DVD Template Design

I found creating the dvd cover desing so refreshing and fun :)
Just tried to create something from the material I have created already ( drawn/rendered images) but in a way ... presenting only a metaphor of what the animation is about and not completely giving away the "secret".
And yeah, I found that the more logos you use the smarter the template looks :D

Dope Sheets for Slime Mold Life Cycle Animation

This is the first project that dope sheets appeared to me of vital importance. SInce picking first experience in constructing animation in maya, everything can get so confusing so fast. As you can tell from the quality of the sheets printed, I used them ( and still using ) alot. To actually use dope sheets was probably the best idea I had regarding project management.

Maya progress: Working on Final Scene

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(examples of developmental stage)
Today I almost finished the last scene which is the midle one in animation - The Gathering
and Transformation of Slime Mold (lighting is left). There were quite few changes in the way I originally planed to construct the animation. First of all, I didn't use animated textures I was prepared- about 500 frames of of colour, specular and bump animated sequences, with the timing matched to each other ... The problem was that it just looked awful on the mesh - stretches in various places ect. I'd have had lots of problems to solve... And really, there's enough confusion already - whit very complex shots of continuous camera movement, where a fluid transformation has to be expressed : / But fortunately I had a very successful discussion with Simon Holand today; he suggested another solution how to create the changing texture that both would look great and save loads of working, rendering time. Thanks again for that Simon!

I animated textures inside Maya! :) By playing around with fractal textures settings and doing so for colour, specular and bump I came with quite successful results. In fact, I'm not ashamed to say, it looked way better then what I was prepared: D

the movement from cell field gathering to a slime mold and subsequently slime mold transforming to a fruiting body has to be continuous I used .. 4 different objects turning their visibilities on/off accordingly in the timeline.

But this again required the textures to seamlessly mold into each other (since the texture is also "transforming" )

I used Blend node to combine two huge shaders: animated "gathering" (cell field growing into slime mold) and the "transformation" shader - a liquid-like transparent and solid texture. I was reaching for seamless blend from one look of the slime mold to another.

This was the geeky part: D

But the more important was to watch carefully the timing. The animation is hugely indebted to music and the pace of animation relies on the pace of sound track. The absolutely vital reference for that was the pre-viz. I counted the time twice: first how long an action/transformation takes in my blocked-out animation (the pre-viz) secondly the intervals between the important notes in the soundtrack.

Storyboard for the Slime Mold Life Cycle

 

Storyboard Artist: J.J. Jolanta Jasiulionyte

Storyboard's contribution to the development of the project can't be emphasized enough. From many reasons it is worth taking some time and allowing the luxury not to be rushing. (It was developed roughly in 4-5 days, what is a relevantly long time in 5 weeks long project) Such reasons would be that it is a tool to solve problems of staging, how all the elements will interact with each other, ruff idea of how the camera is going to move and so on. Only after storyboarding is finished, there's confidence to go and start constructing the animation, since it's like you've already rehearsed it.

The storyboard for the Life Cycle of a Slime Mold starts with amoebas gathering into a migrating colony. After what, a more difficult stage of the slime mold forming fruiting body and spores is explained in more detail panel by panel. When spores are formed, fruiting body starts drying out and releases spores to fall down. Spores gently reach the ground and new amoebas come out of the shells. Story is finished with a reveal shot that emphasizes  the scale and the extension of the beautiful process.

To bring clarity in production as well as to clearly communicate the direction in which animation is going to be produced all the panels are done in color with the desired lighting, staging and texturing. The aim is to keep the original look that's seen in the storyboard. 

Go and see finsihed Life Cycle of Slime Mold

Storyboard for Lascivious Umbrella

The storyboard is a ruff map of the story as well as of the main actions characters are going to do. I'd guess in near future I'll add more panels braking actions into its details.