Finished CU/Color!!!

WOO HOO!

Still have like 3 or 4 revisions to make, but other than that I'm good to go!

Now for rendering and compositing!

On the flipside, I stopped by melrose the other day and saw this cool store. You guys should definitely check it out....

CU/color, Object Animation, Rigid Body Dynamics, and First Pass of Music

This week I made some more progress on the clean up and color, and began getting my hands dirty with Maya in attempt to get the characters interacting with the BG. I've found that it is a lot simpler than I imagined it would be, aside for Seq5_sc33, where the green monster runs into a table of books. Even though I did not have the chance to work in Maya that much, I am glad that I made my backgrounds 3D so that I can at least get more familiar with it. I want to get better at it in the future!

Jesse Doyle is super awesome and has been helping me set up rigid body dynamics to get the books falling off the table when the monster runs into it. It's looking really awesome right now, and I think with just a few more revisions it will be good to go. this will complete my very short session animating in Maya.

Still working on the outside BG look and the windows for the store. My plan is to model a road and add an image plane in the back. I will probably work on it during the spring break.

I also got my first pass of music from Derek Zhao! It's still rough, but I'm super pleased with the direction he's going in.

I think I'm seeing a trend....

 

derp derp derp

Lighting Update

Revised lighting for the store is just about done! We added some lights inside the store to brighten it up. The only issues left with the background is the outside environment and the windows. Not quite sure how to do those yet.

lalalalalala

This week I worked more on CU/color. I'm about done with Sequence 4, half way done with Sequence 5, and done with Sequence 2. I have about half of my film left to color. I'm not worried though, because most of my hardest shots are finished.

I also talked with my sound designer this week, and we sat in the mixing room together figuring out what's what. She established the environment, and it's coming along well.

Lighting WIP

Here are some lighting tests that I've been working on with Eric Hanson. For some reason, bookshelves make the lighting darker. Need to figure out that problem. Otherwise it is starting to look pretty cool.

Background almost complete....

This week I worked on trying to finalize the background design. I'm feeling relatively pleased with it, although it was not quite what I had initially envisioned. The lighting still needs a ton of work, which I plan on fixing up with Eric Hanson. There are also a few problems I want to work out, for example the posters and the windowpane. I'm also not quite sure about how to deal with the toy shelf, which is just a plane in space. Still, it is close enough. check out some maya software renderings here:

 

I rendered out a shot to see how it looks with a character. I think it looks pretty cool, but at the same time I have an itchy, uncomfortable feeling about it....my aesthetic senses are tingling with discomfort! There is something wrong with it, but I can't quite point it out. perhaps it is too detailed, but at the same time, I  like the detail. In this shot, I desaturated the background, which helped a bit. It think it has something to do with the composition of this shot itself. The vertical datum is right in the center. Well, this shot isn't quite complete still--I don't have a background for the outside street view.

EDIT: I just played around with the composition. I think its starting to work better. Check it out:

Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned in the last post, but I finished all of the Sequence 2 cu/color animation revisions, so I'm relatively back on schedule. hoooray!

More progress, second draft of music

This week I made more progress on the CU/Color animation, and revised most of the Seq2 shots that I had to redo from the first week. I also got a second draft of the music, though it's still not quite what I'm going for. I also re-setup my animatic files on aftereffects, so I'm sure that for the next class critique I will have a new animatic up and ready to show.

Progress on the background is falling a little behind because I still need to work on lighting. I met with Eric Hanson today, but we were unable to finish what we started and plan on working on lighting next week. I'm also unsure about how to render and composite my shots, which I hope he will be of assistance.

Almost done with Background, more CU and Color

This week I got a hold of the background file that Dom has been working on! It's looking really great! I've been coming across some issues with Lighting and Rendering though. the lighting seems too dark, and for some reason rendering one frame takes more than 15 minutes. If I want to finish my film in time, this rendering problem needs to be figured out! I'm going to meet with some people in the coming week to see if we can resolve these issues.

CU/Color is coming along well as usual. I've gotten 2 of the hardest shots out of the way this week, which is a big relief. I'm relatively on schedule but I am constantly feeling behind for some reason. perhaps it is just nerves.

Here are some screen shots of my work flow:

Seq5_sc3: finished shot!

Seq5_sc7: drawing in Ray

Seq5_sc7: Adding in shadows for the swirly things. This shot took forever....

Seq5_sc8: Clean up from SWF roughs

Seq5_sc10: More cleanup from SWF roughs

Seq5_sc10: adding color

More Progress on Clean up and Color

This week I clean up and colored the following shots:

SEQ3_SC7

SEQ5_SC1

SEQ5_SC3

SEQ5_SC35

SEQ5_SC7 (Lineart)

SEQ2_SC_11 

Sequence 5, Scene 7 is the shot where Jin transforms into the green monster, and is one of the most difficult shots in the film. I will be splitting the lineart and color into two weeks. Tomorrow, the plan is to finish the lineart for the Wednesday due date.

Next week:

SEQ5_SC10 (Lineart)

SEQ5_SC7 (Color)

SEQ5_SC8

SEQ5_SC9

SEQ5_SC11

SEQ3_SC_24

Aside form Sequence 5, Scene 10 (The 360 degree fight shot), and finishing Seq5_sc7, the shots are not too daunting. The plan is to finish all the shots where the characters are interacting with their 3D environment as soon as possible so that I can animate the 3D objects before picture lock.

On the more entertaining side, here's an example of what the final is probably going to be close to looking like. the bg in the background is the most recent rendering from Dom. The lighting was kind of weird in it, so I went into photoshop and adjusted the lighting and color. What do you think? 

More Clean up and Coloring

After my CU/color experience last week, and the critique on Wednesday, I found myself really disliking the look and style of the CU/color. The lines were very thick and bold, but seemed the flatten the image. I was also having trouble going to very rough to very clean lines. I learned a lot about the actual clean up process that goes on in the professional world, and after seeing that work, every wavering/boiling line seems to bother me. There is definitely not enough time to do perfect CU, so I decided to switch to a rougher looking line.
I am a lot happier with the look of the CU/color now, but I am a little behind on my schedule now because I have to redo all of those shots for last week. Will do my best to stay on schedule.

I also got a first pass of the beginning part of the music. Aside from a few changes, it's looking pretty sweet. Harrison is an awesome composer!

check out a CU/colored shot here:

current animatic

http://vimeo.com/35183086

Starting CU and Color!

Now that I am back at school, I am on schedule to start on clean up and color! Getting set up was a bit of a hassle because of technical diffuculties trying to move my files from the mac to PC, but I think I have a handle on it now.

This past winter break, I was able to revise my rough animation so that I am completely done with that stage. After the critique last wednesday, there are a few technical, nitpicky aspects I need to consider, so I may need to tweak the rough animation a little more. I was also able to finish coloring the toy assets and the outside BG.

This week, I met up with my sound designer, Jean Tsai, and  my composer, Harrison Lee. I'm getting a much better grasp of what kind of music and sound I want, and I think my meetings with both of them went very well. I know that Bethany and Sheila do not recommend having wall to wall music, but my initial intention for the film was to create an MV. I came up with a hybrid MV style where the music would be continuous but have a strong story structure. The music would act like sound design, and the actual sound design would complement the music. I told Harrison to try and make the music very visceral so that it does not wash over the film. I'm still having my composer create some source music, just in case this plan does not work out.

I also created my first few Cleanup/colored shot! I should have approximately 8 shots completely cleaned up and colored by wednesday.