MVP Feedback

We received our MVP feedback today and we were told what to improve most of it was what we were expecting as we all ready had a good idea of what we needed to do to get the final version of the project ready some of that includes.

Refining the timing on the intro

Minor adjustments to the fight scene

Matt paining remaining scenes

Record narration

Once we get all of them done we will be in a good position and just need minor polish to finish off the project.

More filming

Today me charlie and jake set off to mowbray park and the sunderland high street to get some more footage for the synoptic we got a few more establishing scene recorded and the fight scene which we are planning and added some extra effects to. The extra footage will help fill up the trailer. We also got some Behind the scenes footage taken and begun discussing what we wanted to to for behind the scenes which is in a direction that is more satirical over serious

After effects is completely normal

In a completely unsurprising set of events after effects crashes multiple times in a lesson then deleted my project file i was working on… Fortunately i have made plenty of backups as i know that stability isn’t a trait of after effects. After some assistance i discovered after effects doesn’t play well with external devices and i moved all my wok off my hard drive onto a internal HDD and that seems to fix all the new issue.

Once again i am thankful to have a team which all know the pains of working in after effects and between us have crashed more times than we can count so we have experience many different bugs and found our own fixes. We managed to get everything running again in the end thanks to teamwork the creative cow forms and a bit of luck.

Using element 3D and Changing the scene

The Lab scene is almost done and i have decided to abandon the reactor idea as i can’t get it look great and getting it positioned right is important and i can’t find a nice position for it to go in.I am using element 3D to add microscopes to the scene to make a science lab i have never used it before so i am leaning as i go.

I have also added flaks to the scene to touch it up i have a temporary green mat in  it to make the flask visible as it’s glass and transparent on the bright background.

Team work is going great as i have never used Element 3D before i was relying on my group and the youtube tutorials to teach me and they made sure i was able to get my work done as well as their own. Overall i am happy with the scene and with the help my group could provide.

Prepping for the MVP

It’s the final few days before we return to college and have the MVP I just have a few minor things to add then I’ll do a render of my scene to add to what we have so far to qualify for the MVP I will have further changes to make as this is the priority scene I’m working on but I believe it’s of a high standard.

To go with it we have a News report scene done by Liam which should be ready for some minor changes to improve it. Jake is also matt painting a scene outside scene which I have seen parts knowing it should be in a renderable state. And Charlie is still working on his scene and suffering through the pain of working in after effects with various issues slowing down progress. We also have the title scene to add them all too when we get back to college we can all render out our scenes and do an MVP render to gain feedback and do a major progress check.

Overall I’m happy with the progress made over easter both individuality and from the group as a whole. For the project, I’m happy we are on track as we all took the major scenes first and any minor scenes wouldn’t take as long to complete so they aren’t expect to be done right now.

Improving the reactor

I have been working on improving the reactor design as I still can’t seem to get it exactly how I want it to look I’m also considering moving it to a different scene due to having an issue making it fit into the current scene and look realistic. Unfortunately, due to having numerous issues with after effects it’s taking more time than it should due to me needed to troubleshoot issues and deal with crashes.


Communication is holding up I have been working with Jake to assist him in his work due to him having some technical issues with rotoscoping so I have been providing help to get his done. I have also been providing feedback on the scene to help improve parts of it eg colour of the grass and getting the shadows to look like they were real.

Designing a reactor

This week I managed to get the reactor designed and build using saber once I got the beam size and animation designed (flicker, brightness and speed) I found the hardest part was picking out the colour to use. As this is something which doesn’t exist in real life I didn’t have many references. I finally settled on a light blue based on feedback it was between that or an orange I felt they both had the reactor look I was looking for.

We had a group scrum this week to do a progress check and everyone is working independently on a scene each I am confident that we will have 3 scene minimum ready for the MVP and a 4th depending on how quickly my group works. We have been helping each other to build the scenes by sending screenshots and going through changes. With us not being at college I’m happy with the amount of communication we have to cooperate with each other.

Start of the Lab

The lab scene is still being worked as they are a lot to do for it to try and create a realistic lab scene. So far I have adjusted the colour to a blue to make it more like what you picture a lab as I've added graphs and charts to all the monitors one of them being animated. I might put it in the background somewhere else if I can’t find a good location in this scene. I want to try and add some 3d objects as well if I can but for that, I’ll wait until I’m back at college to access element 3D which will assist in the task. The biggest part which will take some time is creating a reactor using the Saber plugin to make an energy beam with reactor casing which will be placed into the wall somewhere. I have a few ideas on how to do this I’ll trying some designs to see what I can make.

I also have another scene where the actor is running down the stairs this one has less to add to it however so it shouldn’t take too long just a colour correction and then some other minor add-ons.

As it’s the easter my group is working more independently as we're not all together but we have communication channels established for providing assistance to each other and for a scrum when needed.