Evaluation and Reflection: Week 26

This week the process has been on schedule, the texturing process for the two main characters is done. Some of te reflections this week for animation students is always look for examples and guides to develop processes. One of my favorite pages is digital tutors, this kind of places have really nice tutorials to base and check, and can help you with your project. An animation professional have always to be in constant reseach of the easiest and best ways of do projects and have a strong personality for self-learning, to get always the best results. If the tutorials are not enough you can also make use of the community of the web-site when people inside can help you.

The conclusion of the week is satisfying and in accordance with the plan, always stay researching for technical guidance and esthetic inspiration.

Creative and Technical Process: week 26. Textures

This week I advance in the texturing process to the other character, Kid. I used the same tools than the first character, the Thief. Mari and UVLayout. However the process was easier this time due to previuos practice. Some of the practices that I applied to make the texturing finishes more real is the use of real skin textures, applied in the skin of the Kid. This improve the finishing textures, not having solid and plane colors instead more mixed, and in this way more near to reallity. The final colors of the clothing and general style of the character were pulled together from the sketches, trying different colors to match. Experimenting with colors was a nice practice this week to create a consistent aesthetic.

Inspiration Artefact and Forefront: Week 26 Fer Aguilera Reyes

Fer Aguilera Reyes, is a 3D Concept artist. I found his work particularly interesting beacause the use of colors. The above illustration is called Mambacore inspired from African Masks. The design of the character is also very creative, it integrates african simbolism and mechanical futuristic aesthetics. The application of colors is specially inspiring, despite the character shows a dark personality, the colors are bright and contrasting. It's not necessary to use always dark colors to reflect a dark personality in the development of characters. At the same time, I found that applying colors in the same color range could add a personal and strong style.

References: 

Aguilera, F. (2015) CGSOCIETY. Available at: http://pigmachine.cgsociety.org/ [Accessed 29/06/2015]

Evaluation and Reflection: Week 25

This week we have seen the importance of a good planning process in the development of an animation. Our development was slowed down due to changes in the original design of the characters, making us start again the process of texturing and skin, going a step back in the time table and also putting in wait the other process ahead as Animation, this will make the time shorter for this step in the project.

This teach us, that delays in a project are always possible and we have to be able to solve them and react to them to not harm the other steps in the process; in that way, the time table of the projects should always have a little bit more time not the exact time, for dealing with unexpected situations. This also showed us the importance of making trials to the chracters first with colleagues or third persons that can maybe see mistakes that the Designer have not seen, this feedback process should always be present in the first steps, to avoid this kind of delays.

Creative and Technical Process: week 25 UVLayout

This week we have been particularly working in the development of the textures, normally this is a difficult process in programs as Maya or 3dsMax. UVLayout makes this process easier, faster and automatic, some of the difficulties I have firstly with this programs was to understand the interface because is not intuitive and the shortcuts are very different from other programs, so it takes a while to understand it.

The tools that I have learnt in this program that has specially helped me are the Simetry, in this way the process that you do in one side it automatically is replicated in the other side as Simetry. Other tool is Relax vertices, this helped to make more curved and fluid the vertices to adjust more easily and perfect in the image of the texture. The images in the top shows the process of texturing in UVLayout of the Character Kid, you can see how a complex organic model can be generate easily the textures.

Inspiration Artefact and Forefront: week 25

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3 2015 showed the newest and innovative projects in the video game industry. However, one of the most impressive launching was the Star Wars: Battle of the Sun, Developed by EA Dice it had the biggest queus by fans and players of the franchise. The trailer( See bellow) was a spectacular piece of art that compiled in video the gameplay and story of the game. The trailer despite of showing the game play it was developed to have cinematographic elements. They used the most representative icons of Star Wars. Starting from the star troopers in the battle field of the first scene of the secons Star Wars move until the final of the film showing the Battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth vader.

The Aesthetic is very much related to the movie, clean not loaded, following actual and modern trends. The music also reflected the excitement and suspense of the game. Being update in projects and Events in the industry is very important for an Animation professional nad shows a deep understanding of the fronthead of the field.

References:

Fenlon, W. (2015) Star Wars Battlefront: fun, sprawling, and worryingly simple. Pc Gamer. Available at http://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-battlefront-fun-sprawling-and-worryingly-simple/ [Accessed 21/06/2015]

Evaluation and Reflexion week 24

This week we have almost finished the design of the characters, however the tutor advice to us that the principal character the "Thief" was too simple and lack of personality, it was not showing a strong presence as expected. 

Due this feedaback we took design decisions for this character which included making more definition in body parts as muscles, calves, knees, in this way the body was more defined and visually stronger. 

In the same way we worked in the design of the body’s extremities as hands and feet, adding more detail and accesories to give a more interesting and appealing look; we design special gloves and boots with and industrial aesthetic, to make the character look a Little bit tougher in that way representing a better way the role of bad guy in the short film.

The changes in the design of the characters slowed us in the process, because we had to remake some things again, as the textures, the skin because the information was different so we have to change it again to match the new design.

Creative and technical process: Week 24

The Gesture of the characters was designed to aesthetically match the concept and development of the history, in that way the character "Kid" is going to use 3D modelled gestures appearing a more realistic aesthetic, however the character "Thief" is going to use a mix of 2D and 3D aesthethic to simulate a more close relation with cartoons and for the purpose of the concept the world of imagination. 

The technique used is animated textures, which is based in the creation of sequences of gesture maps, applied it in the 3D model and animate it, in this case using the "Blend Shape" tool of Maya. Some of the problems that I have faced in the application of this technique are: The gestures are made in an image sequence which is linked to the timeline by default which makes difficult the process, after researching and watching tutorials, I have to disconnect the image sequence from the timeline, and connect it instead to an attribute, in this way each image form the sequence is equivalent to a number attribute. This process made the animation of the gestures much more easier and faster, at the same time more automated. Some of the images of this process:

References:

Willie, Z. (2012) Maya/Rigging: Using Animated Textures. Vimeo [Online] Availabe at: https://vimeo.com/38122472 (Accessed 13th June, 2015)

Inspiration Artists and Forefront week 24: Between Bears by Hornet Films

Between Bears the short film by Hornet Films, winner of the best animation award at Vimeo first film festival, it's a great example of story telling through music. The film doesn't has any dialogues between characters or gestures that connect the development of the story, instead the film uses music and very light sounds to narrate and communicate the emotions of the characters.  At the beginning of the films the music created a mysterious and suspense environment, then the music changed to show the start of a journey with higher and faster sounds. The silence was also managed to communicate the end of a period in the story, some times very long to also give a enigmatic and artistic meaning.

In our project The Idea Thief, we also are not going to use any dialogues, that's why Between Bears helped us as inspiration to create a narrative which communicates without words.

References:

Amidi, A. (2010). Between Bears by Eran Hilleli. Cartoon Brew [Online] Available at http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cgi/between-bears-by-eran-hilleli-26237.html [Accessed June12, 2015]