Week of Modeling

It was of writting dissertation too..

After some while the evil wolf is resolved. It took good two days for body modeling and one for the head. The tricky part was to make it work as armour and as suggestion of body parts, which later have to function.

The good one was modeled last week

If there were lots more time, modeling could go into even finer details. However, I believe Leo's and my ideas for this character in animation should  be  enough. The only question I have at this stage is , does this model need UVs to be layed out? Cause the texture work for metallic ice supposedly will be coming from a more complex maya shader.

Modeling progress:

Also, some fynilising touches to the doll: face, trimming and posing.

youtube converter, limewire

Work Placement @ Picasso Pictures: Permitted Publication

Finally James Boty, a director at Picasso Pictures gave the permission to publish project  work I did during those two weeks back in May. Looking back at it, it was an exciting experience, an eye-opener too. I was lucky and happy to have had the chance to meet all the freelancing animators, directors and studio’s producers who truly convinced  and inspired to finish my own creative projects ( Ivan the Bird).

As for this document, it showcases the  pipeline I took for  producing 5 critters. Drawings were done by designer called DJ. I was translating them to 3D models and designing their textures.  The nuance of it was the complexity and details had to be suggested using only the color pass and there the director comes asking to make them transparent-like and so on.

We had to write a diary on our work experience, which can be found here .

 So there it is:

Work Placement @ Picasso Pictures by JJ Jolanta Jasiulionyte

Introduction to Self Initiated Project's Idea; Native Americans' legend: Wolves Within

With the start of 3rd year in CG Arts and Animation, starts one of the two most ambitious creative projects. I’ll be working together with Leo Tsang on it. Blog of our project (yet under construction), Wolves Within, can be found here.

Wolves Within

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed..."

It is a legend told by a Cherokee tribe.Having the basic plot and idea where all is heading (namely, opportunity to develop two wolf characters, environments representing inner space and possibly, if intended, set it all up for future to turn it into an animated short), we also get clues for sources of reference.

As said before, it is a legend told by Cherokee. They refer to themselves as Tsalagi which means "Principal People." It is one of the Better known Indian tribes and also one of the” 5 civilized tribes” because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological practices of European Americans. However, sources have indicated that Indian tribes don’t have a distinctive examples of art from each other (at least it is fairly impossible to make such distinctions because of data loss ect.) , so it is considered that what is relevant to Cherokee art is also relevant to all Native American art. Therefore we too reference Native American art in general to further inspire our style.

The project is only yet taking shape and many decisions are waiting to be maid, therefore our focus at the moment is simply familiarize with wolves shapes, anatomy and already created representations.

Initial anatomy and structure studies:

So to get acquainted with "what's out there" I also gathered a sheet of wolves design. Quite honestly, none of the images seem to be similar to what we are aiming for our designs.

Finally, project would build on clear classification of virtues and vice

Ivan the Bird selection of Production Stills

Presenting Ivan the Bird by J.J. *Jolanta Jasiulionyte*

It's finished. And I don't have words in my pocket to describe the joy for having done it or the gratitude for all the help...

Some Wrap Up Stuff

Its now getting to the  wraping up stage in transcription project so I decided to work on the brief's aspects before the deadline is too close. This post is most dedicated to self and project  promotion.


Demoreel element:

One of the brief's task was to create a showreel element using   the elements of the project. I chose to take the main character  and present it as an animated turnaround.  These are some stills from the soon to be resolved showreel element:

Environment definition:

Also, as I said last week, I saw it neccesary to spend some time on details of the outside scene as before it looked dull even if all the major elements were brought in.
So I thought of bringing in these elements:

 

And so far it seems they really gave that much more to the scene. It is lot livelier to my mind. And, as I did in the first act, the scene will be pushed even further but this time only to specific scene requirements so to compliment the composition of the shot.  

Personal Branding:

Next in line,  is personal branding. I was working on logo designs  from time to time. there were quite some cheesy ideas...  here are some  attempts of past few weeks.

this is one of the cheesy ones I've mentioned... 

Then I came up with an idea to make an elephant from my initials. Well, if you asked me why elephant, I would say only, that they are my favourite animal from , as long as I remember myself and they are said to bring luck as well  :]

However, for some reason the logo didn't feel as personal.. I think it  fails to serve as my initial. 

I gave it another go. Basically the following  example has both of the previous initial design ideas as well as some flavour from the past ones I had. So it actually is a graphical development of my signatures yet still fresh. I felt this is perhaps the strongest ( or closest to me) personal logo.

 

And the business cards, brief asks to produce, would look like that:

Front side:

 

Back side:

 

After 'excercising' with brand logos, and catching the right rithm for  designing, I've also worked on title design which will be used for animation opening sequence also throughout other promotional materials. It did take quite some time in the day as the entire design is one big work on details ( what as some would agree, takes the longest in any work). But as I said it is a rewarding work, as it will be used extenisvely.

So the good rithm stayed and I went on designing the dvd cover and disc templates. I used the idea of demoreel presentation, as it really apealed to me.I like the 'clean' creamy/dreamy aesthetics  in this one, as well as title fits in perfectly. Hopefully it feels a bit like a story-book cover as my entire project's idea was to make a story-bookish world , characters ect.

 

However the templates still need few  renders from act 2 and 3. Also an 'epic' descriptive text.

After finishing work on these designs the feel was perfectly summary and the mood great :]
Hope that's goint to help in the last week ( lets be honest, 3 days actually) before deadline. 

In the mean time soundtrack designs for act ,  demoreel video, maya tutorials,  some animation refining  is still waiting to be finished for Thursday. this week best be the lucky one :D

'Painting up' the Scenes

 Last couple of days the time went on 'painting up' and retouching the scenes. Whether it meant building and bringing in last details, or 'painting' the set using  lighting set up for the better final image result.

So to start with, The opening scenes only briefly suggest that Ivan perhaps isn't the only character in the story. As camera pushes through the workshop we notice one another model in the set, also on the notice board next to Ivan there is a worn-of sketch of other mish-mash models.

So I've designed and created the Shiball (she has ship parts and ball) character.

the texturing for this character:

Further I went back to the second environment again . First,  trying to figure out ocean shader . With the help of Simon Holland, I think now it looks far better.

Other  largest elements in the scene was the front modeled trees.

And the scene, after bringing the major elements together now looks like that:

 However if this was a painting I'd say it lack of that last layer of details. And to be specific:  Nests, waist disposals, wind vane on the house, foam for shore line, grass here and there, little statues , something to also cover the contact point of trees and the ground. Just lots of things nobody notices yet it somehow brings  life to the scene.

Few more scenes are ready to be baked after spending that time for lighting, render setting.

Much like with animation, lighting is also getting easier and easier . Through trial, experimenting, reading on tips,  it reaches the point when you are actually getting creative with it in maya , even if it is not as simple as making few brush strokes in photoshop. Light linking is used extensively to emphasize  some of the set's and particularly character's aspects.

Lastly, I think this picture summarizes the work of past few days: the needed other elements are built and  brought in ( outer environment) the lighting is set up, rendering (render settings,  passes and effects) are adjusted.
 

Now I started working on show reel's element, and personal branding. Hopefully these will take no more than few days.

Ivan the Bird: Progress, Week 8

It's been a while since the last update on the project. But here it is.


Recently I worked on second environment, the outside of the house. It's taking reasinably longer to build as the space is many times larger than the workshop set's as well as include a variety of elements to consider.

Such as, to start with, the rendering of water and shoreline. I'm working on ocean shader and for the shore line, using dynamics to create foam.
These (VERY) developmental  images show what I have so far.

Other than that, the house has pretty much reached its final looks. It serves as a background detail for the most of the time.

Also, the field is now textured as intended in the concept. Also, Instrad of using bump maps, I used Normal maps, as the camera angle never reaches the point to reveal 'fake' bumps.

What still is not yet resolved is tree texturing.

Other than that this environment is in the stage of refining, but  to stay honest.. it doesn't yet have the right feeling even if all the elements are brought together (apart from lighting)  in the place. The idea   somehow hasn't translated yet  into 3D as I imagined  it.

So that was the set building of the project.

The other part is the acting. 

This is right after when Ivan encounters the Island and after a thorough look notices the house in the tree. Immediatly he is overwhelmed by desire to reach it. The ending of the clip suggests he realizes his ship-qualits.

But to keep on pushing the second act forward, I had to get back to rigging stage, where , quickly enough, system was created to help control Ivan's flight sequences. Motion path with additional groups for translation and rotation control is aded.
Here is the initial test of the motion path system ( no inentions of properly animating it there). I also aded aditional controls to the rig.



I used it to acquaint with the changed way of animating and see how the fall of from motion path would work.

To continue on, one another field of this project was lighting and rendering set up. ( this is where I failed to guess how long it would take to finish, where originaly I gave 3-5 hours it took me a week) .

Here is an example of lighting set up in one of the scenes from act 1

The lights have separate linking and affect only specific parts of either the scene or character. They are also animated to follow or change intensity according to storyline. Every scene has approximately 6-11 lights.

Here is an example of lighting adjustment int he scene:

At the beginning the general set lighting never seems to suit the specific scene. I first solve volumes of lightness then go and adjust how it falls, and causes shadows ( particularly concerning character).

And so, after quite some of adjusting and problem solving I have a scene which (supposedly) is fully resolved and should go to final sequence.

The Bird is waking up:



At the moment I'm dealing other scenes of act one in the same way, to get them rendered and ready for postproduction. Also I work on second act's flight sequences and set building. Oh and show reel element, I have an idea for that.

Workshop Set

The first environment seems to be ready now. Textures and lighting are set up and good to go.
 Storyboarding indicated areas which required special attention as they have most of the screen time.

Also, as planned, I've created render passes. Ambient oclussion really  brings the graphical details back into the scene.

Ambient Occlussion pass (Max distance 0.7):

 

Beauty Pass:

Combined passes:

Workshop is the place where Ivan was built. In comparison to other environments it is least colorful, bright and to a degree least uplifting. Though intentions weren't to separate this space from others entirely. It still offers coziness and wishfullness. Little models, wooden plain and symbolic cutouts busy desk suggests someone here is creating enthusiastically and lovingly.