Class Log 03-05

Friday we met with the animation crew to show them the storyboards and hear their thoughts. Gabi and Haley team-tagged the presentation and did a great job. The animators were worried about how big the film was, and we went back and forth about it some. They also asked some technical questions about the rigs and process of animating that were helpful to the digi-scout crew. We split up in to groups so the animators could discuss the film. Rebecca had some textures to show us, and we worked on developing the look for Phoebe's hair. We also got to meet Tia, who is helping us develop the Z-brush model of Phoebe.

Today we continued developing assets and layout shots for the film. I have been lent over to characters, and am continuing to develop a Phoebe painting for our modeling crew. 

Environments had some great hero assets for boats, the dock, trash and rock walls. There was also some nice brickwork done by Jiazhen, which should be helpful for modeling to make tileable textures. 

Addie made some smaller assets like Vespas and carts, but her major asset was a revamped church building. I think it looks terrific, and she did a good job. I reminded her to include the round window on the front of it, but otherwise it was perfect. She also made some really interesting descriptions of Phoebe's journal entries. Austin also blocked out my alley scene and the scene with the paper walking down the stairs. I really enjoyed his shot choices for the alleyway scene. 

Haley made an awesome paper rig. It was seriously impressive how much control the animators will have over it. 

Tia started the Z-brush model, and it is looking good. It brought up some important corrections that needed to be made though, and Dennis did some draw-overs. I have been working with Dennis on a painting to help the crew bring our main character to life. Professor Pattinson mentioned that she looks like she is dressed for cooler weather, but this is supposed to be a hot climate. We realized that she should be wearing sandals and shorter leggings as a result. I also plan to lighten the fabric of her kimono it looks more flowy. Professor Pattinson also asked me to do several lighting passes based on the times of day we will see our character in, which will be easy because of how I have layered the file. 

For my painting, I worked with Dennis and Ana to create a compelling character pose. Then, using Ana's colors, I developed the look of the character. I used one of Shannon's environment concepts as the background, which really helped sell the environment and gave me direction on lighting. I decided to do an ambient skylight first because it will be a consistent factor in any type of shot. That will make it easy for me to add other key lights for emotional beats.