hair jittering going on. See the demo at 8:38 in the weekly video, then find another screenshot and a .blend file in Lukas’s weekly Cloud folder.

A disturbance in the force

  • Lukas also did a fire test for the match. There’s a blend file. Guess where you can find it?

 

The fully rendered final film will be coming your way late this summer. In the meantime, see you back here for fresh tutorials and more from the Gooseberry team!



5 Responses

  1. Aclariel says:

    That is good news!
    Thank you to all the devs and team!
    Can’t wait to devour all this with passion!

    And again, a BIG thank you to M. Roosendaal!

    Sincerely, Aclariel.

  2. Stirling Goetz says:

    Entire movie crew – Revel in your role as creators who have left something lasting and beautiful. The glimpses we’re getting are full of promise.
    Kudos especially to Ton. Know that your life-long heroic love for this software has touched the lives of many and enabled a creative outlet for people all the way to the far flung corners of our planet.

  3. Andre says:

    Hi, just a simple Question…. On the USB that you’re selling with the Upcoming movie, It says that some Assets and obbjects will be included, And what about the Sets?….Will the Scenes/Sets be available? And if… Is there gonna be like any Copyright stuff on it?….Our team is looking forward to creating a short indie game adaptation…?

  4. Michael says:

    Hello was this film ever completed or has it just stoped in its tracks?

    • Marie says:

      Sadly, I’m think it’s kaput? No reply, last tweet was over a year ago, and the fb page is nonexistant…. Really too bad, I enjoyed this and was looking forward to more.

Comments are closed.