final character design colour tests

After all the test designs and looking at mood boards I came out with my final design for the worm character. Its both aspects of the designs I liked the most but also optimised for 3D as the level of detail is pretty low. Although rigging up the character will be a bit different and challenging modelling the character should be a lot quicker than a biped to make up the time lost. I also tried out some colours for the characters texturing I will definitely use the pixilated spot design on its back but I was unsure which palette I want to use for the worm. 

environmental design

The environment for our animation we thought was very important we wanted it to have a very appealing and fitting design. After a few ideas about how the trees should look we did a test piece to see how they could possible look and whether our idea would work in 3D. James modelled the tree from the designs and I then took the UV's from it to do test textures.

I was unsure what would work but I knew it should be a little different we wanted it to be pretty but still fit in the blocky world (whilst not looking like minecraft) I drew a few test textures to wrap round the tree then we could compare to see how they all looked.

Once we'd settled on a pattern I made it for the entire tree UV and wrapped it on to give the result below. We were both very happy with this test and will definitely be using the design in the animation.

environmental mood boards

starting character design

Once we'd finished all the main story aspects of the animation and created mood board we moved onto character designs. Although we were both in charge of character each we worked on the two character very collaboratively so they made sense together. We both did lots of initial sketches of the characters to get different ideas for their design. Once we'd both agreed on aspect we both liked we took our individual characters and finalised them.

final treatment and condensing

After we had settled on our story we came up with a final treatment for it. From there we could work on whether the idea was actually feasible for the timings given for the project or whether it would need considerable editing. We wrote out all the key points of the story that would fall into obvious sections or shots. We then proceeded to read and act out the scenes with a stop watch to get a feel of how long it would take. Our first edit was far too ambitions and ran way over a minute. We created a condensed version from it and did the same timing tests and came to just under a minute.

character mood boards

Since we've finalised the characters we want to use I mocked up some mood boards to help inform our character design. I looked at a range of photos that looked at both the real life insects and models of them to get a range of ideas. Also wanted to see potential design limitations of apply designs to a 3D model. The mood boards/research showed that adding humanoid features can easily make the models very creepy this is something we must avoid at all costs. The main point at looking at lots of reference was to gauge the defining features of the insects, this will allow us to alter the characters a lot more to match there written traits whilst also keeping them recognisable. 

Seminar on Character and Narrative

Yesterday we had a seminar from Sara on character and short story design. The seminar went over some important steps when creating characters and following creating specifically short stories. A lot of the information on character design we did cover last year however it was good to recap the information. I had not however looked at the theory on core shapes in character design. The basic principal of it was that 3 shapes; circle, square and triangle form the basis of all drawings. Each shape can create a predetermined character traits (e.g: square features can indicate strength and masculinity). I'd thought about this but had never actually applied it to my designs and will definitely to so for this project.

The most interesting part of the seminar was where we analysed shorts with a list of traits successful shorts should include. Short have to be written differently and use different devises to feature films as they can't play on the same character development. It was clear that all the most successful/entertaining shorts all adhered to most of these points. They always had/used/were: Character driven, Flawed character/s, urgent goal, interaction between other characters or props and twist in characters reaction.

Since I will be only creating shorts in next years coming I will take serious note of these points as they clearly work in making a short successful.

UV Mapping maya

Yesterday we UV mapped our models. I was not 100% sure what UV mapping was before the session or what was involved in doing it. It was a very simple process but a is important for texturing our model well at a later date. The UV map will essentially allow me to draw onto the model and it should be perfectly wrapped on to it if the map is done correctly. The skill of being able to map a model seems like a universal one just requires the knowledge of where to make cuts in the model.

modelling in maya

Last year we had modelled in maya but this task was a lot more complex. This was a great study task as it forced me to learn a very good selection of tools that can be used universally when modelling. In the first stage of this task we had to use a selection of tools and throughout building the model the very few were added showing you only need a small selection build something fairly complex. This study task reinforced the importance of good topology on your model as this will effect the animation of it later. also always trying to use as little poly's as possible in your model making it far less complex. I will very easily be able to transfer the skills from this study task to build my own model from scratch. 

Basic Idea generation

After partnering up with James we both quickly started mind mapping. Since it was the very start of the project we wanted to get a large range of ideas to make sure we got a really good one. We also wanted a range of ideas to draw from to formulate something better with different components. We first decided on a genre we wanted to go for (we went for comedy) then narrowed the titles down to four options, as we still wanted to keep the ideas very open. Then preceded to try and come up with a wide range of ideas for each.
After we'd laid out lots ideas we labelled the ones that seemed most promising for future development.

further idea generation

After we'd highlighted the best ideas from our mind maps we started to expand the ideas and flesh out treatments for them. This was a good process to find out which ideas would be best for this project, we wanted something that had good humour but was also original. We ended up settling on an idea about a spider taking a leap of faith. Prior to this we did research into how we could animate a spider with facial expressions. The first thing we looked at was "a bugs life" as this is a critically acclaimed 3D animation feature where all the characters are insects. The design of the characters gave them a full range of emotions to created relatable an brilliant characters. The film was proof to us that we could design insects in 3D that would be able to emote effectively. The next stage is to elaborate our treatment of this idea and create multiple options for settings, characters and storys.

striking a pose

This study task was very helpful in both boosting my confidence levels with maya, by the fifth pose I'd sped up significantly which is reassuring when it comes down to animating. Before doing this task I'd used reference footage before but not to this level and the results here were surprisingly good. By copying real life gestures the emotional states of the character seem much more obvious to me. I had previously shrugged off referencing to this extent but this study task has made me realise how much better the results can be with them.

This exercise also helped me realise how effective lighting can be to highlight a characters emotion, will continue to think about this in future work.

getting re-aquatinted with maya

I had not used maya over the summer so this first session was useful to get re-aquatinted with the basic tools. I glad that it all came back quickly which was very useful however it was still very apparent I needed much more practice with maya. We then used a character rig for the first time it was impressively easy to use as some aspects on the model were locked to prohibit impossible movement and the movements where controlled by translation and rotation tools. With practice I hope to be able to manipulate the model much quicker which will greatly speed up the animation process.