So I wrote out this really long a detailed post only to have weebly log me out while I was writing it and I lost everything... so here is a shorter version, sorry :/
Vis Dev
Vis Dev
- I'm excited to say Brandon Coates is now my Vis Dev art director! He has been helping immensely with things that I can't do since I'm not Vis Dev. He has been leading the Vis Dev team when painting the background layouts that will be placed in Maya.
- Since I am the one with all the .ma files, I figured out what size I needed each layout to be. I created .JPGs with the correct sizes and wrote out a few notes of where the characters were placed on screen. I also uploaded screenshots with each layout so that they could design the backgrounds to guide the viewer's eye.
- Amanda Hsu is now Vis Dev Manager! She is basically the producer of Vis Dev and has been helping immensely with taking and distributing notes to help keep them on track.
- Brandon Moore is now helping with animation!!
- I've been doing Animation Launch Google Hangout sessions with the animators. During this chat I give them more information on the story, show them the Google Drive and explain where everything is, and give notes to each of them on their shots.
- This first shot is a bit of an experiment to see how quickly the animators are able to work and this first week or so has been just getting things up and running. Because of this I have been setting up due dates with each animator when we have our first crit session.
- This week has been really stressful because I found out there were a bunch of Maya problems! Yay. This is what I learned:
- Don't reference in OBJ files. Just don't. Either import the models or reference .MA files.
- Make sure that before you send off the scene you replace the referenced rigs with the FINAL final file. What I did was during previs I referenced in the correct rig but before giving the rig file to everyone else, I changed the name of the rig to something cleaner and more professional. What I didn't realize though is that Maya would be asking them for the rig with the previous name and that led to a bunch of confusion on what rig to replace it with. Also, when you replace the reference in the reference editor, the namespace stays the same. Make sure you change the namespace to that of the rig that will be used! UGH
- When in doubt, double check the files on a clean computer. I work on my desktop so I brought out my laptop and downloaded the scene and rigs and opened it up fresh to make sure it was working and clean.