tired spent a chunk of the day getting used to my camera and praticing HDR in adobe CS2., for latter..
i did modle further got the beams nearly 100% roughed out .. and will go to school early tomarrow you cut spots for the elevators and model the stairs..

I'll have progress images on beams and windows up latter tonight .

still thinking about what exactly ot show for prentation tomarrow .. i guess i'll continue convertign my quicktime samples to post online .

so for lack of update yeasterday.

how to do image plane in Houdini


all i really care about is if it behaves in linux...



yeasterday i was called into my paying job as there was an emregancy, but it's ok i have off till next friday so all is cool.

been searching this morning for how to do an inmage plane in houdini like there is in maya , as i like the houdnin interface and modling style better . I started a modle in Maya for the building but was useing booleans for cut outs and was getting some odd reactions ..

I think cookie cutter would be more effecient that and i like the VEX shaders . they make more sense..


also for anyone else who didn't see it already SCAD is on the sideFX website main page.


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update:

Had trouble getting the image map to behave in Houdini, so i'm modling in Maya. I will have progress images posted on main page tonight.

I was also called into work....I'm not going...

I have a decent amout of modling done and I have to figure out how to do nice strutts.. I think they're standard( all the same shape) so if i get one modled nice I should be good.

_________________

ok what i've done thus far today:

sept. 22nd:

Happy , "I got blue prints" jig!

did work till 1:30 am on trying to decipher what goes where, by useing my images and footage.
did start converting my test footage to 320x240 QT streaming .MOV files ( there about 1.5 mg each ) but I'm going to wait till I get the last few done to upload them ; as I don't want to eat all my server space and may have to host them elsewhere.

buti do have my scematics sheets that the girls at the Roundhouse were kind enough to print for me.. they also have CAD files of a lot of the floor plans.. and i seem to remeber something about being able to use CAD files to exstrude a 3-d in Houdini.... ideas....


any way.
if mot i havea layout with measuments and locatins and i can work off of that.

also this morning I took a few more pictures from diffrent angles of the building .

september 21st

not too much done today unfortunately.

did go down to the round house to try to get a hold of Becky after the "dog class"(wednesday is obediance day...)
she wasn't in but I talked to one of the guys. and he said to come in early tomarrow.(hopefully i'll have some solid plans by class time so I can start modling before this weekend .)

I'm going to start modleing a very rough room. but was hoping i could have at least a mockup of the blueprints first since I saw them upstairs and it would be easier if i could have them( or at least a decent photo of them ) as a guide.
Tonight i will have hand drawn layouts trying to figure out my best plan for a good effecent modle.

I'll at least have a count of how many support beams and roughly where everything is located. ( I'll scan the mockup and post it on the production page)
Also ther is a meeting at B&N tonight with my LUG so I plan on searching through ther history section to see if i can get another good referance book .

September 20th : Production Journal

Production page for the Roundhouse micro -Documentary.

I obtained permission to shoot last Friday from Stewart at the Roundhouse historical museum in Savannah GA,

I must say that it's a slightly disheartening doing this project after my uncle passed ..

but i have decided to go on ahead with it . and when it's done will do a dedication to his memory..

any way . Round house staff as always was extremely accommodating and even though i only needed 10-45 minutes they graciously gave me a 3 hour slot to shoot in .


being that , I'm fairly certain , I will simply be sticking with the 3 main effects scenes , and most likely be using HDR images . the lighting test on the DVX-100, may amount to nothing. But. I did conclude their is enough natural light in the building on a sunny day that I don't believe i will need lighting kits, Unless it is determined I will need to shoot at an F stop of F9.6 or F11 in order to capture scenery out side the windows , as inside lighting looks best between F5.6 and F4.

I took about 13 minutes of footage the first 2 shots were to get an idea , of the car meas default capability. then I did a series of half circles on each F stop..

after that i played with the camera a bit . doing some experiments . while answering, my seconds questions. I usually bring Matthew to hold paper for white balance and to carry the tripod , as it's a little hardier piece of equipment and i don't worry about that getting dropped .

every thing went pretty smooth. although we did make a few notes for the next shoot.
#1, we can drive back their. this will make bringing the more expensive HDR camera to location a bit safer.
#2 gates suck . we walked equipment all the way to the back where we entered last time and the gate was locked so we had to go around.



now as far as plans for what needs to be done this quarter .

#1 Lighting test is out of the way. for the video camera.
#2 rewrite SPFX script. or shot lay out.
#3 story board


shots are as follows.

#1 one SLOW camera pan
(as i didn't pan the tests slow enough and will need to re-do or make note for a final)

or

HDR stitch of the round house as is .

#2 Houdini or MAYA model of the carpentry shops main room
this will need to be construed from images taking from inside , and around the building .
luckily i have tons of stock photos and Goggle Earth will come in handy.
their is a areal shot from goggle linked to on the production page.

next the compositing /green screen shot .

I'm still trying to decide how i want to visualize this .
i have a few ideas . i can either model the inside to 100% realistic. or i can take a still from the room and do a half over lap..

the other more difficult or expensive aspect is getting period costumes .
which means another trip to the historical society for some research. ,
and poking around the net for photos circa, 1855-1890.


as far as technical problems thus far .
I went through HELL trying to get the mini-DV to capture . i think every lab in Monty was fighting against me . '
after hours of trying to find a lab that would behave i got the capture deck on the third floor to work. ( the little sheet that says which computer goes to which button is numbered wrong.)

I've spent a portion of this morning breaking my scenes into segments and will have to order more web space before i can post tests . but I'm probably only going to post the ones i lie the most although when you open the iris all the way it does give an interesting blown out . look to the video. which is incorrect for a realistic look might be some interesting footage for a more abstract piece . so ill save it for latter.