The Red Kite Character's Update

All, its been way too long! I missed you for the past few months while our Red Kite Group has been tearing it up! Where have you been? What have you been doing?

Me you ask?

Well, I'm Going a little crazy-outta-my-mind texturing the main characters, rigging, tweaking, rigging, tweaking, for our animators whom always find something wrong with my rigs... But working none the less. Just kidding animators, you are doing great!

Update:

- We have completed our animatic and are on our way to character animation as I finish off facial blend expressions for the main characters!

- Texturing and Rigging is nearly complete on all characters!

- We keep finding more assets that need modeling

- We just received great reviews for our animatic when we presented to our Score and Foley sound artists!!!!

- Vue (vegetation creation software) is giving us rendering woes, Ryan is tackling that issue as well as lighting!

- Texturing for Interior and Exterior environments is going well, as you can see in last week's post

Stereo is a big question mark, but we got our man Huckaba on it!

Here are some current screen shots of our main characters in ZBrush 3.0. Next week we will try to have a few shots of the animatic that we will show through progression. (can't let too much of the story out)

Enjoy!











Stay tuned for more updates! I'll try to post other happenings more often as well! Want to show off the rigs, but can't decide on a way to show them off as of yet...

October Renders

Work in Progress renders ~ still rough but you get the idea :)

This is Max's room, mid afternoon on a sunny fall day.




This is a concept of scene 5 - bright and sunny fall day (same day as previous render).



And this is a concept of a storm brewing in Max's world - scene 1.



More to come!!

Ryan

October 2009

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, we've been so deep into the project that updating theredkite.com has slipped past us!

The Red Kite team has grown to 12 members! The team now consists of :

Ryan Wing - Lighting \ Rendering \ Vue \ Modeling
Zeb Wood - Character Modeling \ Rigging \ Texturing
Adam Feasel - Texturing \ Modeling
Chris Huckaba - Stereoscopic
Deren Hartsough - Modeling \ Texturing
Zach Barner - Modeling \ Texturing
Marina Sichuga - Character Modeling \ Rigging
Marcelo Meijome - Character Animation
Vance Vaden - Character Animation
Jason Smith - Hair and Cloth Dynamics
Wei-Te Wu - Concept Art and Marketing
Jeff Szorc - Modeling

We are excited to have such a talented and diverse team! Wait for more updates as the Dec 31st deadline to start rendering draws near!

Ryan

The Red Kite Characters!!!!!!!!

Comrades,

Its been quite a long time since we have had a chance to show you what we have been up to. Luckily its been worth the wait.

Current Progress you ask? My name is Zeb and my responsibilities lye in the realm of Characters: modeling, texturing, rigging, hair and clothing dynamics, animation, and Recruitment. Our Modeling deadline was just recently so I have 5 of the main characters finished (or nearly) to show you tonight.

So, without further ado, and with promise of fully colored and furry characters around mid August.

Characters:

Maxwell Lostrum





Michael James Chapman



Laura Chapman



Thomas Chapman



Nurse Kate



These are the 5 main characters of the short. Max is a bitter old man. Michael is an 11 year old boy who is sick with cancer. Tom and Laura are his parents. Nurse Kate takes care of both Max and Michael. The story will be left a mystery for now...

Thank you for all of your support and frequent request for updates. I average about 6 hours in zbrush per character. A Rough estimate start to finish for all 5 characters would be around 30 hours per character to model bodies, clothes, and accessories, then unwrap everything, then zbrush. So I have spent roughly 150 hours on these guys so far...

+1 for the recruits!

The Red Kite has began recruiting for 3D model creation! Our first recruit is Zach Barner, recent grad. Visit his blog to check out his previous work! We will be crediting all recruits on the film come time to do so, until then, our blog and website will have to do!

Thanks Zach for your help! Those of you interested get a hold of us. We have a good idea of who we are going to contact, but are always looking for passionate people!

Regards,

The RED KITE Team!

April Update

Hey Everyone :)

A couple people have asked me why there are no updates! Well, since the last update we've changed the story a bit and had to re-assign responsibilities. But this doesn't mean that the work we've already done, like the characters or the hospital are no longer necessary. On the contrary! They are even a larger part of the story! I'll attach a couple things that illustrate where the project is headed.

This is a snapshot of the hospital layout. The room I had rendered previously is room 208 on the diagram below. Right now I am working through blueprints to make the modeling go a little smoother, but this gives the idea.

So we're stilling having spirited meetings every Wednesday to show off our progress and plan the next week. Right now our goal is to have all modeling finished on June 15th. I think we'll do it.

Also I had mentioned that the story had been reworked - this is essentially it.

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Sorry, I've had to remove the story until we're certain about festival rules.

Here is the most recent render test. Thanks to suggestions given to me by a SME, David (DJX), and the need to have a color render to show next week, I went ahead and started roughing the lighting and texturing out a bit more. This image uses physical sun and sky with a portal light. Both GI and FG are in use. The final render was tweaked in Lightroom.

Contour Shader Test on Organic Models

I am finished with the low-polygon versions of Maxwell and now the boy Michael James Chapman. In the next few weeks I will be in ZBrush creating Normal and Displacement maps for all of the above as well as some temporary textures to show off our project in April.

The contour shader I used to render the Wheelchair Turntable unfortunately it doesn't work as well for organic models because of the smooth curves. But it was worth trying. Stay posted.

Hospital Progress

The story opens with Max in his hospital room. Hospital Modeling is underway. Here's a render with basic lighting. Actual modeling is perhaps 25% completed.

Wheelchair Model

So one of the main characters in our story is a boy who is sick and confined to a wheelchair. I figured that a wheelchair model would be fairly easy, but took an approach that allowed me to replicate all the details of the fasteners, welding(s), and intricacies that actually make up a wheel chair.

The rendering style is one I have been wanting to experiment with for a while. It is a combo of Mental Ray interior lighting setup, Ambient Occlusion, and a Contour shader to add the Vector Stoke look. Pretty happy with it.





I have no idea what is up with Blogger's compression of video Mine is Quicktime H.264. Will look into it soon.

Maxwell Lostrum Low Poly Fin.

Finally an update right?! Say hello to Maxwell Lostrum. The "Old Man" in the story.

He was very easy to create from my friend Jason Smith's wonderful artwork.

I will post his art if he gives me permission.

My goal is to have Max Z-brushed by March 5th as well as the main boy character. So a lot to come up with!





Note: That his shovel and Hospital gown are also done. Having a bit of an issue with max cloth to shape the hospital gown better. Will switch to Maya for production anyway...

Story Synopsis

All,

Here is our story for the short: There is no need to try to change it for us. But this will give you an idea as to our theme and vision.

This story has been in the works for quite some time on my end, but edited by the whole group. The final scene was written by Ryan Wing. A contributor to this blog and member of our production team.

Our apologies for the length. The short we are hoping to have around 5 minutes.

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Sorry, I've had to remove the story until we're certain about festival rules.

Hello World!

Hi there. How are you doing? I am great because this semester marks a unique beginning for myself and 3 colleagues that will shape our professional careers together.

This project is a 3 semester long, CG short animation. Yes, there will be stereoscopic, yes there will be HD, yes there will be surround sound, and yes it will be legendary.

In the following weeks we will bring you updates, and welcome feedback from those of you inclined to offer thought outside of the normal rhetoric.

Stay tuned shortly for the story synopsis and Concept art. We will keep this blog primarily for production updates and spare everyone the details of the extensive research we are doing into current CG technologies!

SO hold on to your knickers, kick back grab a beer. This is going to be one hell of an experience!