Week 14: Finished Film

I should've added this when the film was done, but never got to it. A link to the finished film "Space Candy" on Vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/23101999

Week 13: Space Candy

The film is complete, finally. Although I was pretty much done last week, there were some finishing touches that I knew needed work. It was basically just some sound editing, credits and fixes in combustion. But the film looks pretty good I think. It's sure to bring some laughs at the screening at the animation screening. The style is really cartoony and I'm glad at how it came out. It feels fun and enjoyable. There are some problems I did run into while rendering, but it's something I didn't notice until all the renders were complete and put together. To fix it would take too much time and it's barely noticeable. Because I used toon shaders, whenever there's an extreme camera motion, and the shot is split but from the same camera, the background color will change shade of green. It's not too noticeable, but it could've been avoidable. I just simply didn't expect it to happen because I didn't account for any weird problems to occur.
The film works well though.

Week 12: Finishing Touches

99% of the animation is complete. All that's left are some lip syncing and I've gotta fix some keys in the cop's dance sequence. Most of the final shots are rendered out in production quality and they look pretty good. All that's left is the sound editing. For the sounds, all I've really got left is to fix the timing on various parts as I've got most of the sounds already, except for the cop siren and radio, and I need new laughter.

Once the final shots are rendered out, I have to throw some of them in Combustion and play with some particle effects with cartoon smoke. I've already got one shot in Combustion and rendered out from there. I've never used Combustion before, so it was weird I guess. I also need to take one of the shots in After Effects and add a flashing light effect for the cop lights. Other than that, the film is pretty much done.

Week 11: Finessing

I finished all the rough animation for the entire film. All I have to do is finesse some areas and animate a dance sequence for the cop. I want the dance sequence so the cop can be in his own little dream world when he eats the candy and the background should be a color changing tie dye image. I was told this could be done by rendering PNG images for the sequence, bringing the images in After Effects and playing with the images in there.

Other than completing a dance scene, the film needs finished lip syncing, some added deformers, finished animations in specific areas, some camera changes, light effects for the cop car, and the smoke coming from the characters coughing, and also from the cop car peeling off. The smoke effects should be able to be done in combustion on completed renders. The rest of the tweaking is in the sound editing which is just fixing sound placement and maybe finding better sounds then the ones currently there.

Week 10: Animation

Everything is set up, and I've begun animating. I'll start with the most complex scene which involves a walk cycle with the cop character, some walking from the stick, candy eating, a quick dance sequence, opening and closing doors, lip syncing, smoke combustion, and some other movement. Once this scene is completed, I should be able to breeze through the rest of the animations with are a little limited as the characters are in their vehicles and have general arm movements with some minor head turns and eye blinking. I really think I'll be able to get all the animation done in the next week. Then I'll do editing in Premiere, with sound, music and that's about it. I don't really need any lighting, since the backgrounds are toon shaded, and so are the building.

I plan on working a lot over the next few days getting that one scene completed, but overall, I think the film will turn out decent. Some of the animation will be rough, but some will also look pretty decent, I hope.

Week 9: Festivals

These are the ten film festivals I might be interested in.
1. Brooklyn Film Festival: Deadline is March 31st, 2011
2. Buffalo Internation Film Festival: Deadline is N/A
3. Ottawa International Animation Festival: Deadline is May 20th, 2011
4. Siggraph: Deadline is April 15th, 2011
5. Chicago International Children's Film Festival: Deadline is May 31st, 2011
6. Sundance Film Festival: Deadline is September 2nd, 2011
7. The Animation Show: Deadline is TBA
8. Toronto Internation Film Festival: Deadline is TBA
9. NY International Children's Film Festival: Deadline is TBA
10. 2D or not 2D: Deadline is N/A

Week 8: Start of Animation

I finished the rigs for the characters but I have to fix the proportions for two of them so they fit with the cop. I could just fix the cop's proportions, but his rig is complex and it'll be easier to do the stick and the skateboard. I'll bring the cop into the town just to get an idea of how the scaling of the town should be. After that, I'll start animating the motion paths of the two vehicles. Once the motions are done, I'll bring in the characters and start animating their actions. I'll probably do the simpler animations first, which is when the stick and skateboard are in their car doing their little motions with the glovebox, the candy eating and their little hand/eye motions. That should be simple. After that, I'll work on the primary scene, which includes some walk cycles, various parent constraints with the candy box and particle effects with smoke from caughing and car speeding off. Another sequence I want to add is a dance sequence with the cop. That'll be somewhat simple and may even be animated in a seperate file just for the black background. Here's some pics of the rigs.

Week 7: Still Rigging/...Lighting.

I plan on finishing rigging this week. The stick is fully rigged with weights painted on most areas. The paints need to be cleaned up in some areas though. The cop character is nearly complete. I need to finish the ribbon arms and then his spine will be a spline IK and his head controllers should be simple. The skateboard will be tough, but his overall movement will be simple. He's rolling on his leg wheels, so I won't need to do anything crazy with them as far as attributes goes. His axels will stretch out, but I've gotten used to stretchy IK and that should be simple. His spine could be an FK spine since it won't be bending too much. His axel arms will also stretch, and I might add a ribbon to the stretch on them. I won't do the FK/IK switch on that as it was complex and I just don't want to do it again.

The town is pretty much done. I just need to add lights to streetlights, and the vehicles. And maybe some lights to some signs to give them a neon sign feel. Otherwise, I should be animating over break for the final vehicle movement. I'll probably build a path for them, and use a tanget/geometry constraint on them, just to give it a better feel. Right now, I have some rough vehicle movement set up. But it's only in one direction, and the vehicles do turn at some point in the film, so I'll have to fix that.

Week 6: Continued Rigging

So far the Stick character is practically fully rigged. I've yet to add some deformers to him, but they may some later additions, as I'd like to concentrate on finishing the rigging for the other characters. For the cop, he's almost done rigging. I just need to finish his right arm, and then add ribbons to both the arms. I also have an IK/FK switch for the arms. After doing the ribbons for the legs, I've gotten used to the process, so it shouldn't take too long to repeat that process on the arms. Same goes for the Stretchy IK I added to the cop's legs, after doing that twice, I feel safe to do it on the his arms. The rest of his body should be simple (head, neck, eyes). I've built the skeleton for the skateboard and I think I'll just do stretchy IK for his leg wheels, and then I think I might do a ribbon for his arms wheels with the stretchy IK as well. I hope to complete those within the next few days and jump into the animation.

Here's a screen-shot of my cop's leg ribbon. He's not binded by the way.

Week 5: Rigging

I've starting the rigging process of the film. The stick will be first as he will be the easiest character to rig. I've already got the skeleton set up, and am now beginning to create controllers for him, and so far have the reverse foot set up. The cop's skeleton is binded and the painting process will be awkward considering the cop's geometric shape, since I want a limited influence going from his hips to his actual body. So really, the legs and arms should have no influence on the cop character at all. The body should be simple if I follow the joints per edge loop on the spine. He should be a wiggly character and I think I want him to have a dance somewhat like this.

 I think the way Jake dances here is hilarious and when the cop eats the candy in the film, I want the background to fade to black, so that the cop is the only character seen, then he'll start dancing in a way like this, and the background will have various colors going on. I think the background color change can be done in Maya, and if not, it could be done in After Effects.

The Skateboard rigging will start soon. I just have to figure what's necesary for his complete mobile movement, and what type of rigging I want to use on the trucks and axels. The rest of his body should be somewhat simple.

I'm hoping to be done rigging in the next week and a half and start animating the characters soon. The vehicular movement is rather simple and really most of the film, the characters are in a car.

Week 4:Setting the Stage

I've practically finished modelling everything which includes the town, the two vehicles, the cop, the skateboard, and the stick. Within the town are several buildings, a school, some stores, and the streets are set up. The street light is modeled and will now be placed throughout the town. I added more background to the setting which are just large hills. I've decided that I will be using trees, with the maya paint effects tool which I've discovered to become very handy.

Now that modelling is just about done, I decided to start rigging. I actually started the skeleton on the cop and will soon bind him, weight paint him and make some controllers for his handles and etc. The stick will be worked on soon as he is also a simple character to make a skeleton for. Hopefully those will be done within the next week so I can concentrate rigging the skateboard which will be complex since he's an oddly shaped object with no real arms or legs.

I like this picture, it's kind of representational to what my town could look like with details, but it's much more simplified. The similarity I do like though is that it's a valley town, which is what I'm aiming for.

Week 3: Modeling Progress

So far for the film, I've just about finished the skateboard and book. I've also set up most of the town. For the town they live in, most of the buildings will look the same, all I'll really have to do is change building colors, and give them each signs identifying them. The school is complete and I had a sign placed, but it disappeared, that should only take me a minute to fix again. The car body is just about done, and I've started some minor work on the interior which is really just the interior body. Then all I really have to complete are the windows, side mirrors, steering wheel, dashboard, and openable glove box, and the seats, which shouldn't take me too long if I work hard enough. The third character, the stick, I'll be working with nurbs, just to give it a cool smooth geometry. He shouldn't really be too hard to model. So pretty soon, I'll start rigging the characters, and giving the cars locators. The cop car will really just be a duplicate, but with an added trunk, since the first car is a wagon, and also I'll need to add the lights. I'm hoping the cop car will look somewhat like this.

Week 2: Progress

So far with the film, I've already modeled the skateboard character, but it needs to be fixed in certain areas, such as deleting unnecessary edge loops. I've started working on the cop character, which I've changed a little bit, he'll be a hardcover book, so the pages are visibly extruded in, like a real book. I'll be continuing the modeling of the Town they live in and try and set up the building placements, then will add the roads, grass, sidewalks, etc. I've also started working on the hood of a car. I haven't thought about rigging yet, but the skateboard will need a special rigging because of how inorganic it is. The other two characters shouldn't be that bad rigging. And then hopefully soon I can play with the cel shading on the characters. For the skateboard, I was thinking about adding a decal on it, it's just a thought right now, but if I do, it would probably be a cartoony monster of some type, but I'd have to draw an original one, to avoid any copyright issues. I'd like it to look somewhat like this though. Or something else less demonic. I might just scrap the idea and have some sort of design going around the trucks and actual face/eyes.

Week 1: Candy Plans

Outside of class, I expect to work around 2 hours a day outside of class on the film. At my outside job, I'll be averaging around 16 to 20 hours a week. I definitely plan on working both in the lab and at home. I am taking 4 other course, 2 of them should be fairly easy, while the other 2 are the other 3D classes which I hope will contribute to enhancing the film. My film is going to be in 3D, but I think I'm going to cel shade it so it has a cartoony style to it still. I feel mostly comfortable with Maya, as I've already experimented with cel shading, and I've got some building models made. My film will probably be moderately successful, maybe a little bit more than moderate.

Here's a picture of the school from my animatic that is halfway modeled in Maya.