13th March 2013 Update.

Hello all! A fine welcome again to another update post and while some news fairs less well then others, we do have positives to discuss. Firstly, however, I'll get out the urgent buisness and what needs to be done by next Monday.

Myself, Oscar, is required to work on and finish their character model by the morning of Monday next week. With the finishing of Haydyn and Dom's character models, which I'll expand upon momentarily, this means that it is a neccessity for the character models to be done, entirely, by this point and allow us to focus on the finalization of all the models needed for our work. This means the rest of our time can then be focused on animating and editing. I note this down so I have a visual reminder of the goal I've set myself.

Jake, as you might know, the animatic has fallen into your hands, but the storyboard is where you're at currently. As you know, you have help available to you and if something is a little hard to translate to the screen, run it through with me and we'll see if sounds like a natural exchange of dialogue from intradiegetic narrator to extradiegetic audience. And of course, if you feel any issues come of the program you're using, do mention them before Monday.

Dom, Haydyn, your character models are done and are rigged, which is a tremendous acheivement. As well as that, I know you mentioned you rewrote the script and it is an honest, incredible effort you've gone through. You may not believe this, but you and Haydyn are truly diliggent, hard workers. However, if you are ahead, make sure that the narrative rewrite works well when practiced in terms of dialogue combined with storyboard. If you would focus on the envrionment, I would ask to dig up images on the Skullduggery Arena and make sure to compse using that imagery.

This seems basic, but at this point, while we're far ahead in some aspects, I know what responsibility I have to finalize others. I hope to keep that promise and look forward to seeing you Monday.

Oscar Martin,
Project Leader.

Tuesday, 19th February Update.

Hello everyone, it's been a great deal of time since our last update post. However, with our character concept pretty much finalized, it's about time we had a new update summing up our work so far. So, for this project, we've managed to finally meet at an ultimatum. Haydyn's designs for the character shape have been approved, which has meant we're going ahead with his body shape ideas, which are short, squat characters with a light, cutesy expression inspired a little by Dom's own character faces. We originally had the idea of using the character clothing from Haydyn's for their pirate uniform's, with Jake's designs functioning as their civilian uniform attire. My own parrot design will function as the fourth entered character piece and with that, we have a finished product for our character creations. Now, we will be moving on to experimenting with the creation of them in 3DS Max.

Now, while some things remain needing doing from before, such as the research into the environment by Jake, the finalizing of all script based queries by Haydyn, the shot list by Dom and not only the fine tuning of the narrative by myself, but also the study of how to create these slightly more complex characters in the program, 3DS Max, our main goal now is to begin experimenting with creating all of our characters in 3DS Max and getting a handle on the software.

By next week, I'd like to see, at the beginning of said week, a basic shot list and a sketch of the environment from Dom and Jake, respectively. From Haydyn, I would like the narrative emailed to me as I will try and compose a basic composition of a script for which the animation will be based on. Also, if anyone creates or has a go at fashioning the characters in 3DS Max, then show me them as well. Good luck, everyone and I'll see you on the beaches.

Oscar Martin

Team Leader

Thursday 17th January Update

Following on from the efforts of last week, we've all been practicing a little with 3DS Max. I admit, my practice has been confined so far to lessons, which must be rectified as soon as possible. On a different note, with this update, we have had a new meeting as of today establishing where we want to go from here. With the fact established that by the end of this month, we will have all sketches and drawing work done, then we have given ourselves a good time frame in which to finalize and get ready for production work.
Jake has so far been creating concept art of a new female character, as all of us have been tasked with creating our own spin on each character we've been assigned to create. With this in mind, Jake has been working on and will continue to not just create alternatives for the old man and parrot, but also work a little on developing skills constructing the female anatomy, which is a tough area to work upon. With an upcoming visit to Skullduggery being required for further animation investigation, Jake will also be using this visit to gather a little visual research on the Skullduggery facility, which will be included in the final animation to present a slightly more accurate representation of the facility within the tutorial video, introducing a futher factual anchor to the need to listen to the rules.

Dom has been continuing to not just try work in Maya, in preperation for both character design and the importation of said designs into 3DS Max, but also continuing in coming up with new idea's to help us extend out the minimum requirements for our project. With an idea extending to making a short video showcasing the opinions of those who try Skullduggery, as well as a recording to allow us to view and model more accurate human movement by filming living people and creating modeled movement based off it, Dom has done her best to fashion us a direction to go outside the brief. In terms of what Dom has to do next is ensure that like myself, Jake and Haydyn, she has constructed character designs outside her inital 'Girl' design by the end of the month as well as securing filming equipment for the neccesary extracurricular requirements. Dom also had an idea of composing a video in which we feature positive interviews with those who participate in games at Skullduggery, allowing us to show a postive side to the laster tag brawls there.

Haydyn will be continuing his narrative work, ensuring that we have a final laid out storyline for when we create the animation and ensure with contain all that Skullduggery require for a tutorial animation. Having found the original narrative not so workable, so he'll be crafting a new narrative to fashion for our animation. This narrative will also be used to help us craft an animatic to observe our storyboard in motion. As well as this, he's currently engaged in the same multiple character construction as the rest of us, but his priority is to craft a narrative for us to work with.

My own work is to not just maintain the blog, but ensure, even though I've started on my second and third character concepts, to maintain each others knowledge of where we are with our own indivdual efforts and as well, as that ensure that my own work maintains a high standard measured with the others efforts. It's a rather foolish point, but maintaining a confident and flexible attitude as a leader, being able to accept when things go wrong but look to both understand why and help devise solutions is what I have to work on. I have also suggested we use Dom's filming equipment to construct another extracurricular activity, in which we edit the footage created from our tutorial and make sure we have crafted a slightly promotional video, illustrating some of the things from the video that are worth following up on and allowing us to create a little more interest in Skullduggery.

With what we've done and what we need to do illustrated, I hope we can not only progress with the work we're doing but also succeed in creating a strong final peice in which to feel proud in our involvement. We'll see how much is done by our next meeting and as always, good luck and skill to everyone.

Oscar Martin.
Team Leader.

Wednesday Update.

As of Wednesday, our group has both progressed, thanks to an investigation on the side of Dom and Haydyn, in persuing a work space closer to the Skullduggery complex and as well as this, we have all gained further insight into our individual goals as the project goes on. These include, for each respective person:

Oscar. Formulate a better design for the complex construct character, the 'Cyber Parrot' and as well as this, make sure that you have sufficient skills in Maya and 3DS Max to not be a burden to the team, ensure communication is maintained in terms of objectives and as well as all these, collate information on what key points in the narrative need to be covered.

Dom: Continue formulatin an idea of what the 'Girl' character will be like and practise not just ethcing said character out, but making your skills in Maya even stronger then they are now, considering you are the one with the most experience in said program.

Jake: Ensure that the 'Boy' character is finished off by next week in terms of a design you're pleased with and as well as this, create an environmental design that matches the 'Pirate Ship' asthetic we need, bearing in mind subtle, futuristic alterations.

Haydyn: Ensure that you've tried out a few designs in 3DS Max/Maya relating to a construct similar to a pirate ship. Practice seeing if you can create one or something similar to it to get a head start on the final construct and as well as this, make sure that you have your own take on a narrative structure once you've relooked at the original video's own narrative.

I hope we all know what we're doing as I include myself on there as I don't want to feel like I'm letting myself get off scot free by simply writing the blog. So, this is basically the set of ultimate goal's for next week, so we have a solid base on which to construct the animation. Hope you see this everyone and good luck and skill to you.

Oscar Martin.
Team Leader.

Welcome! An Introduction and Progress Report.

Welcome everyone, to the Team DHOJ page for our work on the Skullduggery project. Here is where we can collate information between one another and ensure we work together to create a project we can all be proud of and enjoy!

As this is the first post, let's explain what we've got so far:

Solid idea's on what character's we wish to create; an old man, a girl, a boy and a mechanical parrot.
Solid idea's on the environment; a galley ship, with an emphasis on the inside of said sailing ship for the main environment.

These seem like simple things to start with, but they are imperative to our progression with the project. I thank you all for your continued support and encourage you to send me your own documents you'd like published here so we can maintain communication. Hope you enjoy working with me and each other!

Oscar Martin
Team Leader.