DumpMovie Attempt

This week my aim was to attemp to dumpmovies in udk so that i can use this technique in my showreel. I went about doing this technique by using the notes I made in the lesson when our tutor was going through this technique.

I managed to get everything working besides the actual exporting as a dumpmovie. I started with setting up a camera in UDK then using kismets and groups to allow the camera to pan through an environment I am currently working on.

I then went on to try and create the shortcut that is needed so the dumpmovie can work, I copied the information where the files should save, but it wouldnt work, I did try for a good few hours to sort the problem out but at the end of the day i couldnt work out what I was doing wrong.

After a couple of hours trying to get it working I gave up and used some software called camstudio to record the environment beign panned through, In a way I feel like I have still learnt a lot about cameras and kismets this week but tommorow I will be asking my tutor where i went wrong and If he could see anything wrong with how i was exporting.

Above is some WIP i am doing for an assignment, this version is the camstudio one cropped and sorted out in sony vegas, it isnt excellent but i felt I should put this video up then next week I can show the difference when I get dumpmovie working because the difference in quality is excellent.

So for next week I am hoping to have dumpmovie working and also some turntables of props that I am working on in my western scene, I can then start to put all of these techniques together to get a draft showreel together.

Showreel Preparation

For this week we were given the task to create a draft showreel, nothing special just something that shows your ideas for the showreel be it a storyboard, screenshots or a  good go and a finalised version. Continuing from last weeks task of looking at previous work i decided that I had nothing from the last 2 years that I feel happy putting in my finished showreel .

I know exactly how  i would like my showreel to pan out but I was told by my tutor never overthink my showreel too much because you end up having either too much work to fit into a small time or the other way were you have spent too much time on one piece which isnt enough for a showreel.

I think now I have an idea on what makes a good showreel and how I should present the showreel to a proffesional standard. With the previoius weeks of how not to make a showreel i pretty confident that my showreel should look and work really well. The showreel will consist of 2 environments one of the environment s been 2 seperate ones put togetether ina western theme, the other been a scene from a movie which is Children Of Men. In between both of these environments I am going to be presenting some props that I think look good enough to go into the showreel, most of the props will be from the western environment so they will look good cluttered together. I want the props in the middle of the showreel because I have noticed when im watching showreels i remember the 1st piece of work and the last, and i know my environments will be my best pieces of work so i want one at the begginning and one at the end.

I will be presenting my draft showreel as a storyboard, I will be using screenshots of WIP and other peoples work as it says i can do in the task and explaining the time of each shot music in the background and what is happening in the shots.

Showreel Justification

For this week we were given the tasks to get into groups based on the subject of intrest e.g. Environment artist, prop artist. We were then told to discuss between us what we thought made a good showreel and a bad showreel, the actual task was to present the ideas in front of our tutor and our class, while presented we talked aboyt the positives and the negatives of the showreels we had presented.

For example all us were agreed on what makes a bad showreel etc too long, no contact details, non textured models and the main one having the wrong music with the work. We all then agreed what we thought was a good showreel when it comes to environment artists. We noticed that in good showreels the music is either non vocal or they dont have any at all, also they either have there contact details at the beggining and end or all the way through out the showreel which we all agreed was really good. The main good thing we can say that what we saw in the showreels we looked at was how they presented the environment, we liked it when the showreel panned through the environment and didnt do it for too long.

I wont put up any links of the good and b ad showreels because you can see them in my previous week blog, which we actually used in the presenttaion too, so would be pointless.

For this weeks blog task we were told to look a previous work that we think we could put in our future showreels and identify the goods and bads of the work. For myself I dont think i have any work from the 1st year that I could put into the showreel, and the only thing i think is even anywhere close to going in my showreel would be the Remake of the Call Of Duty map i did last year for Andreas, although that needs a hell of a lot of work done to it.

After seeing what makes a good showreel I think that my call of duty map would be something i could throw into my showreel when I have done all the ammendments that are needed. I wont be putting anyother work in from the past 2 years beside that piece of work into my showreel, im relying more on this year because its all environments and sum props.

 

As you can see from the image above you can tell its a Call Of Duty map but there is no shadows or any atmosphere in the environment, so for me to make this good enough to put into my showreel I will have to add the right kinda of lighting and shadows and maybe some fog for the distance too because everything looks to plain at the minute. 

I do think that the scene would look good when been panned through so Im defintly going to redo some of the work on this environment so it can go in my showreel