blocking animation

hey gang, here are some blocking animations I did for playing dead and magic trick.
I got a little carried away on playing dead, so it's a little cleaner then a block.

Possible Girl hand

Kid Hand and SSS Test

pose tests

magic pose 1 and cute comparisons

Head Tests!

New eye placement - new colors - new background - AND now showing our eye-shape rig!

Cute dog debut

Click for comparative cuteness study...

Lighting First Pass

Here is the first pass on lighting for our external shot using placeholder shaders and geometry. The interior of the cart has not been lit yet - though it will have a warm glow. Everything else is more or less based off of Adolph's lighting key.

tail bot

new tail bot.

What's been going down

kid hat, side, top, and probable pov from camera more or less

Ferris Wheel

Robodog FINAL

Robodog modified to address geometry penetrations, foot skinning, leg length, leg stretch, and a bunch of other fun problems.

Layout update 6/25

Ending changes

Changes to the ending sequence.
Once again, not even blocked posed animation.

FX reference footage

A quick preview of our FX reference footage.
We have one hour of fire, burning stuffed animals and smoke and marshmallows.

Poof Test for Magic Hat Trick

Poof Test



Reference


First Poof Smoke Test Concerns:

• The smoke is flowing out of the hat instead of blowing up above it. I wish it were a sudden explosion like the reference.
• I wish the smoke were more billowy. And twirled around on itself like the reference.
• I wish the smoke had wispy trails.
  

New Color Key

So this is the post that I will call "Adolph's New Color Key AKA What We're Doing"



It combines my love for pink clouds with an overbearing sense of being awesome. Perfect.

Layout update

Layout A.
Download mov file



Layout B
Download mov file

Head Effect Test

Here is a lighting and shading test on the head effect (glowing eyes + semitransparent dome)

layout -> chasing tail sequence only

version A
Download mov file



version B
Download mov file

Hat and Wand First Pass

First pass Cart model

Color idea

Wisdom from Adolph

Hey Team Awesome,
I wanted to make some suggestions about your color key. Below I included a painting to illustrate some ideas.

• time of day, sunny day at the carnival (happy)
• Use saturation to help focus eye
• high key to fill ratios communicate sunny day (yours is low key to fill)
• I would suggest not having the characters in direct light. It isn't very appealing to have characters lit by the sun from the front (sun lit from the back very appealing but this isn't possible with the cart behind them).
• I would suggest showing tents that look open for business (happier)
• Use bright yellow to frame dogs (there are many options but use color to focus the eye)
• bounce from ground to light the front of the cart
• I'm sure I forgot some things

Adolph

ORIGINAL














MY SUGGESTION

Quote of the day

"I would be like, up the creek without a paddle, as they say. Cuz I would have no paddle-maker."

• Nathan (animator), on not having a rigger.

Burning Tests

Animation Blocking

Magic Trick Blocking

Magic Trick.mov (KBs)

Chasing Tail Blocking

Chasing Tail.mov (1.3 MB)

Layout pass 5B

Here is an update of the timing, framing and layout for our piece.
Several iterations since the last daily.
Hopefully at least a couple more iterations before the next daily.



(quicktime download version - 12mb)

One gag was dropped. Camera's were changed and several timing elements have been changing.
In this layout, chasing the tail has been modified after another talk with Doug, and a new updated chasing tail with poses by Nathan (animator).
Several other things have changed, and keep on changing.

ANY comment is welcome.

Skull and Casket for "Play Dead"

superman poses for rocketboots

Disney critiques

Click for the CRITS!

here's my dying sequence key/golden poses
this is with a rig that's at least 2 iterations ago.
that weird muffin is supposed to be a skull.

Robodog Rig Update!

The rig for the robodog is in near-completion stage. Without actually physically showing you how the rig works, I just have a screen shot of what it looks like.

This rig is created using three scripts: setting up the joints, connecting the controls, and skinning.

The communication between the rigger and animator was crucial, so we set up a spreadsheet that provided a way for the animator to write down all the issues as the rig was being created: Click for Spreadsheet




mainControl: rotate and translate the entire character
rootControl: translates and rotates the entire character with the choice of keeping the arms sticky or not. the channel box "switchFR" and "switchFL" that is a value from 0-1. if it is set to 0, it is not sticky and works like a biped, if it is set to 1, it works like a quadruped and sticks to the ground (you can move the foot controls)
hipControl: only rotation, "pelvic thrust", rotates everything from location and below
CStomach3Control: rotates everything from the location unlike the hipControl that rotates everything below
CStomach2Control: only rotation
CStomach1Control: only rotation but includes a nicer X rotation of the chest
chestControl: rotates the neck+head up and down the chest
neckBaseControl: rotates the neck around in the spot
neckControl: rotates the head at the top of the neck
(BL/BR/FR/FL)FootControl: translate and rotate, includes the foot roll that can be found in the channel box
(BL/BR/FR/FL)pv: pole vector that is off to the side and can only be translated
(BL/BR/FR/FL)s: only rotation, rotates the larger double rotation joint for the shoulders. the front controls move with their respective foot controllers and the back controls stay put (so move them if you have to)
(L/R)EarControl: only rotation, self explanatory
CTail(Base/1/2/3)Control: only rotation, self explanatory

"Cute" pose of the Robodog:




Location of Rig:
/u/viza627/projects/Example/awesome/assets/robodog/rig/scenes/robodogRig.mb

Color Key

Here is my interpretation of the midday color key. I'm trying to keep it from looking too much like a unicorn exploded across the screen....but its a carnival. It kinda comes with the territory.

Important - the point is not to show the design/complexity of the objects. Obviously this is not what our cart is going to look like - in form or texture. It's the overall color scheme we are trying to nail down. Likewise, this isn't necessarily the time of day for the opening shot. This is more so we know what the colors should be without the pollution from colored light.

If you want to mess with the colors to see what looks good on screen - feel free. Everything is chopped into awesomely named folders with awesomely named layers (for the most part). At the top of each hierarchy within a folder (or "layer set" as Adobe calls them) should be a Hue/Sat adjustment layer for that element in the painting. Just play with hue/sat/lightness layer to change the colors.

The file is located in /u/viza627/projects/Example/awesome/reference/colorkey_midday.psd for Adobe Photoshop CS4.

I also treated this as a lookdev kind of thing. Thus - the shadows have increased saturation, occlusion has increased saturation, and "god rays" are across the screen.

Updated Robodog

Still a work in progress. Haven't touched ears, neck, or tail.

color references for dogs

Opening Color First Pass

This is the first pass on the colors of the wagon and opening shot.

Layout and opening shot

Here is our opening shot, with a low (extremely low) res scene layout to start working on the 3d layout. This shot also starts defining those visuals we have been talking about in the last weeks/days/hours. Other camera angles and first pass camera movement will follow asap (on lockdown and quarantine schedule).

Animatic as of Monday 6/8

We have made several somewhat heavy story changes since this version. We stood back and took a good long look at our story and decided that we needed to focus on the character and development of the Robodog more, rather than throwing a lot of gags at the audience. We hope that you will like and agree with our changes when you see them.

But for now, you can watch this one.

Robodog lo-res model

Work in progress.

Robodog concepts

Final designs:









Earlier concepts:
















Art by Jon Camit.