Unused Smoke Tests...

Here are a couple of images from the different smoke tests I was doing for scene 2, which unfortunately didn't work out for the final cut. The problem was geting the smoke to move slowly enough to get the appropriate sense of scale. These give you an idea that it might have been nice but alas, a solution as yet has not shown itself to be! The final animation looks cool enough without it anyway...

Final Audio

So, we're pretty much at the end of the road here, for the sake of completion here is the final audio track with effects, music and of course, narration.

You'll need to watch the final video to see visuals and audio together afraid...

Hobbity Musak

Here is the first version of the soundtrack. sound effects still to come...

Burning Paper Test 2

This time I converted John H's planes into curves, and used the curves as curve flows for particles, which became the emitteres for the fire. So, the net result is that the fire moves with and sticks to the original animated curl. From this angle, you can't really see it that well! Nevermind!

Dragon Fire Test 2 - 3D Fluid Containers...

This time I've used an early version of Kieran's dragon with a quick and dirty rig animation. The fire this time is a 3D version of the 2D fluid containers I tried before, so there's a bit more depth to it etc. Still problems to be ironed out in reference to the way it moves along with the dragon's head near the end of the short clip etc. But that will come....

Burning Paper Test 1

I tried to take John H's burning map and use it to add fire - for reasons unknown I couldn't access the textures. Anyway, here's the first version with some fire - it needs to be worked on but you can see the potential hopefully!

Updated Eagle Model

George had begun some tests on rigging the eagle and had asked ne to update the wings to add in some more feathers, straighten out the wings and slim the connection between the wings and body. In addition, I tidied up some of the geometry, enhanced the lines on the head and changed the way the sections wrap around the wings a little. I re-rendered these with a little transparency on the wings and tail, which gives it a more vulnerable papery look.

Eagle Version 1

Here's the first version of the eagle model, so the riggers can get cracking! And, of course, if anyone wants to experiement with textures as well? The wings were a bit of an issue, in terms of the overlapping elements. So, I've slotted them in to one another to allow room to move up and down - we may have to widen them depending on how large the movements of the wings are.

These test images are just with some ambient occlusion - the file is on the shared folder. Any feedback is welcome!

Fire Test

Thought I'd do some dynamics tests and see how difficult it was going to be to create fire for the Dragon. I created a simple rig and did a little animation using Maya 2D containers. If we want to tumble around the fire we'll need to use 3D containers, but that will come later! This is render from the master beauty, the video is a wee bit better.

Click the link below to see the video...

YouTube Dragon Fire Test...

Modeling Ideas for the Dragon

Although we haven't actually done the design proper as yet, I thought I'd try to create a Dragon head to get the ball rolling, and with the idea that someone can use it for texture and lighting testing etc. I have uploaded the Maya file to the facebook page for use, feel free to ask me as well of course, if you want to use it for anything.
So, here are a couple of stills and an mov of the head turn rendered with ambient occlusion: