Animation 12/4

Today was working out our character profiles, and creating the draft images for each. I need to figure out a more stylised dragon because what I have been drawing is going to be too complicated for the timeframe. The Wacky Animals tracing book from my childhood could be a great reference for basic outline concepts, theres even one that fits a dragons head shape with a bit of tweaking. I must make sure I spread my proposal out over this holiday so Im not rushing it at the end.

Digital Sculpture 12/4

Today was the re-start on my polar bear mesh. I think ultimately it will be easier, and take less time than my previous attempt at modifying the pre-built rat mesh. Having the reference picture in the background definitely makes a difference for proportions and will make my end sculpture much more acceptable to me. I think I should try and get the mesh hashed out over the break so I can start adding in the structures and melted parts.

Film 12/4

DAMN! The big problem with being the first to present a proposal is that you dont get a chance to point out things to remember. I definitely have a problem with forgetting some points due to nerves. Its the worst feeling listening to the other speakers and realising what you missed saying, but actually had written in the speech. *facepalm* live and learn. It was interesting hearing everyones ideas, and such a wide variety especially since there is only 6 of us. I have jotted down half of my script so far, but I will have to google the correct formatting because I am not 100% sure on how it is supposed to look.

Gaming 11/4

Progress!! I have pretty much finalised the shape of my characters wings, and started working on the map colouring. I was shown how to turn a 3D mesh into a flat UV mesh, to export into photoshop for modification. It definitely seemed complicated, and I think it will take me a couple of times to fully understand the process.. challenge accepted!. I am really looking forward to getting the feather textures onto the map and running her around in unity. The key to reducing a warped look is to have the checkerboard pattern on the UV mesh as uniform and square as possible, bearing in mind the wrap areas.

Digital Painting 9/4

Todays experiment with Corel Painter. I quite enjoyed the zone i was getting in for this one, which originally was the flipped perspective of the cave that the wolf was entering in my previous images. However during the drawing, a new idea of metamorphosis was suggested by the interior edges hinting at shapes, a sinister bird looming over a person in fear. This could be a potential path to take away from lycanthropy, hiding sinister implied images within a landscape type image.

Animation 5/4

Well, I finally have a concept for my project, thank god. However I get the vague impression I might have bitten off more than I can chew. I am definitely going to be spending a lot more of my free time on this project to get it completed. I have 3 out of 10 working drawings done so far, Ill hopefully get them knocked out in the next week so I can focus on the next part of my proposal.

Part 2.

I think I am on the right track for a childrens animated story, however I need to work on making the dragons a bit more cartoony(think Spyro) and simplifying the environment using bright colours, without letting the viewers get distracted from the story I am trying to tell. I need to narrow down exactly what I want to move, and what I want to stay static, so that I can work out a more specific timeline, and get an idea of just how much time I am going to need to dedicate to the animation side of things.

Digital Sculpture 5/4

Maya has a slightly expanded set of prefab models to use, and I found a rat one in there that could have been modified into a bear. However, it might be better to use a reference pic and start from scratch, which I will try next week. I think Maya for roughing out the shape and then send it to mudbox for refining. Im starting to get the feeling that this class, along with animation, is going to be the most time intensive of this course. I will need to be careful with my time management.

Film 5/4

Our surprise for today was a broken door to the classroom lol. The silver lining was that we got to practice outside film setup, using the ND filters, and composition consideration with regards to lighting.  I actually learnt quite a bit about positioning using sunlight angles and diffusion screens/light reflectors. I will need to keep this in mind for my concept as it involves mostly outdoor scenes. We also got a brief intro to the green screen studio, and had some fun mucking around with different backing vids and cropping.

Setting up

When the light batteries died.. lol

3rd wheel removal

Gaming 4/4

Today we worked on changing our generated characters in Maya. Using photoshop to make the changes to the mesh, and then using maya to apply the update mesh. Maya has the same controls as mudbox for rotation and POV movement.

Character in Maya

Mesh in photoshop

So far so good, the next step is adding wings as an object, and hopefully they will look ok. I wont be animating them though due to time constraints in class.

Clicking and dragging vertices to create the wing shape out of a cube. Need to add more vertices to create more of a curve, and get the angles correct for a hanging perspective.

Animation 29/3

This week was all about quick animation. We had to make 4 animations, with only 30mins per animation. I definitely struggled with this, Im not used to doing basic drawing, Im more into the detailed as Ive said. Hopefully in time I will find it easier, as I can see it being more freeing later down the track.

Digital Sculpture 29/3

And now the research really begins. I need to find an acceptable way to convey fur in mudbox. This cube was testing potential ice textures as well as the front face being the loaded fur texture.

This one was me playing with the preloaded cow mesh, and trying to shape it into a polar bear. It was a good initial test of the ranges of the sculpting tool in mudbox, in regards to pushing and pulling the surface mesh around.