CINEMATIC :: 01/06/16 - Role changes

I spent the later half of last week sick, so regrettably I wasn't able to get a lot done.  Our group has been making a lot of good progress with how we want things to look and the kind of animation that we're striving for, but the tutors really want us to crack down on animation so that we have the animation there, even if it needs a lot of refining.  It'll be solid and set and out of the way, and the sooner we can get that done, the better

But because of this, I've been moved from mattepainting duty to animation, where I'm currently working on in-betweens for Shot 4 and shot 7!  There isn't a lot for me to do that Tea hasn't already captured beautifully, but the sooner I get these done, the sooner I can work on whatever else she needs me to add to and the sooner we can have these roughs finished!

So far this is all I have to show.  I'm noticing now that my timing might be a little off - it not as fluid as I'd like, but i'll see what the team thinks tomorrow.

As for my mattepainting, this is where I had to leave off working on shot 4:

LIFE DRAWING :: 31/05/16 - Week 13

LIFE DRAWING :: 24/05/16 - Week 12

CINEMATIC :: 18/05/16 - Extra Shots

Keat asked me, Tea and Jo to work on the spirit world animatic shots, so the past couple of days has been spent planning and working on those.

The shots I was given were the establishing shot of the spirit world, the shot with the giant ipod cutting out, and the resulting creature transformation shot that follows afterwards.  We spent tuesday planning what to do with each shot, and after looking over my notes and working on shot framing today, I nearly have everything ready for putting it all together tomorrow.

I have added some very rough wires to the base of the tree's island, and Tea was very helpful in providing images from the Matrix for me to reference:

And here's what they look like so far based on the source material:

I also took the opportunity to update the Dark World, adding in a background from the nebula painting program:

Most of today has been spent messing around in After Effects, trying to update and harmonize the establishing shot of the Spiritual world - adjusting the depth of the islands was surprisingly difficult to get just right!  The main issue we ended up having was with the background i was using and how bright it was-

Tea ended up providing one that was a lot more spatial and worked better for the composition.

Hamish has the background assets that we need to complete the other shots, so we plan on finishing up my other two tomorrow, as well as adding in the jellyfish and smaller creatures to this shot.  We're hoping to have all the spiritual world frames complete by the end of tomorrow so I can start mattepainting the new shots and Tea and Jo can begin animation.

In preparation, i have animated some very bad and hasty creatures

LIFE DRAWING :: 17/05/16 - Week 11

CINEMATIC :: 16/05/16 - Feedback

Feedback session went really well today.  The animatic and camera shots look so nice put together and the film feels like its really coming together!

Hamish has sussed out a lot more shots for me to work on over the next week, and while it was suggested that I also work on the dark world version of the background, it has become priority to mattepaint over these new shots so that Jo and Tea can begin animating for those scenes.  We will be reusing assets wherever possible, but Hamish has given me some very clear and nice sketches to work with, that I am sure I will have no trouble cleaning up into good background plates.

The nebula painter program I suggested was also very well received, and it has been agreed upon that it could work better than what Hamish could come up with in Maya.  I mentioned that we could record someone painting in a nebula and use that as the background, adding in that extra depth and movement, possibly even making multiple layers to give the background more depth

CINEMATIC :: 13/05/16 - Updated References

Not much to report in terms of progress updates - most of my time over the last week has been spent refining the background and getting my model sheets up to scratch.  They are now all finished and ready for our second submission, but I will post them here too as proof of progress:

TURNAROUND - BIG CREATURE

POSE SHEET - BIG CREATURE

And bonus progress on my mattepainted background!  

I've run this past the tutors, who are happy with it in its current form.  After the team talked about how to progress the shots in the spirit world, I'm sure I'll have more work, creating the close up parts of the scene.

While I was working on this, I did entertain the thought of using this Nebula Painter for the background.   The app allows you to create your own nebula and save the image, which could easily be layered into the rest of the composition.  I might try it out and post the results here, as well as discuss whether it might be an alternative to giving Hamish even more work with the way things currently are.

LIFE DRAWING :: 10/05/16 - Week 10