Chat with Jordan

Things left to do:

Finesse my animation by adding more to the transitions to make them more interesting and add more bounce to cells, tags and labels to keep and maintain the flow. In the telophase stage make the cell warp and stretch up and down instead of just left and right.

Talking about the transitions, he reminded me of the transitions in Jaws - that swipe, suggesting I should use my cells and backgrounds, make the cell move before the background.

Add a deformer to chromosomes and nucleus so to give them their own character.

For the ending I'm gonna work on the transition between cytokinesis and the cells instead, instead of going through the plane it might be better to do what I did in my animatic which was have the cells appear behind the cells then pull back through cells. He said something about z depth pass in maya and after effects to put things in focus and a background out of focus which might be worth using on the final shot.

I also plan on fixing timings, make the SFX quieter in addition to working on those more. I'm also going to revisit the typography at the start to see where improvements can be made, looking more into motion graphic text animations.

Chat with Jordan

   

So far I'm on the right tracks, currently converting my animatic into a pre-viz, my line art has been approved in maya, it still needs more work still but it's almost there. Jordan showed me a reference of tell tale game (below) who paints line art onto their textures like I'm doing. Jordan suggested I make the lines a little sketchier/rougher (above right image).

Next Steps

Today I've shown Jordan my block model of how I'm going to layout my composition, he aprroved of it and has shown me techniques on how to make everything more realistic: soft selection for making a more realistic terrain, alpha maps as a simpler way to make the fogginess of this dream, also how to merge the path and field using grass.

Example of alpha maps being used for grass,
found at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/vwbA6

It's important to always be looking at references and professionals, when it comes to the grass merging bit I found this example showing progression helped.

Found at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8ZeBQ

Found at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8ZeBQ

Another example: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ra84X

Then I was shown different ways to use lighting, ie area, point and directional - I will be rendering in mental ray. Below are some test shots of lighting.

Now I'm going to work on my matte painting by working into Monet's painting even more using mixer brush tool to make it look more painted as Cornell collages art work rather than painting his own to collage. New techniques: Mixer brush, clone tool, hue jitter and taking an oil painting texture and using a blending mode to add a layer of effect. Braid Game is an example of the sky.

Diagram of compositioning layers

Mapping out my city in Maya

Talking to Jordan about the next step for my thumbnails I started planning out where I will put my buildings and their size, this method is good for being a city builder however I will use it as a guide, my final thumbnail that I will do my concept art will be collage on photoshop.

These are 3 of my ideas, at first it was a collected together space however everything is on top of each other, then in the second more spaced out and the third I was just seeing how it would look to have a massive object but it takes away the focus from the main gazebo, maybe that would look better further in the distance.

Definitive Influence Map

After talking to Jordan about how I'm supposed to collaborate with Cornell, I have created a new influence map of influential antique objects and victorian buildings I could use to think like Cornell would rather than create an influence map of Cornell's work.

Combining Creatures with Objects

In Jordan's class today we picked an animal and an object at random from a blue box that we had to create designs for combining the two. I picked a Robin and a Wardrobe.

Armilla Thumbnail Tests

From messing with these thumbnails and colours from the influence pictures I found, for my low angle shot I have decided on no broken house brickwork at the bottom around the pipes. When air brushing put white in the middle rather than at the top where the horizon starts. Thumbnail 8 is the one to go with as a key thumbnail.

1. Needs atmosphere

2. Better than 1

3. Removed brick work from 2 and expanded floor

4. Thumbnail 2 black and white with atmosphere

5. Messing with the sky

6. Black and white no atmosphere

7. Sky with white atmosphere in the middle

8. Same as 7 with brickwork removed

Colour Keys

Using blending modes and gradient maps I tried editing a thumbnail to try out different colours... I don't feel this went well and I struggled with painting into it as thats what I did with the original thumbnail to the max, not much more could be done to it.

Online Greenlight Review: 05/10/2016

Different Digital Painting Techniques

Original Fedora Thumbnail #1

Fedora Thumbnail Redrawn as Value Study

 Today in Jordan's session we looked at several concept art techniques and value studying. Value studying is using blacks, whites and greys to create depth in a exterior scene/composition, for example blacks are at the bottom to represent the nearer parts of the scene and as it gets further into the distance gets white to show fogginess and creates distance. When painting over with whites and black I use an air brush really big so only the soft edges of the brush actually go on my canvas.
The task was to take a thumbnail we've already drawn and redraw it as a value study, I chose my thumbnail (left) of Fedora to redraw (right).

Abstract thumbnails 

The second task was to create absract thumbnails based on city descriptions e.g. Esmerelda and zig zags. These were the thumbnails I created (not based on any cities in particular). Then I took a couple of my thumbnails into another photoshop document and messed with the blending modes on it and the transform options like skew and perspective to create the scenes below and paint over. This is collage thumbnails.

Collage Thumbnails and 1 Construction thumbnail

The first one is of Phyllis with the white and blue tiles on the floor, the bottom two thumbnails are of Despina, I did half of them and Jordan added some final touches to bring out the depth. Once the thumbnails were done it was then I knew which city it was, each one wasnt designed with a city in mind. The point of the exercise was to see what we could see when looking at abstract shapes to make into a city, the first abstract thumbnail I used as rocks, the second middle as floor tiles, the top left was sky horizons.

The final digital painting technique was called Construction where we replaced the custom shapes in photoshop with city related ones and you mindlessly build up these shapes that start with low opacity towards the back and you build up the transparency more and more so it gets darker. Whites in the distance, blacks up front.

I think these are great techniques but I dont feel like collage and construction works for me however after value studying I feel like my thumbnails have improved, when I go back and do more thumbnails I will bear this (and the other techniques) in mind.

Composition Exercise - Rule of Thirds

Rule of thirds is when you split your canvas 3 by 3 and use the grid to position the focal point and the background to direct the audience's attention as to where to look. Above are 2 examples of how the rule of thirds is used.

Moriana Annotations

Moriana Research Pages

What the houses of the poorer side lives in: Shanty town/Dust Bowl/Tin Shacks etc.

What the richer people live in: Alabaster buildings/Tall Buildings and maybe futuristic glassy buildings?
Inspired by Favela Brazil.

Moriana Influence Map

This influence map is to help design the middle exterior of this city where a massive sculpture will be symmetrical heads, one face is Medusa's, this is the darker parts of town "bristling with spikes" "ropes only good for hanging oneself from a rotten beam". The other face is going to be Moriana's where the "alabaster gates transparent in sunlight" "dancing girls with silvery scales swim" the more optimistic side to be. The story of this city's sculpture is obviously Medusa inspired, but before Medusa became the monster we know her as, she was once known as Moriana. I'll have to think more on why that sculpture is important to the city's inhabitants.

First Thumbnails

Esmerelda

Baucis

Photoshop Digital Painting Exercise 02: Coloured Apples

Colour version of my digitally painted apples.

Photoshop Digital Painting Exercise 01: Black and White Apples

Yesterday I had my first session with Jordan where we learnt about digital painting in Photoshop using a graphics tablet, we were told to paint the left image. Despite me working better with colour over black and white I think I did a good job. 

Jordan showed me a tool that traps transparent pixels (can be found next to the word lock above layers) and this allows you to work the same as a clipping mask without having two layers, this helped me achieve a more realistic feel. The background I did by applying a texture and gradient overlay. I paint by starting with block colours and working over that adding more detail in layers then I clean up edges.

Below are some work in progress images.