Blender 2.45 available for download

As visitors to www.DWARFEDFILMS.blogspot.com will no doubt be well aware, we really like Blender 3D and use it every day.

Put simply, Blender is THE essential filmmaking software product. And its FREE!

Well they've released the latest update of the program - called Blender 2.45 - and it's available for download here

This version doesn't feature any new features, just mainly bug fixes. I think Blender 2.5 should have a lot more extras and possibly a complete revamp of the program design. but then again maybe not. Who knows, we'll just have to wait and see.
As it is Blender is a great tool for animation, particle effects and also features one of the best and fastest audio/video editors we've yet come across. And all for a free 8mb download!
So go download Blender here and give it a try!

Contact Dwarfed Films or leave a comment on the site.

Office Hours blogsite

Ok, we've finally got around to setting up a separate blog for Office Hours.

It can be found at www.officehoursfilm.blogspot.com

It's difficult to find time to write up new stuff and add images on this blog so I don't know how we'll manage another blog too - but lets see how it goes!

Oh, and heres a new pic from the film.

Office Hours: new location images

Here are two new images from Office Hours. They show a street scene from an exterior location in the film. It's kinda hard to see - as the images are pretty small - but the walls are covered with lots of graffitti and crap to give them a "dirty" look.

To be honest you'll probably only be able to make out the large "ping-pong" graffitti on one of the walls in these particular pictures (why ping-pong?Well why not! Actually it's a link to a live action film we once made called "The Darkside". In the opening sequence of that movie the lead actress walks down a dirty, deserted street and the word's "hand-ball" are scrawled on the walls which was pretty strange.)

Click on either image to view them larger (these are probably 1/4 scale of final renders)

Post a comment here or Email Dwarfed Films with any comments you might have

Office Hours: early animation test

Here is a dodgy looking bit of footage from Office Hours.
It shows a ultra low-resolution footage of a female walk cycle. Some of it looks bizarre, like the random shot of her head and houth opening and closing. Remember this is just test footage to check that no body parts are going in strange palces r other mad vertex problems!
The video looks weird and distorted and black and white because of some strange codec thing, but you can make out whats going on!
Enjoy

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To Shoot A Rurf: DVD

Anyone interested in getting hold of a copy of the TO SHOOT A RURF DVD should email Dwarfed Films here and include the subject "TSAR" in the email reference box.

The DVD extra's for To Shoot A Rurf include a number of audio tracks explaining the making of the film, animation tests, lots of still images and early concept designs and other goodies.

The DVD costs 20 Euro(exluding P&P) and is only available from Dwarfed Films.

Also go visit the To Shoot A Rurf blog.

Office Hours: office location + more car pics!

Here is an image of the office location from the film Office Hours. This building is radically different from the way it first looked. The small, open-plan cubicles have been replaced with enclosed large wooden "box-offices". This set looks much more intimidating and fits in with the pseudo 1950's/modernistic tone of the film.
Click on the image to view it larger.

And also here is a picture showing three different vehicles from the film: a taxi, a small delivery vehicle and an ordinary car.
Again Click on the image to view it on a larger scale.


Questions? Comments? Just email Dwarfed Films or leave a message on the site

Render Size details

A couple of posts ago I said that Office Hours' frame size was 720X288 when instead I should have said that it is going to be rendered at 1920X540. The letterbox sized image will then be exported to DVD format at HD 1920X1080 standard. The frame size of 1920X540 comes after much experimentation with various layout combinations.
Why not full HD render, you may ask? It's because we want the the screen to have black borders top and bottom. It's a purely cosmetic choice - it just looks better, kinda like having a painting with a frame rather than without:)
It will cut down on any artifects or strange flickering type glitches that popped up sometimes in To Shoot A Rurf.
Just wanted to clear that up!

Any comments you can email us or leave a message on the site.

Crappy Vista burner software

I was trying to burn a Data DVD today using the burner software that came preinstalled with Windows Vista. It is completely crap! It took almost an hour of waiting just for the files to transfer to the burner. And I cannot believe that they decided to use a caveman-style drag and drop way of adding folder/files to the burn list. Anyway, when it eventually tried to to the actual burning to DVD it got about three quarters of the way before failing and giving me a "failed burn" warning. It also said that the disc in the drive was faulty. What a load of crap!
Well I'd had enough and installed Final Burner, the FREE burning program. It burned the disc correctly in about 10 minutes.
Why the hell did Microsoft include such a poxy burning software program? Once again FREE SOFTWARE comes to the rescue.

Visit Dwarfed Films Essential Freeware and download Final Burner.

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Office Hours: more car images

Two ne images from Office Hours, showing a red car and a smaller green one.
The narrow-lookingframe size of these in these pictures will be the frame size of the completed.
film.

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OFFICE HOURS: new car model

Here are some brand new images from Office Hours.
They show a new 3D car model designed for the film's street scenes.

Click on the images to view descriptions and images full scale.

As always you can email Dwarfed FIlms or leave a comment on the site

Busy

Hi, just letting you know that we've been real busy lately and haven't been able to update as much as we'd like.
So keep checking the site for new stories and updates when they come!

Office Hours screenframe size

With Office Hours we are going to use a narrow frame size, much narrower (ie; letterbox stylee) than that of To Shoot A Rurf, Heli-Ball or even The Darkside. In fact we were thinking of using a narrow frame for Rurf but it proved awkward for shot composition and layout purposes.
If you're confused then think of it like this: normal PAL frame is 720X576 pixels; Office Hours frame might be closer to 720X288 pixels.
The exact frame size hasn't been locked down but it will add to the cinematic qualities of Office Hours. We feel the tighter screen size focuses attention better rather than having the viewers eyes wandering all over the shop! And it just looks damn cool in tests we've done.

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To Shoot A Rurf at Angel Film Festival

To Shoot A Rurf is screening at the Angel Film Festival in the UK.
You can see the film on Saturday 15th September 2pm - 5pm, King's Head, Islington.

To Find out more about To Shoot A Rurf go to www.toshootarurf.blogspot.com


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OFFICE HOURS: female model - new head

This is the new version of the female mannequin model from the film Office Hours.
The previous version we felt looked too harsh. Also i wasn't happy with the medelling around her mouth. In fact the previous versions mouth was all wrong! When it moved it left unnatural creases and lines. And her nose was strange too...To be honest she was a freak!
This 3D model is much better and I worked hard on getting nice smooth curves and arches. Hair restyle and eyelashes need to be added...

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Dwarfed Films Photography

It's not all just 3D animation and composing for Dwarfed Films these days!
We are heading back to our roots in photography too.
Dwarfed Films photographs combine elements of the picture grading and composition setups we use in our live action and animated films. We photograph using film in order to achieve the finest picture quality - then transfer to digital format for the editing stage. The choice of color or B&W is up to the clients taste/requirements.

Slick and stylish are the keywords here.

A good picture makes you look. A great picture makes you think and feel. We aim for the second category every time!

We cater for actors, models, commercial, corporate and personal projects.
If you require a creative eye with a professional outlook and service contact Dwarfed Films now.

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"New" film website: FestivalFocus.Org

Festival Focus is a website I only came across by accident yesterday - which is weird because I am listed on it along with a brief biography of myself and Paula.
I'm guessing that we were included by one of the founders of the Angel Film Festival, Chris.
Anyway the site has extensive listings of international filmmakers, films and festivals. Since discovering the site I have added some stills and a few more details on some of our pictures.

Go check out the site here.

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Ubuntu

A few postings back we talked about open source operating systems and mentioned Ubuntu, a version of Linux.
We applied for a free copy of Ubuntu and received it yesterday after having to wait only 2 weeks despite warnings that it can sometimes take up to 10.
We did a live install last night and gave it a quick test run. The computer we tested it on is pretty old so a live boot is expected to run slow but it eventually loaded up alright. Ubuntu comes with The Gimp, Open Office and some other software for playing audio and video but unfortunately it jammed up the system to a halt when trying to view a .Png image from our hard disk. All we could do was switch off the PC using the on/off button (the keyboard buttons and mouse cursor would not work). I presume this was only a problem because we were trying to access a hard disk while the computer could barely deal with running the bootable operating system in the CD/DVD drive. I don't think anything like this would happen if Ubuntu was installed (well I hope not).
Well, from first impressions it seems a good alternative to windows but we'll keep it in it's case until we decide to take the big step of switching over completely to Ubuntu !

Questions or comments to Dwarfed Films or post a comment on the site.

OFFICE HOURS: Typewriter 3D model

A Typewriter 3D model from animated film Office Hours.
The bottom image is a screenshot from Blender of the modelling process.

Click on the images to view them full scale.

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Our 100th POSTING!

This is the 100th posting on the Dwarfed Films blog!

Hopefully there are a few people out there in internet world that have visited the site and enjoyed what they've read/seen. (fingers crossed)

Our very first posting was back in 2006 and featured details on a "new" film called
TO SHOOT A RURF which we were in the process of making.
The following postings discussed the filmmaking process behind the making of To Shoot A Rurf and featured screenshots and stills. We also included some small bits of info on previous films such as The Darkside and Opera Baby.

As we progressed we realised that people were interested in seeing the developmental progress of piecing a film together so we included more and more images and screenshots but this time with annotations and comments. An extension of this lead to the idea of putting together the Dwarfed Films Essential Freeware List which promotes the most effective and useful freeware/open source tools available for making films. You can find lots of freeware on the net but it's annoying having to trawl through lists and advertisements just to find something good so we hope our freeware list packages the best of the best together nicely :)

In the past few months we've delivered an abundace of material showing the making of our latest film OFFICE HOURS. By the end of it you'll have seen the complete breakdown of how this 3D animated picture was put together from initial design concept through to the finished end product.

To anyone thats stuck with us or to any new visitors we say a big thank you and hope you'll stick with us for a hundred more postings featuring details on filmmaking, photography, animation, our music and much more!

Shane Sheils & Paula Sheils
Dwarfed Films
Ireland


NOTE: To Shoot A Rurf is screening at the Portobello Film Festival in London, UK on the 17th August at Westbourne Studios. Visit the Portobello Film Festival 2007 site and download the programme brochure (2mb-PDF format).

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Office Hours: male polygon hair re-style

Ok, I know you're probably as sick of seeing pictures of this character from Dwarfed Films' "Office Hours" as we are but I think it's interesting to the see the complete development of the 3D model and the various stages of redesign that happens.
These images are accompanied by some brief text notes describing what has changed.
Click on the images to view them full scale with annotations.
What you will see is that polygon hair modelling techniques have been applied to the male character. This is combined with particle hair for the beard and stubbly patches on his scalp.
The reasons for using polygon hair is described in the text accompanying the images.
I think you'll agree that this character looks way better than before by utilising a combination of these two styles.

(Note: I just realised that this is our 99th posting on this site. Stay with us for the century!)

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Office Hours: UV Textures

Here are some images of changed UV texture maps as they appear on character models.
Click on the images to view them with descriptions and comments.
Keep vising the site for more updates!


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