Friday, December 22, 2006

Found a great resource: Weta Workshop: Jane and the Dragon.

WETA

I've already gotten so much from their staging, props, backgrounds. In particular, I like the way they use plants and trees, either in the foreground or background to add depth or frame a shot. I like the way they handled the ground/grass/stone area and really like the ivy on the walls.

There's one shot that I need to change on my 3D animatic, I'm going to use an over the shoulder shot when Rosa first looks at the fakes. That would set up the POV shots a little better and orient the viewer.

I'm working on leaves and mushrooms at the moment. Small modeling work that keeps me in Maya while enjoying the winter break. I might rework Dee a little I sketched out a cuter version of her that's a bit more stylized. We'll see if it works.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Some random, end-of-semester comments.

I found 2 great inspirations while doing my Research Paper. One is Dumbo. I think I'll be stealing an awful lot from this film. Not only does it deal with scale in a seamless way (two characters of very different sizes) but a lot of the emotions are similar to the ones I want to capture, particularly from the Matriarch elephant - she has this building anger that I'd like Rosa to go through when Dee makes fun of her. Lots more, and I found a great resource for model sheets at Animation Archive.

http://animationarchive.net/Feature%20Films/Dumbo/Model%20Sheets/index.php

I think I'm going to spend time drawing my characters in these poses/expressions/gestures.

Drawing, when I get into it, really helps me understand the face muscles. I hope that will translate to my models and hopefully it won't mean a lot of changes. I tried to be careful of my edge loops - placing them where there will be movement. We shall see.

My other inspiration is Gini Cruz Santos, a Pixar animator that just struck a chord with me. I like her sense of hard work and sacrifice. Just refreshing from the "Dude, this ROCKS!!" or overly technical jargon I hear from other animators. Anyway, I loved her work without even knowing she was the one doing it (Dory and a good deal of the Incredibles), , so now it's great to put an animator behind a character and I can watch even more closely. She also is very candid about how much time goes into animation -- something I struggle with. I rush my work. There's a difference between working fast and rushing. I need to take my time, get more feedback and really get my scenes right.

Unfortunately, I found both these inspirations a little too late for me to expand on them in my paper, but I'll add them for my final-Final paper in May.

I loved working on my 3D animatic!!! It really takes it to the next level timing wise. I was very accurate on my Shot list for the first 35 seconds but the rest is a rough estimate. I'll update that as I go along.

I'm going to take one more stab at finalizing my charachters, they're still not as smooth as they should be (must check normals) and then I'll finish up rigging and blendshapes.

Ugh. End of the semester and so much to do!
Previs Final Deliverables

Research paper, includes my shot list.
http://64.17.142.111/downloads/webDebScottFinal_previs.pdf

Here's a 35 sec. clip of my 3D animatic that I hope to finish over the winter break.
http://64.17.142.111/downloads/short3D_animatic.mov

Here's my 2007 Production Schedule. Still a lot to do re: rigging.
http://64.17.142.111/downloads/Thesis_Production2007-2.pdf

Sunday, December 10, 2006



Meet the fakes.

Time for NURBS. These simple nurbs shapes were created by drawing a CV curve following the basic outline of the classic Don Featherstone plastic flamingos and extruding a circle along the path. Then I just scaled the CVs to fit the shape and added a cheesey pink Blinn. I'd like to add a little yellow and black to the beak, perhaps a little black for an eye. More painting.

The legs are poly cylinders and are parented to the bodies. The stiffness is great~ I have the pivots centered at the base and they fall over beautifully! I'm looking forward to knocking them over.

I think they're successfully "fake". They need to contrast with the 'real" flamingo character. I'm still not sure how this will playout because in some ways the fakes look more real than my character.

I think the story will still work.

I'm going to have some ivy spiral up a leg.
A very different modeling experience with Dee. The flamingo really paved the way with a lot of trial and error. I blocked out the rough pretty quickly, working with a smooth proxy and placed a rig in it much sooner than with Rosa. Just being more familiar with the tools has sped up production and I can recognize problem areas sooner.

I'd like to see more definition in the face, cheeks, eyes and see a little more curve in the body. The feet and legs are a too blocky, but the definition is OK.

One movement I can see using a lot is the "head down tail up" movement so typical in small birds. Head down will translate to "what are you doing?" and tilting back up will lead into the reaction.

I can see animating the legs in a lot of paired movement - hoping instead of walking. The legs are very straight here, but they will be quite bent when hopping around and barely visible when perched on a branch.

I foresee much painting of weights over the holiday break.

With this rough Dee, I'm going to work on a 3D animatic. Just block out the scene and camera angle/move. No character animation or rigging.

I have my shot list that I will type up and post later. This really got me thinking in a non-linear way, where I can concentrate on close-ups and facial expression during some sessions and the wider angle/action shots in another. For the C/U work, I'll render the characters and add the background in AfterEffects.

I'm a little concerned about textures for the characters, but I haven't put much time into that.




Here's the Low Poly of Dee.
Still need some tweaks here and there, but I'm pretty happy for the most part.