Here is an initial Photoshop paint test of Jed's clothing. It took me a couple of hours to blend in creases and folds, but I really enjoyed doing this.

Since the second pitch, Phil and I have remained committed to finding a fitting ending to the story, so the storyboard can be completed and then we can begin actual production as soon as possible. We won't be making another animatic at this stage, as it will cost too much time.

I think it was clear to everyone that the visual style had been nailed, we had moved away from colour into monochromatic territory. We felt this was a natural transition, yet it was something that we always kept coming back to. The stark contast of black and white will enable us to be more experimental with story development, in terms of mood and character.

We have literally spent hours upon hours discussing all possible ways of ending the film - some ideas were simply awful, while others more promising. We had to go through this exhausting process of eliminating ideas to get to the really good ones. In some cases, we would find an idea we were happy with then decide to go with it, yet after some time to let it sink in, we would then go back and scrap it or alter it in some way. We were drawing a little closer, bit by bit, but there were always minute details that were bugging us, and unfortunately they couldn't be overlooked.

It's difficult to put into words how frustrating this was becoming and we both agreed that we needed a pair of fresh eyes on the case.

So we sought advice from our former Lens Based Media tutor Tom Hooper. He always had an eccentric outlook on storytelling, something that was ideal in this instance. We described the story and characters, using imagery as reference to give him a much clearer idea. He gave us a very positive response - as for the ending, well no luck there, we would have to find that ending ourselves, but it was certainly within our reach. He gave suggestions as to the right ingredients for a fitting conclusion for SPLAY, i.e, emotion - we have to feel what we want the audience to feel, drama - don't be afraid to push yourself and definitely don't play 'safe', be unexpected and push the audience to the limit, or you will not keep them engrossed. I don't think we literally want to make people cry, nor do I think the story has that level of punch to do so, yet we want to tug at the heartstrings and have a very memorable story.

Tom also suggested to be far more innovative with the soundtrack; again we shouldn't remain in the comfort zone of using orchestral music as it could soften the gritty, stark look of the visuals. Lots of experimentation with mechanical sound effects and music to give more of an industrial feel to the world of SPLAY. This is something we will most definitely consider.

Overall it was a productive meeting, and we felt more confident with how progress was going, yet an ending still had to be found.

I could ramble on for ages on how we came up with the right ending, but all I will say was that it was a challenge. There are loose ends to tie up (as there always is) but we feel far more relived to have something we are content with that doesn't seem rushed or contrived. Phil will now continue storyboarding the rest of the story, while I will continue lighting tests within Maya, as well as work on Polished Off, as I have neglected it.

A quick texture test for Jed's clothing, using a simple linen texture from google:






I've made a few variations, with different values of bump, also adding in backlighting to give that nice rim light. The texture looks pretty awful, more like material for a cardigan than a (Jed's trendy) janitor suit. I will need to add detail and tone to bring this to life, as well as alter the initial texture. I will search for textures of boiler suit/shirt type fabric on google, as well as photograph clothing if need be.

Spotlight Test.2

Experimenting further with spotlights. After lots of trial and error, I am finally pleased with some of these results. The light appears as it is emanating rather than a solid object. I also have reduced the size and amount of specks in the texture of the light. The intensity of the light of the ground still needs adjusting.


In addition, I have added a backdrop, quickly editing a photo of a sky, as well a few buildings in the distance to add some depth to the scene. I referred to Phil's recent concept he made. I'm not sure if the background should be too dark or slightly lighter, let me know what you think..

Spotlight Test.1

Now that Splay is taking a darker route, visually, it will be interesting to light and texture (not that it wasn't before though). Spotlights can be moody, atmospheric and very theatrical:



I have started to experiment with a spotlight in Maya, changing the values of the light, as well as adding fog to get a look which works. I have not incorporated a model of a character, as I wanted to remain with a simple environment at the moment.


One of my biggest concerns was how to achieve the effect of dust particles floating through the air? I considered using Maya dynamics or creating these in after effects in post, but a Gnomon Workshop tutorial suggested a better idea - apply a 3D granite texture to the density attribute of the light fog. I can then animate this texture to make it appear they are moving through the air.

Today was the big day, since we all had to present the second pitch for both our films - explaining story development and showing all pre-production work generated so far, as well as outlining the schedule for the rest of the year. I think it went really well. Polished Off received a very positive response, since everyone in the room was laughing, which was what we wanted. We also got some constructive feedback from Dave Bull. He suggested the pacing of the ending would have to be adjusted, but he said that apart from those slight tweaks we were definitely heading in the right direction for the film. As for Splay, well we were slightly nervous as to what reaction we would get since we had no finalised animatic, but surprisingly Mike Smith and Dave praised our commitment and professionalism in developing the story and making so many alterations. We are still without an fitting ending to Splay, but I have absolute faith we will find one.

Work on the films has admittedly been put on hold in the last week or so due to various essays and presentations which have taken priority. There is another essay due next week, so once that is out of the way, we will be able to resume on the project and also use the Christmas break to catch up on where we've fallen behind this term.

This week has been vital in the respect of preparing for the final term 1 pitch. I've been in charge of designing the presentation slides for SPLAY and gathering all the concept work together to present, which has been quite a simple task as I always enjoy branding and creating layouts, so I was in my element.

(Main artwork by Phil Brooks)

My main responsibility for this week however, was to collect a variety of sound effects and start incorporating these into the animatic for Polished Off. There were a number of specific sounds that Dan Edgley wanted and it was a definitely a challenge finding these. Luckily I found a few websites that offer free sound FX downloads, as well as previews. I was able to record the previews as some sound effects are way too expensive to buy, and this is just an animatic after all. I also loaned out the sound FX hard drive from the college stores, which had a few of the sounds I couldn't find on the internet. Any other sounds, ( such as Ed screaming or panicking) I recorded myself.

While Dan and Alec were working tirelessly on the visuals in Adobe Flash, I started to edit the sound effects and apply them to the sections that were done so far. There were so many issues with Adobe Premiere it was unbelievable, with only two computers in the entire college that had the software installed on them, so for most of the time I was using Alec's laptop. It was a great deal of fun bringing life to the visuals - you then only realise just how important sound is, even though this is an animatic and not the final film.

Later on in the week, I concentrated on preparing my group presentation with Gareth Munden. As Dan had already done his presentation last Friday, he took over with the sound FX. The presentation with Gareth went fairly well, and I was relieved to just get it out of the way.

Friday was probably the most stressful day for the team; Dan and Alec were breezing though the animatic like there was no tomorrow, and I was really impressed how much they had got done - Dan had also got his mate to compose the music for Polished Off, using Michael Jackson's Billie Jean as a huge influence - the beat and the rhythm work incredibly well with the action. The college closed earlier that day, so Dan and Alec decided to work on the animatic over the weekend, while Phil asked me to add in sound FX and some music to what he made of the SPLAY animatic so far. Hopefully this weekend should be productive for us all.

Another potential poster design for Polished Off:

Using Dan Edgley's drawing, I created a silhouette of Jed, referencing the recent poster of the film 'Michael Jackson: This is It':

Dan Edgley gave me a couple of Polished Off poster designs to work with over the weekend. I concentrated on the second, more complicated design, where all the composition is warped, as if viewed from a fish eye lens. I attempted to paint this via Photoshop, but decided to create everything as 3D objects in Maya. This was probably no shortcut, but the results were pleasing. Dan had an idea in mind to make the poster very dark and graphic, as if from a Frank Miller comic strip. I haven't gone down that route, but will develop the rendered occlusion further to achieve different effects.


I was surprised this play on perspective would work, its a completely different method of making a 2D composition using 3D elements to look 2D - if you know what I mean! Here are a couple of screenshots from the Maya scene file:

I think an update for this week has been needed. Lets just say these past seven days have been pretty tough. Some major decisions have been made regarding the story of Splay - and hopefully for the better.

I was brought on board to help Phil develop the story since Alec was now heavily involved with creating the animatic for Polished Off. It's a strange turn of events, as I had no intention of contributing at the storytelling stage this year, but here I am. I'm honoured the team have been willing to let me help them with both films on this scale and I know I have learned so much from doing it.

The simple, yet striking graphic style and the personality of the characters in Splay had me hooked since the initial pitch all those weeks ago. The story was still in development back then, with no fitting conclusion. Splay had become epic in terms of scale and work load, and ultimately, the story just wasn't working - Phil was adding more and more shots to justify everything and make it more understandable for the audience. Dan then stepped in and literally kicked some sense into Phil to go back to Splay's humble beginnings when it was only about interaction and simplicity. It was a bit of a shock to me, as so much time has already been put into the storyboards and the animatic, but immediately I felt some of the pressure ease.

From that point on, Phil and I spent a good number of days in the old BA room, wracking our brains on where to take the story. We tried using elements from the old story and work some of that into the new simple format. Phil explained that originally he wanted to incorporate a lighting system where everything would be lit by spotlights, that moved accordingly with the characters. These would hang from the sky and have their own character in some respect. I really liked this idea - it conjured up so many images in my mind of theatrical lighting on a stage: exaggerated shadows, conveying emotions such as isolation, loneliness etc. We both agreed that we should go with this, since it would really add mood and be visually striking. Dan wasn't particularly sold with the idea, but everyone else liked it.

The use of the spotlights would also allow us artistic license, since we could really experiment with the lighting and not be pinned down by real world lighting. This encouraged us to move on with the story but again were we faced with the problems with making everything too complicated for a 2-3 minute short film. We re-introduced the other Boid characters, and decided to remain with the interaction between Splay and Squ, but finding a suitable ending was again the problem. So we spoke with the legendary Mr.Dalli.

During one lunchtime, Dalli discussed with us our most recent story ideas. Like Dan Edgley, he wasn't a fan of the spotlights but thought there were many elements that worked. To overcome the complexity of the ending, he recommended we simplified the story even more. As if it was fate, we were sitting near a group of school children who had visited the college. We observed their behaviour, and Dalli suggested we focus on Splay as a child amongst others his own age - not fitting in and desperately wanting to be one of the pack.

After our meeting, we had a long discussion with Dan and Alec. They had kindly spent their time to help us with Splay - at times the conversation was quite heated as so many ideas were being thrown up in the air, but they agreed Dalli's advice was the right direction to go in.

The setting had changed to a playground in the middle of nowhere - one simple environment, and now with colour re-introduced. If I am completely honest I despised the idea; the meaning and depth with the characters seemed to be stripped away, and overall, the mood seemed more lighter and prettier. I have nothing against that, but to me Splay didn't fit into that category. I warmed a little more to the idea later in the day, as we began jotting down notes and thumbnailing some shots.

Dalli came to see where we were at, at the end of the day. He liked the new idea we had come up with but after thinking about it realised it didn't knock the emotional punch of the original story. We agreed with him, but stressed that we wanted to make a film that was plausible to make in the remaining months of the course. He felt that opting for the simpler idea would be the easier way out and that we should be determined to get it done the best we can. The playground concept was a nice idea, but that's all it was.

It's taken a while for everyone in the team to be entirely convinced, but I agree with Dalli, we would deeply regret stripping Splay of everything it is. With an ending which is still in development, we're now returning to the more complex story. Phil will now concentrate on creating a new animatic, and I will provide as much help as I can. I have faith we can do this, as long as we knuckle down and just get on with it.

The Kinematograph (2009)

A rather uninspiring trailer for this short animated film, but the visuals are quite something. The painted detail in the environments and even the skin on the characters is incredibly intricate. This adds appeal to the aesthetic, but I think the story will let this down very much.

Had a formative assessment with Gareth Munden today. Considering I had no content to show him, I felt that our chat went well. I now have a much clearer idea of what I'm writing about for this assignment, so it is one less thing off my mind. Amongst helping Phil with story in the afternoon, I loaned out the sound effects hard drive from stores, which was a story in itself. Gareth's signature wasn't valid to allow me to loan it out and neither Dan Dalli or Mike Smith were present that day, so I was literally running back and forth to the Broadcasting department to hunt for a course leader, but thankfully I accomplished my little mission in the end! Over the weekend, I will have a search through the hard drive and start building a library of sound effects for the Polished Off animatic.

I decided to spend a day working at home, as sometimes it can be a bit distracting to work in the college environment. I concentrated on UV mapping the model for Splay, and then generating a texture and applying it to the model. Surprisingly, this took a long time to do, but it certainly wasn't a tedious process; quite the opposite. As for the textures themselves, I painted a couple of backgrounds using oil paints, making sure to apply thick layers of brushstrokes. It was impossible to scan them in because they were far from dry, so took photographs of these as best I could and then made alterations in Adobe Photoshop:


Phil had suggested a while ago that he could visualise a chalky, crumbly texture with possible painted elements for the character textures. A good source of reference for me was a student film called 'Someone', a surreal piece created using CGI. The statue/character is made of rock, but the texture is painted:

Here I have placed a few lights in the Maya scene; its nothing special, but I think textures do add more life to a character. More development is needed, and possibly more experimentation with the look and feel of the textures themselves:

I've added creased and uneven details to the models of Splay and Squ, and today I worked on completing Boid. Phil was pleased with the look, but again, its just so frustrating how long it takes me to work on a simple block! I'm too much of a perfectionist at times...

We were determined to complete the thumbnailing stage today. Over the weekend, we all spent some time at home thinking over the story and trying to come up with ideas to fill in the gaps. This wasn't easy, but I was fairly happy with some of the ideas I had generated. I believed the fast montage sequence we intended to use at the end of Polished Off would be an effective way of getting across the action but when trying to fit this into the rest of the story, it felt slightly out of place and made it extremely difficult to work around it, even though some of the shots we came up were appealing to look at. I thought instead of a fast paced montage, perhaps we could slow everything down, including the tempo of the music - the perspective of Ed who is losing energy and going to die. It sounds cliched, but I thought it could look nice on the screen when Ed is reaching is hand out for Jed.


SO, I went in with those ideas roughly doodled and explained them to Dan and Alec. Dan quite liked the slow, heartbeat ending but suggested the sound could be muffled rather than slowed down, as if hearing it from underwater. Dan and Alec came up with a few good suggestions, but we were almost in the same situation as we were on Friday. So we enlisted the help of Dan Dalli. Dan was an enormous help in pushing the story forward and emphasised that there were too many gags and not enough shots of Ed suffering, which is what should drive the action - as Dan said, he wants to feel his suffering. Bearing this in mind, we have tried to include a couple more shots in the beginning to show Ed's confusion as no air is coming out of his mask and not have him screaming later on as he would have no energy at this point.

Later in the afternoon, I left the team downstairs and joined Phil and Simon upstairs and begun to modify Simon's character models for Splay; adding creases and imperfections to the geometry.

We wanted to continue the rhythm of yesterday and get going with the storyboard, but realised it was just as important to attend Gareth Munden's tutorial. In the afternoon we went back downstairs for another painful story session. When I say painful, I mean that more in a frustrated sense. There are some areas of the story that have been complicated to visualise, bearing in mind the action of the characters and the overall pacing. The character Jed can never acknowledge the patient in the room - this opens many comic possibilities but makes a nightmare out of thumbnailing. You want a particular shot to work, yet often it doesn't and then you have to think around that time and time again.

We desperately wanted the rough storyboard to be completed, but we agreed we would need at least the weekend and one more day next week to work on it. Much of the beginning and ending sequences are completed, but there are a few scenes that we have consistently froze on. Our task over the weekend is to thumbnail ideas for the montage of shots up to the point where the character Ed passes out and dies.

I hope I have made some good contributions so far; creating visual gags has never been my strength, but I've tried my best in giving advice in camera angles and composition. Working with Dan and Alec on this has been a funny, but valuable experience for me. They are such a great dynamic and its been a privilege to tag along for the ride...

Today has been a Polished Off day, as we agree the story needs a lot of work. Dan, Alec and I worked in a different room than usual, to avoid any distractions. Thumbnailing ideas and shots can be a very mind boggling process, as well as a time consuming one, but also rewarding in the end. We have changed only a few shots here and there, but it makes such a difference.

How to create light in an animated world

Simon suggested this tutorial which features in the recent edition of 3D World. Its a great outline on how to create effective lighting setups for animation. Considering this article was written by a lighting artist from Pixar Studios, you can't any advice better than that. This will be incredibly helpful when approaching the lighting stage in full swing:



Thanks again Si for letting me know about this...

Been working on the model of the house in Splay for well over a week now, and its finally completed! I've tried to add as much detail into the model as possible, such as cracks and worn down edges, to make the structure look realistic. Everyone seems to be pleased with the results; I will have to make a few changes, such as add more uneven sides and detail to the entrance, but apart from that its finito...now I can move onto its textures!

While taking a break from modelling the prototype house for Splay, I felt I really wanted to focus on the character of Splay itself. I had all these images in my mind of how this little creature would translate from Phil's 2D drawings into 3D in Maya. I wanted to create a couple of concept images developing the lighting and texture style. I realise these may have been worked on in Adobe Photoshop, but it was fun to experiment with the different textures I had collected, without having to fiddle around tirelessly in Maya to achieve the same effect. That being said, I will move onto that stage as soon as possible. Phil suggested Splay would have a chalky texture to him, but still be organic, not like the stony surface of the buildings.

I have used real chalk textures for Splay, as well as my own painted brush stroke textures for the ground and other elements. I am very happy with these images, but am fully aware that I must start producing results within Maya.

Initial Texturing/Lighting tests

After a bit of a tough day at college, trying to get on with something productive, I decided to get my act together when I got home and generate a few lighting and texturing tests. These are nothing fancy, but the starting steps. I have used a basic marble texture for the ground, then applied a bump map to this, as well as incorporate the painted sky I created the other week as a backdrop. The backdrop was the tricky part, as the lighting had to be tweaked so that it looked as if it was illuminating the scene. Most of these tests are actually quite poor, but it was fun to go back and start fiddling around with light setups again.

Getting the lights into the scene

Adjusting the shadows, darkening the floor

Lightening the floor

Terrible

Softening the shadow and overall brightness

Adding a mid-ground to create perspective/depth

Not much difference

Darkening floor, changing colour of lighting

Adjusting transparency of mid-ground to blend in

Adjusting the colour slightly

Buildings with more definition (no texture as of yet..)

Occlusion render pass added in Photoshop

Inspiration

The Bridge, by ?

I have no idea who painted this image but I immediately was drawn to the colour and the lighting. The painting is rich with golds and browns and full of warmth, and the lighting gives it a subtle dreamlike quality. Phil has warned me to not to tread too closely to the colour palette of Pixar's WALL-E, but this does capture the right mood for Splay, as opposed to harsher tones of grey and brown (yet some desaturation would be needed). This image has prompted me to consider doing some research into impressionist painting when progressing onto lighting for Splay.

Influences: Jojo in the Stars

The final of the Studio AKA short film trilogy: Jojo in the Stars delivers as a heartfelt tale with fantastic visuals.

"In a bleak and desolate world, a small creature seeks out the woman of his dreams: a high-flying circus performer with a cruel and possessive ringmaster".



I wouldn't say the story is as engaging as their previous short films, but Jojo in the Stars still has many endearing qualities. It's slightly difficult to pin point the targeted audience here, as some content is quite dark and atmospheric (this should be my speciality!) but I think children of young ages could sit down and watch this; yet they would have some difficulty in understanding the story. As for the visuals, again unconventional for an animated piece (not bright or colourful), with some similarities to the tenebrous style of Varmints.

As a self-confessed film geek, there were some very nice camera angles, and the overall lighting of the piece was incredible. We should be very careful not to replicate the style of this film for Splay - there are some elements such as the monochromatic tones or the grading which would suit the film but we should aim to create something which is refreshing and not an immediate copy of another film or style.

I like the first few establishing shots - a world drowned in darkness and tormented by dust storms (setting the overall mood perfectly). The camera very slowly tracks forward and then cuts to a closer shot of the building, tracking closer once more and then for a third time to the lit entrance of the building with all these tiny dark creatures entering. The use of ambience and a kettle drum beat with each cut is also effective. Its a collection of a few shots, but opens the film nicely, emphasising just how important establishing shots can be.

More photos of clouds. I like the softness and abstract shapes:

Had what I consider a really unsuccessful week and felt I was just going backwards. That will be the last you hear of that. I'm determined to make next week totally different...

Yesterday may have got to a very good start, but ended on a bit of downer. We would've liked more thumbnails to be completed but at least some major details in the plot were discussed and developed. Today, Alec continued where I left off and helped Dan thumbnail Polished Off downstairs in the old BA room. I moved over to Splay and was given the task of modelling the tall structures that the characters live in. In all fairness, it may only be a cube in shape, but Phil has stressed that he wants imperfections and details in the surface. I did suggest a while back that the buildings could be made of metal, since in one of his original concepts they were almost rendered like that. We thought it was an interesting idea, but after mulling over it again today, it doesn't quite fit into the world of Splay. Phil described everything has having a chalky texture to it; as if you touched any object it would crumble or rub off in that way. This opens up many exciting possibilities where to take the texturing of the environment, but it will also be tricky in finding a balance between style and plausibility.

When I spoke to Dan Edgley yesterday, he was concerned with the direction Polished Off was going and wanted to start thumbnailing out his story as soon as possible. I offered to help him with this, since everyone would be busy with other things. For the first half of the day, the old BA Animation room felt like a creative hothouse as Edgley and I churned out many ideas for Polished Off and made a few important decisions as to where the action should be and when. After lunchtime it was difficult to get back into this process and thankfully Alec came to the rescue. I felt like a massive let down in the afternoon, but overall my performance has slowed down this week. I need to start going to bed at a more reasonable time so I don't feel so tired during the day.

Influences: UP

Since its been the talk of the town at the moment, I felt I had to have my say about Pixar's new release, UP. I saw Up at the cinema with Alec and Dan last Friday and was literally 'blown' away by it.

Up (2009):

"By tying thousands of balloon to his home, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Right after lifting off, however, he learns he isn't alone on his journey, since Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years his junior, has inadvertently become a stowaway on the trip".

Just to irritate the team, I've uploaded all these images, enjoy!








Although having to watch the film on a ridiculously small screen and try to listen through the cackles of adolescent girls in the row in front, this didn't spoil the ride. The opening montage with the characters Carl and Ellie was very touching, and for an animation feature film that seems a rare instance, but that's what made it even more effective. I never found myself bored by the story, which is the case for many live action films I have seen. The film relies heavily on plot and character, with the visuals secondary to this, and its this method which makes Pixar good at what they do. They plunge the audience into the adventure, and make us care about the characters; however unreal their world may be, these are still supposed to be believable for the two hours you are fixed to the cinema screen. And Carl Fredricksen, a grumpy old man is a surprising but fitting choice for a major character in an animation.

As for the visuals, they are second to none. From start to finish, the film is flooded with vibrant light and a rich colour palette, and these are very pleasing to the eye - it would be interesting to see this from a child's perspective. The visual style is breathtaking, and there is so much to absorb in each and every shot, and so one viewing is simply not enough. Some scenes in the movie could almost be photorealistic - this achieved through complex, but subtle lighting and texture. It can be risky for an animation to resemble live action at this scale, but it works.

Pixar's films progress with each new release; Up may not be its best, but its definitely 'up' there among them. Every comment I have made so far has been extremely positive - of course there are flaws since no film is perfect, but these were easy to overlook. This film is a lesson to us all that getting the story to flow is more important that anything - ultimately, we wish for the audience to walk away from our own films and remember them for the right reasons. I realise we will never match the sophistication of Pixar's visuals in our projects (and why should we?) but this should be a big nudge for the team to push the standards as high as we can. So watch this space...