Animatic progression

My main job was to animate our 4 eggs as well as set up the camera, and editing the previsuals together (bar music, Caitlin was in charge of adding the sound after I edited). This was constantly updated for our regular meetings with Niall and for presentation for Alec/ The Class.

For the first animatic I tried to follow the storyboard and 2D animatic closely while positioning the camera in appropriate places. Feedback was that the animation was at a good start for the eggs (at this stage the monster still had far to go), but many of the camera shots where a bit off such as when the eggs bounce off the bridge as it was at a strange angle. Another is when we have the POV from the monsters view, that it would be better to have the camera zoom into the eggs as the focus point of the frame is too small. Another thing notes was that there wasn’t a long enough build up of the monster, that we just show it, and instead we need to ease the audience into a reveal to add to the fear factor of this monster. Another point was that the introduction shot needed change, that it didn’t add anything to the story or magic, and just seemed like we where showing off our set.

For our second animatic the changes above where implemented along with many environmental changes. Already a strong improvement could be seen. The first introduction shot was changed to it moving down river, which was liked but the movement was too much and too fast, it needed slowed as well as to come from a different direction to give more of a revel of the environment. The shot of the eggs bouncing off the bridge worked far better, as well as the build up of the monster with the zoom in to the eggs – the shadow of the monster coming over – to the tilt. The monster still needed rigged as well as refining the eggs animation more including the environment.

Changed where made and the eggs began to be refined, though I still needed to add more weight to their jumps so they seemed less floaty. I was told to just make sure when refining this more to make sure the eggs personalities did show. The introduction shot still needed slowed down a lot even though it was now coming from a better direction. The main area of focus was now refining the monster and his movement – in how he looks down at the eggs in the tilt – how he slams down on the ground – having him grab the eggs and actually chew on them. There was also suggestion of making the vomit 2D instead of particles (which although had yet to be done was in discussion).

These changes again where made and everything was refined and more fine tuned from the animation to the set to the camera angles. Niall was happy with this version of it said there was little else feedback he could give as we had changed all that he wished really.

However after going through it after Phillip and I wanted to make the most of some of the monster animation, mostly in the vomit shot. We felt this was too static, that when you are sick you don’t just stand that. So since he had animated him being propelled forward, we decided to lower the camera angle slightly, making both the shot and animation a tad more realistic. (This version has the sound in it, although all of them did when creating it which was altered throughout to match the animation changes due to timing).

A minor change that was made after as well as one of the egg movements. Alec suggested having the egg bounce away instead of sliding. This change was made and everyone agreed it looked better for it.

Modeling Eggs

Jonny modeled and uv mapped an egg base for all of us to work off. This was used both for the egg models and the environmental aspects. Caitlín being strong in her graphical design was put in charge of created patterns for the eggs. These where the initial ones created which we liked but we wanted a more uniform pattern for our eggs.

She went on to create these patterns which we really likes but felt could be bigger, bolder, and more pastel coloured.

She experimented in created these very bold patterns with stronger colours. Again these looked great but we worried they could contrast to the environment.

She them went on to create more muted ones, which we liked the patterns on but wanted to alter to colour to be more varied pastel colours rather than just blue and pink.

This she went on to do and created this. We really liked this and felt they where appropriate for our scene. However when we met up with Niall he felt they needed to be bigger and have a stronger colour to show more personality.

Going from what Niall said as well as trying to keep in the colour scheme Caitlín went on to create these patterns which we really liked as they worked well within our scene.

Below are the final egg designs, going through each on, the colour connations and how they effect the personality of the egg.

For the environment, Caitlín created yet more designs which will be placed about in the scenery in bushes and vines which varied in styles and colours yet keep with our style.

 

Egg Concepts

For the likes of the Eggs I had already began to sketch what possible ways to go about it, whether they would be patterned or have some texture to it or be a relatable object. For research I looked at a range of things including:

• Method Studios 2016 AICP Sponsor Reel (Shows a range of styles applied on to the one form, in this case a body. We could apply the same to our eggs)
• Raving Rabbids (Same character design, different costumes to distinguish between them)
• Lilo and Stitch (Range of “Cousins” which all look similar but have their own character)
• NeoPets (An online game I played when younger, has these characters, each you could colour differently)
• Angry Birds (Again, similar designs but different colours for each)
• Jack Dust Skull Series (Jonny showed these to me and we really liked how they where made to look like different objects but all based on the same form)

Based off this research and my initial drawings, I created these egg concepts of what they could be, seeing how experimental or tame we would be with them.

Jonny and Caitlín also looked at eggs, but more so the patterns that could be put on them as well as what experimentation could be done with them, whether the patterns are moving or something is moving inside the egg. Themes wise they looked at the likes of nature and what patterns are scene within it. Caitlín also painted on actual eggs to get a sense of scale and see how metallic and pastel colours work together as well as how they react to light, which will help up when it comes texturing and lighting.

 

Initial Research on Visuals and Ideas

As I have said in a previous post, our team is quick experimental in both simulation and graphic nature. This reflects in our research as we wanted to explore ways to incorporating this into our piece.

For Caitlín, Jonny and myself our first port of call was pinterest, below are these boards full up to date which we can scroll through to see the range of idea we looked at which include different idents, motion graphics, colours, patterns, themes of spring, themes of easter, props and so on.

(Below are our favorite pieces from our research including Method Studios dance piece and HBOs Ident)

From this we decided that we needed to combine what we where thinking with technically with the brief more. We looked at the main symbol of easter such as the rabbit, but felt it too cliche. Then we looked at the egg and though how we could play about with form, shape, colour and texture within and around an egg shape (similar to the different forms of the dancing body seen above). We began to explore different designs for these eggs, how they could transition between one another, how they could be placed in a white room but the room could reflect the eggs design and so on. Below is my sketchbook and inital ideas looking at these and then the egg form, how easter themes/ every day objects/ textures/ spring themes / simulation, etc could be incorporated:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I began to experiment with this within Maya as well to test out if it was possible to achieve much of this. I began with the simulation one, trying to replicate a lava lamp. However due to the shape I couldn’t get the stead rise and fall of the particles, instead it just fired them up and this would have needed much work to be usable.

Again, I attempted to model a very quick dragon egg, which is quite simple (too simple, it is rubbish really but shows the idea more) and needed much more work (realistically, I would have restarted and extruded the scales from the egg rather than trying to form then place the scales on top of it), however it was fun to play about with 3D texturing on the eggs, as well as testing out the pastel colours which might be appropriate to use considering it is Easter themed. I felt this could work within our project if developed.

However when we first met up with Niall from Double Jump Studios, he said although we had researched a lot and had plenty of ideas, we where thinking too technically about our project. We hadn’t considered the use of characters or narrative, so this I will explain and show how we explored changing in the next few blog posts.