Wednesday 29 March 2017

Environment/Asset Design- The Overture- Concepts

I personally still wasn't happy with my colour choices for the Overture, so I've revisited the environment (again) and tried limiting the colour options to- Charcoal,  Ochre and the Cream (With pitch black line art.) The script calls for a monochrome environment, baring resemblance to sheet music, but I felt a mid tone might be necessary for distinguishing foreground and background features.

I've begun by recolouring the Overture reveal scene (having never been completely happy with it.) Below is a Comparison between the previous and latest. Which do you prefer 1 or 2?

1

2

Using 2's colour scheme I've investigated a new POV of the Overture.

Friday 24 March 2017

Environment/Asset Design- The Overture and Violin assets

Expanding further on the Overture, I revisited the first post and added a little more detail, ready for further feature shots of the surrounding area.



I'll be working on other views of the overture space soon, but to take a break I've started to look into the minutiae of the script. Particular elements and assets Red interacts with or comes to see in the districts. One such thing are the trains speeding through the Violin district. 

Below are some renditions of a Violin Steam engine. (I felt steam perhaps fit better with the old wooden scroll work of the violin) Carriages are next on the to-do list, both interior and exterior view points.


Thursday 23 March 2017

Characters: The King and Queen Orthographs

Presenting the orthographic views for their Majesties! There are probably quite a few features that cannot make sense in 3D, especially the eyes, but I trust Ethan's judgement and hope alternatives can be found where needed. 
Since the Queen is meant to only move sideways, I thought it be useful to have her head already in position as it also allowed for the crown not to go through the ruff... I additionally gave the King shoulder pads as it can maybe provide the arms with more freedom. Let me know if anything needs tweaking though, be it the colours etc.



Modelling: The Cello District Assets #02


Wednesday 22 March 2017

YPGTTO: Yellow Character Update

Just another little update on Yellow.

The model is more or less finished. (although there's just a few minor things left that I want to tweak)


I have also begun to rig Yellow. I have built the skeleton and created most of the control shapes. (Many of which have been borrowed from the Red Rig)


The controls have been re-positioned and organised into the correct hierarchy and all the custom control attributes have been added.

That's about all there is to show right now.

So this is what's left to do (but in no particular order):

  • skinning
  • building the spine rig
  • building the arms
  • build the legs / feet
  • building the face rig
  • figuring out what to do with the hair
  • plus controls for anything else unique to Yellow


Many of the above tasks are going to be fairly straight forward because they're identical to the Red Rig.

Then once those are done, everything needs to be connected to the final control rig and tested.

Ethan Shilling

Tuesday 21 March 2017

Environment/Asset Design- The Kingdom of Sound/ Overture- Concepts

A lower level rendition of the Kingdom of sound.

I have recently begun work on the Overture. (A rather daunting task!) I am currently working from Jordan's original spacious designs and latest colour storyboarding. I hope to create some more Overture features soon. Below I tried out colour picking directly from antique musical sheets. but the colours appeared a little too saturated in A, so I tested out lesser saturation in B. What do we think?

A- Saturated

 B- Desaturated

Saturday 18 March 2017

Environment/Asset Design- The Kingdom of Sound- Concepts

In trying to create a low angle, Red point of view, of the fully grown Kingdom of Sound facsimile, I found it was next to impossible to visualise the varying slanted levels of the extrusion. (Though I tried in vision A.) So I spent a day creating a very rough 3D version to use as a visual aid, in conjunction with Alan's Conductor rig. The end result was a far more successful vision B. 

Vision A                                                   Vision B

3D reference models


Thursday 16 March 2017

YPGTTO: Storyboarding & Detailed Shot Breakdown



Back in early December 2016, Sam Niemczyck finished the not inconsiderable task of turning the Kingdom Of Sound script into a first-pass animatic, so we could begin to see the true extent of the storytelling challenge we'd set before ourselves.  As production continues on the YPGTTO's many, many 2D designs and resulting 3D assets, Jordan Buckner is using Sam's animatic and original drawings as the basis for creating a second-pass storyboard.  This storyboard serves a number of purposes - to commit us to specific shots, compositions and set-ups and to identify ways by which we might seek to make prudent economies in terms of the realities of getting this animation finished in time for its first scheduled performance in September this year.  Where can we use good storytelling techniques and sprightly editing to elide that gratuitous crowd simulation shot... and do we really need that fourth row of flute-inspired towers when a matte-painting will do the job nicely?  We shall see!