Just a Matter of Time Before We Learn How to Fly

There isn’t a long post for this week, because there was only one thing that happened.

Over the last few days I’ve been working on a final design for Pepper in the Main World at the beginning since the first part is what I’ll be working on for the rest of semester. 

After that I started blocking out the animation for the only shot her whole body is in.

You can see what I have here:

As I said, this is just blocked out. Not everything is in yet. Changes that will be happening/added-

>Cleaner motion

>More secondary motion

>Shadows

>Hand on ground has odd movement

>More exaderatgion?

There are also some files parts that need tweaking-

>Fingers on second hand needs to be added

> Second leg pose is odd

>Hair layers need to be remade to had proper motion

It's only the first shot, only blocked out, but I've learned more for just this little bit then I could have without it. Layer files that I thought where fine need to be fixed, animation styles that I thought would be the way to go turns out to be wrong... But after all, blocking it out is the first step in any good animation. It's only a matter of time.

If Your Happy and You Know It

This last week was kind of light in regards to what I created. We are now moving more toward production of the animation part that will be made first. 

Because I was having some issues with Cinema 4D on my laptop is the question became if I should do part 3 or 1 first. It really is leaning more toward 1 since I don’t like the designs I’ve made so far in C4D. (I was able to get it to work finally by can’t save since it’s a demo version. I also really don't like the way it came out so I’m going to try zBrush then lower the polygons after I model it.)

One of the major notes from the midterm crit was to explore more emotion. (Even the blob figures I had before weren't expressive enough.)

In response I made a facial sheet. The idea is that this is what she “really” looks like but her features change a bit when in each word.

I did a quick mock-up for when in Main World…. 

I might play with this for a little bit more
to round out the face more.

…and also Evil World (Pencil World).

This design is both different from the facial sheet and the previous color pencil designs. Note that I had said I was going to be changing that design a bit to have more of a cartoon/animated look. The previous design was very realistic.

So, um, yeah. There isn’t much else this week.

It's Been One Week Since You Looked at Me

This past week has been busy. As it is mid-term in this fall semester everyone was told to have a board-o-matic ready. If you remember, I already had one done.

So, what to do?

Well slowly I have been creating reference for the designs of each world (except Cliff). So for this week the goal was to create a shot for each world that will be close to the actual look.

5 out of 6 shots that I wanted where able to be made.

The 1 I didn’t get to.......

...

.......

..........Cliff World. Annoying Cliff World. 

Why has there been nothing for this world? My computer is a butt, it doesn’t like to run large programs. And Cinema 4D is a bit big. I do have a lot of things that need to be shifted over to an external, but it didn’t happen yet. Ideally I wanted to work on it using one of the large computers in the labs. Unfortunately you need administrator password to run it.

Pain. In. The. Butt.

....Let’s move on.

Here is the newest board-o-matics. The are broken up into each part as asked.

                                

And a closer look at some of the frames made for this week.

Main World - Opening (Want to put something on the walls and the angle of the floor boards is off a bit.)

Fantasy World (Composed in photoshop from the trees scanned in after painting them. Will experiment with the idea of hand painting actual designed shots, not just individual elements.)

Evil World (This is using photoshop charcoal brushes. Okay, but I want more grit.)

Water World (The girl is going to change her position around, I just had this pose done and figured it would work for what I needed.)

Main World - Ending (She looks grumpy - should be shocked. Couch needs work.)

‘Till next time!

10% Luck, 20% Skill

Hello again.

So this past week I focused on the main world as it will be my bookend location. I’ve nearly finished Pepper’s design, though I might change the features on her face a tad.

It was decided that the first part that I will work to create will be the third part - Cliff World and Main World (pt2). That animation will therefore be due at the end of semester.

Why start with part 3?

Part 1 has Fantasy World in it. While I’m 85% sure on how the pipeline should work for the water color, I’m not 100%.

Part 2 has Evil World (and Water World) and that has a LOT of charcoal. I have only a small idea how the part will be animated, be it photoshop brushes, scanned in textures, or a bit of both. Either way I wan’t Christmas Break to figure it out.

That leaves me with part 3 to start with.

It also means that I have Cliff World which will be in computer 3D. Since I need to create a rigged character, and have only ever rigged a fish, I’m going to be finding a cheap version of Cinema4D instead of Maya. Though I want to learn the program, I have only a few weeks so I don’t really have time for learning how to model and animate from scratch. Thankfully my classmates from Ringling came through and gave me some suggestions where to find a cheap version -THANKS GUYS!!

Moving on.

One last thing I did, as prep for the up coming work, is a small - simple motion test.

The idea was to get an idea of how I’m actually going to animate Pepper. What angles will I need assets for? How much range can this arm give me? Should it be drawn differently? What would be easier to build in After Effects instead of Illustrator? 

The test helped answer a few things. Some more tests will be needed.

Until then!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Lets star off with notes from last week, shall we? There where 2 notes that are the most important.

1 - The audio track is good.

I had been worried that maybe the audio track, that evolves and runs through most of the animation, would have been too much. But people really responded to it and they all felt it helped to emphasize the different points in the animation.

2 - Less cuts in the beginning.

This was brought up and it really does make sense. By having more fluid motion and longer scenes before meeting evil it with let the cuts later be that much more impactful. 

With that I decided not to change anything in animatic just yet. Yes, the beginning needs to have less cuts, but I want it it be camera moves and until I can figure out the most efficient way to do that it will have to stay.

With all that there has been other progress this week.

My girl has a design, and a new name!

So her new name is Pepper. (Anna didn’t fit anymore and I need a good name to call out when the animating of her gets complex)

I’ve also worked out some of the designs in the different worlds. I know I said I wanted to get them all up together but I’m still thinking about one...)

My first step is always to do a ruff color draft. This lets me figure out the color without spending too much time on drawing the character out in detail.

Now Main World is going to be 2D, Illustrator-Vector-Like and Evil World, before getting overcome by charcoal, was colored pencils - not blended together (I want you to be able to see the different lines and strokes.) So I have these two. I'm not 100% on which one is for Evil World but I have two different takes on it. The left one can also be a base for the AI file.

Then I've go Fantasy World. She got a bit younger here, but it's okay. It's a different world and since each one changes the composition, who is to say it can't make you look younger or older?

This is the first design for Water World. Yes, her hair is too dark. When I bought the paper I thought her hair would be brown but it evolved to more dirty blonde. I also say design 1 because she might be too complex so I might play with making this world more simple.

As for Cliff World, I’m not sure yet if it will be more like Disney 3D or low ploy 3D. Since I will be doing that part in Maya (and using the program for the first time) I want to say poly, but I have to see.

Till next time!