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