Sound

Just to let you know guys, the sound is sorted for our film. I spoke to a mate of mine who's studied music and now produces beats and he will produce a track to match the speed, timing and effects of our film i.e when the camera spins, jerks, then carrys on he can adapt the music to have a record scratch etc. He's going to look into MTV cribs music to get an idea for song choice etc.

However in order for him to match the music with the film we have to provide him with the film! So just keep in mind we have to render our film (credits, titles and everything) at least 2 days before the hand in date, to give him 2 days to do the sound. So "our" hand in date is like the 9th of december lol.

Sorry just realised thats not true - we can give him a playblast of the final animated piece like a week before hand in i guess? Oh I duno - worry about it later, but music can be ticked lol.

StAiNeD GlAsS DoMe (and fixed stair problem!)

Todays work... Where to start - well I had a good day with maya, which is rare lately! I focused on modelling the dome ceiling this morning. I then tested texturing and lighting the stained glass within it. It contains the face of our massively ego-ed character if your wondering! Im quite pleased with the results of the test. The texture was made simply in photoshop with the mosaique filter effect applied to my layer. I then UV mapped the testure to the the correct position on the dome. Applied a phong shader, adjusted various attributes, such as transparancy, translucence, glow etc. Added a big sunlight light above it, aswell as a subtle orange ambient light to give the effect of the coloured glass taking effect. Basically I just kept tampering with the material and light settings until I was happy. I'm loving it so far, although I feel it needs more work later to get the exact effect I'm after.















I then modelled a few more objects for the room, including, doors, door knobs, plant pots which contained smaller versions of daves palm trees!















Finally I fixed my stairs problem!!!!! After playing about for a tedious amount of time with the duplicate special tool Alex showed me yesterday, I cracked the right settings, and managed to create my spiral staircase in seconds. This is going to be 100 times easier to texture now, as I only have to texture and shape one step, then apply my duplicate settings and it will map and shape every other step the same! I can also enter in a scale resize to make them get smaller as the go up, which is perfect. It also allows an instant smooth wall to be created under the stair case which i was having huge amounts of difficulty with before.
I did a test with textures (not with the actual textures that will be used - but it illustrates my point)....















Shape, perfect and texture one step, railing, and bannister.

Result after duplicate special - a full stair case, textured, shaped, with a surrounding wall encasing it.

Makes the texturing stage alot easier. Thanks Alex!

Stairs driving me mad...

Alex Hulse helpled me today as he was concerned the way i had modelled my stairs would cause me so much agro to texture. Aswell as this I want a bannister, railings, and a surrounding staircase wall which is almost impossible to match up and combine and distort with the stairs.I cannot crack this f****** duplicate special tool he's showed me. It never matches up, no matter how much you tweak the settings or the model! Arghhh. ... Maybe I should stick with the ones I've done.


<- Shite.

Swirls!

Arghhhhhh, there was an easier way of doing a swirl in maya!!!!

http://www.sharecg.com/v/1396/video-tutorial/Extrude-face-using-a-curve-in-Maya?division_id=3

Time Schedule

Ok guy's I looked at the brief today for this project, and the final hand in date is DECEMBER 12TH 4.00PM. Therefore we actually have slightly more time than we thought. We have 5 weeks and 1 day left (to be precise lol). Dave if your reading - me and phil discussed the timing of our project today, and we agreed all modelling should be complete by wed next week. Below I have timetabled how I believe we should plan our weeks....5

th - 7th Nov (Rest of this week) - model, model, and more models! Foyer, swimming pool area, and Mansion are crucial.

10th - 12th Nov - model up till wednesday, really by then we should have completed the 3 areas to a good standard along with the character

13th-14th Nov - Begin texturing

17th - 21rd Nov - Texturing (dave begin rigging at same time)

24th Nov - finish up texturing on this monday

25th - 28th Nov - lighting and begin key framing1st 5th Dec - Animation (character, our MTV cameras need animating etc) - Dave - you have no character animation in your scene, so simply animating camera movements, and then you can begin rendering early.

8th - 12th Dec - Rendering, compositing, titles, sound etc.

If we stick to this, or even better, try and beat these deadlines, we should be fine. Let me know what you think, but it seems like a plan to me as it leaves us a whole week to render, premiere, etc. Plus this plan doesn't include weekends, which can be used for concepting, dave in your case i think you have maya at home so you can also use weekends.

Stairs....

The foyer so far, stairs n all .....

The Fun Bit...

A funny painting I quickly produced in photoshop today of our Pony.These are the sort of pics that will be dotted around the foyer in huge gold picture frames. This one is a spoof of scarface if you didn't know....:D














Mona Lisa next?

Statue Prototype

Ok, today I got carried away with trying to create the main statue for my foyer. It was slightly rushed, and turned out pretty pants to be honest. I'm satisfied with the head, as I have modelled it so it looks as if the mouth and eyes have been carved out of the stone. the afro was a simple circle - easy enough, and looked ok. But..... the arm is a disgrace. i tried going for the simple circular muscles, and swirly fist. I am not happy with it at all, and got frustrated with it so ended up leaving it - 1 arm short, and legless lol. Anyway guys, feel free to comment because this is one of the most important objects in our environment, so it must be right!! It needs alot of development. I may even re design the whole thing. back to the drawing board...















Oh Btw - the head is good enough to be used as the doorknobs around our house.

CrAzY FlOoR DeVeLoPmEnT...

Today I remodelled the crazy paving floor for my foyer. I had originally attempted extruding all the faces at once of a cflat circle, however this caused many problems including individually repositioning and shaping each slab, matching the gaps, angling etc. Controlling 50 odd slabs at once is not recommended!
So I tried out modelling just one paving stone (low poly) to how I wanted - slightly curved, thick, rounded edges, simple. Then I duplicated it, scaled it down a bit, positioned the copied slab next to the previous, and repeated this until I had a whole row of paving. I then ombined the row to make it one object, and then duplicated the row. Again repostioned, duplicated, repostioned etc. until i had half the full circle of the room, combined the whole half, duplicated and wahey I had a whole full circle of slabs.....














I really like it, its exactly the funky simple childish look i am after. I'm not going to spend any more time on the floor now. (phew!)

Designing the Statue

Designing the main Foyer statue...

Atlas Holding The World











Others















I have decided that the joke at the end of my foyer scene will be part of the main statue breaking off and falling on Pony when he is posing/flexing his muscles. For this to happen the statue needs to be holding something really, and what better to boost his ego than for him to be holding the world! This is fact was my original idea for the statue before the foot on severed bear head idea. The world will just roll out of the statues hand and squish him like a pancake on camera. The camera will fumble and cut to pool scene.
i still want to include a severed bear head somewhere in the room though! Maybe a few animal heads on the wall, moose, bear etc.
I will design the statue tonight, ready to model this week. Above are some different ways Pony could be holding the world. I will pick one which enables the world to easily break off/roll off. I am going to make his muscles 100% exagerated, so it should be fun....

Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends

Don't know if you guys have seen this Cartoon Network kids program but when I saw Phils concept for the front of the mansion it made me think of it straight away. Check out the mansion design style, its very similar to what we're going for (maybe slightly more jagged than curvy and very purple!). I'm going to definitely use it as a reference for the foyer. Check the links..

Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends















http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/fosters/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqoSZNIdKjs

Formative Assessment

Today we had formative assessment with Jared and we discussed how well each member of our group has been performing aswell as our overall team work. All 3 of us had no problems with one another and agreed that we are all functioning well as a team. We all have kept our blogs updated regularly and use them as a form of communication with each other.
We complimented each others strengths, and more importantly the positives they have brought to the project so far. I was told I have contributed alot with my 2D concept work, character development, aswell as depicting a strong style for our film. To improve I must start devloping and researching my environment rather than spend anymore time on the character (which is done now!). As well as this I must reflect more on my work, rather than just post it up for the guys to comment on. Above all else - get cracking with maya! I also learnt that Jared would appreciate me speaking up in class more, so I will do so from now on :D.
In summary Jared was very happy with our progress so far with the project!

CrAzY PaViNg FlOoR?

This was just a really quick post to ask you guys what you think about the floor of the foyer. I think crazy paving of some sort would be really stylish and simple. I included it in my 1st concept of the room if you remember? Anyhow, I started attempting it in maya, and realised I could just extrude the faces of the circular floor base, shape them, round them, etc. etc. Eithert that or model a single paving slab, make it funky and curved, and then dupe it up to create the floor? I could just alter the size and shape of each one slightly and then arrange them from the tuop view in maya? This may be easier than extruding and shaping each face? What you think?

CrAzY PiLLaR?

Hey guys, today I modelled the columns that will be everywhere in our mansion. Need touching up and maybe a slightly higher smooth, but other than that quite happy. Dave if you like, then we can use them for the front steps area? I'll just give you them on mon. What you think?

Final Character Concept

Simple, stylish and rich in colour. Here's our guy....















The guys agreed with me on the final design for our character, so I quickly conjured him up in photoshop this morning to give us an idea of how he would look in full colour. Im really pleased with him, as firstly he will be so simple to model, aswell as animate. I already know how I'm going to create the blendshapes for his mouth. He will only have about 4 or 5 different expressions, all of which will be simple rotates and scales of his mouth and eyes. Now we have his design we can include his face in decor around the rooms. It's all coming together.......

Remember this?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R6K6pXqkWY

Zafira Meriva UK 40'!

FOUND IT!

Style Guide

The group had a meeting with Jared earlier this week to discuss our progress so far. Jared helped us define the style our designs seem to be steering towards which is a combination of a 60's villa, a looney tune structure, and a tikki lounge! We have all designed our rooms full of curves, rounded edges, swirls, bending architecture, and bright colours. Below are some useful references to the style we have adopted....

60's Villa - resc

We want to capture the feeling of a luxury built villa, with its balcony's, fountains, pillars, arches, terracotta tiled roof, palm tree surroundings, blue sky etc. I also love the colours they are painted - simple pale pinks, oranges, creams or even just plain white are common villa pallets.


Looney Tunes

Jared picked up on the fact that my original foyer concepts contained traces of looney tune designs. Upon watching a few episodes (1 in particular in which daffy is relaxing in a villa pool) I realised the painted backdrops do have a resemblance to the sort of style we are after. They use bright block colours with simple gradient changes for shadow and depth. The buildings are usually distorted and are made up of jagged edges and bends. Swirls also feature alot in the decor and furniture. I really want to achieve this wacky look within our mansion.

Tikki Lounge

This is another style our designs reminded Jared of - Tikki Lounges. This is more of an inspiration for Phil, as he is designing the Swimming Pool area. The style fits in perfectly with the rest of the mansion because it has alot in common with our other style influences. It uses bright colours, chunky structures, wacky faces embedded into pillars, bendy architecture made from planks of wood and bamboo, aswell as swirls and wavy designs. I would love for our pool area to have a tikki feel. If nothing can be taken from this, then at least have tikki palm trees around the mansion!

De Blob

De Blob has always been our main style influence from the very beginning of this project. We love the simplicity of the environments, the rich colours, the wacky curved architecture, and the fun child like aesthetics. We also love the simple characters that inhabit the world - the blobs if you will. They too have been designed in the same minimilistic colourful style to match the environment.

Scarface


Need I say more?









So there you have it, the 5 main influences for the design of our mansion. I hope we can mix and match these design styles to create our very own stylish wacky mansion!

Character Development

Right guys today i attempted merging the 2 character concepts we liked best from my original designs. I have numbered them 1-6, so let me know what your favourite is in the comments bit. My personal favourite is number 5. I love the rounded triangular shaped body with the afro and a huge mouth. We have to just choose one now so we can get our rooms and so he can be simply modelled this week. I also feel its important we decide on a final design now as it will influence alot of my decor in the foyer e.g the stature, handle knobs, paintings, etc. We can all start encorporating his face and afro into the ornaments and designs of our room. Scanners busted so I used photographs but it does the job, post feedback pleaseeeeee ........

Balcony Prototype

This was my first taste of modelling for the project. I attempted to create the balcony stone railings for our foyer. I used reference from the internet, which was a picture I found of a Roman style balcony. I'm really happy with them, all I think they need is a slight bend to add to the curvature and wackyness of them. I will attach a bend deformer to it tomorrow. Comment guys...




Reference Pic Prototype Model

1st Storyboard Draft

As promised, my section of the storyboard done over the weekend. It is only 3/4 of my foyer scene however as I am still not sure how to end the room on a joke. It is not important at the moment, however if an idea comes to me on how to cut to the next room I will draw up the last few frames of the board. I tried timing it out, although it is almost impossible to guess how long the camera pans and tracks are going to take, but i worked it out to be about 25 secs up to the last frame I have drawn. This is too long however as the end joke still needs to go in. Let me know your thoughts on my camera movements guys, as it is undoubtedly going to change over time.

Weekend Tasks

Me - Refine Character, My section of storyboard
Phil - Develop mansion exterior, your section of storyboard
Dave - Design Weights room, your section of storyboard

As agreed we will all come in on Monday, wack our boards together and then hopefully have a full storyboard, timed out and everything.

Character Concepts

Today I drafted some rough character designs for our character - Pony Fontana. I'm still not sure that name works but it will do for now! I was mainly influenced by the designer toys (I am Plastic) and De Blob, with a bit of Looney tunes thrown in. I kept them:

- Simple, colourful, rounded, groovy
- Blinged out/Rich
- Non human
- Big ego (big head!)
- Small
- Child-like
- Flamboient/Ostentatious
- Simple to model (as we are only getting marked on our environment)

Let us know what you think guys:

Changes

Today the group had another meeting and discussed a screenplay Dave had put together. We had to make quite a few changes to the original draft as it was firstly too long, secondly contained too much animation, and thirdly was too much to model. We cut the bathroom scene, saving us having to model another room just for a toilet gag. We cut the cadillac outside, as again more modelling. We cut our plans for the guy running from room to room, down corridors etc. as it was again too much animation and time we didn't have. We decided to go back to our original funny idea, which was to have our fast MTV camera work in the 3 most important rooms (foyer, weights room, and swimming pool) followed by an embarassing pose/action by Pony at the end of each shot. The camera will be spiraling, zooming in on ornaments, panning, tracking across walls etc. and then always ending up zooming out of a spot in the room to reveal the whole room. During the zoom out the camera will always spot Pony, who has appeared pulling a funny embarassing pose - camera will then swing to blur focus/zoom on him and fumble downwards to cut to the next room! This continuous joke of him trying to grab attention at the end of each room will be much funnier and requires less animation. Also our establishing shot of the mansion on the hill above the Jollygood sign has been less prioritised until the 3 rooms and information screen has been completed.

Btw I liked Jared's idea for the information screen guy's, it pans up front of house, 54 bedrooms, 28 bathrooms, etc etc. and then 1 twat! lol what do you think? I'm going to include it in my opening section of my storyboard, as it leads on to my foyer scene.

Dave - post the new screen play mate....

Foyer Concepts

This was my first sketch of how I invisage the Foyer for our mansion. My main inspiration for the layout of the room was taken from scarface - with the 2 huge stairwells either side.
However I have kept it simple, stylish, and cartoony/looney tunes, and added a touch of a 60's villa. It needs to be properly developed, and I will individually draw the different parts of the room at a later stage. The character is still to be developed, and will have an effect on the final design of the statue of course.

Let me know what you think on the comments guys....

Home Sweet Home

Back from Barcelona, which was so much more inspirational and relevent to our project than I had first thought. I took hundreds of photographs and did a number of good drawings for reference while out there. I have listed below the main areas of intrest I took back from the trip:

The Montserrat Mountains
This was by far the most valuable location I visited, as it had significant relevence to our project. Our MTV Cribs Mansion is to be set in on top of a wacky version of Hollywood hills (Jollygood). Well I couldn't have asked for a better real life resource than Montserrat, as it was built up of gigantic rounded funky rocks. There were even a number of mansion like buildings over hanging these cliffs, which was another bonus! The view from the top was unbelievable, with green bumpy mountains and valleys almost as far as the eye could see. The Jollygood sign belonged here! The location was perfect for the style we are after as a group, and I wasted no time in taking some snaps, and making a few sketches:

























Casa Mila La Pedrera
We visited this Gaudi architecture on the last day, and even though it was a bit of a walk I am really glad I went. Although I found the interior of the house a bit boring, such as the attic, walking out on the terrace was a different story. It was like walking on mars, because it was made up of unusual spiraled turrets, curved bridges, funky archways, and lots of geometric shapes, all carved out of orange stone. It was a bit much to take in all at once, especially because it was overlooking the whole of barcelona! It felt like an something from the sahra desert mixed with a bit of an aliens villa?! Nevertheless I sat up there for ages with my skecthbook out, with the sun shining above in a clear a blue sky. Again the location had excellent relevence to our environment project, as its simple geometric shapes and curves will match that of our wacky mansion.














The blue sky contrasted against the crazy orange landscape



Life Drawing
Aswell as capturing some of Barcelona's best architecture in my sketchbook, I also wanted to practice my life drawing skills. I drew various locals bustling through the market on the first day aswell as a few classmates drawing on the train ;) ...

Delegating Jobs

Today DDP Productions met up for a final meeting before I set off to Barca. We focused on setting jobs within the group. We also divided our mansion up into 5 main areas - Exterior of Mansion + Jollygood sign, Foyer, Bathroom, Weights room, and Swimming pool.

Myself - Character Design, Foyer Design


Phil - Mansion Exterior Design, Swimming Pool


Dave - Weights/Gym Design, Bathroom


All - Research

As I will be in Barcelona for the next 4 days I am going to focus on finding inspiration out there. I already know Gaudi has designed some funky/geometric shaped buildings so hopefully I can return with some solid drawings and photo's to help us define our style.

The Idea?

DDP Productions has been formed and consists of myself, Phil, and Dave. We had our first meeting as a group earlier this week and came up with a pretty solid idea for where we want to take this project. We all agreed a comedy was in order, and we loved the idea of an environment which interacts with a character, rather than the other way round. This idea then escalated into a house which moved, transformed, and even shape shifted to guide a blind character through it.
We had loads of inspirations and sources of reference for an idea like this, such as Monster House, Mr Magoo, Car Adverts, Foster Adverts, Elephants Dream, etc etc. All of which encorporated an environment which affected the character in it.

However - after a weekends thought and hundreds of possible ways for a house to move spinning in my head! We met up again and agreed the idea was too complex, and was slowly turning into a feature animated film!

We went back to the drawing board and reviewed our original brainstorms. I pitched an idea to the guys which I thought of a while back, which was to create an MTV Cribs style episode. However to maintain our comedy aspect by making it a wacky spoof. This idea then spiraled into being a mansion set in the town of Jollygood rather than Hollywood, with a funny rich character showing off his wealth in a rather embarassing way! This Cribs style camera work gives us the oppurtunity to show off our environment but with a narrative twist rather than just the bog standard fly through. A common occurance is the desire for our environment to be fictional/ colourful/wacky/stylized and simplistic rather than a realistic detailed recreation of a location. Designs from Viva Pinata, De Blob, and AKA Studio's are exactly the look we want to encorporate into our mansion and character. Bring on the research.....