AO!! (Ambient Occlusion)

I just cant get over how nice and professional an ambient occlusion looks on renderd objects, all being well, my fully renderd animation, will have a AO pass, so giving it that realistic shadows, oh and Kiril will be happy ;), i know hes in love with them too. As if we had more time for the last project, Bag Story would have had an AO pass too.
Also, i cant belive that i havnt moved away from maya yet?! but the thing is, i feel like im still breaking the ice, give it 20 years and i might know almost every part of maya's labrynth. ( i want to learn other 3d aps, but i just havnt had the chance, and when i do, the simple thing of navigation scares me, coz it different maya!! )

Finished animation to a point

Yes i have decided to go ahead and start the rendering now as i need time to work out any unforseen problems, as my pc renders away, i edited the playblast footage, which will be replaced with the renderd footage.
heres the final edit.

impressed

from looking at the close up cam renderd footage of my animation, i was very pleased and surprized how 'alive' the character apears, so anyway, it just needs those tweaks, a new hat, etc, and work those technical problem out, with syncing.

animation 1st pass

Ok well in the 3d animation buisness, as there are like a million hand,arm and body controls, best way to animate is to do it in stages. i have decided to animate the arms and hands 1st for gesture, then onto the body and head and then the legs, and last the lip sync.
So, so far i have done the arms and hands, and that the longest bit as there was a lot of hand gestures involved, and i had to get the timing right in order to look 'real' and to go with the audio i am working with.
Next i am going to work the body and head as that reinforces the gestures of what the hands are dooing, hopefully this shudnt be too time consuming, and as i go il probs work on legs at the same time.
Last is the lip sync and eyes etc, this shudnt take too long, as i will have a phonemes chart of mouth positions etc, itl just be a matter of following it perfectly.

Overall i have been working with the first piece of audio that is from the reservoir dogs film, if i cant time, i might try and also work with the other audio which is from some frankenstein film, or some different audio altogether, as that is what my character is suposed to be deigned for.

something that has been pi**ing me off recently

i have been spending too much time trying to make my mesh go with my rig, and these are just simple paintweights problems, but you can see how frustrated i have been getting. I mean look at the thumb, looks like he has had a horrific accident with one of those old fashioned mangels. (press clean and squeeze all water out of materials device). And then theres the ribs, it is just irataing that i have to spend more time on this than bloody animating! I wish i had got sumone to make a rig for me instead. maybe thats a thing i need to do for next time! Like i said before rigging is a real bitch sometimes!

texture at fookin last

i decided to use the artisan paint tool in maya to create an organic looking skin, im still working on it, but i feel pretty pleased with it.