Texturing and Other Changes

I am finally in the final stage of development.  In these last few weeks, I will be texturing, lighting, rendering, compositing, and adding special effects, as well as color grading and finalizing my credits.  I am really excited about this film, but this quarter got off to a slow start for me thanks to an unexpected illness.  Luckily, I'm back on my feet now and ready to hit the road running.
During the short break between quarters, I worked with Michelle and Nora (Art Directors) to redefine a look for the short to get a better sense of what I want it to look like.  I am shying away from the completely photo-realistic look and trying to go with a stop-motion inspired stylization with believable textures.  I will be posting the new mood boards soon.  I also have to make adjustments to my backgrounds.  (I apologize now if anyone has seen the current backgrounds, they are only placeholders.)
One of the changes I am making is adjusting models to fit the elongated and eschewed look.  We have also pulled references from films in the 1950's to get an idea of the colors, look, and styles they used.
I wanted to share one of the images I've been working on.  While this is only a test with preliminary test lighting and a simple checkered environment, I can see the direction I am going for in this one and I really love the look of it.  I will post more soon!

Style Frames and MoodBoard

For the past few weeks, I have been busy working on organizing my team and getting my texturing and animation under way.  One part of this was to prepare an updated mood board that shows inspiration and reference material.  I also made 3 Style Frames, which are sort of like making a goal for where you want the look of the film to go.  So without further ado, my Style Frames and Mood Board.

Some inspirations come from Pixar's Blue Umbrella, Laika's Paranorman, and Sony's Monster House.

Opening scene where the sun sets and "Ray" is born.

Ray ends up inside this office before getting frustrated at the desk lamp.

As Ray gets exhausted, he gives it one last chance.

Last Light, Winter 2014

Set in the 1950's along an American coast line, the sun sets, and the last ray of sunlight flies out.  While competing against his fellow rays of light as well as electric bulbs, the last ray  must look for a place to stay and light up for the night.  This 3D animated short will be using complex shading and lighting in a stylized world while featuring a simple piano soundtrack with environment sound effects.

Greetings everyone!

Thanks for taking a look at my blog for my film.  This is the beginning of a new year, and a new quarter.  The goals for this quarter are to complete the rigging, animation, and texturing, and to start on lighting and continue with the sound and the matte paintings in the background.  I also plan to complete several style sheets to really nail down the final aesthetic of the film.  I have a few new objects to place into the various scenes to help populate the environment, which should be done this week.  I've also brought on some more people to help with the film, including Eric who will help me later on with the particle effects.

Another change on my blog you will notice is that the animatic will now have a password attached to it.  I apologize to anyone who wanted to see this, but my goal in the next few months is to start making my rounds in various film festivals.  So keep an eye open.  I will post more as the project progresses.

Final 3D Animatic This Year

This is going to be a big update.  I have been very busy with this film, working on everything from modeling to basic animation to character rigging and more.  I plan to do more work to prepare for the final animation and lighting over the winter break, but this will be the last update to my animatic this year.  I would like to thank everyone involved so far in this film this quarter, including Michelle Ionescu, who has been helping me with the design, modeling, and sound; Raymond McCoy-Sanders, who helped with modeling so far; Dennis McCoy, who also helped with modeling; China Nadeau, who made my beautiful backgrounds; Nora Graven for helping with rigging my character; and my professor, Mathew Maloney, who has been giving me great feedback and ideas to make this a much stronger film.

There is still a LOT of work to do.  Next quarter I am going to focus on getting all the rigging finalized, getting the animation finished, getting as many of the backgrounds finished as I can, and finish as much texturing as I can, as well as starting preliminary lighting.  Over the break I am going to work on some minor fixes and tweaks and getting feedback.

I can't promise I will have another update to the blog this year, but I will make sure to keep any significant updates posted here.

Last Light 3D Animatic with sound from Last Light Film on Vimeo.

Production 1, Mid-terms

Right now we are in the middle of Mid-Terms for the first half of production.  We have already finished 2 milestones, are are finishing up the 3rd, with 5 total milestones this quarter.  So far, I have completely reworked the timing, several key concepts, and the style.  I am very pleased with the direction this is going, and the real production begins today.

From here on out, I need to have my character rigged, models built, environments developed, and animation blocked in, for starters.  I have already started with building some of the assets, such as the various environments.  As for the style, I am going for an elongated and slightly skewed look, which I plan to place in the 1950's through the design of the objects.  I want to make this look something akin to stylized realism, using realistic lighting and rendering and textures on a highly stylized world.

So here are the new developments for the film, including style guide and a 3D Animatic.

3D animatic updates

I should be able to upload a new 3D animatic very soon.  I have been getting some very good feedback, and am actually making some large story changes, without having to completely redo all my work so far.  I must say this is getting very exciting, and I can't wait to get the animatic finished.  I am already getting some work done on my style guides and my modeling, with the help of Michell and Raymond.  I should have another update this weekend with the entire aniamtic finished, but first I have the Generate 24 hour competition to compete in this weekend.

Wish me luck!