#6Six

Stages: Character animation and the Environmental integration of thus

This month has seen some of the tougher-to-do character animations under construction. It is mainly because of the fact that I never bothered with any technical limitations, resulting in my emergent need for extra research. I have since looked into trajectories and opacity modelling, which I used in flight paths and grass patches. Quadrupedal movement also poses a challenge, as in the case of the Stonehenge scene, where Polly launches herself off a stone lintel in a brief flight. Elasticy of the body is also ensued, by the use of the FFD deformers. Since the movement involves all four limbs, and is quadrupedal, more attention is required in the work therein.

Walk cycles also poses a challenge, one that is overcomed upon the completion of the scene NC_b2. The floppy dog scene, PC_b9, puts me to the ultimate test to make a dog flop convincingly upon the sheep's back.



I've started environmental integration for the scene NC_b2, just before Corgi falls off the cliff.



Giving good progress, despite the 2-week trip in Europe interrupting it.

#5Five

Stage: Modelling and Basic Scene/Character Animation

In amination you experience three parts to your work: The first two parts are scene and character animation stages, where each session features only the landscape or the individual characters. The third stage concerns the integration of character and scene into one session, late into your amination process.

Anyway I've been up to my neck with the troublesome Nsheep, because the eyes that was designed on paper didn't look as well as a model. In fact, it looked creepy and terrible. Brace your eyeballs...



I then made a new design of the "other" sheep, this time basing it on Polly herself:




Viva la Svizerra! I was so satisfied with the design i named the model Neil. The other sheep shall all be clones of Neil. Polly would be stranded in a flock of Neils and couldn't help but hope feverently to grow wings and fly off.

I animated scene 1 last week, now dubbed the Sonnenschein scene. It also serves as a title frame. It took a few days for perfection.



Yayyyy

#4Four

Stage: Scene Preparation

The Landscape (Landskaap is the working terminology; with vague reference to Afrikaans) is important because it is featured in the whole film (well, almost all). The crucial part of the modelling is contours, meaning the texture file used through the displace modifier to model the landscape; we make it from scratch through Photoshop.



That was version 6 of the texture file, out of 10 versions. The other crucial of the landskaap set-up is the lighting, my least confident field in the genre. I made a reasonable omni-light arrangement for the landskaap and turned one of them into the sun, the working term for which is sonnenchein, with reference to German. Two other lights are arranged to illuminate the sky dome and the ground. And so there you have it: Land, Sonnenschein, Landlight and Skylight, all fitting perfectly into one Landskaap.


Charming rendition of the sky and clouds. The original map was downloaded through Turbosquid.com, and edited through a tortuous session in Photoshop.

Gotta start work on animation soon!

#3Three

Stage: Modelling the Corgi

Yes, the sheepdog who fell off the cliff so that Polly could save him. He is affectionately called Corgi because he is modelled after a photograph of a Cardigan Welsh Corgi taken by Raija Isotala.

The body is created from a box using numerous layers of FFD boxing, which provides a great tool for changing the general shape of a model. The neck as usual is an extruded spline, and the head, most torturing of all to make, is made from a UV Loft, the same way I made Ratt Rauschenburger's head last year.

The texturing for the body and neck is through the Unwrap UVW modifier, from images cut directly from the photograph. The ears and legs are made with a simple generic fur texture. The tail and head are textured by a all-over texture, and as you can see the head is the trickiest to do, as I had to distort the original image drastically to get the desired result.

The tail is made with a Flex modifier and has with it attached a gravity force, so that it swings reasonably realistically. Corgi's model was completed by the afternoon.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Mr. Corgi!

#2Two

Current stages: Storyboarding and Character Modelling

Yes yes I have finished the high-poly sheep model! The ears were made from a box, rolled up using the bend modifier, flattened up, twisted by the FFD 4x4 box and textured by the Unwrap UVW with a hand-drawn map. The legs are made from tapered cylinders lolx.

I'm making another hi-poly sheep model, which would represent all the sheep apart from Polly, and a low-poly sheep for use in landscape shots.

Presenting to you... Polly the sheep!

#1One

Current stages: Storyboarding and Character Modelling

Oh what the hey, my first time keeping an online journal of my Art coursework. It actually took me three months to realise that blogging is actually a nice and easy way to keep track of your ideas as you go along. Brainless old me.

Anyway I'm done through the tortuous process of storybuilding and conceltualisation, and have now done half my storyboard. It's the cutest things I have drawn these days, haha. Right now I'm modelling the sheep. Started on Tuesday night and still half there, as you can see modelling is quite hard to come by now.



This is my sheep at the time of entry. Cute right? I've made it a point to beautify the eyes with extra texturing parameters like reflection and specular volume and all that, and it took four maps. The head and neck-part was made from an extruded spline and the body the box. It was a little tricky modelling the body because it always looked a little box-like before I found out a critical step I have since forgotten about.

The eyes have eyebrows above them, but you can't see it against black.

The stuff left to stick onto the sheep are ears, nose and the legs. Polly the sheep is modelled against the Border Leicester sheep breed, who have Very Expressive Ears indeed. This one is from Seren Bell.



Note ears.

The body vertexes may need a bit of flex, and you know wool don't usually stay stiff but wobbles around when sheep move quickly. The walking, if pictured at all, will either be pictured overhead or sideways, so that decreases the threat of a time-consuming walking sequence.

I've written enough for today.