Week 16: That Awkward Moment...

When you've finished your Going Live project and you forget what life was like before you started it...

We've presented our final short to Axis yesterday (Monday 28th) and while we'r still waiting on more in-depth feedback, what we did get from them so far has been positive and we're all really really happy with the out come :)

Photographic proof of our visit to Axis courtesy of Wendy!

We've decided to make a couple of tweaks to it ahead of the final degree show - but we want to make sure we don't fall into the curse of trying to fix everything - or getting trapped in the render farm, so we'll only be tweaking key scenes that really stand out (to us) as problems - this includes a couple of obvious mesh deformations and an incorrect texture.

We'll probably work on that in the next couple of weeks (when everyone's recovered a bit ha), but all in all this has definitely been a great learning curve and a great opportunity to work with some amazing and creative people.

5 Days to Go: Composites and Corrections

The end is definitely in sight...

All first and second round compositing is now COMPLETE and is ready to go over to Sushma and Kaitlin for editing. This is also the first time the 2 of them have looked through all the composited shots which is VERY good for one main reason - we get a fresh pair of eyes on the animation as a whole.

As the rest of us have had a hand in compositing we've seen what effects and changes have been made etc, but this was the first time the both of them would be seeing this, and therefore could give some initial first feedback!

As a result we've tweaked a few shots to make sure they stay in line with the rest of them - but also to avoid them looking too after-effecty. Kaitlin made a good point about not hiding behind the compositing. We should be showing of the animations and the work that has gone into the models and textures.

There has been some initial hiccups in getting all shots from After Effects (as they are) into Premier Pro for editing - we're wanting to import the shots this way so Amit has more control in the final round of compositing (which will include grains, vignette and all that snazzy stuff) - but after hunting down Malcolm and stealing his After Effects / Premier Pro knowledge all is once again right with the world.

Sushma stealing Malcolm's mind

One key thing we've all probably learnt from this project is that it is important to find a clever (quick) work around (/cheat) for any visual issues that may arise. Our favourite case study is one again the Troll. Reverting back to a much older model to quickly render off the final couple of shots meant that a re-test of that rig wasn't done, and with textures turned off (due to lagging) a couple of deformations were missed in his lower half.

BEFORE!! We see booty

Luckily this was only really obvious in one shot. Firstly Yannis attempted to block out the issue with some of the surrounding plants on the bridge (which is something we've done in a previous shot for a different issue), but this didn't look right. So we turned to Photoshop!

Bimpe took the effected rendered TIFFs and painted over the problem areas (100 frames.... fun times), and thanks to the magic of copy and paste this shots we're cleaned up in 30 minutes.

After - Booty Free!

Success!

Now all that's left is for Yannis to finish up the credits sequence which is still looking awesome - Cristina has also added a great personal touch #nospoilers

Such a tease...

Week 11: Render Me This

Soooo were are definitely nearing the stage where we can start rendering our first shot!!

We're churning out animated scenes like theres no tomorrow (a slight exhaggeration but one that definitely one that fits the context) and should hopefully be done by the end of the week.

Sushma has suggested everyone playblast their animated scenes so we can then stitch theme together and view them as a whole. This is definitely a great step to take as we need to make sure all our animation scenes are consistent and that our individual animating styles don't differ to much from the scenes that follow each other. We've already noticed a couple of instances of this with the troll so we've been working together to tweak these.

HAPPY FACES!

This will also be useful so timing - to see what shots we need to cut down and so the music and narration can be edited to it. Annnnddd this. Also works as a second animatic. Huzzah.

Bimpe and Natasha have pretty mych finished their scenes so Amit will now be talking them through the render set up process so he isn't left to tackle this alone once all the shots have been completed.

Also now that the scenes are coming together we've been re-reviewing the goats textures - as the troll now compliments the environment almost perfectly. We've   been tweaking the saturation so that the goats still pop, but don't look missed matched with their setting.

Feel free to stay tuned for the stitched together playblast when its ready!

When Life hands you lemons... throw them at pinata's

SO we are currently in cross phases at the moment - we've had to go make and make some final tweaks to the goats to fix a few issues that Kaitlin and Natasha picked up on when blocking in the animations.

We're also working to re-finalised the textures for the Troll - basing this primarily on the textures of the Mariachi's, although we have considered going a bit more stylised like the pinata's - but this will need testing.

After a few more changes, the Trolls rigs and Blendshapes (Yanni's handy work) are finally done and are ready for some proper testing and block animation courtesy of Bimpe and Sushma.

We're very aware of the time we now have left (6 weeks) and we're really kicking it up another few gears to make sure everything gets finished i'm time - we ran into a few more issues than we'd hoped but we're still being awesome and positive. Definitely lots of learnings to take with us into our next projects.

Camera Traps and Tempestuous Goats

Another glorious Friday has been cast upon us, bringig us ever closer to our fast approaching deadline and our rapidly diminishing sanity!

As a priority these last couple of days Kaitlin, Sushma and Natasha have been setting up / rigging the cameras that we will need for our shots. So once the animator goes in to the scene file all they'll need to do is work there magic and hey presto! Scene done, camera hassle free! (in theory, don't quote us on that).

We're hoping this will cut down a lot of our time, as the animators can focus purely on animating and not the cruelty of camera's especially as they'll be locked off.

Working on the scenes this way has also lead us to question a couple of our environment compositions and models - the mountain in particular. We've been toying with expanding it so it fills the layout a bit more.

Before!

After!

Yannis has been putting the finishing touches to the trolls texture, and we're now locked in a this tone or that tone dilemma, but we'll be able to make a final decision once the environment texture is complete as we'll need to make sure the troll isn't being swallowed up by it and stands out!

This.....or,,,,

That.... #animatorproblems

Sushma's still working on the rig, and due to its complexity she's having a couple of issues with geometry deformations - but Bimpe and Natasha will be testing it this weekend hopefully with the trolls actual movements in mind to see whether these will have a major effect.

We're not too worried about this just yet as well always knew we could afford to have the troll come in a bit later, as the goats were first on the list for animation.

Bimpe's been making some final (hopefully) tweaks to the goat rigs after some control issues (cause these goats have no shame). We're really keen to make these as perfect as possible as they involve the most animation, and they're so colourful it'll be hard to miss them! These will also be tested again to make sure they're working ok.

Goat's just wanna have fun...

As the weekend approaches, Friday's GLORIOUS piece of Going Live eye candy is a quick rendered shot of our very happy and smug mariachi's.

Week 2: Under the (Troll's) Bridge.

We've done quite a bit since the last meeting. We took the weekend to start work on initial designs and another storyboard for the story.

We've come up with initial designs for the Troll, Goats and Mariachis, and we've started to think in detail about the landscape we're hoping to produce. The design show and tell was also a way for us to address any potential issues that may arise during the production stage.

• Potential for animation for the eye - needs further discussion.
• Possibly 2D animation or 3D texture change
• All goats will need a joint bone in the lower leg when rigging – for bending purposes

Ritchie's example of potential ways to address Billy Goats Eye-Gate!

Cristina's Pinata Goat design

Natasha has worked on design for the Troll. As a group we've picked the features and we like the most, and Natasha will pull together a more final design.

We want to start testing as soon as we have the designs nailed, so we can work out the best way to produce the expressions - whether this is in 3D or 2D.

We currently have an initial colour palette, but we definitely need to work on a more in-depth colour scheme to help guide our process, and we've decided that the piñata goats will be the key priority. Once we've decided on their scheme, the troll and the environment will work to compliment (or contrast) them.

We also decided that although the goats' tones should be varied - they should all share at least 1 colour to make them look like a set.

The storyboard is almost there. After talking to Phil and Barry, we've decided to re-work it slightly so its also providing more stage direction. Once this is completed we'll work on the colour script.

Our storyboard draft

Week 1: Group 1 Is A Go!

We were given the brief from Axis on Monday as we really wanted to hit the ground running so we've already had 2 meetings to start fleshing out our initial ideas.

It was quickly decided that Kaitlin would be PM, which means we could have clear direction off the bat, and ensure that decisions were being made quickly and that the project doesn't run away from us!

Meeting #1 - Ideas 'n' Stuff
We brainstormed ideas and took a lot of inspiration from the suggestions posed by Axis in terms of the story we wanted to re-tell (mainly fairytales).

There were quite a few ideas, but the general consensus was that we wanted the re-telling of our story to be quite left field of its original. Once we narrowed down to our top 4 ideas we decided to each generate a moodboard on one of the stories so we could start to visualise what direction we could see our production going.

We've also been thinking ahead in terms of deadline and skill set, and thought it would be best to try and avoid over complicating the story in terms of script and production - aka, avoid lip-syncing where possible! This would also free up up to focus on the overall look and movements of the characters without living in fear dodgy lip-syncs and timing issues.

Meeting #1, smashed.

Meeting #2 - Show 'n' Tell
We regrouped to showcase our moodboards and pitch potential ideas, themes and styles to the group. Off the back of this we decided on our story - Billy Goats Gruff (and piñata's)! Natatsha pulled together the moodboard for this, and we though that it would work really well visually, especially if we go down the low poly, colour everywhere look!

We also used this meeting plot a rough script and storyboard, and discussed potential roles and Amit's plotted our production pipeline which is VERY useful to those of us who haven't worked on a project like this before.

Kaitlin's working on the script, and once this is finalised we'll allocate roles and start getting into design pre-production mode.