Roughing it out - Heart of Stone

I started animating some of the roughs for Heart of Stone. I took on scenes with elements I was comfortable with (things I could also specialise in) like effects animation, morphs and fire. I'm also responsible for the torch fire animation in this production as I have taken a liking to animating fire and everyone loves fire in their stories.

These roughs took me a few weeks to get done, since we're doing the rough and tie-down stage together they require a bit more detail than a regular rough:

I also experimented with fx styles, trying to tie in that greek vase style to the animation:

Some patterns that inspired this, the waves informed the water fx and the zigzags informed the impact fx

We chose style 2 for its balance between style and clarity.

What went well:

• Using style inspiration/reference for the effects helped make it feel more authentic,
• Basing the character animation around the singing ("yoouuu'll do so we right here dear!") brought a lot of performance into the animation,
• A lot of my scenes involve shadows/silhouette, so I developed an eye for silhouette clarity and form.

What could be improved:

• I still have one more scene to rough out, this delay could be because of the workload I'm taking on, or because of the influence of the coronavirus pandemic, I think it's a bit of both. 

Update:

I managed to finish the last rough scene I was responsible for fairly quickly, since I've already animated a lot of shadows and silhouettes for this film!

Oh Deer - Paper Cut Out Segment

To quench my generalist animator needs, I volunteered to help out with the paper-cut-out segment in Petra's animation. Ironically, only time will tell if this was a wise decision in terms of time management since I'm already part of a few projects at this point. But paper-cut-out animation is pretty interesting to me, especially when there's fx work involved too.

I did a test to gauge how demanding this medium is, what frame rate to use, and which asset-creation methods work best.

From this, I learnt it's easiest to work on a lower frame rate, with fewer details in the flames. I also learned to keep edges and tangents controlled since those are difficult to cut out.

I also simplified the faces of the character designs Rhys created, to be turned into paper cutouts (with Sophie's help too, she designed the bodies). I came up with two design types, one closer to the original designs, and the other with a more simplified, and distinct shape language:

I got through making one complete head before the coronavirus pandemic got really bad and we made the decision to drop the paper cutout segment entirely since access to the stop-motion facilities in university wasn't possible. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. 

Character Design Arena - Flameingo Fighter

On Instragram, Tanner Wilson (@t.m.wilson), a character designer I follow hosted a Character Design Battle of sorts. As a character designer and illustrator, I felt this brief was perfect for me as I enjoy designing fighters. This brief also helped me practice on a brief with a short deadline, while also getting my profile out there. I also wanted to implement some sort of fire element as I've been animating a lot of fire recently. Introducing the Flameingo Fighter!

Since the rules specified that it had to be a single pose on a flat background, I didn't bother with making a turnaround, though that would be helpful if I ever want to animate them.

My process was pretty straightforward, I wanted to create a character based off the pun 'flameingo':

Looking at different ways of blending bird and fire, while also looking for an art style that suited it

After narrowing down and combining the elements I liked, I started exploring outfit and colour scheme:

The clothing was used to show some more flair and character backstory

I feel the pose is a bit too static to express the flair this character has, and the outfit is a bit too simple for an illustration (perfect for animating though). I could've also played with light and shadow more because of the fire but the time limit for this project wouldn't allow it. Overall, I'm satisfied with the character but if I were animate them, I would probably develop the character more to refine them.

Phrog Texturing

I worked closely with Rory to transform the 2D character designs into a fully-realised 3D model (this gave me a brief idea on the dynamics and roles in a 3D CGI pipeline). And while Rory did the majority of the work, (he modelled, rigged, unwrapped and displacement-mapped the Phrog, while I used the unwrapped geometry to create the base texture), I got a better understanding of texturing a complex 3D rig.

Unwrapping UV 

I did attempt to use Mudbox to add extra details but I quickly realised that learning a new software might not be time-effective (since I had other projects to work on too). I tried other techniques to add colour to the model (using Maya), and this yielded slightly better results... though still not quite there.

Experimenting with Mudbox tools gave birth to this abomination, which I managed to salvage into a meme.

I downloaded a few, free 3D frog model to use as a test and learnt about the whole process. I was only vaguely familiar with this method from video games and the 'skins' in them. 

Test 1 failed spectacularly, partly because the model was a hollow piggy bank (froggy bank?) and because I was too sloppy with the UV cutting and unwrapping. However, this did teach me the basics of using nodes with materials in Maya:

Test 2 was much better since I took the time to carefully cut and unwrap UV (though it could be done better). I learnt to use landmarks in the mesh to make sure features weren't misaligned.

Painting textures 

Since both my computer and I were struggling to get a proper unwrapped UV from simple frogs (let alone an alien one), Rory the resident-3D-wizard kindly unwrapped the Phrog UV for me and I got to work painting it in Photoshop. Here was where I explored a bit more creatively, trying to stay true to the initial character design, but also implementing what I learnt from the frog tests.

Main body textures

Inner mouth textures

I made sure to use reference images as a foundation for a lot of these features while adding/mixing fantastical elements to it. I realised the texturing didn't have to be hyper-realistic, thanks to Rory's displacement map (from Mudbox) doing all the heavy lifting. I simply had to create the illusion of texture, like contouring in makeup to create 'pseudo-textures'.

Some renders of the textured model by Rory

Some hitches along the way, I didn't extend the edges of the UV far enough in some places, resulting in gaps.

Overall, I'm surprised and impressed at how well this process balances the technical and artistic sides, and I look forward to more 3D ventures in the future!

Mood and atmosphere - SPnU

After the rough animation was fine-tuned and corrected, we began on the tie-down and clean up stage of production. I incorporated the rough and clean-up stage together but allocated separate time for both. I tested out desaturating the scenes in which the Demon is visible to add mood and make her silhouette stand out that much more, using the two complete scenes we had of her.

I've dubbed the desaturated look "Demon mode" which I think works better than the regular version. I also tried 50% desaturation and other levels but it didn't look as good as the 100% desaturated. Regardless, I can still experiment with this in post-production.

I also tested out some drowsy effects, that would pair well with the sound warping as Kilo struggles against sleep. Using Damo's roughs, I experimented with turbulent warps, blurs and offset layers to get an idea of how to achieve a cinematic effect, but I think it would work better with more finished versions.

Update: I also added a few colour adjustments to immerse Kilo in the scene without the need for shading, and to make the fire scenes more omenous. This saved valuable time since we didn't need to shade (though we plan to add in shading after deadline for festival submission).