Self Initiated Project part 14: New Shooter Costume Turnaround and Mop

During this week I was making some changes to two of my designs that did not have the right appearance. The first was the Shooter costume, I went for the pillow bullet proof vest and did a complete turnaround to see what it looks like from all around the model. The second design is the mop, apparently the last model looked more like a brush than a mop so I did some changes on the head to make it more mop like.
I even redone the model of the mop too.

Shooter Turnaround

Mop Design

Mop Mesh

Mop Wire

Mop UV

Mop UV Map Layout

Please leave some feedback if you think they need some improvements.

Self Initiated Project part 13: Last Week Interim Crit

Last week my class had an Interim Crit. We had to show the group where are we at in our project. For me I am in between the modelling and rigging process in my projects and once I am done with them I will finally begin animating.
Self Initiated Project Presentation

On a side note when I went back to my shared apartment with Ethan C he gave me some helpful feedback on my soldier costume. He said that the costume does not carry the feeling that my other costumes have. We then bounce some ideas until we felt giving him a poorly made bullet proof vest would work for the shooter design.
Here are some of the design that I had made for him.

The design I have decided to settle on the the pillow one because it covers most of the body.

Please leave some feedback if you have any suggestions on improving my animation.

Self Initiated Project part 12: Animatic 06

This is my latest animatic for my animation.
It is more or less the same as animatic 5 but with some changes in the title cards and a redone scene for the adventure scene.



Please leave me some feedback if think it needs some improvements.

Self Initiated Project part 11: Modelling Stage 02: The Rest of the Furnitures

Today I finish making the rest of the furnitures for my animation.
The first furniture I made is the table, this object is going to be the legs for my box dragon. The last furniture is the mop which is the only recurring object through out my animation. The roles it's going to play are the fighter's opponent, the tail of the box dragon and the gun/rifle for the shooter. The head of the mop is purposely made to look like that because I was thinking of giving it the soft body tail rig to save me time from using the Maya hair particles.

Mesh

Wire

UV Map

UV Map Layout

Mesh

Wire

UV Map

UV Map Layout

Please leave some feedback if you have any suggestions for improving my models.

Self Initiated Project part 10: Modelling Stage 01: Sofa

For the past few days I was finishing up on modelling the sofa furniture. The sofa is going to be the chest high wall in the shooter segment of my animation. I had some troule getting the shape of the sofa right but I was able to get it done with some help from Alan. He also told me that if I had and flat surface then it is okay to use triangles to make modelling an object easier. So in the future I need to remember that rule.

Mesh

Wire

UV Mapped

Please leave some feedback if my sofa needs some improvements.

Self Initiated Project part 9: Pre-Production Deverlopment Stage 06: Objects Maps

Today I finished making the modelling maps for my character's furnitures so I have some references when making them.
These furnitures play specific roles in my animation, the sofa is meant to be the chest high wall for my character to hide and jump out of and the table is meant to be the legs for the box dragon. The mop is the only recurring object in all the animation because I think it would be a bit funny seeing him using this one particular object for most of his actions.
The roles of the mop is his fighting opponent, a tail to the box dragon and a rifle for him to use.






Please leave some feedback to let me know what you think of them and if they need any improvements.

Self Initiated Project part 8: Pre-Production Deverlopment Stage 05: Character Maps 2

Yesterday I did some more work on my character's modelling map when he is wearing the costumes, because when I was looking them I realise that from each angle his costumes always look different so I decided to do a turnaround to give me an idea of what they look like from the basic angles.






Please leave some feedback on my designs if they need improvements.

Self Initiated Project part 8: Pre-Production Deverlopment Stage 04: Animatic and Character Maps

Here is the latest update on my project.
Today I had a meeting with Alan and I shown him what I have done lately.
I first tried to show him my animatic but there seems to be some video problem so I show him my modelling maps first.
I even asked him a question about rigging only one character and just add different costumes for him, wondering if that would affect the rigg. He said no and gave me some more helpful tips on how to make sure there would not be any problems when moving my character while he is wearing the costumes. He looked at the maps and he like them he did advise me to make some changes here and there, which I did just now.
here are the map beginning with the character template, then in order of how the costumes will appear in the animation.








Once I was finished showing Alan the character models, we then went to his office so I can show him my animatic.

He says that it was really good but maybe work on the adventure segment a bit more, because he felt the repetitiveness of having the character getting hurt is not too interesting in this shot. However it works well in the fighter scene. We then juggled some ideas, we thought it would be funny if the character struggles to get out of the dragon boxes's head and leave in a huff. It may not sound interesting in type but I think it will work when I work on this animatic.
Please leave some feedback if you feel if the modelling maps need work or a scene in the animatic needs to have more of a bang.

Self Initiated Project part 7: Pre-Production Deverlopment Stage 03

An update on my character model, I have just finished making his head which gave me a lot of trouble. Luckily I was able to get some assistance from Alan to make my character's head look some what similar to my drawing. Alan also advised me to give my character some wrinkles to his clothing to make them look more interesting to look at. I have not started rigging my character yet because I need to get some more help from Alan to see if he needs any fixing, however I will add the bones in him to get me started in the rigging department.













Please leave feedback on how my character is shaping up, if he needs any fixes here.

Self Initiated Project part 7: Pre-Production Deverlopment Stage 02

I have thought up some more ideas for my animations but I am still refining them so I decided to start modelling my character while at the same time working on the story for the animation.
Before I show the animatic that has the final ideas that refining, I am going to show an old animatic that has my character dressed up as a wizard. The two animatics after it are the ones I am sticking with and going to refine for my animation.


This is the animatic that has roughly the idea I want to show my animation which still needs refining.


Here are some images of my final character design and his work in progress model. He is just a template for when I actually add the accessories when he acts out each segments.




The last few images shows the modelling map for my character and the body parts I have made so far for my character both in wire frame and non wire frame.
















Please leave me some feedback if there is any improvements that I need to make on my character model like if the geomitry is wrong or this needs fixing.

Movie Review: The Adventures of TINTIN: The secret of the Unicorn

Last night I watched the new Tintin movie in 3D at 8:20, I would of watched in 2D but there were no cinemas in my area that were showing the film in 2D late at night.
The plot of the film is about Tintin trying to uncover the secrets around a ship named the unicorn. However during his quest Tintin comes across a lot of trouble from people who are also trying to unsolve the mystery around the unicorn and will do anything to get them even kill Tintin or anyone who gets in their way. It then becomes a compition to see who will uncover the secrets of the of ship first.

When I heard that there was going to be a Tintin movie I had mixed feelings about it, mainly to the photorealism approch that the movie was using for their characters. However when I looked at some trailers it did captured my interests, so me and my family decided to make a day to watch the film to see if the movies was good or was just jumping on the CGI bandwagon. I can safley say that the movie was really good.

I will try my best not to give off too much spoilers on the movie because there are a lot of great stuff in it that I don't want to ruin it for those who want to watch it.
The film is mainly an origin story of how Tintin and Captain Archibald Haddock became friends. Showing what was their relationship was like when they first met. The film also gives us some backstory on Captain Haddock and his role in the film.
The visuals in the film was actually very impressive. For example when looking at the rooms of the main characters we can tell what type of type of people they are. Interestingly one of the companies that worked on this film is Nickelodeon a company that specialises in making shows for children. Yet there are a lot of themes that are a lot of things that the grown ups will understand more than children, but it is still enjoyable for both audience.
The Adventures of TINTIN: The secret of the Unicorn was a very enjoyable film and I highly recommend it to anyone to watch it, as long you can bear the photorealism on some of the characters.

Self Initiated Project part 6: Pre-Production Deverlopment Stage 01

Thought out the week I was developing my character's appearance when he is acting out the game genres while also working on the storyboards for my animation.
The first storyboard I was working on was for the beat them up/fighting genre animation. I began by refining a previous idea were my character is going one on one with a mop I thought he could start by jumping around defensively, then when he uppercuts the mop he does a victory cheer. The rest of the images where just some other ways for my character to fight the mop. The second idea has my character grabbing the mop and smacks it hard on the floor, but it ends with the broken part of the mop flying straight to my character's face.
The third idea has my character executing a jumping kick towards the mop, but my character ended up jumping too high that he bounced off the wall and landed painfully on the sofa.


I also created some sketches of my character as a karate fighter. Out off all of them I chose the garbage one because it looks more like a karate gi.


Next I was working on the adventure costume, at first I was going to give him a towl cape with a torch lamp and a remote control sword. However I then thought of making a knight costume out of cardboard boxes because I felt I could do more things things with that idea.
I also worked on the different types of helmets he could wear in his knight costume and his soldier costume as well. For the soldier I'm just going to give my character a colander helmet and a mop gun because I think those two features will be enough to show he is a gunner.


The rest of the images are different storyboards for my character as a cardboard knight the first one has him fighting a table with his sword but ends up breaking the sword. The second idea he was rolling the dice to make his movements until he reaches a mirror and start posing but he then felt he looked stupid. The final idea has him looking inside the sofa like it was a treasure chest and finds a tv remote control and starts watching the television.






I even created two animatics to show Alan
The first animatic shows of the three main ideas for my animation, but the last two needs more work.


The second animatic shows of three different ideas for the adventure story line. However I choes the first one because I really like it


I had a meeting with Alan with these ideas and he likes them but wanted me to work on the adventure idea a bit more maybe work on how my character realise on the dice for his decisions from movement to watching the television. Maybe pull of a sword in the stone spoof with him having his sword stuck in the table or have my character dressed up as a wizard and start casting spells on the television but ends up failing.
Other than that he seemed please with the work I have shown him and now he want's me to clean up my character and pick out some colours for him, as well to create a modelling map for him.
Please leave some feedback