Work experience: Picassopictures, day one

 First day in Picassopictures was not without adventures.

Much Like Ruben I also got the chance to meet some outstanding directors and producers of Picassopictures. Steve May,  and James Botey of finkbom, (producer of Zombigotchi),  were two directors  I've got to talk to most, and then work on their projects.

Here is James Botey'sproduced Zombigotchi, some of you will recall it from  Inga Johnson's visit.

Zombigotchi! from Mikey Please on Vimeo.

Here is Steve May's one  phantasmagorical creepfest featuring scary rabbits, ghouls, flying saucers on strings & a cheeky nod to Ed Wood . Animation is winner of The Association of Illustrators Gold New Media award 2010

Rabbits from Steve May on Vimeo.



I had a busy time  interpreting James Botey's chracter designs into 3d models. It was a dialogue with director trying to get his vision - he would come and see the progress and ask for changes. I have to admit, at the beginning I hesitated if I'll do any good, the confidence was long gone, as models had to suit the professional eye now. But my luck was that the project is not reaching its deadline soon  and there was  time.

Also both producers and directors asked not to publish any of the work done for half year. But it all can be shown in unit's presentation at university. 

To my joy I came to discover I'm not the only one doing work placement. There was another guy, Paul, who  also started his practise today. Only differently, he is reporting to only one of the directors, James Botey, whereas I can be approached by any of them, as well as any of the three producers. It was nice to find that I'm not alone there and, like in today's case,  when having problems with maya ect., can ask for help ( those around , directors as well as produser asistants, didn't know maya) .

to mention other things, after few hours of my work I randomly saw John Hannah, an actor for Jon Carnahan's, the anoying brother's character in The Mummy (Stephen Sommers, 1999)  pasing by  the window  in front of me. Also, from  today London is having tube strike started  and  people trafic in some of the lines is just insane, I feel being from the tyniest of villages,  I've never saw so many people per such smal space units...  :D

I was really waiting for the start of this experience as I want to put all of what I have been doing for past two years to the  test. Get the answers wheater this is what I'd imagine it to be and so on.
 
All in all I didn't feel nervous at all just overwhelmed by first day's experiences  :]

 

High-rez Male Modeling Progress

progressing on modeling male, mainly shaping in legs.

Active/Passive Dynamics, soft bodies and nDynamics:

Using dynamics to mimic real world behaviour and scenarios

Active passive dynamics with various constraints (nail, hinge, spring ect.) 

 

nDynamics with constrainted points, material behaviour, real-world simulations (wind ect.), cashe blending and other deformers ( such as wrap)

Sketching and speed painting

Some sketches of to-be-developed ideas, some speed painting, studies of people character

 

 

Self Promotion: Litle Tiny Books

Yesterday I got my first set of printed ‘portfolios’, little 6 side booklets. I chose to publish some of the concept art, character designs and stills from animations emphasising the diversity in style and thinking. I tried creating a clear booklet for both, professionals as well as people who don’t have a clue about digital arts. I’m hoping to hand these out to people I’ll meet in upcoming summer when being part at various activities and while hitchhiking/couch surfing. the layout and organization can be seen here: JJ Jolanta Jasiulionyte Portfolio Leaflet

Ivan the Bird, Continuing:

Before my work placement starts in past two weeks I continued on working on the animation. Dream Island is taking shape and colour. A lot is still left to be done: detailed texturing and lighting also some rethinking of the environment, mainly to make it suite the very last shots of animation. But I’m not concerned with that yet as I’d do polishing to the camera views.

test/base texturing:

The island works when seen from a distance. With refined texturing , added animation (windmills, cloth simulations) and lighting I think it would do its job

As for animating. I’ve pushed it for 20 more seconds .  The reached bit was the first culmination in the story, when Ivan supposedly is about to reach the Island. The pace of editing asks for many shots so… those 30 seconds have 16 camera views. Thinks tend to be quite confusing with cameras in postproduction as each has its own ‘name’  and two separate render layers to be stitched (AO and Master layers) together

I guess now I'll have a two weeks break from the project as I'm going to Picassopictures to do work placement. But who nows, I was  thinking to take  files with me and if at times it seemed not too busy I could work on this :] 

PicassoPictures, A Company Profile; Part 1:

  

PICASSO PICTURES is one of the UK’s leading independent animation production companies representing a diverse range of directing and design talents. It has a reputation for producing original and highly creative work. 

Therefore the research into company’s profile will be aiming to look into it’s talents, their outstanding directors, profiles. 

As Inga Johnson, a producer for PicassoPictures,  during the visit at UCA pointed out, the works Tokyoplastic's delivered is what studio is most proud of. The founders of Tokyoplastics are Sam Lanyon Jones, background in photography and Andrew Cope, industrial designer. 

Jaded Expression Magazine describes them: “Animation is at its most imaginative and original height. In the same vein as their imagination, there is no line drawn between the mediums of art that they work in”. One of significant examples would be the Drummachine, which won awards and achievements in film festivals all around the world, most notably the people's choice winner of best animation at the 2004 Sundance film festival. 

The animation evolved as a symbiosis between the music and the visuals, a composition of both animation and sound.
 

The other example is of MTV flower, an animated abstract structural growth:


MTV - Flower from tokyoplastic on Vimeo.

Other examples of their work iclude Nokia Pop vs DJ, Nokia Lips VS Mind Reader, Toyota Chase and others
More of profiles on creative crue are comming soon.

High-Rez Modeling: Torso

Encouraged to Take on the Opportunities: First Showreel

Couple of weeks ago I met a filmmaker, documentaries he is making,  and next day a scriptwritter for commercials (what then he sends to CGI companys)  and both seperately gave same piece of advice. I simply said I'm a student, gave some insight to our course and that some of us are having work placements in various places also in London. Both of them strongly adviced to not miss this chance and let people you meet know what you do and who you are because you never know...

Basically this guy David Shillinglaw gives his view on how to create opportunity and fuel the focus needed to succeed as an artist,  an interview to Fidgit box. He  summarizes much clearly what I'm talking about and what those two professionals basically said:



Mini Fidgit: Just Do It from Fidgit Box on Vimeo.

 
So yesterday I sat down for couple hours and stitched my own first showoreel . I purposefully  haven't referenced anything  much, just put all the best bits of work done in past few years. I found it very useful  to also show to my nan and aunts, who think I'm going to be an art manager or something  and simply don't understand what CG artist means or what they do :D 
It was nice and easy to play around and reorganize the stuff you've done already :] 

Modeling High-rez Head

High rezolution head model was made using same model reference images as  for games character . The final model seems to resemble original person better in this case . There was more freedom to bring in the details to the character as in the case of modeling for games, geometry had to be very limited.

Facial features:

 The Ear (part one):

And the head:

Transcription Crit: Project's Work; Entry 1

As it was said on the crit, The animation isn't finisedas a product. However, arguably, what has been achieved in ten weeks frame is pretty satisfying.
Like the bird himself, the 'mish-mash' of the story is presented in the following video:

The Making Of:

Here I present the first part of Making of, a visual document of the pipeline of Transcription Porject.
When The animation is finished, the document will include all the character design behind and the rest of project's development after the deadline.


The Making of Ivan the Bird Part 1

Mental Ray: Caustics, Physical Sun, Portal Lights, HDR Image Based Lighting,

Caustics:

Mental Ray Shaders:

Physical Sun and Sky

Shadow Sampling and Softening in Physical Sun and Sky:

Portal Lights:

HDR image based lighting:

Technical Paper on Mechanical Bird's Rig

I wrote on the most challenging technical part of transcription project, Mechanical Bird's rig.
The paper covers methods and solutions for rigging. it is also very illustrated as , no secret, rigging with its terminology quit easily and quickly seems to be over too complicated.


Technical paper Mechanical Brds rig

Demoreel element

Finally the video is gathered. It was also a good practice of animating using motion path as in the following weeks I'll be dealing mostly with that kind of animation. It takes longer to animate, as now all body parts are fluid in the air and free to move. But it is much more experimental as it doesn't have to follow sometimes mathematical preciseness a walk cycles ask in order to be tidy and symmetrical.

But back to the demoreel element. The music used was played in Tivan's Sky lantern festival.

Hope you'll enjoy it: