Monday, September 21, 2009

POST Traumatic Stress

          So i totally forgot to add this image to my last post and thought it was well worth posting. just the outline of the Red Mage character design, colored briefly in photoshop, and labeled enough to know what all the difference pieces are that are going to be modeled.

          Enjoy.


**Opens in new window.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

WIP it good.

          So anoter week has gone by and i have made some improvements over my last few posts - though i'm only going to show some of them. I inked and added detail to my storyboards (mostly spacial depth stuff so you get a sense of things), inked and colored the "Front View" of my Red Mage design, inked the Back View, and made sketches for my "Set".

          Page 1: I don't know how well this is going to work out, but i'm gonna try it anyway. Recently they've been showing episodes of Teen Titans on CN and Boomerang, and i love some of the styles they use to show certain things; like when they have a duel or someone running a long distance or something, they'll have the bottome half of the screen be completely black (to illustrate the ground the they're running on and force the subject into the middle of the screen without getting so close). That's what i'm going to try and do in some of the panels/shots of this animation (Spec. Panels 1 & 6-9)




          Page 2: Not much has changed besides the gradients added in Photoshop. Same stuff as the pencil version.









          Page 3: I decided what was going to happen in Panel 7, and it can happen quite a few ways too...though essentially they are all the same. The character can throw is sword "Blade-over-Hilt" and catch it with just a vertical jump before landing/striking downward - or - the character can throw it "Sideways" and catch it with a "jump-and-a-spin" before striking sideways. I would personally like to see the sideways one because the stance/pose he'd be left in would be more dynamic......but the blade over hilt would be easier to animate overall.




          Page 4: So this is essentially what the animation is going to be, though if it looks like it'll be longer than 30 seconds i have ideas of whta actions to cut/simplify/overlap. But either way, after the semester is done, depending on how well i picked up on the 'animating' principles and process, i'm definitely planning to make a longer verson of this idea...with more action and fighting than right before Demi Moore left Bruce for Ashton.





          So the details of the overall scene are somewhat lacking in the storyboards, so i decided to make a preliminary sketch to plot out the key points before i go in to model it (though usually i can sit down with nothing in my head and after a few hours come out with something awesome).

          It might be hard to tell what way the stairs are going and what is a new level and such, but i should have some rought renders and models in a week or two, so don't fret if it's hard to read.

          It's mostly just the basic outline of everything, once i actually go into maya and start modeling, things might change to look more 'organic' or natural....so the set probably won't look like this 100%...but it'll look relatively similar.




          Side Profile of the main room of the 'set'.



          Mostly what all is in this is just basic geometry and lighting elements, trying to say that the lights should only illuminate from tapestry to tapestry....so there will be black patches every so many feet (to try and accomplish a certain effect for the first shot of my storyboard).

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Are you Board with my Story?

     So the first week of school is half over, despite starting a week ago, and we're now able to submit our homework for the first week - which are Storyboards for your final animation concept. Mine are below and will go into further explaination later if at all (i think between the "Action" and "Comments" you can get the gesture of what i'm going for. Quite a bit is left out of the storyboards, esp. the environment - but the time it would take me to draw them to the level of detail you could appreciate....i could just as quickly made the actual model and show you from more angles and detail.

     Page 1 of my storyboard details the build up of the first scene - and the frame of the camera isn't going to be showing both feet at the same time, it'll more than likely be position in the middle - as to get the passing of both (i might try two version, one staying with the character, and the other catching up to and potentially passing him).
     Also, i'm going to try and space the lighting to make it seem more intensified, like when a person is riding an elevator and is lit every other second or so from the various floors/shaft lighting.




     What Panel 5 doesn't show is that before it starts tracking along the blade of the sword, i'll actually animate him unsheathing it (as best i can anyway lol) and do some fancy cutting so it doesn't look like it's own scene/shot before the track (FYI: tracking is moving closer or pulling back...not to be confused with "Zoom")







     Panel 7 left blank as i have not yet decided how i want my character to "Take off" towards the other person (whether there's someone what of a shockwave and he literally flies off into the room, or if i want to manipulate the lense angle to give it that 'worm's/fish eye view.







     Panel 10 is the point to which i am setting my semester goal - "Get to at least this point". I have the rest of the whole scene planned out (including things like the main character being thrown across the floor and flailling wildly and being thrown at a wall and doing that cliche 'sword-through-cloth to slow down his fall). So if i get to this point and have way more time than i know what to do with, i'll keep it going (which i intend to during the winter anyway).

So that's that, i'll post the designs for my main character and his "Opponent" when i finish doing all side (front, back, and side) and have designed the finer details of their costumes (which involves drinking paint and adding belts......meh DJ gets it anyway).

Monday, September 7, 2009

Time for another WIPping


WIP - But for the most part done. Minor anatomical corrections and building up of the muscles are needed, but as a whole it's done and ready for rigging/binding - next up are the pieces of its costume - sketches to come shortly.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

So this Thursday is the big day - SCHOOL STARTS!!! It feels so fraking late. I feel like it'll be Thanksgiving in another week or two and then the easter bunny will be popping his head out of the groundhog's ass to see if there's two more weeks or Heroes. So this semester i've eliminated those pesky art classes that never seem to benifit me and always take up my free time or three hours before my deadline...either way they were a pain and i'm going to avoid it like a gay man trying to be straight.

So the only classes i've got this time are 3, count em, 3 that won't be as time consuming as before. they are:

ANM 202: Maya 1 (a more involved and detailed version of the first Maya class i took - much better amount and quality of information being dispensed and absorbed).

LA 256: Topics in Contemporary Mathmatics (the kind of math i like to do/talk about - statistics, probability, math in "principle" and not application).

FND 131: Figure Modeling (still not 100% sure what we're going to be doing....but it'll be made out of clay...clay figures....figure modeling.....yeah).

So the class that i'm really looking forward to, as anyone who knows me can tell you, is tha ANM 202 Maya class. I've spent a lot of time this summer practicing things i already knew (so they come easier) and learning knew things so i can apply them - whever they are needed or not - and get professional feedback...cuz the only people i ever really show things to don't have experience with them, so i get a lot of "That's kewl" (trust me....you can almost feel the W roll off their tongues). So i've already had a chance to look over the instructional videos for the whole semester and it looks like, though i don't know yet because i haven't looked at the syllabus, we're going to be making a polygonal character model after a character we chose (pre-existing or entirely original - for which i'm going to be using the Red Mage from FFXI) and learning how to rig skeletons and bind them to the character (as the last class had us model the character "over" the bones which were provided), render, light, ...basically all the things i did last fall but with more understanding and better advice.

Well there's not much else i can go on about right now because i don't have the sketches of the Red Made handy to post, but since school starts soon, i should have quite a bit to show you as i'm going to try and be the person in the head of the class this semester...so lots and lots of maya each week (hopefully posting anyway)