Today was our first session with Rosa, I was a little late to the first lecture because of traffic in Penryn, we watched all of the 3rd year shorts. Later in the day I pitched my idea to Rosa and several other son the course today. She said I had a strong idea which I was grateful for. She sais she was excited by the idea but when I said I was setting it in her bedroom she felt a little let down. She wants me to open up the story and incorporate the rest of the house as the bedroom is too much of a constraint and that there is potential for a bigger adventure. As I mentioned in a previous post the reason I am keeping these things simple is because of the time, scope, skill set and being realistic with man power when it comes to crunch time as people will drop out I am 100% sure of this based on past experiences. I am going to spend friday - sunday working up a script using the house for monday morning to run by our lecturers.
In terms of visual development I am trying to steer Heidi and Phoebe away from the gothic direction and more towards the cute and cuddly world with a dark twist (she shadow). It needs to feel like a world of full of supernatural elements beneath the veil of a beautiful place you would love to live.
Its is also very tricky trying to design characters, props, environments when you do now have a story and I can sense the frustration of my team as they ask me questions when I do not even have my
The pro-production process needs to be extremely well thought out as in my opinion it is the mother of all cock- ups in animation production. So for now I need a solid story before I can commit to helping the other with the visual development of the story.
Tomorrow, Friday, we are off all day but I will working on my story for half of the day and my dissertation the other half.
Thursday, 4 October 2012
Little Loud: Ideas & Development
Script, Character bios,
Last night I was working on character bios so below are the three main characters. These are subject to change over the coming weeks and the names are far rom final. Only the main character called 'Little' for now will be the 3 minute pilot.
Little:
Ryan:
___
When I went into the studio this morning my aims were:
1) test the workflow for shadows
2) test the workflow for normals maps (this is how I plan to get most of my detail)
3) get used to the stereoscopic controls in maya
White I was working on the shadows, which I left till last, Georg came over and gave me a hand. The method I has been using was extremely complicated and involved using light-linking, attribute spread sheet and getting deep into layers (see figure 1). While Georg was able to do the same thing in under 30 seconds (see figure 2 to 4) using the render stats menue.
George gave some good advice and feedback on the project. The main thing he wanted to get across was not limiting your idea because of your current skill set and that everything can be learnt and tested. I admire that but its easier said than done because after 1st and 2nd year its easy to write an idea and then ask yourself how will I do that? He in encouraging us to think about
Last night I was working on character bios so below are the three main characters. These are subject to change over the coming weeks and the names are far rom final. Only the main character called 'Little' for now will be the 3 minute pilot.
Little:
Ryan:
___
When I went into the studio this morning my aims were:
1) test the workflow for shadows
2) test the workflow for normals maps (this is how I plan to get most of my detail)
3) get used to the stereoscopic controls in maya
White I was working on the shadows, which I left till last, Georg came over and gave me a hand. The method I has been using was extremely complicated and involved using light-linking, attribute spread sheet and getting deep into layers (see figure 1). While Georg was able to do the same thing in under 30 seconds (see figure 2 to 4) using the render stats menue.
George gave some good advice and feedback on the project. The main thing he wanted to get across was not limiting your idea because of your current skill set and that everything can be learnt and tested. I admire that but its easier said than done because after 1st and 2nd year its easy to write an idea and then ask yourself how will I do that? He in encouraging us to think about
 |
| Figure 1: My first test with a Sphere and Cone |
 |
| Figure 2: Sphere and Cone with shadows. |
 |
| Figure 3: Sphere with cast shadows "off". Cone with visibility "off" but cast shadows "on'. |
 |
| Figure 4: Sphere and Cone with same setting as above. Cone moves to same base position as Sphere. |
Andy Advice & Feedback:
Characters
Several storylines
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Little Loud Production Meeting
This morning I met up with Phoebe, out production designer, and Heidi, our lead animator. The purpose of the meeting was just to get the ball rolling on the pre-production process, specifically characters, environments and props, while I work out story and character.
I am encouraging them to think in 3 dimensions and do either action or emotion poses never static I personally think that at this early stage turnarounds are underrated. I would prefer to see the
We pooled several ideas. Phoebe specifically mentioned that we can use light and shape of the objects in the room to cast interesting shadows. For example a shadow casting over a radiator could create a scary spiky looking shape to help set the tone and scene. Also strategically placing the lighting; wide windows, several lamps, night lights, torch to allow us the most flexibility when working. You get the idea.
Here are the task I set today for the team:
deadlines?
Here are some of Phoebes sketches which I think are amazing and a good start to the project:
Below is my production team as it currently stands:
Director/ Producer: Omari
Production Designer: Phoebe Herring (overseeing pre-production process)
Character Designer: Heidi
Lead Animator: Hedi
Supervising Animator: Stu Whitten
Storyboard Artists: Annabelle
Technical Director: Josh Banebridge
FX Technical Director: Ted Whitehad
Sound FX: Jame Romp
Composer: Ryan Jones
I chose these people because they are talented and do not need to much spoon feeding. They are also prepared to help me develop the ideas and always bring something to the table.
I have run my idea by mark at this early stage.
Testing 3D & Shadows:
Script & Character:
I am encouraging them to think in 3 dimensions and do either action or emotion poses never static I personally think that at this early stage turnarounds are underrated. I would prefer to see the
We pooled several ideas. Phoebe specifically mentioned that we can use light and shape of the objects in the room to cast interesting shadows. For example a shadow casting over a radiator could create a scary spiky looking shape to help set the tone and scene. Also strategically placing the lighting; wide windows, several lamps, night lights, torch to allow us the most flexibility when working. You get the idea.
Here are the task I set today for the team:
deadlines?
Here are some of Phoebes sketches which I think are amazing and a good start to the project:
Below is my production team as it currently stands:
Director/ Producer: Omari
Production Designer: Phoebe Herring (overseeing pre-production process)
Character Designer: Heidi
Lead Animator: Hedi
Supervising Animator: Stu Whitten
Storyboard Artists: Annabelle
Technical Director: Josh Banebridge
FX Technical Director: Ted Whitehad
Sound FX: Jame Romp
Composer: Ryan Jones
I chose these people because they are talented and do not need to much spoon feeding. They are also prepared to help me develop the ideas and always bring something to the table.
I have run my idea by mark at this early stage.
Testing 3D & Shadows:
Script & Character:
Monday, 1 October 2012
Summer 2012 & Back to Uni
Literally on the Monday after we were dismissed from university at the end of 2nd year I began a two week placement at Spider Eye Animation LTD in Penzance, Cornwall. I was Assistant Production Co-Ordinator/ Animator shadowing Charlotte Wadsworth for two weeks. Its was really good and I got to animate several key shots on Castaway Cove which the pitched at Cartoon Forum in mid September. It was a really good opportunity.
Over the summer I have been putting a lof thought into my final major project. More so than my dissertation unfortunately. I knew I wanted to pitch an animated series instead of a film start of the bat so i went through some of the sold story notes I had on my laptop and two came to mind. The first was Light-Speed Champion and the second was called Little Loud. I decided to go with the first but soon realised it was getting away from me. But not before I had recruited a sound FX designer, composer, and tried to pull together a pre-production team who even began making artwork.
The change came about 2 weeks ago when I went to the Bristol Encounters Short Film & Animation Festival. I was able to do the The Creative Business of Producing Animation Course under Hellen Brunsdon. The course was only intended for industry professionals but through persistence and some luck on part of knowing Hellen Brunson through Andy Wyatt, my course leader, I was able to volunteer" and sit in on the entire event. It was brilliant I was so grateful to have got it and I learnt a lot. We had lectures from and had the chance to meet...
Alan Dewhurst; Producer of 'Peter & The Wolf' (great guy we had a good chat over some red wide)
Julie Lockheart; Producer of Aardman's 'Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists'
Ken Anderson; CEO of August Media Holdings (this man's track record is something to aspire to)
Melanie Coombs; Producer of 'Mary & Max' (she even offered to mentor me.)
Sam Fell; Director of
Fraser McLean; writer of the book 'Setting The Scene' (I swear we were talking about life for like the best part of an hour and he should my hand vigorously with a huge smile when I said I wanted to be a producer.)
Advice for networking from:
1) Always have a 2nd thing to say.
Melanie Coombs told me that and to be honest its easy to forget. Its an awkward when students approach (especially animation students sorry to say that) because they often come across quite unconfident
2) Be able to talk about other subjects than animation when necessary.
I know what you're thinking its a given that your conversation with drift in and out of animation but once I was done with animation I found myself gradually moving off the subject talking about things such as film, politics, Nasa, Kony 2012, ect. Random I know. But when it comes to it these moments were key in building those relationships (, getting business cards) and maintaining them.
3) Dont ask for a job (strait away)
Hard for student to resist when standing in front of producers. I was having a chat with Charlotte Wandsworth, Assistant Producer at Spider Eye Animation LTD, and she was telling me as soon as student realise she is a producer they ask her for a job immediately. They should get to know then instead.
4) Make them remember you (for the right reasons).
If I am being honest I think I left a good impression with everyone I met.
Being able to catch up with some old friends such a Neil Richards from Digital Film Company and Will Harding (Senior Model Maker for Aardman's Pirates)
attend the rest of the festival already knowing several producers gave me a bit more confidence when working the room. (I think I actually really enjoy networking too. I found myself quite easily able to circle the room and approach people.
More to the point when industry professionals realised I was a student they all asked what my idea was so it gave me a good opportunity to practice my pitch. I made the decision when I could not easily narrow down Light Speed Champion to one sentence. However when I mentioned Little Loud I was able to sum it up easilty... "Oh its about a good little girl with a big bad shadow..." which was sually met with eaither smile and nice comment or a blank face meaning I needed to elaborate further. That was the best pitching practice I could have. Thats why I chose Little Loud over Light-Speed Champion.
I think I have potential to be an animation producer but I have been warned about how hard it is. What I want now more than anything else is an opportunity to show what i know and I guess my final major project is that. What Georg said in the lecture this morning about how little time we had came as a shock but I think he is just trying to scare us into working faster and I don't blame him.
Right then about Little Loud.
My Role as Producer:
Over the summer I have been putting a lof thought into my final major project. More so than my dissertation unfortunately. I knew I wanted to pitch an animated series instead of a film start of the bat so i went through some of the sold story notes I had on my laptop and two came to mind. The first was Light-Speed Champion and the second was called Little Loud. I decided to go with the first but soon realised it was getting away from me. But not before I had recruited a sound FX designer, composer, and tried to pull together a pre-production team who even began making artwork.
The change came about 2 weeks ago when I went to the Bristol Encounters Short Film & Animation Festival. I was able to do the The Creative Business of Producing Animation Course under Hellen Brunsdon. The course was only intended for industry professionals but through persistence and some luck on part of knowing Hellen Brunson through Andy Wyatt, my course leader, I was able to volunteer" and sit in on the entire event. It was brilliant I was so grateful to have got it and I learnt a lot. We had lectures from and had the chance to meet...
Alan Dewhurst; Producer of 'Peter & The Wolf' (great guy we had a good chat over some red wide)
Julie Lockheart; Producer of Aardman's 'Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists'
Ken Anderson; CEO of August Media Holdings (this man's track record is something to aspire to)
Melanie Coombs; Producer of 'Mary & Max' (she even offered to mentor me.)
Sam Fell; Director of
Fraser McLean; writer of the book 'Setting The Scene' (I swear we were talking about life for like the best part of an hour and he should my hand vigorously with a huge smile when I said I wanted to be a producer.)
Advice for networking from:
1) Always have a 2nd thing to say.
Melanie Coombs told me that and to be honest its easy to forget. Its an awkward when students approach (especially animation students sorry to say that) because they often come across quite unconfident
2) Be able to talk about other subjects than animation when necessary.
I know what you're thinking its a given that your conversation with drift in and out of animation but once I was done with animation I found myself gradually moving off the subject talking about things such as film, politics, Nasa, Kony 2012, ect. Random I know. But when it comes to it these moments were key in building those relationships (, getting business cards) and maintaining them.
3) Dont ask for a job (strait away)
Hard for student to resist when standing in front of producers. I was having a chat with Charlotte Wandsworth, Assistant Producer at Spider Eye Animation LTD, and she was telling me as soon as student realise she is a producer they ask her for a job immediately. They should get to know then instead.
4) Make them remember you (for the right reasons).
If I am being honest I think I left a good impression with everyone I met.
Being able to catch up with some old friends such a Neil Richards from Digital Film Company and Will Harding (Senior Model Maker for Aardman's Pirates)
attend the rest of the festival already knowing several producers gave me a bit more confidence when working the room. (I think I actually really enjoy networking too. I found myself quite easily able to circle the room and approach people.
More to the point when industry professionals realised I was a student they all asked what my idea was so it gave me a good opportunity to practice my pitch. I made the decision when I could not easily narrow down Light Speed Champion to one sentence. However when I mentioned Little Loud I was able to sum it up easilty... "Oh its about a good little girl with a big bad shadow..." which was sually met with eaither smile and nice comment or a blank face meaning I needed to elaborate further. That was the best pitching practice I could have. Thats why I chose Little Loud over Light-Speed Champion.
I think I have potential to be an animation producer but I have been warned about how hard it is. What I want now more than anything else is an opportunity to show what i know and I guess my final major project is that. What Georg said in the lecture this morning about how little time we had came as a shock but I think he is just trying to scare us into working faster and I don't blame him.
Right then about Little Loud.
Title: Little Loud: The Animated Series
Tagline: "Good Girl. Bad Shadow."
Synopsis: The series follows a trio of kids on their misadventures into supernatural mysteries in their small town.
Pilot: 3-5mins, CGI, (Stereoscopic 3D)
Plot: She is your average eccentric 10 year old girl. But she has a secret... her shadow is a living, breathing rage monster forever getting her into trouble. She must summon all her courage to find her true shadow while keeping the shadow monster at bay and all before bedtime.
Audience: 8-12 yrs
Deadline: May 15th 2013 (course deadline)
Length/ Quantity: 22mins x 52 episodes
Questions I still need to answer:
what is the story? (I have the middle and the end I just need to work out how they connect)
Questions I still need to answer:
what is the story? (I have the middle and the end I just need to work out how they connect)
what does each character want? What can't they have it?
What do the girl and her shadow have in common?
What aspects of her personality does her shadow represent? (how can we convey this in design)
What other characters are there?
My Role as Producer:
weekly production schedule*
monthly production schedule*
Pre-production schedule*
Prod-production schedule*
Post-production schedule*
Organising dailies (these should be in the schedule)*
shot sign off sheet
contact details database
roles & assignments
file naming conventions & CMD line render template
asses management (dropbox, daily DVD(x2) backup, weekly google drive overwrite backup.)
one-to-one feedback sessions (to have personal chats with team to ensure the dynamics are working)
Everything with an asterix (*) next to it is only a draft as until we have story boarded it is difficult for me to finalise these things.
Monday, 16 July 2012
Red Or Dead Complete
This post should have come a while ago but after it was finished I did a work placement at Spider Eye Ltd in Penzance, Cornwall for two weeks. I have only just found the time to get a high resolution version to upload and I am still trying to salvage some compositing breakdowns from damaged hard drives (with very little luck).
Thursday, 21 June 2012
Learning to use The Foundry's Mari
For my 3rd year project next year I was planning on using photorealistic textures on stylised models.
I am going to learn to use The Foundry's Mari. I like that is named after me im not going to lie. I think thats kind of why I want to use it. The catch is its only available for Windows and Linux whereas I have a Mac so over the summer I will have to get linux on mac or partition and install windows so i can use Mari.
The Foundry's Mari Resources:
http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/training/
Digital Tutors Mari Tutorials:
http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?pid=33&autoplay=1
Friday, 8 June 2012
Red Or Dead: Compositing
(This is an ongoing post as I have lost some of the Nuke scripts.)
Roles:
Producer
Co- Editor
Co- Compositing (shot 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14 and 15)
nuke comp process screenshots
grading with teddy/ finding the look
rendering efficiently; layer, render layers, passes
efficiently in nuke
Compositing with Teddy:
Me and teddy worked on the compositing for this project solely in nuke. Nuke scripts were passed back and forth so organisations and file naming conventions were essential.
For the shot number mentioned above I did the green screen keying, (hold out mattes and garbage mattes where necessary) and trying to mach of the look of the live action footage with the matte painted backgrounds. The backgrounds for each shot were created by Elliot Crutchley and Megan Smith while Teddy decided on the final look by adding grain, camer shake and red/ purple grade to the final piece.
Nuke File Naming Conventions:
An older post on file naming conventions
do not use: colon, semi-colon, parenthesis, brackets, asterisks, ampersands, spaces, hyphen.
10 Ways to Composite More Efficiently in Nuke: (ongoing post)
1) Framebuffer
before you even reach nuke use frame buffer in maya to choose bit depth.
there is no point in rendering out color and specular highlight as full "RGBA 32bit floats" EXRs when "RGBA 16 bit tiffs" will do.
2) Composite while you render by creating a link between any 3D renderer and Nuke.
3)
nuke is a scanline based and prefers scanline based EXRs.
convert "tile based" EXR's from maya to a "zip scanline" EXR format or faster compositing.
use the color space node to change the EXR gamma encoding to
Tell Nuke to ignore empty areas of the file being read.
using a bounding box such as a curve tool node (set to autocrop) will save nuke render times.
Premultiply
before gamma, offset and color correction unpremultiply the render. After doing gamma, offset and color correction then premiltiply the image again to retune it to correct edges.
1) Use the Layer Contact Sheets node to see various passes at the same time.
This is waaaaay faster than using drop down menue.
2) Don't use EXR files for eveything.
EXR's are a "per pixel interwesved
If an EXR file is more than 20 layers deep Nuke will start to lag like crazy.
Soem passes can be tiff, jpegs as you will not always need the 32bit Floating point bells and whistles.
2) Test composites when you test renders to build Nuke Script templates.
By doing test comps you can build Nuke templates for everyone to work with and speed up compositing in the long run. Obviously tweaks will have to be made but
3) Build Gizmoz to stop repetition
4) If you can do it in 8 nodes do it in 4
Precomp
5) make all compositing notes from annotated screenshots
6) python expressions (avoid expressions when you can)
7) learn shortcuts (link to shortcuts)
8) fine naming convetions
Here are few links to some good resources online. Some of them will seem to go over what I have just
Nuke Shortcut keys
Efficiency In Nuke:
http://www.nukepedia.com/written-tutorials/10-tips-to-optimising-nuke-and-creating-efficient-workflows/
Other Useful Websites On Nuke:
http://www.nukepedia.com/
http://thoughtvfx.blogspot.co.uk/
http://satheeshnuketutorials.blogspot.in/
http://www.learningnuke.com/
http://franzbrandstaetter.com/?cat=4
Roles:
Producer
Co- Editor
Co- Compositing (shot 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14 and 15)
nuke comp process screenshots
grading with teddy/ finding the look
rendering efficiently; layer, render layers, passes
efficiently in nuke
Compositing with Teddy:
Me and teddy worked on the compositing for this project solely in nuke. Nuke scripts were passed back and forth so organisations and file naming conventions were essential.
For the shot number mentioned above I did the green screen keying, (hold out mattes and garbage mattes where necessary) and trying to mach of the look of the live action footage with the matte painted backgrounds. The backgrounds for each shot were created by Elliot Crutchley and Megan Smith while Teddy decided on the final look by adding grain, camer shake and red/ purple grade to the final piece.
 |
| I only did the Lighting, Rendering, Compositing. Model was by Teddy. |
 |
| shot 7 |
 |
| Shot 10 |
 |
| shot 13 |
 |
| shot 14 |
 |
| Shot 15 |
Nuke File Naming Conventions:
An older post on file naming conventions
do not use: colon, semi-colon, parenthesis, brackets, asterisks, ampersands, spaces, hyphen.
only use: full stops (only one. But two maximum.), underscores.
Example:
‘lowercaseCapital_shot_number_Captital_Capital.externtions_###’
In Context:
redOrDead_shot__1__sequenceName.tiff_001
redOrDead_shot__1__sequenceName.tiff_002
redOrDead_shot__1__sequenceName.tiff_003
1) Framebuffer
before you even reach nuke use frame buffer in maya to choose bit depth.
there is no point in rendering out color and specular highlight as full "RGBA 32bit floats" EXRs when "RGBA 16 bit tiffs" will do.
2) Composite while you render by creating a link between any 3D renderer and Nuke.
3)
nuke is a scanline based and prefers scanline based EXRs.
convert "tile based" EXR's from maya to a "zip scanline" EXR format or faster compositing.
use the color space node to change the EXR gamma encoding to
Tell Nuke to ignore empty areas of the file being read.
using a bounding box such as a curve tool node (set to autocrop) will save nuke render times.
Premultiply
before gamma, offset and color correction unpremultiply the render. After doing gamma, offset and color correction then premiltiply the image again to retune it to correct edges.
1) Use the Layer Contact Sheets node to see various passes at the same time.
This is waaaaay faster than using drop down menue.
2) Don't use EXR files for eveything.
EXR's are a "per pixel interwesved
If an EXR file is more than 20 layers deep Nuke will start to lag like crazy.
Soem passes can be tiff, jpegs as you will not always need the 32bit Floating point bells and whistles.
2) Test composites when you test renders to build Nuke Script templates.
By doing test comps you can build Nuke templates for everyone to work with and speed up compositing in the long run. Obviously tweaks will have to be made but
3) Build Gizmoz to stop repetition
4) If you can do it in 8 nodes do it in 4
Precomp
5) make all compositing notes from annotated screenshots
6) python expressions (avoid expressions when you can)
7) learn shortcuts (link to shortcuts)
8) fine naming convetions
Here are few links to some good resources online. Some of them will seem to go over what I have just
Nuke Shortcut keys
Efficiency In Nuke:
http://www.nukepedia.com/written-tutorials/10-tips-to-optimising-nuke-and-creating-efficient-workflows/
Other Useful Websites On Nuke:
http://www.nukepedia.com/
http://thoughtvfx.blogspot.co.uk/
http://satheeshnuketutorials.blogspot.in/
http://www.learningnuke.com/
http://franzbrandstaetter.com/?cat=4
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