Nell the Narcoleptic 2

Latest environment progress, based loosely on Parnell, Auckland.  Click on any of the images to view a higher-res slideshow.

Just a cool little trick to make sure when the full beard (including a fuzzy moustache) on our hobo character is on, the fancy moustache underneath is off. (Otherwise the fancy moustache protrudes).

Using the Reverse Node in Hypershade > Utilities, I middle-moused from head_ctrl to reverse2 (to connect the ‘beard visibility’ attribute on head_ctrl to ‘inputX’), and then middle-moused from reverse2 to moustache to connect ‘outputX’ to the ‘visibility’ attribute of the moustache.

In short, the Reverse Node lets you connect using the opposite value of something.

Agent looking his best for his pamphlet promo. This will sure bring in people needing a job in one day!

Rendering progress of a shot in Scene02 (still fixing some darn skin flickering issues, but nearly there!)

Nelly got a celly

Woot!  We now have a PC dedicated to rendering the Nell film 24-7. This should help speed up the process considerably.  Currently we’re on about 15mins a frame, and we can only render when we’re not using our main comp!!

So far we have two custom built PCs from http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/. They’ve been super efficient and fairly priced, plus I like that you can add and change components around and see how this affects the total price dynamically. I know there are cheaper ways to go out and pick parts and build yourself, but to be honest, we ain’t got time for that shiz!

So sad - this Pizza shop environment built with TLC won’t be used in Nell 2.  The sequence it belonged to will be split into a possible 3rd installment.  Sometimes you just have to keep the story simple(r) than the original epic plan ;-)

Coffee cups and jug

Agent’s briefcase