2010-01-31

Uv mapped George and created the Normal and cavity map in Zbrush. Will create the texture tomorrow and work on the shaders. Should be finished tomorrow or day after.

2010-01-30

Added a few threads to Cg talk to gain feedback on my work and concept for the piece.
On the Line thread

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=153&t=848973

and George

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=43&t=848965

Will try and UV George tomorrow and create the normal map

2010-01-28

Worked on generic teeth for all the characters today (took a while to find good research to use to create the teeth) and altered the eyes of George to have more grey around the edges. The teeth I will alter slightly for each character, but generally will have this structure. George with less teeth and the Elmies set with larger Canines.




Uved the mouth and added shader and very basic textures, but anything more detailed is not necessary, just some slight colour variations



Also created four variations, the first Georges, the second for the rest of the characters, the next George Elms and the last the rest of the Elms. I mainly changed the colouring of the texture and added fangs for the Elms Unsure what to do for Audrey Moths but probably just make the texture nearer grey, but will deal with that when I create it. Might change the texture to be even darker for the Elms latter, see what its like in the final model.

2010-01-27

Finished the main body of George, will work on some smaller details tomorrow before uv mapping it and texturing Friday afternoon to Saturday. Currently on schedule with him so quite happy. Note his centre of gravity is off since he uses a walking stick.


Also decided to make his eyes, and while I was at it made the other characters to. In order of appearance from left to right, you have at the top Ian’s Elms eye, with a blue to grey pupil (all the top row are the Elmies, the bottom the human counter parts) the next is George, with a dark brown pupil with a hint of grey coming in from the sides. Next is Darren, a vibrant hazel, and finally Audrey, with deep blue.




Update –
Sound room booked, all sorted!!! (thank you Sarah and Chris)
Also here’s a clay render of George. I will create the teeth and uvs tomorrow and work on the hair last of, using alphas. The skin shader I will use I can re use on the other characters (of course changing the actual textures).

2010-01-26.

Created a welcome page for the website, will do for now until I have more time to work on it.
http://www.sameolthing.com

2010-01-25

John replied and is happy to do it, which just leaves the boy... I am actually thinking of a friend who I will contact today.


I began working on the head for George in 3D last night. I gave myself about a week per character, and since this is the first I am hoping a week and a half will be enough. I have been recording the making of the 3D objects using screen capture software therefore I can use it latter to promote the animation and in the credits.



Finally I tried registering the domain name Ontheline.com but sadly this is a very popular name for domains!!! So I have gone with the second option of using Sameolthing.com (the name of the factory). I will over the next few weeks put up a first page, just a simple welcome screen and over the summer or when I have time create the site, that I can keep up to date with behind the scenes work etc.

2010-01-24

Redone a few shots of the storyboard and altered the camera pans of others so the story flows better without breaking the 180 rule. Also I received a text from John Howarth, an actor who has been in a number of productions on television before who is interested in voice acting in the piece. I emailed him back the script with information on myself and the short. Hopefully he will be happy to do the voice acting of both Ian and George, and that leaves me with just Darren. Looking up! Time for 3D! I have edited all the front and side views of the characters for reference to the modelling and am going to start with George. I want a cross between cartoon and realistic, with hyper real pours and creases, yet that cartoon exaggerated look. I am aiming for a look more along the lines of Tale of Despereaux than anything else.

2010-01-23

Have had some real trouble trying to organise the voice actors for the piece. Really want some high quality audio for the voices, and therefore would prefer to use professional actors. I originally asked some actors who had become teachers that I had met during the teaching degree last year if they knew of anyone that my be interested. But they have failed to contact me back, therefore Sarah, my tutor, suggested asking Dorothy, the actress who will be playing the part of Audrey if she knew of anyone else. Now I need to wait a few days to see if Dorothy can organise a few people. If not I may have to ask friends instead however I would prefer to use real actors for the parts. Anyhow the plan is to do a run through on the first week of sound recording with all the actors, then every week of February ask one of them to come in to record there parts. Initially I wanted to record them all at once, therefore bouncing of each other and really living the performance, but due to the size of the sound room this would be very difficult.

I ran through the storyboard with Sarah (tutor) and although well received there are a few shots where it becomes confusing due to breaking the 180 rule. I will recheck the storyboard and see if there is any way to resolve these problems that cause breaks in the continuity and flow of the piece.

16.01.10

Received a reply from a musician (Susan Enan) who has an album (Plainsong) and also had music featured in the television series Bones. I asked her if it was possible to use one of her songs in the credits to the animated short. She is happy for me to use one of her songs in my film! Which I am very happy with. First choice!

Its called “we all belong here” and you can listen to it at

www.myspace.com/susanenan

a great artist!

15.01.10

Rang Dorothy the voice actress to rough out dates, however had a wee problem with the other parts, and have rang another voice actor to see if they can organise something. If not I will see if either Sarah or Dorothy knows of anyone. I must have all the voice recording done by the end of February at the latest, and I am worrying that the date looks to slide.

11.01.10

One of the main faults with the storyboard that although would not cause any problems in the storyboard does cause some continuity errors. Some of the ceiling maps and patterns don’t match. Therefore I created a ceiling map to help in the Animatic and latter in the lighting and texturing of the environment.



I took note of the main positions of the character to enable better lighting. Of course I may adjust these latter when developing the piece.

11.01.10

Finished colouring the storyboard today, and began looking into putting it into premier for the Animatic. I printed out the storyboard large, so I can check through it on paper looking for any faults in the script or camera angles.



After checking the storyboard for faults I noticed a few arrows pointing wrong way, description on wrong panels and some camera descriptions pointing in wrong direction. I have fixed them all now.

06.01.10

Began colouring in the storyboard rendering 30 frames at a time. I decided to keep it quite basic block colours for now, and add more detail when creating the textures, but generally keeping to the basic block colouring only with more dirt grime and texture. I am thinking that perhaps in the next few weeks I develop one of the characters in 3D so I have a reference to the look and feel I am trying to portray. So it will still have that cartoon feel yet a cross between the real and the cartoon.

04.01.10

Worked on a sword balancing animation for the knight to gain a bit more confidence in my animation before finally moving back onto the storyboard for the main project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heKYGpggK2s



On “On the Line” I edited some of the frames to be more consistent with the writing and began colouring in the frames. I also over the Christmas period contacted a couple of voice actors for the piece to arrange if they could help near the end of January, and sent them the script. I will follow up on this after next week to see if they are still interested.

01.01.10

Due to a lack of confidence with actual animation work I used a model I had recently made to try out a walk cycle and brief animation. The goal was to test my knowledge of animation in max so far and where I need to pay attention. The first attempt was quite poor, with the character drunkenly trying to walk forward with far too many key frames that mess up the animation. So I decided to take a step back and create a walk cycle using a tutorial.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOJdhAcUcnI

22/12/09

I then drew up the storyboard using the block outs and rough thumbnails at reference and then edited the storyboard to a two panel per page view before cleaning up the storyboard inking it in ready for colouring.


Drawn storyboard



Reedited storyboard



Inked storyboard

13/12/09

I timed the script by reading the lines with a stop watch then, using the scenes I blocked out in 3D to help with the environment concept art, I blocked out the entire storyboard in 3D to enable me to find the best camera angles for each shot with corresponding shot names for each camera (about 20 pages with roughly 8 shots on a page). After that I drew out in thumbnail each shot on the script, then began drawing out each shot in more detail with the 3D block outs as guides. All in all its about 130 shots which are taking some time to draw out, but I should be done in the next few days. After that I will draw out each shot in pen larger, and then take it in to Photoshop to render.

Block out


Rough thumbnails

19/11/09

I have written the first draft of the Research for Creative Practise and will re work it again next week. I also have drawn up concept art for the inside of the factory and some of the objects. I have tried to make it look rather old and worn, de-saturated colours and cut and patched chairs. I tried creating the environments from scratch in Photoshop but it looked rather poor, so created them first in 3D block out and then drew out the details on paper before finally rendering them in Photoshop.

Intial Concept

3D blockout

Sketch
Rendered
Desaturated

Shadow highlight


The objects all reflect the working environment, designing them to be similar to the real world counter part yet also redesigning them slightly so they are not exactly the same, due to copyright infringement. I also designed Ian’s caravan to be very old and worn. A 60’s caravan with broken windows and no wheels, held up by bricks. A fitting reflection of Ian who could “go out any time” perhaps with a little bit of work on the caravan first!.

11/11/09

To help my concerns for the size and scope of the animation I have created a schedule for the 2 years of the course. Highlighting each step and the modules undertaken at that time. Its eased my worries somewhat, but also made me realise I do have an awful lot of work to get through. This week I also finished the Literature and Contextual review based on facial animation and began the Research for Creative Practise 1. Something that I admit I am having a difficult time trying to understand.

07/11/09

I have reworked the script now so that the Elmy’s escapade to escape the tree and the factory setting run parallel, with reoccurring themes of being placed in a tedious job and the need to escape this situation before it consumes the boy (Darren). I feel the script delves into a number of different issues highlighting how people can be caught up in there own worlds. Also how life sometimes goes by to fast, or to slow!
The script still needs some work, but on the whole I am happy with the outcome. I also have drawn up some concepts for the plant, the Elmy world in the day and at night. I researched into various plant forms to try and get an appealing shape, with age with worn unusual roots and strange leaf shapes, to show its age and beauty. However I am increasingly worried of the size and scope to the animation, which I hope to time in the coming week.

First attempt at the plant



Second attempt at the plant



The Elmy world day time



The Elmy world night time

20/10/09

I have decided to stick with the “On the line” initial idea, yet incorporate in to the dream sequences the ideas of the world of Elm. The script I have scrapped and will rework it after I am happy with the characters. So far I have developed the three workers, the manger and there alter egos. Plus a rather in depth character profile for each character. I believe this will help me when developing the script. So far the idea is that the World of Elm is deserted apart from the three Elmy’s and they have come up with a plan to find other Elms. A dangerous Moths attacks and they use lights to tame the creature and go on travels to other Elm trees. Of course I don’t actually have an idea for the ending of the On the Line sections… Also I am rather concerned that this will be far too much work to complete in time. I have also redeveloped all the concepts already drawn up.

Darren – main character


The manager – Audrey


Ian, one of the workers


George the second worker


The Elmy’s


Darren’s Alter Ego


Ian’s Alter Ego


George Alter Ego

Audrey’s Alter Ego (not to sure about the blue colouring, to show the colours of the dress and jacket she wears outside the dream sequences)

02/10/09

Today we were shown work from the second year masters. This was a real eye opener to show what work is being produced. Some really good artwork. I am hoping with my animation I can keep within the time scales allocated. Of course being on the part time masters has its advantages with the time scales, however I do work three days a week also.

Mario showed the group an animated short called The Cathedral, which really made me think about my own piece I am developing. Have I chosen the right subject matter? Could my piece be lost in the eons of bad ideas or should I begin thinking of a more fantasy based animation? Something unusual that stands out. Yes it means scrapping the work I have done before, but it could be said that this is just good practise. I need to think about this and possibly redesign the idea. Even though others suggest the original idea of the production line (now called “On the Line”) is a good idea. Possibly adding some unusual imaginative elements to the day dreaming scenes?

I have completed the first four characters for the piece. Here are the last two

One of the workers


Another worker