Major - Progress

This week I have been able to start animating, my sets and models are all textured, my characters have complete rigs. With not a large amount of time left to animate and render, I aim to animate all the major scenes first, the render times should not be too long as the sets and characters have basic textures. The only thing I need to do is play around with the settings as my lighting is fairly extensive. The 2d animation element took a minimal amount of time to create in tests, so I should be able to complete that in about a day.

 

Major - Sets 02

I have done a few quick tests of the colour layout for the hallway scene. The beams need to have more variation to create the look I am going for. For reference, I am aiming to achieve something psychedelic, somewhat like the scene from 'Coroline' referenced below. There needs to be more of a gradual fade from dark to light and lighting changes will also help with this. From a cinematography point of view I am pleased with how the scene looks structurally. 

 

Major - Characters Facial Rigging/ Skinning

The rigging and skinning stage has defiantly been difficult for me. This not being a strong suit of mine, I should have anticipated the length of time it would take me to complete. I now only have the facial rigs for my second to characters to complete, which I hope to complete by the end of this week. I will then be able to start animating. I am slightly worried with the deadline being so close and having not yet started the animation process that I will not have a full two minutes of rendered animation by the deadline, however I aim to power through and complete as much as I can to the best of my ability. Looking back it would have been more reasonable to focus on two, if not one characters. For future endeavours I will keep this in mind.  

 

Major - Characters Update

 All of my characters have rigged and skinned bodies, my final task is to complete the facial rigs for all three. Once this is completed I need to create some simple textures for my environments and then I will be able to start animating. My narrative needs a significant cut, however my animatic overestimates the time each shot needs so I think the the overall run time will condense quickly when I get to my animation stage. The main issue with this however is that my music wont be the right length, something I will have to sort out before submission. 

Major - Sets 01

 This week I aim to have finished skinning my second two characters as well as the majority of the facial rigs completed so I am able to start animating my scenes. I have started with some quick lighting tests on my sets, which currently just have a basic surface shader on them. The textures for my scenes will be basic as I want the lighting to do most of the work. 

Major - Characters

 The majority of the first character has been rigged and I just need to produce some turn arounds before I move onto the modelling some basic environments, however, I plan to make a few small changes to my characters textures which should be finished by the end of the week. Modelling and texturing my sets should be a quick process as they are all fairly simplistic and don't require any major details. I will then be able to move onto animating and creating my effects for my background scenes. I also plan to make a few changes to shorten my story somewhat so the animation process in more achievable in the time that I have, taking rendering times into account. I think I am struggling with the rigging and skinning element immensely and I am not entirely sure if completing that for one character let alone two is possible for me. I think I will have to make some changes and I am struggling to complete everything that I need to in the time that I have.  

Major - Background Effects

 For my background effects that make up the more abstract parts of the environment I am still deciding between a 2d or 3d/ after effects solution. I am leaning towards 2d as I like the look I am able to achieve however for time purposes I may have to stick to a 3d process.