Toolkit 2 || Submission Post

Autodesk Maya || Jetpack Jones Tutorials Part 5: Skinning and Rigging

After the skeleton was finished while I ws skinning the fingers my home computer began crashing while adjusting keyframes, so I looked up solutions, found out that my graphics drivers were to blame, then I reinstalled them. 

Made a mistake, had my vertices parented to different bones. This caused a sort of drag when the bones are moved. Made a new save after I fixed it.

Arm and spine is now finished.

'A Boy and his Shadow' Premise 2018 || 3D Modeling the Boy Part 4: Eye Remodeling

An experimental texture was applied here on the hair to see the potential results for future reference. 

I realise that this model looks a lot like a doll, probably because of the glassiness of the eyes or the flatness of the skin. The best thing I could do at this point is to just remodel them into something more realistic, but to do that, I need to make another orthograph.

Done, now to apply it to the face...

I will work on the topology a little bit more as I go ahead, but I think this worked out well. The next things to do will be the hair and the eyebrows.

Premise 2018 Reflective Statement and Film Review Links

Reflective Statement
Working on this project had helped to develop management skills, my understanding of how story elements come together, my knowledge of programs, and my skill in developing character designs. 

Basing my goals on the feedback from previous projects I have made some positive progress during the premise project, as everyday I was sure to write down what I wanted to accomplish. As I was working from my own imagination is was important to understand what I wanted from the animation as a whole, so i recognising that helped to clarify my plot. A lot of my scenes and objects have some special technical attention like gobo lighting or fog effects that will need to be addressed in the future, but also during the creation of the animatic i learned a lot about how I can use after effects and premiere effects to my benefit, like the lowpass effect which helped to make the sounds outside the room. Also the style change, which occurred due to doubts that I would be able to create a realistic character in 3D, was an exercise in character design as I had to re calibrate each of the characters in order to match the styles correctly. 

In the future I would like to develop my skills in page layout so I can make my art more presentable, and also my workflow in animatic creation as I am not satisfied with how it looks at the moment. 

Film Reviews
Ethel and Ernest - https://dragooneranimation.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/film-review-ethel-and-ernest-2016.html
Belleville Rende-Vous - https://dragooneranimation.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/film-review-belleville-rendez-vous-2003.html#more
Waltz with Bashir - https://dragooneranimation.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/film-review-waltz-with-bashir-2008.html
Paprika - https://dragooneranimation.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/film-review-paprika-2006-japan.html
Mary and Max - https://dragooneranimation.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/film-review-mary-and-max-2009-australia.html

Premise Presentation, Animatic and Magazine Article

'A Boy and his Shadow' Premise 2018 || 3D Modeling the Boy Part 3: Hair and Head

SO instead of doing exactly what I said what I'll do in the last post, I decided to experiment with the eyes a bit, to see what it would look like in 3D

I tried doing a rudimentry pupil using an area light, but I worry that this looks a little too beady for an eye; still I'll attempt to do the rest of the model and if it doesn't look right I'll just remodel it with a more generic looking eye.

Started work on the hair; thinking about the texture of this dreadlock looking one on the centre. I would like most of my textures as realistic as possible, but it might be the case that I make the hair more flat and even just to keep it cartoony or non-specific. Maybe I'll give the arnold hair shader a try, just to see what the result could be.

This is a start, theres a big bald patch on the back, but right now I'm thinking more of how the hair bunches up before sprouting away into more 'dreadlocks' off the sides of the head.

To see the surface of the head more easily as I modeling the hair, I used a flesh tone. 

The hair is fully blocked in now, but it is still in need of further treatment; the lack of smaller hairs by the ears and at the nape of the neck will need to be modeled in as to make it more natural looking. Also I've fixed the hood so it meets in the middle now, will add a zip later when I do all the little details.

'A Boy and his Shadow' Premise 2018 || 3D Modeling the Boy Part 2: Hair and Head

Head and neck are blocked out from the initial smoothed out cube I had before.

Added eyelids and eyes and fixed some tram lines. Thinking about how I'm going to do the hair, will probably just extrude some cubes.

Gave the head more volume, now it looks a little bit more natural.

And then I started trying to do the hair... but I think its going to take a little bit longer. Will continue this model in part 3, where I will attempt to block out the hair strands, fix the hood, and add ears.

'A Boy and his Shadow' Premise 2018 || 3D Modeling the Boy

I have edited the proportions of the boy to make him look more like a preteen in this second version of my orthograph. 

The model looks like its coming together ok, the next session should see some progress on the head and face, although the hair will require some extra thought to make it more convincing. 

Autodesk Maya || Lighting and Rendering Tutorials: Part 7

Part 20: Fog (Legacy) and Atmosphere

Part 21: Displacement

Part 23: AOVs [Arbitrary Output Values]

Part 25: Motion Blur

via GIPHY

Part 26: Caustics

via GIPHY

Sculpture || Handsome Jack Week 6-8

During the last session, before the sculpture was submitted for photography I made sure to add vital final elements like the buckles around the face and the head of hair.

I learnt a lot from the lessons that will probably come in handy for digitally based sculpting programs like mudbox. Specifically knowing to work on individual elements until they are satisfactory will lend itself well to future practises.

I decided to keep this model for further work instead of baking because I had been in a rush to apply the last bits. This lead to them not being as defined as I would like them. I also want to put clothes on the lower half.

Premise 2018 || 'A Boy and His Shadow' Finalised Storyboards and Drafts

These storyboards are for reference and require improvement that will be applied after the first animatic is finished. Checklist for potential additions:

• Creepy/cute
• An unlikely Friendship
• Introductions
• Repetition Fixes
• Tension
• Monster personality development
• Ending elaboration?

Premise 2018 || 'A Boy and His Shadow' Finalised Designs

Through looking at what is currently in development, I have decided to go back to basics and redesign some elements according to the initial idea of a creepy/cute interaction. The boy now is much cuter in both depiction and behaviour, and through interaction with the ghost is capable of interesting chemistry that defines their relationship, a reference to the idea of 'an unlikely friendship'. It was described as the story of a young boy who has a friend on the internet, but as it progresses, it turns out that the friend is actually some kind of superintelligent AI that is able to manipulate computers.

As usual, I have created some spare images that were originally for a portion where the boy goes inside the computer and inhabits a virtual space. Here, his clothes change and he gains an unusual companion who follows him wherever he goes, providing a sparing but powerful protection when necessary to protect the child. Eventually this arc would have led to him finding his room again within the virtual space.

In terms of environments, the space is basic and completely assumes the contents of a childs aged 8 - 12 room. A few minor details to note would be the unusual pictures placed about, and an old CRT desktop computer in the corner. 

The Ghost

In terms of development, the original design was considered too visceral and scary for the style choices of my animation, so to act upon this I have made a couple of minor changes to the pallette to make it more 'oily'. The eyes too have had a slight change in structure, with a square pupil like a pixel. 

Further experimentation was made to the form of the monster in this sketch, where I hypothesise different forms behind the mass, and how it uses these forms to its advantage. Fear of the unknown generates the creepiness of this ghost, so in order to preserve that, there is never really any whole to what is seen.

In terms of orthographs, I decided the best way to attempt this would be to create several shapes of eyes and noses onto a large mass. These pictures demonstrate versions of this idea by the study of facial features.

Sculpture || Handsome Jack: Week 3-5

This lesson I was able to further block out facial features, making them more accurate in representation whilst also observing my model to detect shapes within the face. Structures like the prosthetic seems to shift and change across the model resulting in assymetry, which I wrote down  as reference for the future. By the next session I hope to satisfactorily complete this stage and move on to modelling the hair, clothes and other features.

Toolkit 2 || Moom Viseme Animation and Homework Lip Sync

Toolkit 2 Progress Report

Autodesk Maya Jetpack Jones Tutorials Part 4: Arms and Legs

Autodesk Maya || Lighting and Rendering Tutorials: Part 6

Arnold Part 19: Depth of Field

Using aspect ratio blur for more energy, like the camera is zooming in really fast toward the eyeball creatures.

Arnold Part 24: Stand Ins (Proxies)

Sculpture || Handsome Jack: Week 2

Here, I have begun to block in areas such as the cheek bones, nose and chin.

I haven't applied the eyelids on this side yet, but you can see that i had measured the hairline in order to check that it is proportionate. checking work as it goes is important since it minimises mistakes in the long run.

When i work on this over the weekend, I plan to finish off the other eyelid, and incorporate a mouth.

Toolkit 2 || Moom 'Surprise' Face Animation

We created an animation with the moom character model, following a briefing on realistic facial animation.

Sculpture || Handsome Jack: Week 1

For my toolkit 2 sculpture, I will be creating a bust of Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. I like the idea behind this particular antagonist, he has a slightly off tone artificial face to hide his disfigurement, highlighting his psychopathic narcissism.

I used a copper pipe as a solid base, then a twined piece of wire with a loop at the end forms the basis of the head. The wire is kept stable with tin foil and milliput, a putty that sets at room temperature to form a hard surface. The head is bulked out with more tin foil, and two balls formed from more milliput will be the eyes.