Zoo Day

I decided to grab a bunch of guys from uni and go to the zoo, as I am on the animation section of this project, I wanted to study small mammals movements for ideas, even though my bad animation skills wont be able to do it, it was a good day out! Bonbon was also inspired by the red panda which can be seen in the images below.

Blog Issues

Blog wasn't working in any browser, but friends who had this problem were saying that changing the template layout fixes this, but for me it didn't, i have the best luck pre hand it! Luckily had everything backed up in word and only took a few hours to re up the whole thing. Anyone know any other fix for this if I have future difficulty?

Anyone who was following this blog before, I deleted but it let me use the same url so feel free to keep following me and thanks for the page views!

Assets

"Sunfruit"

"Suntree"

Extra 3d assets I have created and finalised to go into my animation. Fruit is done with transparency in Zbrush while rendering, and matched the visual style of both to my characters.

Animation

The last 2 weeks I've been working on piecing my animations together so I haven't really needed to blog progress so much as it's been a slow learning curve, here is my first scene and the only one I will put up because they will all follow suite. Pretty happy with it, hope fully all will go well as i progress.

Grandpa Character Strip

Character Sheet

Quick Model Sheet for BonBon

Character Sheet

Character/Expression sheet to accompany character.

Zbrush Rigging

I managed to rig a premade mesh, by transpose mastering it, (Tposemesh) and applying Zpheres to make a bone structure and binding the mesh to the rig. That allowed me to control the body as if it was rigged in say Maya. This was great and I have managed so far to get a mix of poses in little amounts of time. My previous characters will be rerendered and updated as I go into after effects so I can showcase them better!

Scenes

Ok because my time is limited and I have difficulty with environments, I have decided to use stock photos and edit them to compose my scenery in my animation/narrative. I'll be posting images used and links so I don't breach any copyrights/claim photos to be my own.

http://achangeinthewind.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c7b3653ef0120a5af63b0970c-800wi

http://wallpapers.free-review.net/42_~_Forest_-_Olympic_National_Washington.htm

http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/stockart/nature/#/dm8go8

http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/stockart/nature/#/d3gge92

http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/moray/1_2/1_2_4l.JPG

http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/stockart/nature/?order=9&offset=24#/d22jzgu

http://wallpapers.highresolutionwallpaper.net/High-resolution-enchanted-forest-wallpaper.jpg

http://wikinary.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/magical-forest.jpg

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_300/1218854057tqsZDO.jpg

http://www.petanim.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/a13.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01644/p_Dwell-bed_1644581i.jpg

http://www.stonetohome.com/media/gbu0/prodsm/Yorkstone%20Rockery.jpg

Introducing Grandpa

Character 2 and BonBon's Grandpa. Modeled a walking stick to go with him, very happy with him as it is exactly has i'd imagined him as I modeled him. Just modeled over Bonbon's base mesh to save some time, but custom recolored everything and added in extra sub tools for facial hair types. Now to rig these so I can get poses into After Effects.

(Image here updated 23/2/12 because it showcases the character better.)

Introducing BonBon!

Happy with the colours and look I finished on, also added in the magical fruit he will be looking for in the project, added in a nice transparent BPR pass render on the fruit to expose the magical core which looks great.

Second character model ever done, not as complex as my first but the timescale for this project isn't as big and last project I only had to model a character!

(Image here updated 23/2/12 because it showcases the character better.)

Update.

Busy week! Developed 2 characters, because the story changed and it needed it!

Now have a jotted down story flow diagram in my sketch book that basically allows me to have an idea of where the story is going to head when I take my 3d renders into after effects, so the next 4 weeks I have on this will be spent refining everything I do, concepting some environments and modelling other assets to go into my finished narrative.

BonBon

Good news, over the last two days, finally conceptualized a character, colours will be changed but I am very happy with how he has developed. Now to poly paint him up and play around with expressions, need to look into rigging him properly in Zbrush so I can easily pose him for my animations!

Cont. Development

Continued development, having a slow week, will update as I get more progression, good news that I can continue this project, good because I was far behind and now I don't have to rush this project!

Idea Sheet

I like to start ideas I want to carry on with a quick ideas sheet, just for colors and looks that I may want to play with, here are things I have decided to look at, these are the best of what I have looked at, that directly have had an influence on my idea generation.

Kirby

I took some interest in Kirby as I explored ideas for my character to develop into. Playing the games, I used to love how much expression was achieved out of Nintendo's lovable... whatever he is. I will be experimenting with expression as I develop my own character, but i definitely want to try and gain the same sense of likeability out of my own character.

Character Dev.

Finally making some progression with my character, happier with the shape and form now, just have to map outcome ideas for how I want him to look in the final stages but so far happy with the direction I'm taking.

Ideas Tap

I finally decided on a story, the main character came while breaking down the previous sculpts and taking into consideration character design in fairy tales, which my narrative now more closely represents. The story is about a character who goes into a magical forest to discover a magical fruit that can grant wishes. Simple plot line and gives me greater freedom on character ideas, where I want to take a more cutesy approach.

I'm also happy with the shape this character is taking and feel my ideas 

Character Development

Still no luck in how I want the game's character to look.

I have however managed to think of a new narrative I would prefer to work around.

I have decided to take some inspiration from dragon's lair, where my hero will be starting at point a to reach point b, and face obsitcle in my way, I have to be aware of time constraints because I'm running 2 weeks behind as it is, but I'm confident I can get something done in this last week before the next project is set.

Snags

Due to a creativity breakdown, I have decided to look to a new direction for my game.

I think I'm going to play around in Zbrush till I find a character design I like a go from there.

Dragon's Lair

Released in 1983, most games released at the time used "sprites", but this would limit game artists to how much detail they could achieve in their games. Dragon's Lair was a laser disc video game comprised of prerecorded animations, this would allow for a much greater design limit, but the downside, it limited the game play drastically. 

Dragon's lair played out like a cartoon where the player could select choices based on the narrative's path.

Never the less, the recent Appstore re-release reignited the gaming classic to many people, old and new.

The idea for my game is for it to play out in similar fashion while I will render videos with multiple path options. This game has been very inspiring to my own work and I view it as a keystone in gaming history.

Sculpt Starts

After building the character up out of Zspheres I came up with a basic shape I'm happy with for my main character sculpt.

Bordeaux

After creating a few different silhouettes, nothing I like came out of a whole afternoon, major creativity block, managed to salvage this out of what I would be happy to use, a decent starting point for modelling, I can try some iteration in 3d art as I go sketching some stuff out in Zbrush's dynamesh.

Wile E Cyote & Roadrunner

I have been looking for dynamics in a relationship for my narrative, and have always liked the way Warner Brothers animated Wile e and roadrunner, and the dynamics in a relationship, in a narrative with no text. 

Although no text is used in the cartoon, the viewer still ends up being engrossed in this fantasy world.

Definitely something I can draw from when creating my own narrative.

Interactive Narrative

This terms project is to create an interactive narrative. After looking into programs that I want to work with, I've decided to design characters in 3d and render them out and animate them in a 2d cartoony play along game, in the same vain as Dragon's Lair.

During the Christmas break, I decided on a narrative.

My narrative will be based around a chef entering a competition, to bake a cake for the king and win a prize to be known as the best cook in the land. While he tries to deliver this cake, his rival will try and stop him in each scene in a Wile e Cyote style fashion.

I'm sure this idea will change as I research and progress ideas.