Animating

Currently my animation is 75-80% done. There are a few problems that I don't know how to make the character interact with the prop. Another problem is the timing of some shots are a bit too fast and too slow. If I go back and fix it, I afraid I don't have enough time for it. I only have less than 2 weeks to finish everything including render and final editing. My plan right now is to finish all the animation then quickly fix some textures and ready to render. I'll try my best to get everything done within this week so the next week I only need to render and editing.  

Playblast

there are 2 shots misplaced  near the end..

Inside look of the house

texturing the house

And so this is the different look of the textures which are quite good compare to the last one. Those are new polygon cubes I created without any extrude or modification. It's quite flat but it does keep the textures better.

House + Texture

I'm currently applying textures on the house but I don't like it because of the UV layout maps are too complex and not much i can do about it. I also try to create a new polygon cube or a plane and then just apply textures on them and they actually look much better.. i still thinking if i should go for it or not, but theres a great chance i'll do it because i'm really running out of time.    

Walking Comp!!

Last time i tried to do the running comp with pencil test and got a bunch of errors in flash.. so i decided to leave it and continue to finish up my character and the set, but Jack said it's critical to have everyone's running comp done at this stage. So I left my character and jumped into locking down all the cameras. Then I rendered it but unlike last time as i rendered it out as footage, this time I rendered it as single frame and then imported them into flash and did the pencil test without any errors show up.

 

oppa Gangnam style!!

So far I have my character 95% rigged and ready for animation test which is a good sign! As i was creating a running-comp last week, everything went well until I render a couple of shots out and then imported them into Flash so I can start blocking the poses. Unfortunately after a draw over a few frames Flash started to crash, I've tried over and over again and the result still the same. I was thinking the problem is because I'm using Flash cs4 at the moment which is different at uni (cs5) but I will try to open it in uni soon. Another problem that I encountered is if I'm using cs4 Flash I still can open in cs5 but if I save it in cs5 then I won't able to open it in cs4 again, and that sucks! but I'll give it a go again.
At this stage I should have done my running comp but unfortunately not! as well as the texture and the set. I have not lock down the camera yet! because the set is still changing, but I'll figure this out soon.
As for music is still the same as in the animatic last semester, and I decided to get rid of the background music and only have ambient sound such as wind etc.. this way I think it will be more dramatic and focus more on the moment/movement.
What I will do now is try to figure out a better way to do an animation test and get the running comp done and lock down all the camera but again I'll have to finish up the set.  

Mya's revenge!!

Did she really DIED!!?

character modelling continues

GOAL - end of week 5

• Finish the Character modelling by the end of week 5-6
• Props modelled and rigged (or at least most of them)
• Need to have at least a few textures to test with
• Must have more than 50% of environment done
• Need to start on 2D animation (Opening shot)
• Need to have some more backgrounds
• Not to forget about music, find out what else I need for sound design. (improving through the production stage)

Character Modelling Ongoing

So far I'm sculpting the character's clothes and putting everything together. Getting my character model to this point is more than I expected because luckily Jack found a free model on the internet which almost looks the same as my character. But that doesn't mean I'll be using this free model as it is. I need to modify and re-sculpt it to make it looks like my character. I only use the head of this free model which has already rigged with some facial expressions. Currently I still get other parts done and leave the head to Jack because I don't know how modify it. Also I downloaded a free "Hand" model which looks very good, and this save me a lot of time.  

1 problem that I'm having is when I convert the Subdivision Polygon to Polygon and then delete the subdivision polygon but there's a polygon I cannot delete. I find this very annoying so I just Hide it.. not sure if it's right thing to do!

modeling Mya's hand

So I guess this is how the hand should be modelled!

Character Modelling

So umm I totally brainwashed how to model a character in Jack's way, but I found another way to modeling on the internet. It is by using "Subdivision Polygon" and I'm doing ok, I'm still sculpting it as can see the picture below. For the hands and head parts are a bit hard and I need to ask Jack, but for now I want to try to do it.. Oh and the clothes as well. What's in my head is to "EXTRUDE" from the waist down to create the skirt but I don't know if it's right! (I've never model clothes before) in the meanwhile I'll try whatever came out of my head and do some research online! 

Creating the SET

Layouts, Concept Art and Mood board

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Character Design and Storyboard updated

please check "Pages" above to see more uploaded works

Pre-Production Reviews Week12

OK, let’s start off with the SCRIPT that I submitted awhile ago. Recently I got the feedback from Jack that I should think about what my character feels and if I can do it right my animation will be a powerful piece. The story is quite sad but then I feel like there’s something missing that won’t make the audience heartfelt/cry! I just don’t know what it is until Jack pointed it out that how my character feels when she decides to leave the house, and I think this is it!!! All I need is a few more shots of Mya making decisions because without these shots everything will just too abrupt. The only thing bothers is that if I add more shots I’ll have to go back to the storyboard and modify it then bring it in the animatic... but I guess there’s no other way!  

                My CHARACTER DESIGN is 99.99% locked up. After a while of testing and showing to other people in class and teachers, some think yellow/brown is good but then others think the background is too busy and the colour just got lost in it. Most people went with Purple and Red, however purple still seems to get lost in the background. Finally it was down to Red, everyone agreed Red is the colour to go. I think Red can make the character stand out but not poor enough even I already added a few patches on her clothes. But so far I’m happy with it but still indecisive about skin colour wether (light orange, pink or red) but that won’t be a big problem because after the 3D model is done I can experiment them with it. I cannot guarantee the 3D model will look exactly like 2D model sheet. There might be some slight changes on 3D model.

                I went through my script again and noted out most of the character’s emotions and so far I have only 7 FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. I got the expression sheet given by Jack and I used for my character but after I showed Jack, It wasn’t good enough even though it seems fine to me. So I had to change it a bit and now it’s better. Those expressions are pretty much the same because my character is sad all the time however still different. I know there should be a few more and I figured out as the animation goes.

                CONCEPT ART and LAYOUTS are the two things I need to spend a bit more time on it because I’ve been doing/fixing storyboard and animatic (the animatic doesn’t have sound or music just yet, because I’ve been jumping in different works and do a little of this and that) . I only have 1 layout that I did earlier to experiment the character’s colour schemes and 3 more to go. Since the character design is locked now I can start composite my character with the backgrounds for concept art.

                So far I have 2 pages of MOOD BOARD which has to be 4 pages and each page is for each scene, but my script only has 3 scenes... annoying much! Recently I’ve been working on Animation Test as usual I forgot most of the things in 3D Maya so I needed some help from Jack to set up stuff for me. So far I have one shot done and going to work on the next shot, this time I’ll try to do it by myself and see if I can remember all the steps!     

                Other stuff like thumbnail, video blog etc... are already done. For some reasons I feel like I haven’t done enough of work and I only have 2 weeks left before the holiday starts... I guess it’s because I did not try to finish one thing first before I start on something else. Overall according to the pipeline I think I’m in the right stage.     

                                

Script (Adding)

Today I got the script feed back from Jack and there's something that I need to think about is the moment Mya  leaves to die. Does she reconsider returning , get angry, feel despair... what does she feel?
So I sat down and wrote down a few things...

This is when the Lady pushes Mya out of her house and closes the door.
Mya picks up the photograph she spends a moment looking at the house. Fade.
Finally she decides to walk away in despair
While she walks, she sees some woods lying on the snow
She stops and stares at it for a moment then looks to the broken photograph and
She decides to move on.

or

She sees some woods lying on the snow
She stares at it for awhile
She looks back to the broken photograph
She kneels down but not to pick up the woods
She gathers snow and starts building snowballs   

The problem is that I will have to add more shots and my animation is already long. But that won't bother me. Jack really got the point that I need a reason why Mya decided to leave, that's suicide and it's a big decision.

After she spends a moment staring at the house she finally walks away, and in her mind if she goes to pick up more woods the Lady would let her in. However while she looks for woods the photograph reminds her of her parents, so she decides to build the snowballs and then bring the woods home. Unfortunately the snowballs were built but she's too weak and exhausted, and she fell to her death. 

I think this answers the question!!! and I don't mind addding a few more shots as long as it make sense!!

This is the refinement of the character's facial expressions.

Checklist!!!

Checking the Preproduction checklist here are things that I've done

1. Script Premises
2. Script Synopsis
3. Script Treatment
4. Character Design
5. Expression Sheet
6. Colour Schemes
7. Thumbnail
8. Storyboard (i need to write the discription for each shot)
9. Model Sheet
10. Task Pipeline
11. Animatic (so far happy with the timing but need to do the rough sound design)
12. Video Blog
13. Animation test (still working on it)
14. Layout (I only did one layout, 3 more to go)
The 2 things left to do are Mood Board and Concept Art.

So far I'm quite happy with where I'm at the moment, but that doesn't mean i'll be slacking. I'll try to get everything done so that i can start on 3D modelling.