Shot Development
Look Development
December
As part of the Animation Process and Practice unit we had to
take on the task of ‘Look Development’. This involved us assembling in groups
to collaborate and produce a final composition inspired by an original source.
Using the knowledge we had gained from the previous unit, we would take the
technical aspects further to produce the final piece.
As I was in the 3D group for the character performance
piece, I chose to continue in the 3D medium. My partner Siobhan also chose 3D
before and continued with the medium in this project. We chose our group
because we believed our combined strengths would produce an effective result. We
understood our strengths and weaknesses and used this knowledge to assign our
roles within the group.
Siobhan’s strength lies within pre-production/production
including concepts, modelling and texturing whereas I discovered my strengths
lie within production/ post-production during the technical phases such as
animation, lighting and compositing. I only discovered this late in the
project, which did cost the group time. However we adapted to the situation and
worked to what we knew.
Our original ideas were too demanding and our tutors advised
us not to proceed with the underwater settings. This was due to a great number
of potential problems and the difficulty of an underwater scene. We had to consider
the physics of water and particle effects and how all of these things would
affect us down the pipeline i.e. rendering.
Siobhan then produced a swamp concept; inspired the
illustrative styles from the likes of: ‘Scooby Doo’ and ‘Disney’. The style as
seen in the concept art is very illustrative with a well throughout colour
pallet. The lighting focusses the audience on the shack in the distance to convey
mystery. The trees enclose the audience with a sense of thickness and depth to
the dense swamp.
Moving onto the scene, we chose 3D as our medium to produce
the final scene. We intended to create a 3D scene with an illustrated style
with soft shapes and water colours much like a painting. This was inspired by
the concept art produced by Siobhan, and we chose to keep this style for the
final piece. We chose the 3D route because of our acknowledgement of the
progression of the industry, with the rapid advancement of technology we believed
we could achieve an effective result.
I experimented with a number of tools in Maya to achieve the
result I intended: illustrated yet believable trees. Late in production I had
to hand over the role to Siobhan in exchange of the role of lighting.
As we wanted to capture an atmosphere within the scene of ‘spookiness’
and ‘mystery’ we thought a lot about our composition including: lighting,
spacing and the colour pallet. I believe we could have created a better
atmosphere with the addition of lights and fog effects to add further depth to
the scene. However due to time constraints we could not have added these
elements without being late.
Late into production during research of sources such as
films and games, I discovered that game trees are flat textured with a painting
UV. These tress looked fine from a distance, it was upon close inspection I discovered
this. If I had knew this before I would have completed the texturing much
sooner and incorporated this knowledge in the final piece.
Final Video: https://youtu.be/fC-HxQlUCa8
The final scene is not as effective as I had intended. This
is because of the style of the video, it has not rendered as intended and does
not match our expectations. This is to be expected in a creative production,
but does not make it less frustrating.
There would be a number of elements I would change to the
final piece. For one I would have spent more time with the texturing, giving
feedback rather than struggling throughout the project. I would have handed the
responsibility over sooner to then support with feedback. Because I am not
pleased with the final look of the trees as they appear rather flat and plain. As
shown in the concept art, the trees are covered in moss which adds the elements
of time and life to the work.
I would add additional effects such as fog which would be an
appropriate atmosphere for a humid setting. In addition this would have aided
the ‘spooky’ theme we were trying to achieve. To have achieved this we would
have had to research the effects within Maya and how long a particle effect
such as that would have taken to render.
I would have spent much more time on lighting, experimenting
with the colour, the effect through fog and on surfaces such as the moss
growing on the trees. Again this would have taken too long in the time given.
Both learning how to apply these effects and the significant increase in render
time this would have added.
Next time I may do a project such as this I would plan to
use a dedicated render and stick with it, such as Renderman. I intended to work
for those results, and I must plan ahead in good time to understand the requirements
of such results.
Overall I have found this project enlightening and
challenging. I have learnt that projects do not work as intended, no matter how
prepared you believe you may be. Despite our preparations of role assignment,
we still changed in favour of completing the task on time. I found it
especially difficult accepting I did not have enough time to learn texturing
and give the responsibility to Siobhan; by the time I discovered this it was
too late. If I had accepted this earlier I would have had much more time with
work I could understand and experiment further with improving our final piece.
There have been elements I have enjoyed including the animation of the camera
and the fireflies within the scene. I have learnt that Look Development is a
very long and difficult process of experimentation and tests, which I did not
enjoy all of the elements such as the texturing. As a group we worked effectively
together offering feedback and support for each other, I should have
communicated effectively with my team about how difficult the texturing was for
me. I will listen to the advice that Tim Searle gave me at ‘Manimation’ in
November, to keep things simple, understand the limits and make the best of
them. Understanding my limits as a student in knowledge and time, and develop
these by understanding how to use these effectively.
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