BDM225 BDM226 Animation inspiration

3D Animated A Fox Tale Short Film, Directed by Thomas Bozovic, Alexandre Cazals, Julien Legay, Chao Ma.

I enjoyed this short film as the animation is awesome, in particular the scene was inspiring for me as it is set in a jungle type area. I liked how the flora and fauna all worked in well together, this is a challenge that I am having with my own scene, it is difficult to make the scene seem natural. I also like the colour scheme of this animation as the characters stand out easily against the rich colours in the background.

BDM226 Walking

Rendered walk cycle, steps

BDM226 Jump Cycle

I've had a lot of problems with weighting of my character, Having re-done it about 10 or 15 times I am moving on to animation where I will tweak the rest of my weighting.

The Jump cycle has been difficult to master, I've used a series of different references trying to find one suitable for Oogie,

weighting has probably been the most challenging part of 3D for me. It is particularly difficult with his clothing being a different model so they are difficult to get behaving along with the skeleton that is rigged to the body. 

Jumping

BSA206 The Bicycle Theif

Review:

I enjoyed watching The Bicycle Thief as it had a familiar feel to the story line. The use of ordinary people for the actors really outlined the theme of poverty in the film, The bicycle itself represented the fathers job and his desperate need for an income to look after the family he loved and adored. The son showed the immensity of the father's love and his need for the bicycle constantly following him around, I found it interesting that the father got so desperate that he would force the same circumstances on another family just to remove his own problems. The movie was emotional and touching, as the young boys love for his father stayed true even after witnessing him stealing another persons bike.

BDM206 Neorealism

What makes a Neorealist film?

Non-professional actors,
Filming on site
Natural Lighting
Documentary style
Stories focused on poor and working class

Example: 

The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Bicycle Theif

BDM226 Blend Shapes and Facial Expressions

BDM225 Modelling My scene

3D Modelling Cave and Landscape

This is my original modelling for my scene, I used the sculpting tools to make the geometry look more organic. my creek is currently a blue plane until I can decide on a look for it

I have textured the grass and fauna, however, I feel like I might need to extend my scene as it is narrow and I may not be able to get the camera shots I want.

Model and Texture Flora and Fauna

Fern

Fern with flower

Banana leaf

Grass

I have four different plants in my scene at the moment, I am thinking of modelling a fifth plant with flowers but it is difficult to make the plants look naturally placed in the scene, the grass is placed around the edges of the creek and the banana leaf tree is closer to the walls 

Modelling my Creek 

For the creek flowing through my scene I have used a paint brush (flowing rapids) effect under the watermesh folder and converted it into polygons, this allows the water to be animated flowing down the creek as apposed to an ocean shade which has no sense of direction.

It is difficult to paint the creek path without the polygons overlapping, if they overlap when animated there can be glitches in the flow of the water.

The overall effect when rendered is a believable creek animation with a small amount of time involved. One issue is the render time with the creek in the scene as it does have a significant amount of polygons, to avoid long render times i will only include the creek in scenes where it is visible on camera. 

I have since widened my scene since the original model but still need to do some work on how believable my scene can be and whether the camera shots will work in the area that is modeled

BSA206 Elzie Segar

Elzie Segar

1894-1938

What Characters did he create?

Olive Oyl
Popeye The Sailor Man

Studios:

Fleischer Studios

Changes Over Time:

Popeye started as a comic strip entitled Thimble Theater (1929) which was originally revolved around the female character Olive Oyl and her family, Popeye's appeared 9 years after the comic was published, however he became more famous and went on to be animated alongside Betty Boop in his first cartoon entitled 'Popeye the Sailor' (1933).

The live action film was released in 1980 with Robin Williams as the star of the show. Since then Pop-eye's popularity has decreased, however there is talk of a 3D feature length film being release in 2017.


"Popeye is much more than a goofy character to me," Segar confided to Martin Sheridan, author of Comics and their Creators published four years after Segar's death. "He represents all of my emotions, and he is an outlet for them. I'd like to cut loose and knock the heck out of a lot of people, but my good judgment and size hold me back. Instead I use my imagination and let the sailor do the scrapping." - Elzie Segar

      

Links:
History on Popeye
Elzie Crisler Segar
You'll Eat your Spinach and Like it!

Texturing

I had a lot of issues unwrapping my UV mesh. The body mesh for my character corrupted and I was unable to move the UV Shells around, after  a whole week of stressing we managed to figure out the problem was in the shoes as they had multiple faces on top of each other. Once this had been sorted I was able to lay out the shells and texture Oogie within a couple of days

Unwrapped UV's

Final Design

In view mode my hair texture is seen as black, but once it is rendered out the textures are visible with the bump map enabled. Oogie's hair is the only texture with a bump map as I chose to have the clothes and skin smooth. 

BDM226 Character Building

My Progress as I model my camera, from my reference images to the head and hair

Character shape is blocky and has many issues to clean up

Modelling the head was difficult for me as extra faces kept turning up, eventually we had to delete the top of the head for the shapes to come out properly in face. The nose is an issue as it is not symmetrical and also is creating a pinch in the middle of Oogie's face 

I used the sculpting tool for the hair which gave it a more natural, organic feel 

The loin cloth was sculpted with the Make Live button around his body, I plan to form the shoes later