ho sei but no back view...modeller aga aga first...lol...pls keep on refer back to perspective view becouse the orthographic some part are not accurate. i will do the shoes concept seperately so maybe can juz roughly block that part out first

yo.. rough idea of the marcus' moving castle...=)

i will draw individual building detailings then can start model soon.

encounter some prob with the head and front view....i will finish it tmr though
thx for the link mar...i will look into it

here is latest stuff i done
the shoe suppose to fit in to the cloud machinery
if need to be more stylized just hiong hiong tell me
any gadget u all wan to add? anything wan to change?

some rough sketches and steam punk costume design
feel sick today so cant do much..

Howdy all,

So for today we've discussed the aesthetics of the timing reel. Nobody has issues with the timing but for the battle sequence, jingky said that it is too traditional. I strongly agree with him man.

The battle sequence did not take advantage of the steampunk elements, like the designs of the characters could have springs on their feet where they could jump high, or steam guns where they could shoot steam out or smth. Great analysis dude!

So now we've gotta wait for jingky's design, and see how we can incorporate wukong and erlang's steampunk weapons/armor into good use. btw jingky u got some cool designs pls post them in cgtalk, and also here if u have time.

Also we've locked down most of the technical approach for the whole clip, except for the vfx steam/fog/sparks. This one's gotta leave it to our fx master bogard.

oh ya bug.fong will be doing the concept for the celestial court, and stylizing the matte painting clouds into our very own steampunk style.

as for me i can only sit at home shake leg, but will definitely wait for jing's design tonight and start modeling!

finally, everyone's got their share of work to do, so god speed to channelbox's steampunk!

lets spam the cgtalk forum.

Hohoho MeRrrrryyYyy Christmas!!

Firstly! It is a pity that yongyi has withdrawn from channelbox's steampunk. We shall not forget his sacrifice and dedication to this production.

Secondly! Welcome to marcus and jinky and more to come!!! YEss!

Thirdly! The timing reel is ready below! comments and critique please! Sorry for the shit resolution. And the behind part is pretty screwed up, quite a rush. And if there seems to be sharp edges, i had a radial blur plugin in my intern place, but doesnt work at home. So try to ignore it.


Fourthly! Here is the list of stuff to design / model / paint.

Characters: Sun Wu Kong
Er Lang Shen
Celestial guards( Generic)
Buddha Finger
The monk (no need face)
Monk's horse (Generic)


Sets: Golden Rod
Tumbling Cloud
Celestial Court( External)
Celestial Gate( High res)
5 finger mountain
Cliff


Matte Painting: Total of 6 Scenes to paint
1. Opening -> Clouds and?
2.Celestial court main gate -> Background
3.Cliff background.
4. Battle scene (Fighting in the sky) ->Generic sky for all shots?
5. Erlang falls down to the ground ->Background mountains etc
6. The monk enters -> Background mountains.

*For characters, all requires rigging.
*For Modeling, maybe some could be replaced as matte painting?
* Note that for matte painting, there will be more than 6 definitely, coz some shots also require different variations of painting.

Did i miss out anything?



With descriptions

Hey all, due to private issues I have chosen to withdraw from steampunk so as to not hinder the team's progress.

And with Marcus and Jingky joining I think the project would definetely end up really well!

Sorry for the delay guys.

Go for it! I believe the end product would be excellent.

Hi! Dues to some unforseen circumstances, Channelbox's Steampunk is recruiting members! We now have Jingky and Marcus to help us! :)

Welcome onboard and Merry Christmas!

Hi, the workload distribution as discussed the previous meeting. :)








Asset list
Monkey King [Zi Chao]
Er Lang Shen [Ronald]
Celestial Guards [Ronald]
Tan San Zang [YongYi]
Celestial Court and Cliff [Zi Chao]
Golden Pole [Jian Hong]
Tumbling Cloud [Ronald]
Battle scene stage [Ronald]
5 Finger Mountain [Jian Hong]
Matte Painting [YongYi]

have you guys watched the Street Fighter IV Game Trailer?
It's style is beautiful!
Ink fluids and Caligraphy..
I did an effects experiment to mimic the effect.. Hahaha! Like Yongs suggested..
But looks like I'm far from that quality but I hope the idea is there :P

it's procedural so you can plug any animation to the ae file..
you guys want this for steampunk? :)

I will be doing tests for some of the visual effects that will be used in our shots, like steam. And I will begin modelling the cudgel and buddha palm when i get the design from yong yi.

I aim to finish the some or most of the deisgns next week.

I'll do designs of
1) Jing Gu Bang
2) more detailed Sketch of Er lang Shen
3) Monkey King
4) Sketch of the Celestial court
5) Sketch of the Misc soldiers
6) Sketch of the Buddha hand

here's what i did last week, monkey king and some of the elements.

Hi all.

awesome meeting today in school. full house.

Locked down on workload distribution and story.

cool.

How about we target ourselves and set a deadline for the things we want to achieve this week? This way we can make sure that we get the job done on time. And to keep track of time.

For me, i want to finish planning the camera movement (angle settle in storyboard), and the battle sequence. [Ronald lets meet up tml night and settle this tgt.]. If ronald can finish his storyboard by tomorrow night, i will target myself to finish timing reel by next tues, before the meeting. And if time permits, i would love to block out the proportion of sun wukong.

Please reply. =)

Hi guys! Successful meeting today it was! I'm so excited about producing this film...

"Wow loads of crap. Happy reading man..." - i disagree
I will say that whole chuck of text was extremely helpful!
Thanks Zichao! I love your effort in the post! hopefully more will come after the next meetings ya? :D

Now yong's is back on track with us and it summarises our meeting today!
So ya.. I'd like to urge and encourage posting on the thread :)
Besides that, I'll produce the story and mood boards in the next few days.
From there, Zi Chao will work on the timing reel which he'll do a great job like in eyeka!

Btw.. chaos has chopped modelling of monkey king and animation, jianhong has chopped the visual fx, and I've chopped the lighting n compositing ;D hahaha! yong's chop the design!! whoo!! perfect team! way to go channelbox!!

to summarise our current jobs:
yongyi: steampunk and crank up the design! hope to see a mountain pile of visuals to jam the whole cgtalk! we were discussing about a steam engine buddha palm to capture wukong!
ronald: storyboard and moodboards
zichao: timing reel
jianhong: prepare modelling assets list (eg. 1. Monkey king 2. Er lang shen 3. Celestial court 4. Clouds 5. Cliff etc etc)

See you guys @ Siggraph Asia! :D

Yo people,



Discussion today was a fruitful one, we managed to lock down on a clear sequence that we wanna show for our 1 and a half minute clip in steampunk.

Just to clarify, steampunk's official website on cgtalk sates that "However we strongly recommend that you create a film trailer. The reason is that a film trailer allows a wider range of styles than any other format while focusing on impact. As a film trailer you have a wide choice from lots of narrative and story content to just having flashes of iconic images - as is the style of many modern film trailers. Film trailers also give your entry a prestige that comes from being associated with “film”.

This doesn't means that we MUST do a trailer, however, we all agreed that this is true and decided to do a trailer for a trailer sake. You see, it is not as rewarding replicating a scene of a myth or a legend which has been told before, than a trailer which gives viewers an eye-opener to a whole new style . People would just compare yours, to those they've seen before, and the story would be too short to be told in 1 and 1/2 minutes. On the other hand, if we were to do a series of sequences, like cgtalk said, more impact.

STORY

Ok so our sequence establishes at the heavenly palace, where wukong is already beating the crap out of the people. We then introduces him, his rod and his cloud. where he then embarks on the cloud, and travels in high speed. Er-lang god suddenly appears out of nowhere, and engaged a furious battle with wukong. halfway thru the battle, wukong is in a pinch and the pig and the sandy makes an impactful entrance to the scene and come to his rescue. Wukong overcomes the suppression of the er-lang god and gives a final swing. The swing of rod is being stopped easily by 2 fingers, realising its the buddha's finger, he freaks out and the finger changes into the 5-finger mountain. Being suppressed by it, the monk comes and mark a new beginning of wukong's journey.


Discussion stuffs

This is the rough idea of our story, it is still unstable and needs to be improvised. If you're trying to visualise the story, please think in terms of steampunk, cool machineries and steam aged style, where anything is possible, including morphing of stuffs eg. the "Jing gu bang"

Like ronald said, this clip highly focuses on nice imagery, great designs. In addition to animation, visual effects and compositing.

So there will be another meeting very soon i suppose, perhaps tomorrow. We need to pitch to yong yi our idea and visuals, and also to hear his side of the story. It is good because we got fresh eyes for that heh. Ok long blog from me, and everyone's busy doing their share of the work. Yongyi's designing, ronald's storyboarding, Jianhong's researching, and i'm blogging.

Oh ya about the designs, we've looked at the other competitors of monkey king steampunk, and felt that most of them have lost either their feel of monkey king, or their feel of steampunk elements. So this is a big challenge for yongyi coz he's gotta retain the look and feel of it. I think that it has got to mantain the proportions of Sun wukong shown on the TV and such, but stylising it is important. Exaggerations must be kept minimum. Integrating with steampunk elements is also important.

Wow loads of crap. Happy reading man...

Just a link to the story of Journey to the West. Hope it helps.. And thanks to ronald for the avatar ;D
http://www.china-on-site.com/monkey.php

Hello guys!
Nothing much from me, just to let you guys know we are quite behind schedule..

Oh yes, I was looking through CGSociety Features earlier and happen to come across the Oktapodi thread.. Curious on how Oktapodi's performing, I then went on to have a look at their webby and...


LOOK AT THAT
http://www.oktapodi.com/festivals.html

We can first start by targeting CG Overdrive 2009's CGExellence Award 2009! Come on guys! Lets do it! :D

Let's target our Steampunk entry to be something like this! Really hope to realise this with the help from you guys! :D See ya on Monday evening, the meeting over dinner :)

Say "Hello!" to Jian Hong's new avatar! Hope you'll like it! Heh Heh
Great research by the way Jian Hong :)



But of course! [impersonation by Ronald]

Hello All! Alrighty I have had problems with my blogger account so I haven't posted anything to date but the problems have been fixed now.

Well anyway, I have been doing some research on the people doing monkey king in the CgTalk forums and I have come a few of them. It seems that monkey king is really quite the famous mythical character in chinese Myths and Legends.

The first link I have is to the thread I saw CC looking at in BlackMagic. The contestant adopts a more cartoony approach to it. He doesn not make the characters into steam punks but instead gives it steam punk accessories and technology. The link is http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=277&t=697303&highlight=monkey.

The second link I have is to one by Lim Hang Kwong. So far in his concept his characters are very mechanical and robotic. The link is http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=278&t=695527&highlight=monkey+king.

The third link I have is to an entry by Alessio Cagnano. He is also doing monkey king but instead of chinese elements to it he gives it a victorian style. The characters are more cyborg like. The link is http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=278&t=695773&highlight=sun+wukong.

The fourth link I have is to an entry by wayne maynard who has not posted any images or material in his thread. He has only mentioned that his concept will be Sun Wukong or monkey king. The link is http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=278&t=701359&highlight=sun+wukong

Others
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?threadid=698197
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=121&t=629054


Well, so that all for my first post. Will update when I have other materials at hand.

Alrighty lets lock and load. Here's a a brief introduction of what steampunk is, from wiki.

Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions.
-http://en.wikipedia.org

Also, Sun Wukong did alot of nonsense throughout his entire life, for more background info, here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Wukong .

How about meeting this saturday?

Actually I was thinking if MULAN was interesting, but then again, there's not enough fantasy to it in comparison with monkey king and after looking at your ideas, I'm all the more for monkey king.

I'm for Yong yi's suggested story for 2 reasons.

I particularly like the Wu Zhi Shan [5 Finger Mountian] idea. The visual interpretation using 'Steampunk' will be super duper majestic. Hahaha!
and
Very importantly, this story can be told and wrapped up in the targeted 1.5 ~ 3 minutes :)

And.. I agree on the oriental chinese part of the design, probably the patterns will be oriental but will all machinery-y.. with steam.

What do the others think? Keep them coming in guys! We need participation!

Yea~ Monkey King!! Steampunk monkey king is cool.
Or any other ideas?

And i was thinking there's so many stories of monkey king, maybe we can settle with 1 which we can tell within 90 to 180 seconds(3 minutes).

I was thinking of using the story where the monkey king wrecks havoc in the celestial court and it ends at the point where he is prisoned by the 5 finger mountain.

I'm also thinking that it would be interesting for the art direction to have a bit of chinese style in it but also keeping it Steampunk. But we'll explore for about that after the story is settled.

Okay so what do you all think?

LET'S GET IT ON!

Hello,

I'm actually done with finishing up the making-of of ECC.
Shall we meet soon for Steampunk?

Are we doing monkey king?

So sorry for the late updates, but here it is. Our next project would be Cg society's Steanpunk: Myths and Legends challenge!!

Hello All! Congratulations once again to Channelbox for winning Eyeka Creative Challenge! :D

And let's welcome our Channelbox new member, Jian Hong! a.k.a Bogard or J.H.?
Actually I think J.H. sounds pretty cool.. Hahaha!

Anyway, here's a little background of JH.
He's currently studying Digital Entertainment Technology and majors in Technical Direction (TD). He work is awesome! With him in our team, it's going to inject a huge amount of possibilities!

Let's hear it for............. J.H.!!!

His avatar will be done soon! :P

Meantime, I'll let Yongs update about our current plans from now!
Amazing news coming up! ;D

I love this short animation done by Keytoon Animation Studios!
Inspires me to do a super whacky animation!
Just thought of sharing with you guys! :D




Created by: Keytoon Animation Studios
Director: James Maestro

Ronald, Yong Yi and Zi Chao

Channelbox has put a lot of effort into this Eyeka Asia Creative Challenge and we are very excited about it!

Just a couple of days ago, the winner of Eyeka Asia Creative Challenge is announced! It's us, Channel Box!!

We are so so happy!! :D
I'll like to thank Ms Grace, Mr Jacques D and my two buddies Yong Yi and Zi Chao for making this possible! Thank you guys!
Can't wait to show you guys what we've been up to so here goes! Hope you'll like it!

Please watch in high quality :D



[channelbox.blogspot.com]

Our objective was to create an engaging animation that will inform the audience about the pronounciation of eyeka.

Simple visual elements are used for audience to relate better. For instance, the mouth literally provides a visual demonstration of the pronounciation of 'Eyeka'. Therefore, the concept allows the audience to register the correct pronounciation of Eyeka without much complexity.

Holy moly, after an intense 12 days of concept,modeling,rigging,animating,texturing,lighting and compositing, we've finally produced our end product. Eyeka Creative Challenge.

This is considered a great achievement for us, given such short amount of time and during them, we needed to juggle with our school works and projects too. I personally would not see this piece of work anywhere near gobelins standard, but we definitely getting there! Lets hope that we will win the prize money!

A relief that this project in finally over, and we will be continuing on FELIO soon, as soon as ronald and yongyi acknowledge this. Here i have uploaded our Final Clip. Will try to compile all the work in progress into a post.

Nice Car Zi Chao, ya i can't spot the difference haha.

Yes, just 1 and a half hours i manage to crap something out.


Screw the tyres, i will edit them later lol.


Sorry yong yi, i had to change abit of design coz some things doesn't work out too well. You probably wont notice anyway haha.