Major Project - Previs Progress #1

I've begun work on the previs after adjusting the larger room slightly and fixing some minor skinning issues that the boy had. This is how it is currently looking, I've had some fun with the camera positions but overall i've tried to be as faithful to the animatic as I can.

Major Project - Dummy Room #2

I adjusted the smaller dummy room for the transition shot, this room still needs to be populated with more horrible wooden planks sticking out of the ground but it is getting there. I should move onto the previs very shortly!

Major Project - Shark Bed Animation Test

I did a rough test animation of the shark swimming, I noticed while watching some reference videos that sharks have a lot of subtly to their movements. It will be a challenge to get that right however I think this is a good starting point.

I still need to figure out the underwater fog which I will carry on experimenting with, next up I will get the additional rooms blocked out and start working on my previs!

Major Project - Shark Bed Rigging #1

Today I got the rig completed for the shark bed and added some rough textures, next up I need to skin it and then it will be ready for the animation.

Major Project - Shark Bed UV Layout

I got the UV's laid out for the shark bed, I ran into a bizarre issue in which one piece of geometry wouldn't display it's texture, instead it was completely black. I checked everything that I could think of like the normals, the node editor, the uv editor and all of its render stats but nothing appeared to fix it. I ended up exporting the geometry as an OBJ and re importing it which seems to have fixed the issue.

Next up is the texturing and rigging, which I hope I can get done by tomorrow so I can move onto modelling the extra environments needed for my animation/previs.

Major Project - Shark Bed Modelling #1

Today has been spent modelling the shark bed in preparation for the animation, he posed some interesting challenges like his tail which was a lot of fun to figure out. I'mg quite pleased with how he is looking model wise, as he is only going to be seen in the distance through some heavy fog, Next up I need to give him a quick texture and simple rig that can make him swish around.

Major Project - Dummy Room

Today i got the dummy room blocked out in preparation for the pre-vis and animation. I made sure that the walls inside the room are all separate so they can detach and shoot off into the distance when the room transforms.

Major Project - Animatic #8

I continued to add more sound effects to flesh out the animatic, I've also been emailing some composers and have a few that are interested in collaborating! 

Major Project - Underwater Test #2

I tried tackling the underwater scene again today, I still haven't been able to get the shadows to work yet. I think the shadows will help sell the scene a bit more so I will try to find what is causing issues. I added bubbles and particles to the scene in an attempt to add depth and I think it is somewhat successful. I think the bubbles are a bit too big but for this test they fulfilled their purpose.

Major Project - Underwater Test #1

I've been fighting with the underwater aesthetic today, so far I don't think it's there yet. The first attempt went pretty badly so I started a new scene and tried again, it still has some issues and will need bubbles or something in the foreground to break it up a bit.

Major Project - Animatic #7

I reworked some of the sound design following Phil's feedback, I still need to try the contrazoom's but I think I will experiment with that in maya for my previs. The boy needs a battle cry and a few other vocal effects which I will need to create.

Major Project - Animatic #6

Today I tweaked the ending of the animatic and continued working on the sound design for it, this is how it all currently sounds. I think the second half needs more work but overall I am quite happy with how it is turning out.

Major Project - Timetable

Major Project - Mist Test #2

This test scene is looking a lot more like what I had pictured in my head, there are still some tweaks needed to make the mist blend better with the water however I am really happy with how this is turning out. Eva gave me some great advice on creating a specular map for the water which really enhanced the scene. I think there is another level of complexity to add which will be the glistening of the water, but that will take some figuring out.

This whole exercise has been very useful for me to get better at compositing which is something that I have always neglected. I quickly realized that the compositing is what will sell the shot at the end of the day.

Major Project - Mist Test #1

I played around with some particles in maya today, trying to create a nice mist/fog effect as I will need plenty of it for my animation. I think this test went okay but it can still be finessed a lot, I feel as if I needed the fog to be thicker but it was something I only really noticed when I was compositing.

I also quickly discovered that I will need to render out objects that are in the water separately, as it will be much easier to blur them and adjust them where it is needed. 

Major Project - Ocean Test

Today has been spent working on tests for the ocean scene, as it is one that will be difficult to pull off. Alan gave me some great advice on how to create it using the 2d placement node and soft bodies. Here is the end result thus far, I need to figure out a way of moving an object through the water while having it follow the movement of the ocean, so far it is just attached by a rivet.

Below are some playblasts of the tests that I did, It took a lot of adjusting the noise on the placement node to get a result that worked for me.

Major Project - Bed Animation Test #1

Today I worked on getting the teeth made and attached to the rig, I did this using the rivet script and parenting the teeth to the locators (I had to scale constrain the rivets to the global move group to get it all scaling correctly). I then moved on to creating a glowing effect for the eyes, this was done using after effects, this is something that I will touch up on and adjust to create something more interesting, however for a first attempt I think it works quite well. I just need to add rim highlights to the model which Alan suggested creating on the texture.

Major Project - Bed Rigging #3

Today I work on getting the bed to blink and to open his mouth, I did this via a duplicate mesh and plugged it into the main as a blendshape. I used blendshapes to also reshape the mouth as it opens, this then all got plugged into the main mesh.

This is what the blink and mouth opening look like, I still need to add the contents of the mouth which is what I will focus on next. I'm not completely sure how to make the teeth follow the mouths movement, as it is driven from a duplicate mesh. I may need to use rivets or something similar to have them follow the geometry but I am unsure at the moment.

Major Project - Bed Rigging #2

I've got the basic skinning done for the bed, so he can now move slightly! I had a few issues that I've now fixed, I needed to adjust where the IK's were for the rig to work correctly. Next up I will be working on getting the eyes to blink and the mouth to open.

Major Project - Bed Rigging #1

I started working on the bed's rig today, I did basically the same as what I did for the test except I added some extra joints and controls were necessary. Here is how the rig looks at the moment, I plan to use blendshapes for the mouth and eyes so that they can open.

I started skinning the legs, here's a little progress playblast: