One of the ideas that has come up to help with our environments for Essimer is to use modules. Modular environments are often used in games and reuse textures and geometry. Because these elements can be reused in different ways using a modular environment can reduce production time, however each element needs to be planned carefully do the the pieces can fit together.
We still haven't made a decision on this as the needs of the project will be able to be seen more clearly once we have environment plates.
However I thought I would do some research into this as it isn't something I am very familiar with.
Here are some websites that talk about Modular Environments and how to create them:
1
2
3
I plan to have a closer look at these later when I have a little more time.
Wednesday 30 July 2014
Tuesday 29 July 2014
Birds in Flight
For my animation I am going to need to understand the movement of birds in flight.
This page has heaps of useful information about the movements of different birds, how the wings move and rigging information as well as video reference and animation examples. I think this will be a really good resource.
There's also some stock footage here
This page has heaps of useful information about the movements of different birds, how the wings move and rigging information as well as video reference and animation examples. I think this will be a really good resource.
I've also been looking for reference imagery and videos. Here are some I have found of the Martial Eagle. Some have really terrible footage, but contain moments of flight or movement that could be useful.
There's also some stock footage here
Monday 28 July 2014
Personal Project: Flight
After my previous concept flopped I decided to develop one of my other concepts instead. This concept was Flight, and is about a young Meerkat who wishes he could fly.
I began this development by creating a mood-board.
This animation will take place in a desert, based off the Kalahari Desert. The Kalahari desert is populated with plants including the Camelthorn acacia tree and grasses. The two main characters of this animation are Meerkat and Eagle.
Meerkat lives with his family in the desert. He is very young, naive and a dreamer. His dream is that he could fly, just like the eagles do. So while his family hides in fear from the eagles, Meerkat watches them with admiration.
For Meerkat's design I looked a photos of Meerkats. www.arkive.org has a good compilation of images so I created a reference board using imagery for there.
This is the design I came up with for Meerkat.
My other character is Eagle. She is a Martial Eagle and likes to snack on the animals who live in the desert.
Eagles Design:
Next I began to develop the world. These are a couple of quick paintings exploring the colour palette of the world.
I began this development by creating a mood-board.
This animation will take place in a desert, based off the Kalahari Desert. The Kalahari desert is populated with plants including the Camelthorn acacia tree and grasses. The two main characters of this animation are Meerkat and Eagle.
Meerkat lives with his family in the desert. He is very young, naive and a dreamer. His dream is that he could fly, just like the eagles do. So while his family hides in fear from the eagles, Meerkat watches them with admiration.
For Meerkat's design I looked a photos of Meerkats. www.arkive.org has a good compilation of images so I created a reference board using imagery for there.
My other character is Eagle. She is a Martial Eagle and likes to snack on the animals who live in the desert.
Next I began to develop the world. These are a couple of quick paintings exploring the colour palette of the world.
Personal Project: Concept development
Over the past few weeks I have spent a lot of time trying to develop my ideas and style for my personal project.
This has actually been a bit of a difficult process for me and I got off to a bit of a slow start. I started off with a lot of different ideas which included three web-series ideas, a couple of comedic short animations and some more short animations with more serious tones.
I really liked one of my web-series ideas in particular, but while it had an interesting world concept the characters needed a lot of work. My other web-series idea had interesting characters, but because it had such a huge cast and a slice of life feel it wasn't really what I wanted to create for this project.
After a lot of consideration I decided that I wouldn't have enough time to develop such large concepts, so I decided that I would create one of my short animation ideas. Because I wanted to do something a bit different I also decided I wanted to play with a different story type and style than I usually do. I thought it would be a nice challenge...well, I found the challenge without too much trouble.
Hunted was to be a short comedy about a creature that lives in the forest and the hunter that wants it's head for his trophy collection. And as usual with my animations, there was to be bit of twist at the end.
I had decided a few things early on. The animation would be set during the day in the forest but would have a scene in the hunters cabin and another in the creatures den. The creature would not be a bird or something that we would find in our forests but may be a mash-up of different animals. And lastly the animation style had to work with the mood of the story but also be visually appealing to me.
And that is where my problems began.
First I began to research other comedy based animations that had used a similar storyline and relationship between two characters. This appeared a lot in animated classics.
All of these animations had slapstick elements, but also use very simple backgrounds and 2D animation. For my project I wanted to explore a different, more modern style than used in these animations. I planned to use Maya to create a 3D animation in a style that could support this type of story and comedy. I wanted to find a way to make my world and characters more detailed these, but still able to perform silly actions without seeming like the animation was trying too hard to be something it wasn't.
I began to search for images of forests for inspiration. I wanted something that was a little mystical but that wouldn't seem too at odds with the story. There was a huge variety of different styles so I looked at everything from the realistic forests of Sleeping Beauty (1959), digitally altered photos with interesting colours, to very stylised; cartoony trees.
I found that the forests I found most interesting were probably not really suited to this story type. I love the images of the the light shining through the trees, but didn't think they would work well with my story. I tried to put aside these preferences and create a more stylised forest. However I hit an artistic slump. Every time I thought I knew exactly what I wanted the forest to look like I lacked the skill to alter my drawing style to match. I tried to experiment with some different styles of trees, and the ones I likes best were these twisty ones.
I decided to move on and explore the look for the Hunters Cabin, where this story begins. I created the following mood board.
My concern at this point was that I was obviously being drawn to imagery that was very detailed, and I wasn't sure how well this would work with my story style. I thought the my compromise would probably be to use more detailed backgrounds with simple characters. So before I went any further with the world I wanted to work out what my characters would look like.
I choose a few silhouettes to develop. Then I decided that even though I hadn't finalised a design I wanted to test out some different colours and styles for the characters. I tried a solid fill with an outline of a darker shade on one, but I really didn't like it. What I did like though, was the more textured style of the purple and orange variations. This really didn't work with my idea of more simple characters, so I tried again with a rough colour of one of the hunter silhouettes.
At this point it became clear to me that the style wasn't going to simply fall into place. I couldn't achieve the style I saw in my head. And if I couldn't get the style down, I obviously didn't have a very clear vision of how I wanted this to look. It was better to drop the idea now, and move onto a different concept.
This has actually been a bit of a difficult process for me and I got off to a bit of a slow start. I started off with a lot of different ideas which included three web-series ideas, a couple of comedic short animations and some more short animations with more serious tones.
I really liked one of my web-series ideas in particular, but while it had an interesting world concept the characters needed a lot of work. My other web-series idea had interesting characters, but because it had such a huge cast and a slice of life feel it wasn't really what I wanted to create for this project.
After a lot of consideration I decided that I wouldn't have enough time to develop such large concepts, so I decided that I would create one of my short animation ideas. Because I wanted to do something a bit different I also decided I wanted to play with a different story type and style than I usually do. I thought it would be a nice challenge...well, I found the challenge without too much trouble.
Hunted was to be a short comedy about a creature that lives in the forest and the hunter that wants it's head for his trophy collection. And as usual with my animations, there was to be bit of twist at the end.
I had decided a few things early on. The animation would be set during the day in the forest but would have a scene in the hunters cabin and another in the creatures den. The creature would not be a bird or something that we would find in our forests but may be a mash-up of different animals. And lastly the animation style had to work with the mood of the story but also be visually appealing to me.
And that is where my problems began.
First I began to research other comedy based animations that had used a similar storyline and relationship between two characters. This appeared a lot in animated classics.
Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.
Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote
Tom and Jerry
Itchy and Scratchy (The Simpsons)
Herman & Katnip
All of these animations had slapstick elements, but also use very simple backgrounds and 2D animation. For my project I wanted to explore a different, more modern style than used in these animations. I planned to use Maya to create a 3D animation in a style that could support this type of story and comedy. I wanted to find a way to make my world and characters more detailed these, but still able to perform silly actions without seeming like the animation was trying too hard to be something it wasn't.
I began to search for images of forests for inspiration. I wanted something that was a little mystical but that wouldn't seem too at odds with the story. There was a huge variety of different styles so I looked at everything from the realistic forests of Sleeping Beauty (1959), digitally altered photos with interesting colours, to very stylised; cartoony trees.
I found that the forests I found most interesting were probably not really suited to this story type. I love the images of the the light shining through the trees, but didn't think they would work well with my story. I tried to put aside these preferences and create a more stylised forest. However I hit an artistic slump. Every time I thought I knew exactly what I wanted the forest to look like I lacked the skill to alter my drawing style to match. I tried to experiment with some different styles of trees, and the ones I likes best were these twisty ones.
I decided to move on and explore the look for the Hunters Cabin, where this story begins. I created the following mood board.
My concern at this point was that I was obviously being drawn to imagery that was very detailed, and I wasn't sure how well this would work with my story style. I thought the my compromise would probably be to use more detailed backgrounds with simple characters. So before I went any further with the world I wanted to work out what my characters would look like.
I choose a few silhouettes to develop. Then I decided that even though I hadn't finalised a design I wanted to test out some different colours and styles for the characters. I tried a solid fill with an outline of a darker shade on one, but I really didn't like it. What I did like though, was the more textured style of the purple and orange variations. This really didn't work with my idea of more simple characters, so I tried again with a rough colour of one of the hunter silhouettes.
At this point it became clear to me that the style wasn't going to simply fall into place. I couldn't achieve the style I saw in my head. And if I couldn't get the style down, I obviously didn't have a very clear vision of how I wanted this to look. It was better to drop the idea now, and move onto a different concept.
Sand simulations
In Bones of Essimer we have a scene where the Bone Ship travels over the desert. About a month ago I began to research sand simulations.
I found that tutorials on sand simulations weren't exactly easy to find. I knew that a sand simulation would need to use a particle system, and that the software RealFlow might be useful for this.
One of the tutorials I found was an underwater sand tutorial for Maya. I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, but we maybe able to adapt some of the techniques to our project
Another that I looked at was a Realflow and Maya integration tutorial from Digital Tutors. It created a basic sandman effect by using particles in realflow to fill a geometry imported from Maya. The particles were then taken back to Maya, duplicated and then assigned a script to cause colour variation to emulate sand. As we are now starting to work with Realflow I may try this out.
I also came across some articles that talked about using Houdini for sand, saying that it had a hidden tool for this. I've never used Houdini but the computers at SIT did have this software so it may be worth a look.
I found that tutorials on sand simulations weren't exactly easy to find. I knew that a sand simulation would need to use a particle system, and that the software RealFlow might be useful for this.
One of the tutorials I found was an underwater sand tutorial for Maya. I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, but we maybe able to adapt some of the techniques to our project
Another that I looked at was a Realflow and Maya integration tutorial from Digital Tutors. It created a basic sandman effect by using particles in realflow to fill a geometry imported from Maya. The particles were then taken back to Maya, duplicated and then assigned a script to cause colour variation to emulate sand. As we are now starting to work with Realflow I may try this out.
I also came across some articles that talked about using Houdini for sand, saying that it had a hidden tool for this. I've never used Houdini but the computers at SIT did have this software so it may be worth a look.
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