Major Project - Reflective Statement

I really enjoyed the major project, although it was a very intense project with a heavy workload I feel as if the reward of seeing my film come together made the whole experience joyful. Coming out of the minor project fuelled with enthusiasm I immediately started to refine and remodel the spider bed. This posed some interesting challenges, I found it difficult at first to achieve the look of the spider bed but with some advice and help from my tutors I was able to create a creature I was happy with. After the spider bed was finalised I moved onto getting the shark bed and blanket hand done which also had some interesting challenges to overcome, this cost me some time which cut into some of the time that I had planned for animation.

Unfortunately I didn't get as much time as I wanted to animate, a variety of things caused this and I lost time in jobs that I had planned less time for. This made the whole experience feel a lot more intense as when it came to animation I was forced to work quicker and more strategically. The animation in my film at the moment isn't where I want it to be, however I am very happy that I managed to get the whole film animated and rendered. Once the deadline crept closer I had to finalise the animation the best I could and move onto lighting. When I started lighting I really struggled to get shots to look how I wanted. It took me a lot longer than I had hoped but with the help of Alan I was able to achieve lighting that helped tell my story. 

There are a few things that I would like to add to the film, one is kelp during the underwater scene to add more depth and to create a more interesting space. The next is sound design, I feel as if I could spend a lot more time working on the sound effects. It is something I don't find easy but it is something that will help bring my world to life. I think the film is also missing a score, I had trouble finding a composer early on and as the deadline got closer it became increasingly difficult to step away from work and commit time to finding someone. Lastly I would like to touch up the animation, throughout the whole film there is a lot of work that can be done animation wise to really help sell myself as an animator. I want to choose two or three scenes to really put a lot of time and effort in to use for a future showreel.

The project overall has been very rewarding, I feel as if I have tackled all of the issues head on and attempted to make the best film I could in the time period. I am happy with how the film looks overall, however as previously stated I will be touching up the animation post hand in. Looking back over the last three years I really feel a sense of achievement, which I believe is reflected throughout my work. I can see a huge improvement over the projects and it is strange to think that this is my last project on the course.

Major Project - Submission Post

Major Project - Lighting #4

I've been working on getting the shots lit ready to send to be rendered for hand in, I've found it very challenging but I think it is all starting to work together. The warm lighting of the room has been something I've really struggled with however today Alan gave me some really useful tips to get it looking closer to what I wanted. 

Major Project - Lighting Test #3

I added a lens to my camera in Maya as suggested by Alan, this helped me make the scene darker overall.

I then added some extra rim lights and a back light for the boy to make him pop. I also took the image into photoshop and adjusted the curves to push the values a bit more.

I went into the next scene and imported my lights to see if they work with close ups, after getting some feedback from Alan it was apparent that the lamp and bed need some bounce lighting from the wall, I went ahead and added that. I think it helps the image to pop out a bit more, however my render times are starting to creep above 5 minutes which is longer than I wanted them to be.

Major Project - Hand Scene #2

I adjusted the timing and flow of the hand scene and I think it is working much better now, when it comes to lighting these scenes I will add red rim lights to link the 2d and 3d world together.

Major Project - Hand Scene #1

Took the night off lighting and moved onto a missing 2D animated scene. It was a nice break from the challenges of lighting and I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out. I am looking forward to bringing everything together and having a nice mixture of 2d and 3d animated elements!

Major Project - Lighting Test #2

Lighting Test (no shadows)

Lighting Test #2 (fixed ambient occlusion)

Today I carried on refining the lighting in the bedroom, I want to create like a default lighting group that I can import into scenes and adjust as required. Here is how far I've got, I had some issues with getting shadows into my scene however Alan helped me remedy this.

I feel like the Boy needs a stronger rim light on his legs, however overall I am quite pleased with how this image has come out.

Major Project - Lighting & Mist Test #1

Today was spent trying to get some lighting set up in my scene, I spoke to Alan in the morning and he suggested trying to get the broadest stroke of colour in first using ambient occulsion. This is how it is looking so far, I quickly realised that it is tricky to light a night time scene, but I will carry on adding lights and finessing.

I also did a quick test of the mist in flash to see if it would work with my animation. there will need to be multiple layers of mist however I believe it will work quite successfully in the final film!

Major Project - Bedroom Modelling #2

I spent some time getting the assests ready to be implemented into each shot, I want to try to also create a "default lighting" that I can import with the room and adjust per scene. I'm a bit out of touch with lighting and rendering in general so that is something I will need to discuss with Alan.

There's still loads to do and some stuff to still figure out but I am ready to drag this film over the finish line!

Major Project - Bedroom Modelling #1

I've been modelling and getting the bedroom elements ready for texturing, here is my current progress and below is a test of the first shot with the new models. I think the boy and the environment fits quite well together, all the elements need texturing which will be my next job after the bed model is finished!

Major Project - Animation Progress #3

I've finished smoothing out all of the animation and now I need to start finessing, I also started working on some of the 2d animated elements. The whole thing is starting to get there however there is obviously a lot of work left to get it over the finish line!

Major Project - Animation Progress #2

I've continued to smooth out and adjust the animation of each shot, here is how far I currently am. I will soon be able to move onto the polishing pass and after that I will focus on getting a couple of scenes as perfect as I can to use for my future reel. 

I tried adding some 2D flash animation to the spider beds roar scene to get a better idea of how it can all work together. I want to add loads of little 2D accent animations throughout and then use flash to also add the fog/mist into my scene, like the example below.

Major Project - Shots 12 - 25 Progress

I'm working through every shot smoothing out animation and tweaking poses where necessary, I had a lot of issues with the jump poses and after talking to Alan I reworked the whole shot and it is working much better now. I want to add smear frames for some of the movements to exaggerate things and add more of a cartoony feel to things, this will be added after the animation is polished!

Major Project - Shots 4 - 12 Progress

I've been smoothing out some of the animation, tweaking poses and adding inbetweens. Had a lot of fun really exaggerating the room transformation scene, lots of squash and stretch! 

Major Project - Shot 04 Animation Progress #1

Today i've spent some time adding in extra poses and smoothing segments of the animation that I felt needed smoothing. I wanted some of the actions to be quite snappy and others to ease in a bit. I used Jelly Jamm as a reference as it is the overall animation style I want to achieve! I tried to make sure I gave poses some time to breath in the animation and so far I think it is looking pretty cool, any feedback would be appreciated!

I always find putting breakdown poses in Maya a bit tricky so to aid with this I used a plug-in called bhGhost (image above), this gave me basically the equivalent of onion skin from Flash which is super useful for me when visualizing the pose.

Major Project - Previs/Animation Progress # 1

I added the new blanket hand into the previs and ran into some problems along the way, the rig I made didn't work completely but i figured out solutions while implementing it.

I also started to refine the blocking in the first segment of the animation, here is how it is currently looking.

Major Project - Blanket Hand #1

I've got the creepy blanket hand finished and ready to go into the animation, here is how it looks and a test of how it moves. It uses a spline IK and a curve to translate the model and then the hand has its own rig. Next I will get it into the previs and start figuring out its movement!

Major Project - Blanket Arm Test & Previs Progress #7

I did a test of how the arm could work, I used a spline IK and a lattice to create this quick test. It seems to be working alright for what I need and the set up is pretty simple. I will move onto creating the actual arm next and then add it all to the previs!

I did some designs for the arm/hand that will be attacking the boy. I wanted it to feel more like a blanket and more cloth like. I think number 3 - 5 are working for me, its thin side on and had buttons where the knuckles are to attach the fingers. being thin it should wrap around the boy nicely!

I made a few tweaks and did a test animation of the mouth in flash for the sighing scene, it proved slightly difficult to start with but I quickly got the hang of it and overall I think it added a lot of life to the sigh.

Major Project - Previs Progress #6

Made some adjustments to the framing of some of the action shots and tweaked some shots as suggested by Phil. Next up I'll be finessing the previs and adding some more life to the boy.

Major Project - Previs Progress #5

the broad strokes of the previs are now in place, so I can now focus on tweaking it. The soundscape needs adjusting to fit better with the piece which is something I will fix soon. I will also start breaking down all the subtle details that each shot needs and work on bringing the whole thing to life!