New Image from OFFICE HOURS film

Here is a brand spanking new image from Office Hours.
Click on the image to view it larger. The picture has been reduced by 50% compared to rendered version.

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Some Terregen renders

Here are some renders done using TERRAGEN 1 that I thought I'd stick up on the site to show anyone unfamiliar with this great piece of software what it can do. These renders of landscapes were created entirely with Terragen and required very little effort to achieve some good looking results. Terragen 2 is in testing stage at the moment (as I've mentioned in a previous post on this site) and includes many more features such as 3D cloudscapes, .obj/.Lwo import options and more sahder tools to create even more realistic landscapes and even entire planets. But Terragen 1 is faster at rendering and to be honest Terragen 2 - at the moment - is a little glitchy and slow. For the moment I prefer Terragen 1!
Lets look at a few images I made with Terragen 1 (with no extra photoshop-like touches):

This is a weird looking landscape I made in Blender. It's deliberately strange looking, by the way! Check out the water. Looks good, eh.


Heres another landscape. Again some nice looking water. Remember Terragen can make animations so you can do flyovers and fly-pasts and the like....



Here's an image that reminds me of my home country Ireland. Gentle rolling hills, grass, ehm, that's pretty much it...


Heres a Himalaya type Everest view of a snow covered mountain. Terragen's sun settings and cloudscapes can all be animated so you can have the scene animate from day tyo dusk to night if you want!

Terragen is for "Non Commercial Use Only" and can be downloaded for free. Also check out Terragen 2, which is still in it's pre-release version.

Comments on the site please!

OFFICE HOURS: Hair (Again!)

Well by now I'm sure you know how much I like the new Jahka particle system in Blender. It really is a good as I've made it out to be. Hair modelling was always a pain but now it's become something I like doing!
The image above (which is a zoom-in from a larger image, by the way) shows the old and new particle systems side by side. The hair on the characters head is Jahka stylee. while the eyebrows and beard are the old method. Kinda obvious which looks better, isn't it? :)

One thing though that I've noticed from trying out the experimental particle build of Blender: the little button in UV options which you normally click to make all selected polygons the same type (ie; alpha enabled, or nor, etc) isn't there. Kinda annoying, but you can always do that stuff in the regular version of Blender and then import it back into the experimental build by appending...
Oh, and by the way if anyone can't find the UV mode in the experimental build it's accessable by selecting "Edit" mode, then in the little box beside it where you change view modes, just select "Texture Mode" icon. It's actually much more user friendly that way than the previous versions.

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Terragen 2

There are lots of great freeware and open source software programs out there jsut waiting to be downloaded but in my opinion there are just a handful of excellent professional programs. Blender 3d is one of them, Audacity, Psycle and IrfanView are others but one of the the most accomplished is a program called Terragen.
Terragen is used for the creation of photo-realistic landscapes and aerial flyovers. It's been around for a number of years and many updates have been added to make it more feature rich and stable. The image above was made by me (Shane Sheils) a long while back while testing out Terragen 1.
But for a while now the developers have been working on Terragen 2.

Terragen 2 is a massive leap forward in terms of functionality and capability-wise. The interface is better organised (although newcomers will be pulling their hair out in frustration trying to figure out what the hell is happening!) and features a node system (which users of high-end 3D applictions and Blender 3D's node editor will be familiar with), animation intergration and most importantly "planet creation". The last point is the most intriguing thing about Terragen 2. In the original Terragen you often came across horrible glithes if you moved your camera viewpoint a certain level abouve the landscape - the ground seemed to just end and fade off to nothingness. Terragen 2 has overcome this by allowing procedural planet textures: put simply you can create an entire planet surface, zoom out as far or zoom in as close as you need and it will render perfectly. Well thats the aim at least.

I've been trying out a version of Terragen 2 and am still trying to get to grips with the new functions, layout and options. Camera Viewpoint takes a little getting used to (Terragen 1 used an overhead pointer-like camera positioner, Terragen 2 uses a "through the lens" viewpoint to focus). Main annoyance (as with the first Terragen) is the render times. They can take absolutely ages to render. It renders what looks like a black adn white "starfield" before getting on to rendering the actual image, piece by piece. This is a non-commercial version of Terragen 2 so render size is limited to a maximum of 800X600 or something like that. (at least they have a pause button now, so you can pause the render if you need to rather than abandoning it midway through).

What use is Terragen 2? Well if you can put up with the loooong render times you can create photo-realistic natural scenes, background mattes, and it even now has Lightwave/Wavefront object integration , so you can add trees, buildings, spaceships, whatever to your scenes (again, rendering with these would take a very long time). A while ago we had an idea for afilm set in the far distant future. i was waiting for Terragen 2 to be released because I based alot of the story around the idea of using it to create plaents and landscapes, etc. I was hoping Terragen 2 would be a fater renderer than Terragen 1. It's not. it's way slower, but combined with Blender 3d, I think we can make something pretty amazing looking featuring these two excellent programs. Stay tuned!

Download Terragen 2 fromthe Planetside website.

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Basic NEW particle System Tutorial

Following on with my tests with the great new particle hair system I thought I'd put together a simple basic tutorial on how to use it for anyone out there not familiar with it.

The file is a .EXE executable that you can download from here or
http://www.mediafire.com/?8kmmr0yanud
The file is compressed with 7Zip. You can download 7Zip free from 7zip.org.
(Note: this is from Mediafire.com upload site. The previous crappy upload site failed)

Or even better yet, Download the NEW 10 Minute Blender Particle Hair Tutorial (Jan 2008) provided in PDF format. It covers the basics of particle hair creation, hair material and render layers.
http://www.mediafire.com/?cjdnjllzotz


Once downloaded, uncompresss the file, then just select the file and follow the on screen instructions to move through the images and descrpitions - it's as simple as that. To exit the tutorial press the escape "ESC" button on your computer.

Below is an image created using the new particle hair system. Click on the picture to view it large. The hair literally took about 20 seconds to make. It's rough but it does go to show how siple the new Jahka particle system is to work with.



Again, download the BASIC JAHKA PARTICLE HAIR TUTORIAL from here.

Download the NEW 10 Minute Blender Particle Hair Tutorial (Jan 2008) provided in PDF format.
http://www.mediafire.com/?cjdnjllzotz

Edit 23/Jan/2007: This is a newer version of the PDF Tutorial provided in a compressed .Rar format. It includes more detail and tips.

Any questions or comments post 'em on the site.

OFFICE HOURS: Blender Particle hair

Here are some images with descriptions regarding some tests I've been doing with the latest version of Jahka's particle system for Blender 3d.
Stying 3D hair has been made a whole lot easier with this version.

Click on the images to view them full size with detailed descriptions and advice.


You can download the experimental version of Blender 3d here.
Or you can download the latest stable version of Blender (v2.45) from it's homepage.

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Blender 3D - experimental particle version

Ok, yesterday I downloaded an experimental version of Blender which is still a work in progress. The reason I wanted to get my hands on it was for the new particle system. And although it's a little buggy and tends to crash quite a lot, the updated particle system looks really great!

On Office Hours I experimented with lots of different ways of "doing" hair and if you look back over previous posts( by hitting "hair" or "particle hair"in the TAGS) you'll have seen the various tests I've tried to acieve a believable - though not necessarilt realistic - look. The female chracter in Office Hours has been proving a problem in the hair department. I've tried particles before and then reverted to UV mesh-style options. So far I have'nt been satisfied with how it looks. From some angles and with certain lighting it can look and move alright but it is a really difficult thing to get just the way I want it to be.

So back to the Experimental version of Blender. In previous and the current stable official release of Blender, hair is formed by using curve guides on a mesh that has a number of particle effects applied to it. To get a vaguely real-looking hairstyle can take anywhere from 6 to 20 curve guides and an awful lot of time twaeking and testing. Also - and this is a major downer - the hair must be split up into different groups such as "left side", "right side" and "fringe", and each of these must be kept on seperate layers. This is because the curve guides affect only the layer that they are on, but it means that you can end up wasting at least 2 or more layers just for hair - and Blender offers 20 layers (This may seem a lot but whenyour animating a character in a scene and the scene has lots of locations and cars and other objests which each need their own seperate layer for easy access it can become very annoying).

The new particle system uses a different method. You physically "comb" and ""cut" the hair - a bit like the "Sculpt Mode" modelling tools added a couple of releases ago. This is a more intuitive way of "making" hair. You push, pull, comb and chop the hairstyle you're looking for. I'm testing it out at the moment to see if I can make better hair for the female character in the film. Early tests have proved hopeful but I gotta keep trying to make her hair work.

Ok, at the moment it is buggy and prone to crashing but this is a major strp forward - in my humble opinion - for Blender. Modelling hair is one of the most hardest things to do in 3D animation and at last the workload of Blender users may just have gotten a little more manageable!

You can download the experimental build of Blender with the particle hair system here.

So far it is only available for Windows operating systems I think.

Email Dwarfed FIlms or leave a comment on the site here

False credit on IMDb for Night Falls

Scanning though I.M.D.B( the Internet Movie Database) I came upon something odd.
For our Dwarfed Films moveie "Night Falls", somebody had added their name as a credited "colorist/dailies". A Subsequent google search revelaed this person's name again credited as "dailies" on Night Falls.

Now either this dude is getting confused with working on another picture or he is just a bit of a chancer! I have never heard of this person i n my life. They never worked on Night Falls. Night Falls didn't even have a person for "dailies" or a "colorist". I edited the damn movie myself on my computer!

Again, this could be an honest mistake, but it may not be. I've had idiots pretending to be part of films before and even using the Dwarfed Films name, saying that they worked for us! Piece of advice - don't lie and pretend you've done something you haven't, you will always get caught out eventually and be made look like a gimp.

OFFICE HOURS: what's it all about and other useless details!

Hi, I’m Shane Sheils, co-writer/director of Office Hours.
Hmmm, that kinda sounds like something Troy McClure might’ve said on The Simpsons!
Anyway, I thought it’d be “nice” to fill you in on what’s the story on Office Hours and really what the hell this whole filmmaking fuss is all about.
Well first here’s a bit of background info stuff.

It all began with To Shoot A Rurf. Well actually it started before that, but those other films were really just test runs and mainly dipping our toes into the animation water.
When I say “we” I mean myself and Paula Sheils, my co-writer/director/composer/producer/etc, but unfortunately I’m the idiot that is in charge of the animation and visuals. The reason? I have the “background” in animation and I can draw “good”. The thing is, I “studied” Classical Animation – which, in normal human language, mean’s 2D hand drawn animation like the old Disney stuff before Toy Story came along. I was a crap student. I never completed any assignments, I fell asleep in class and I hated it. Why? It was boring as hell, that’s why! I didn’t like being told what to do. Drawing should be fun and done for enjoyment. C’mon, it’s about using the right hand side of the brain – it’s not meant to be wasted on tedious repetitious lines and squiggles. Heres the thing, most animators end up doing the crappy work that people who watch movies don’t notice. Who the hell would seriously want to be the guy/girl that cleans up the lines on drawings all day? It’s not creative. It’s no different than dotting the “i’s” and crossing the “t’s”, the kind of work even the most uncreative pencil pushing office worker could do. Do I sound bitter? Heck, yeah! Classical animation robbed me of my love of drawing and I wanted out of that place fast! I also studied live action filmmaking – which I was much happier and better at – but live action equals money. I like films to look great, ye’ know sweet visuals, moody lighting, great locations, blah, blah. All that generally requires money, and anyone that knows me or has visited www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com or www.toshootaruf.blogspot.com, well you should know I’m a big believer in “cost saving measures”. Oh and live action also throws up the problem of dealing with stupid people. I’ve been pretty lucky that most people I’ve had dealings with were nice and tried hard, but there are always a few gimps that can mess up your whole day by doing stupid crap or simply just messing you around!

They say never work with kids or animals. It should really be “don’t work with gimps”. Myself and Paula put 100% into whatever we do and in return we expect at least the same in return. Some times that just doesn’t happen. Gimps create problems for you to deal with. Live would be much nicer if all the gimp-bags of the world were stuffed in a sack and dumped in the nearest river. I salute all the gimps that have crossed me – you will never get the chance againJ. Word of advice to those who are starting out in filmmaking: believe in what you do, trust your instincts, don’t get too comfortable in what you do – always be aware of what others are trying, learn from not just your own mistakes but other peoples mistakes too. Vary your interests. If you wanna do some animation stuff, don’t turn your back on live action, books, magazines, newspapers, and all the various pictures, photo’s, drawings and visual stuff out there. Slip a little of your personality into your work. Don’t be a carbon copy of somebody else. Put a little bit of your character into your movie, it could be anything like a hobby or a way of thinking or talking or acting, just do it. Can’t afford expensive equipment and tools? Don’t make excuses; just find a way around it. When we were planning a live action film called The Darkside, we didn’t have a camera, lighting or anything. Everything just fell into place, as if by magic. Remember, expensive equipment didn’t exist years ago and amazing films were made. Those guys just did their best with what they had, used their knowledge to find cool ways to do cool things that had never been done before. The same goes for story and plot. If everybody wrote and made the same films, the world would be a very dull place. Sure there are rules for story arc and all that kinda thing but rules exist to be broken! Don’t make the film others want to watch, make the film you wanna see. If others dig it, then great; but accept that your film may only find an audience with a few people. Shorts, in particular, are a tricky thing to work with. They are supposed to be a way to present and try out new ideas, but mostly they just turn out to be mini rip-offs of other feature length movies or TV dramas. And the people who watch shorts can vary from drunks in pubs, eager to laugh at anything remotely funny, to pretentious twats waiting for a literary reference to some boring old dead guy who wrote poncy poetry!

To do the films myself and Paula wanted to make we simply couldn’t achieve it properly in live action-land.
Attention turned towards animation. So I come full circle again to the animation “thing”. Ah, but this time it was different, now we were in 3D animation time. Yeah, but that 3D stuff is pretty costly, isn’t it? It is if you’re a rich idiot. I’m a poor idiot. I discovered the wonder that is Blender3d (www.blender.org), a free 3D animation programme and sequencer with advanced texture unwrapping and a fantastic in-built render engine. I’ll say it again – Blender 3D is FREE. That’s 100% free, not shareware or one of those featureless demo programmes that expires after 21 days. And it’s very reliable and dependable. Again, if you’ve visited our Dwarfed Films blog, you’ll have heard plenty about Blender as well as lots of other essential freeware programs for video/ audio/image editing. We even have an Essential Freeware List on the Dwarfed Films site with links to all the software.
Ok, if you’re still reading, then great – I appreciate your time – but you’re probably still wondering what this has got to do with Office Hours, or what the hell I’m even talking about. Be patient, we’re getting there.
So, like I’ve said, we did a few shorts, mainly as testers, using Blender 3d to see how the whole 3d thing might work out. This lead to To Shoot A Rurf. Visit www.toshootarurf.blogspot.com or www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com to find out more about this film and lots of images and background making-of stuff. For those too lazy to bother checking out these sites right now I’ll just say that To Shoot A Rurf utilised everything I NEVER learned from college life all those years ago. Yeah, It’s true, I learned nothing, nada, zilch. To Shoot A Rurf was a complete course – self taught – in 3D animation. In the previous shorts I’d handled lighting, camera work and basic texturing fairly well( My experience in live action lighting and camera work slightly helped but 3D lighting is more complex than the real world lighting situations). What I learned –through trial and error – on To Shoot A Rurf, was delicate character animation, cloth animation, fluid animation, physics animation setups, particle effects such as smoke, complex UV mapping, particle hair and lots of other stuff. It was a real learning experience – maybe no different than most self-taught users of Blender – but it was also one of the most rewarding filmmaking experiences I’ve had. Literally every day I learned something new. The picture edit and composing the music and all the other elements on To Shoot A Rurf was very enjoyable.

Actually To Shoot A Rurf is probably my favourite film. It is totally mad, utterly surreal and it has a quirky sense of humour running throughout it’s 8 and a half minute running time. I just watched it again today and I was struck by a number of things. The lighting is fantastic and the mood is set up right from the opening shot. The music, which Paula and I composed and performed, is great. The music accompanying the singing Rurf, Rurfetta La Fey, is like a gonzo version of a John Barrymore Bond theme. The liquid metal mirror snake is cool. It’s hard to believe that it was an afterthought that I decided to add to the movie because I simply wanted to animate a mirror snake! Ya see that’s the cool thing about making movies – anything is possible and you can add cool stuff just because you feel like it. Now I admit To Shoot A Rurf might not be to everybody’s taste. Maybe it’s a bit too “out-there” or seen as experimental.

Now we come to Office Hours, which will be a more “logical” picture. The story is far more straight forward, for a start.
The script was written by myself and Paula a few years back. It was originally planned to be a live action short but the To Shoot A Rurf lesson showed that it was doable in 3D. The story tells the tale of a lonely office worker who falls in love with a mannequin head he discovers in a trash can outside an old back street lady’s fashion shop. After his cruel boss gets killed in an accident, he digs up her body and steals it – taking it back to his office cubicle where he stitches his beloved mannequin head to the decomposing decapitated body. A freak-lightening storm brings the mannequin to life where it goes berserk and tries to kill the man who must fight for his life against the bizarre zombie.
It’s a romantic/comedy/zombie movie, all very tongue in cheek. To Shoot A Rurf (TSAR) was very surreal and weird. Office Hours is weird but in a less “mondo bizarre” way. Plus Office Hours looks way better than TSAR. Office Hours is being rendered out in hi-def format, the characters and backgrounds are more realistic and highly detailed. Actually realistic is not the right word for the characters – they occupy a place in between cartoonish and realistic.
Lots of tests have taken place for every aspect of the picture, and they need to: rendering at full scale can take a long time. 3D animation is more enjoyable to do compared to classical hand drawn animation but it can still be a pain! Working on To Shoot A Rurf, for example, thought me a lesson in using strand particle’s for human hairstyles. The particle hairs would sometimes react weirdly to movement giving the impression that the lead characters hair was alive! Also during rendering I noticed that depending on the camera lens used (yes-3D animation uses camera lenses just like live action filmmaking) and rendering size, the character would sometimes appear to be balder or hairier in certain sequences. Irritating stuff that only becomes obvious once a sequence has been rendered out – thereby wasting a lot of time on re-renders and fix-ups. Cloth animation also proved dodgy. Blender doesn’t have a dedicated cloth animation system but instead I used “Softbody” settings. These control the elasticity and fluid-like motion of an object and by tweaking you can achieve acceptable cloth like movements, except sometimes it doesn’t work out how you want it to. The lead character in To Shoot A Rurf magically opens his hand (after being attacked by a “liquid metal” mirror – don’t ask, just go check out the film instead!) and finds a mini version of himself standing in his palm. The mini character is wearing a tuxedo jacket on which I applied a cloth-like modifier. Sometimes it moved nicely, other times it behaved erratically and went “through” the characters body or stretched weirdly. Trial and error, people, trial and error is the only way to get through awkward situations! Office Hours will present as many hurdles to cross and lots of technical difficulties, but it will be worth it in the end!

So stick with the us and follow the whole process of the making of Office Hours by visiting this site www.officehoursfilm.blogspot.com or our main site www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com.