Early texture tests...

Today we had contextual studies throughout the day leaving minimal time to work on our beloved project which was a shame. Although myself and Alec were determined to test out some textures on our models so far. I know it's jumping the gun a bit considering the modelling isn't completed and texturing is not scheduled for a weeks time - however there is reason. It is difficult to stare at my plain Lambert model and judge my Gorilla design on terms of how play-do like it is. Secondly alterations in the design can be made if it is not looking like it could be made from clay i.e believabilty and realism. Some of my gorillas design aspects were far too jagged to be modelled from clay, even a texture wouldn't prevent it from looking impossibly hard edged. Thirdly we were both quite bored of modelling and it made a change!

Texturing is a weak spot for me admitidly, I have basic knowledge in UV mapping, creating textures and bumping but it doesn't go much further. In order to achieve a play-do/clay texture I learned it would involve a layered texture approach involving alpha channels and playing around wih the input and output nodes - allof which i'd never touched.
Alec created a simple finger print texture with a few hairs and smudges in photoshop and applied it as a bump to the model, however we both agreed the geometry was far to flat and smooth still and so I suggested a second wavy bump to give the effect of moulded dents etc. We played around with a few default maya textures and found that the brownian one when enlarged worked perfect to give this moulded look. I then struggled to understand how we would achieve placing our other finger print bumps on top of a bump! Mr Grigsby helped for a long time and explained layered textures to my aswell as transparency, alphas and how to navigate around the blinns node attributes. He also gave our scene an awesome daylight light using mental ray settings in about 2 seconds flat! Anyway we managed to get there in the end by making the finger print bumps very soft and faint, and the browsian as vivd as possible, then sliding the alpha down so the two overlayed nicely together. Alec changed the scale and UV repeat options to achieve a really nice random look. We increased the number of finger prints on our jpeg and used Alecs genius tiling method so no image edges appeared when repeated. Oh and got rid of the hair marks, they looked pants.

I am really happy with this as a first test, and both of us agree it is almost the finished artical in terms of the tecture we're after! I will post intructions on how to create it up here soon as I need to remind myself of the steps, aswell as our 2 bump jpegs. Below is a test render of the texture on the model so far...

Modelling begins....

Thought I'd post a few snaps of how the modelling of Cornelius is going. These are only the intial blocking out stages, he is to be worked into and given more detail and smoothed. I imported my front and side view planes as references. Alec and I have sat next to each other during these intial stages to make sure we are modelling similarly, however his take on the design is slightly different than mine - which is a good thing as william must look odd and slightly exaggeratted. Any who heres a few pics of the basic structure of Corn....

Initial Obstacles

Basic Modelling
Moral is on a low, negativity is high, Team pedro suck..... Just joking we are the complete opposite I just know it winds Alec up. Today myself and Ally babes began modelling the gorillas- properly, while Tom made some helicopter thing for his other project. Straight away we both ran into issues with the 2D concept designs converting to 3D. The way the head attached and was shaped, the way the muscles extended from his shoulder, his body shape, hands etc. All these problems seemed to rise from what looked like a very simple design! We decided that I had made a few mistakes with my front and side views matching up - my fault granted. It was hard to invisinge this particular design from a side angle. Anyway we decided to break it down and discuss how it actually worked and arrived at some decisions on how the design needed to be altered to work. We agreed the body was a simple rectangle pinched at the bottom. The head will sit on the body seperately from the body, not part of the body mesh and rigged seperate - lec assures it will be alot easier and solve problems of necks and wierd stuff happening. We can just parent it later and as Alec said it will look like the head was just stuck on with playdo anyway. The muscles are 2 extruded cyclinders really, just shaped and rounded. I still need to persuade Alec to have them start thick rather than pinch when they meet the body cause that looks pants, and is just cutting corners in my eyes, we can pull off the big muscle shoulders, as I feel overlapping won't be a problem because of the claymation style. Hands caused issues as we arrived at the conclusion that I had designed rather square/jagged gorillas when in fact they should really be rounded because of the playdo aspect. Therefore I think I am going to go with Ally babes on this one and rounded the hands and fingers more. Legs and bum were fine, no issue there - as yet. Head is getting there, still negotiating bottom shape of head. We are keeping poly count low at present and modelling really simply as i have a feeling textures will make our models not detail in geometry. We are allowing ourselves till next wednesday to have models finished completely ready to texture as I will be away thurs and fri of this week. So yeah problems are getting sorted early which is a good thing - i just wish Alec was more positive....

"But, but.... wait, I..........uhhhhhhhhhh uh arh uhh" Tex 2008

Character Sheets Revisited

After shwoing team Pedro my character sheet of Cornelius we agreed the design was definately getting there and that it just needed cleaning up a bit. I decided I would like to attempt a concept in Photoshop as I have never used it as a mdeium in design work before. You are able to achieve sharp accurate proffesional drawings in it and constantly change things that look wrong unlike with the paint I used beforehand where no mistakes can be made. I was not too happy with my Cornelius painted character sheet as it looked a bit rough and uneven. I attempted to do the dumb gorillas character sheet in Photoshop to compare it with my hand drawn and painted one, the results were MUCH better. I was really happy with the photoshop version and so re-did cornelius' sheets using the same approach. Plus in photoshop you are able to match up the proportions and angles to ensure it makes sense from all angles! The 2 sheets I have completed so far can be seen below ....
























I attempted a 3/4 view of the dumb Gorilla but it was too hard with no reference image to get the perspective right so I will most probably draw the 3/4 for both characters. Below is my attempt....











As for back view, fellow team mate smith believes they will not be needed for the modeling process. We begin modelling on Monday, as scheduled, and I will try to get a rough back shot of each gorilla skecthed over the next couple of days just for reference. I doubt I will create the back views in photoshop for time reasons. I am pleased with group progress so far, all is well... we will meet tommorow and begin maya tests and tidy up unfinished drawings and views.

Character Sheets

After showing the guys my final 3 Gorilla designs they decided they prefered the bannana head design (1). I totally agreed and so next up on the things to do list was to develop the body slightly further and start drawing the front, side, back and 3/4 views of Corneliius and William. I started this today at home and was suprised at how long it took just to do front and side of Cornelius, as the proportions had to match up exactly from both views as well as make sense. I also struggled to achieve a body which suited the design and is able to be rigged. I think I succeeded after a long day. He does have huge muscles but i think because of the claymation style it is ok for overlapping to occur when joints are bended, it will simply look like the play do is combining with itself. Plus all gorillas have big arms and muscles so its kind of hard to steer clear of that fact in the design. I made the hands involve 3 simple square shaped fingers and a thumb - not too difficult i hope. Legs are similarly shaped to arms but smaller. I tried to make all parts of his body a simple shape that could be easily modelled in maya as well as if he was to be modelled in real life play do. I then coloured the model sheet with water colour paints as I wanted a change of media from pencil - its boring me now! Also I achieved a really nice clay texture effect by dabbing and making randow brush marks - happy accident I guess. Anyway I will do back and 3/4 tommorow for Cornelius and as for the dumb one it will probably take up thursday and friday. I would like to get some pose sheets done over the weekend aswell....

Gorilla Concept Work

I have spent the last few days drawing hundreds of different gorillas, dumb and intelligent. It has drove me a bit mad as its a lot harder than initially expected. I am trying to design a variety of different styled Gorillas, curvy, hard edged, square, rectangular, realistic, simplistic, abstract, play -doey, spherical, you name it - i've tried it. I've been skecthing gorillas every minute of my spare time in hope that I come across a design that gives me the "yes thats the one!" feeling!

I started by researching gorillas on the net, looking at images of them - cartoony adaptions by other people aswell as real life photo's. I could post them up here on the blog but it's pointless as they're everything from page 1 - 50 on the google image search of gorilla, funny gorilla, cartoon gorilla, etc etc. There's too many reference images I've used to show you where my inspirations have come from. I may post a few of my favs at a later date to show you the few that grabbed my attaention and I decided to adapt and develop. Below are my very very rough concepts which I struggled to find any I liked:




















I showed the guys these loose thumb nails and we agreed on the 3 designs we liked most. I then went on to develop the 3 in a way which would give us more idea of how they may look with say a body or tidied up a bit. We chose one of the green sketches with the bannana shaped head design, one of the blue sketches which was a sort of potato head/totem pole wild design, and lastly another of the blue sketches which reminded me and Tom of the Gorillaz sort of style, very jagged and angular. I then produced a few more sketches of the 3 favoured designs:

1. Bannana Head Shape Design













2. Totem Pole / Potato Design















3. Gorillaz Design












Hopefully now we have more of an idea what each style would involve and which suits the character and claymation effect best. I shall consult the guys tomorrow...

Delegating Tasks...

A Quick Low Down

I thought I better post up our actual idea for this project as none of us seem to have stated what we intend to do. We are doing an adaptation of brief C - the character animation project. There are 3 of us in the group so we have picked 3 of the characters listed, one to design, model, rig, texture and snimate each! We scrapped the 2 children and grandma as we found them the least interesting of the list. Instead we picked Cornelius the well educated respected Gorilla, and Wee Eck McGlone - the long serving, bald, scot zoo keeper. We were stuck for a 3rd and decided to adapt the brief as Jared said we were aloud to and add our own 3rd character. We chose to insert another Gorilla into the mix, however this one would be a dumb normal non speaking Gorilla that Cornelius would be stuck in a cage with. The 2 could bounce off each other perfectly and allow them to interact in a humourous way. As for the story, we're still working on that - we know we want to do 3 short funny advertisments rather than just the 1 suggested in the brief. Oh and we have the best ever super duper never thought of before setting to our film - Top secret atm tho.

Jobs for the Boys

Today we split up the concept work needed to be done into 3 equal shares. We decided I would be in charge of designing Cornelius the Gorilla and his dumb double act. Tom is designing Wee Eck McGlone and Alec is focusing on storyboard, animation tests, and set. We decided I should design both Gorillas because they must both be designed in the same style. A curvy rounded gorilla next to a jagged angular designed gorilla would simply look wrong. The must be the same - but different? - if that makes sense. When all character development is done and concepts finished we will then all start modelling our own characters, mine being Cornelius. Now the tasks are divided we can get on with it and re group this wek with our designs and discuss favourites to develop further.

Play-Do

Today myself, Alec and Tom experimented with the wonderful invention that is play DO. We figured that if we are to make this film in a clay mation style then what better way to study the material than to play with it. We first took note of its texture and appearance, the way light reacted to it, its flexibility, feel, etc etc. We found out that by modelling with it, your hands leave finger and palm prints all over its surface. It is quite a dull/non reflective material, aswell as being very soft and easy to mould. It is hard to achieve a sompletely spherical smooth shape as the Playdo naturally is bumpy and has an un even look about it. Aswell as prints we also found that smaller objects and fine details could be seen on the outer exterior of the Do, such as hairs, scratches and dust. We took note of all the properties we observed in order for us to achieve the same texture in maya. The more you know about a texture the easier it is to replicate.

Next up we played around with character design. I have never used any other medium than 2D for concept designs in the past however I can safely say Play Do is an excellent way of experimenting with primilnary designs! Again part of the reason for using the play do was because we need our characters to look like they have been modelled out of it anyway but it soon became clear that it is also incredibly easy to knock out quick ideas. You are able to change, re mould, add to, remove, squish, expand or demolish any idea you come up with quickly rather than by pencil having to rub out or re draw. We spent the good part of a day modelling gorillas and the scottish zoo keeper, only focusing on head design for the time being. The brief stated we must include very expressional animation so we wanted the face features to be adaptable to crazy feature expressions. We came up with about 11 or so Gorilla concepts and 5 or 6 scotsman heads. All in all it was a fun session and we have already got an idea for the kind of style we want to go for, and few favourite heads! Group moral is up, we must keep working at this rate!

"Every day is Precious" Alec Smith 2009

Choosing a Brief

Today we were handed out this terms new project brief which we discovered had 3 different choices within it. Brief A - To create a "chop shop" garage for Rockstar games, Brief B - to create a number of short idents for the National Gallery to use in their shows, or C - to create an advertisment for London Zoo involving characters already identified. Straight away I was drawn to C as it was the more character driven of the 3 and allowed me to specialise my skills in character development, modelling, rigging, and most importantly animation.

Jared talked us through each of the 3 brief possibilities and also offered us the option of creating our own brief from the 3 given. I was really happy with the 3 choices as each had huge potential to be creative and versatile rather than any set in stone intrsuctions.

We were also given the choice to work either in small groups of 2-3 or as an individual. I have done both before and so I know the pro's and con's of each. I have never had a bad experience in a group and feel it keeps me motivated, social, and strengthens my team work skills. I also love bouncing ideas off other group members and learning off other team members. I don't mind working solo, especially for 2D concept work. However I have yet to work individually on a maya based project and do not feel I'm ready to face a project with no guidence or extra knowledge. I also find it could be quite boring and anti social in a classroom full of buzzing groups. I decided I wanted to work in a group again while I still had the chance, but would definately work indivually for the next industry project.

I was approached by Alec and Tom, who had a duo going already and also wanted to work on brief C. I have worked with Alec in the past and I know we are on the same wavelength as far as humour goes. We worked on the "Some you Win" animatic back in 1st year which was a great laugh aswell as a successful piece of work. And as for Tom I knew of his animation skills and his work aholic attitude. And so the group was formed - Pedro Productions! I am really happy with the group and can't wait to start working on this baby. Below is a copy of the brief we have chosen:

Brief C: Character Design

Source: Jon Beeston

Editor -- Axis Animation

www.axisanimation.com

“We would like your students to design and animate some characters for us for a potential animated advertisement for London Zoo. We are thinking about using a visual style that reflects traditional “Claymation” techniques but will be generated using CG processes. The characters should be worked up from the following list:”

1. Willie Billiams – “A hyperactive nine year old on his first visit to London Zoo with an obsessive interest in creepy crawlies.”

2. Pocahontas Billiams – “Willie’s sister, she’s seven years old but much more relaxed and more knowing than her sibling. She wants to be a gorilla.”

3. Wilhemina Billiams – “Willie and Pocahontas’s grandmother, she thinks everything smells bad and is worried that a chimp or one of those nasty bonobos might escape and “Poo in her hat.””

4. Wee Eck McGlone – “London Zoo’s long suffering head keeper sixty, bald, curmudgeonly, Scottish, fiercely patriotic and obsessive about sweeping up dung.”

5. Cornelius – “A middle aged silver back gorilla, the most civilised and sensible occupant of the zoo by far.”

• “Your students should consider the following points when working through their character designs:”

• “If they work in 3D then they should concentrate on two characters from the list per animator.”

• “If they work in 3D then they should be using one of the major 3D packages, i.e. Maya, Lightwave, or Max. The characters should be fully modelled to a maximum resolution of about 100,000 polygons, decent texturing is vital, we won’t accept a model alone at this stage. The model should be rigged”

• “We expect to see support work on paper, development drawings and character sheets that should include orthogonal views, i.e. front, back, top, and side, and a more expressive drawing of the character in a typical pose.”

• “We would like to see some expressive animation sequences that demonstrate the functionality of the rig and also character performance.”

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