Update + DVD Cover/Label

A quick update as things are pretty tight around here. Scenes are off rendering in the background and well, hopefully everything will come together in the end. In the mean time, I'm taking care of the other tasks still left to do.

Here is a quick render of a scene in progress, note that things are unsmoothed in this image with no matte painting either.



I've also put together a DVD label and cover ready for submission.




Back to work!

Environment + Blocking Animation

Apologises for the slow update, I've been working away getting my scene set up, reading up some animation techniques and resources (see at end of post); and embarking on some first steps of animation myself.

To reiterate, the members of Tribe 17 are performing a ritual amidst a junkyard to attract nature's fireflies which in turn power them. Tribe character A, being a 'witch doctor' figure, leads the ritual and will be the focus of animation. Character B will manually operating the pile driver, striking the junk to create sparks that attract the fireflies; where character C will form the makeup of worshippers and perhaps even a drumming accompaniment. And ideally, at the very end we will see a lone firefly enter some parts of junk to awaken a new 'junk' tribesman to the group.

Here is the setup of the scene where the animation will take place. There will be a number of establishing shots, which will cut to close ups of animation matching with the sound. I also intend to have some duplicates of the secondary characters B and C to help populate the scene, which slight variation should be simple enough to add to the models if necessary.





I've begun experimenting with the secondary animated characters B and C first to build up my confidence for the main character of animation, where I've started by blocking some of their key poses before animating fully. The first is pulling the rope to operate the pile driver, and the second is kneeling with some worshipping type motions. As such, its pretty rough as the keys are simply stepped at the moment moving from pose to pose.



Once I have more blocked/animated parts done, I will be able to start cutting clips together into a previs form to match with the original track of Soundscape 17.

Whilst establishing my scene and getting my hands stuck into the animating, I've also been looking at some resources to help me on my way. The 11 Second Club has some great resources on their site, particularly the 'Helpful Hints' section hosting a number of great guides when it comes to animating - so be sure to check them out.

I'm still reading through them, but some I found a good read so far are:

The Top Five
Why We Block
Back and Forth
Put It There
Giving Yourself Permission

Basidiospores Scene Progress

Made some progress on the growth of basidiospores scene, I think I got the animation right now I just need to work on textures and lighting. I've also added the spore flight scene to the playblast below help establish the transition between the two scenes.





The UVs are now working correctly with the joints and blend shapes. As Alan pointed out earlier, be sure to lay out the UVs and clear the history BEFORE binding joints, otherwise the UVs will go quite mad.

Opening Scene Progress #2

I've been working away at various scenes of the animation, but here is an update on the opening scene.

Quick playblast of the scene so far:


I think I'll add some more texture variation to the grass, and hopefully the background will be blend better when compositing in after effects.

Mushroom Model


My photos taken of the Ling Zhi mushroom served well in creating the textures for the mushroom. I've also painted over the textures for a more stylised aesthetic similar to my earlier concepts.

Initial Renders


Some refinement is necessary as I am yet to establish the appropriate lighting which I'm having difficulty with. The scene is set during the day, perhaps afternoon - any pointers in lighting would be greatly appreciated. But I hope this begins to achieve the slightly painterly feel reminiscent to my earlier concept pieces.

Back to the pits!

Spore Scene Progress

This particular scene covers panels 2:5 - 2:7 of my storyboard, involving the flight of spores. As the camera pans, we follow the central spore that will begin its growth. The movement and timing is aimed to fit the pace of the music.





For the spores, I intend to have a few hair like features protruding outwards similar to my previous concepts. I believe a fur could work but I wondered if this will animate subtlety to fit with the movements? Either way, its something I need to experiment with but any suggestions would be great.

Opening Scene Progress

Updating my progress with the opening scene, covering panels 1:1 and 1:2 of my storyboard. Things are taking longer than I would like, so I hope to speed things along in the coming days.





For the grass I've used a paint effect which I hope is fine as it seems to work pretty well, and that it would be a bit of a time sink to painstakingly model and animate individual models of grass. With the grass in the direct foreground, I hope to render this out separately to be able to create a focus pull transition to the mushrooms in the midground, where the background will be filled with a matte painting.

Here I've modelled a few variations of the Ling Zhi Mushroom to populate the scene.