Revised Storyboards *UPDATED*

Sorry again that it's taken so long. Confidence in myself went down the toilet and I started second-guessing EVERY panel...and that's my excuse. That, and life gets in the way.

Anyways, if you have comments/critiques I'd love to hear 'em, but please make them specific instead of "this looks bad" or "this needs to be better" or "this isn't funny enough."  These aren't to show EXACTLY how the story will be told...but hopefully they're a good enough visual reference. Obviously we'll make changes are we start churning this thing out.

CHANGES: Larry starts on the bench so we can avoid animating a walk cycle.  REGARDING THE BRIEFCASE, it's going to be UNDER the bench...instead of on the bench and getting in the way. I forgot to remove it from number 9, so just ignore it. He sniffs the sandwich, then looks down when he hears the "coo coo"

Ignore the briefcase from 16 & 17

CHANGES: He looks at the sandwich, then at the pigeon...doing the math in his head. He slowly scoots over trying to avoid/ignore the pigeon but then SUPRISE! The pigeon's already there, waiting for him.

 Tug of war is pretty much the same, just reversed. He's on the RIGHT now and the pigeon's on the LEFT

The same, just opposite direction from before.

 CHANGES: Fixed the direction issues with the Alka-Seltzer throw. Different view of him on the ground and we actually see the pigeon hop down. Lots of pigeon walking animation. Could remove the walking (number 40) and just cut  to where the pigeon's standing there
about to eat it (number 41)...

 CHANGES: Different viewpoint for explosion. Removed the standing up/brushing feathers off part. He just sits down now, "whew glad that's over" and pulls out cookie.

Included the "Saruman Shot" as I like to call it. In the Two Towers, Saruman is up on his balcony and the camera zooms out to show the backs of the thousands of orc warriors. Hopefully we can do the same thing on a smaller, but still equally epic scale. Camera zooms out showing the army of pigeons ready to attack poor Larry.


*THE END!*

Stitch vs no stitch

Wesley this is in regard to your comment about the stitch. I bumped it a little higher on this one. I actually see a bit of a mistake cuz the bump gets away from the diffuse a little. But it's an easy fix. Which one do you like more? / What are your suggestions if theres a different way I should take it entirely.

Blend Shape samples

Just a few blend shape combinations (obviously I can't post all the combinations) so these are just a few. I have separate blend shapes controlling the eyelids, eyebrows, and mouth region.

Hope you like it! Any tips? If not, I'm going to start working on binding the skin and painting weights (fuuuunnnnnnnnn)

Oh, and when I get the mouth rig and eye rig going he'll have more flexibility, I realize he has bigger mouth shapes in the concept art, and hopefully that should be achieved once I get the mouth to open and close.

I Didn't Abandon the Pigeon! :)

Sorry I haven't posted any more updates. I'm just very slow and quite the perfectionist sometimes. Well here is the pigeon. I haven't mudboxed him yet  : /  but here's what I have. I'm not sure if I did the eyes right. I followed that link you sent Garrett. And I'm not sure how eye sockets are supposed to work. There are some parts that are a little bumpy that i could fix. Is this ok as far as polys go? or does he have too much now? I saw the frame with the bird inhaling the sandwhich and wondered if more polys would help with that. I don't know. Sorry I'm rambling. give me the feedbacks and stuffs.

SIZE COMPARISON

At Garrett's request...here's a size comparison between Larry and the pigeon.

Blend shapes are going really well.

This is for the scene where Larry sees the huge crowd of pigeons. This definitely conveys that emotion.

Man, I am learning so much about rigging it is awesome.

I'm having a lot of success with blend shapes so far, so I thought I'd give you guys a little sample of all my hard work. 

I'm actually starting to think that I may be the best rigger in all of america, maybe even canada.

Anyways, I'll open it up to critiques but I honestly don't feel I need any.

Tentative Timing

K so I know we were shooting for 30 seconds but after Wesley and I talked we realized we want to tell the story for a little longer. The original idea behind a 30 second short was that it would be easy to put on a demo reel- If you notice the first 20 seconds of the film move slow as it establishing the scenario. Animation should be a breeze up to this point and will be a great start for the beginning of August. Rough 3D Layout's deadline for this first 20 seconds will be August 1st.

Rigging update

Hello everyone!
So, in my last post I expressed a bit of confusion. But I wanted to let you know that I've gotten over some of the obstacles I was facing and I think I have a process down. Just to update you on my progress, I have the skeleton and a control rig, but it's not yet bound to the skin. Before I do that I am working on blend shapes, and I have finally figured out how to work back and forth between maya and mudbox. I'm going to have to have separate blend shapes for mouth, eyebrow, and eye movement, but I think that should be fine.

I'm attaching pictures of the control rig and one blend shape I did just as a test (so it won't be the final blend shape).
Hope I can get this all done soon!

Color Script

Here's the color script.  Parts of it could be stronger... but let me know what you think.  I may need to go back and rework some of it.  I basically just painted a color reference for every time that the storyboards changed scenes/angles.  This was the first time I've attempted a color script, so I didn't feel like I knew what I was doing sometimes. The most important part of the color script is that the values all read clearly, it's kept simple, and that it aids in the storytelling.  The values get kind of got muddied in some places so I had to make a few minor adjustments (like adding grass behind the pigeon in box 7, but that can change. I was just experiementing).

Shading

So far everything is going well. I used your feedback to make the shoes a bit less realistic. If it needs to change it won't be a difficult one. I still have a lot of work to do to make sure things are looking right. Theres some stretching happening that I have to fix, and I haven't really touched the jacket and pants yet. Any feedback would be great.

Larry's Shoe Texture

Alright guys- I need feedback from you vis dev kids. I know we talked about how the film would be similar to megamind. Does this feel too realistic? Should it be more cartoony/stylized?

Progress Update

Well guys it looks like our summer project is coming together nicely and so far has gone incredibly smooth, especially considering the fact we are all in different states. Of course theres been a few speed bumps along the way, but overall our progress is almost how we planned it. I just wanted to say thanks for all your hard work and effort- I know that it won't go unnoticed. I truly believe everyone working on this project will be a leader on the senior film soon enough, this experience can only help future results. 

Modeling is coming together nicely. I planned for everyone to be done today- I got all the models so far save a couple, but a lot of little things need to be revisited, so the modeling team is each working on those tweaks this week. 

As you've seen Wesley did a great job showing off his story with well drawn and easily readable storyboards. James is helping him improve the story even more. As soon as our storyboards are finalized, Alyssa will give us a color and value script which we will use for reference while lighting. Wesley and I will go ahead and get 3D Layout laid down asap with the help of Brandon. 

From here on out things are going to have to move fast. I am texturing Larry and I will have an update on him by Wednesday. Aaron is rigging Larry and it's a huge task at hand. Most main characters take up to 6 months to rig for feature films. Since we don't have 6 months, we will do the best with what we have. We're gonna have to play it by ear for the rigging process is a troubleshooting one, hopefully Laura and Jared will help out with that so we can finish up 2-3 weeks from now.

I really didn't mean for the project to get a lot of people involved, just like most senior films don't expect a lot of people to work on them- but to get things done we have to have enough people. Today I met with Carson Crawford (we are both in Denver for the week) and she said she'd love to help out on lighting if she could. She obviously knows more than any of us do since she lit several shots on Estefan. That being said, I think we should make her lead over lighting. Once we get to that point, we will split up the shots between Alyssa and I and whoever else knows a thing or two about lighting, and we will have Carson do paintovers and teach us what to fix and the best way to do things. On that note, I have requested a couple other reliable people help finish the rig and animation on the pigeon so that Aaron can focus on Larry. I'm just trying to look a few moves ahead of the game so we don't get "checkmated" in the end.

Because we want this to be quality- let's just focus on the first 10-15 seconds of the film for now (I'm referring to 3d layout, animation, and lighting only). Once we nail that down, we can move on to the rest come september. There is a good chance this project will take longer than we first planned and it will be something we will have to somehow do during the school year along with Chasm and the new film yet to be chosen. I don't want this project to become overwhelming and get left in the dust though. Let's combine our super powers and get as much done as we can while holding to our quality level we have sustained thus far. 

Good job team- Let's go get em'.  

Stalemate

Hey guys, I'm kind of stuck, and I'm wondering if anyone can give me some guidance on this whole rigging process.
Mostly, I just don't know what to do next. So far, I've used the HumanIK skeleton generator in maya to quickly create the joints of the body, and I've also (hopefully) oriented the joints correctly.

So, I have a few questions from this point. I know I need to make blend shapes, and add more joints in the head, but I am just not sure when to do that. Do I bind the rig to the skin and then make blend shapes? Also, since the model consists of separate meshes, I'm thinking I'll have to bind certain joints to certain meshes, making the weight painting easier.
I really just need to know what to do next. I'm kind of at a standstill. I've tried contacting some riggers but haven't heard back for a few days.

STORYBOARD! (finally!)

"A DAY IN THE PARK"

Yes, I'll admit I obsessed over these...and there were several distractions...but they're finally done. And yes, Garrett, I know I should've not worried about details and left them rougher...but I've learned my lesson.

3-9

 10-18

 19-27

 28-36

 37-45

 46-54

Larry UV map

Got Larry all UV mapped except the eyes/glasses/and teeth. I put two 4k maps side by side just to show the progress. A combination of Zbrush, UV Layout, and Maya make UV mapping a breeze.

topology

here's the topology. are the head and the legs ok as far as having enough polygons? I'm still getting a feel for what is enough or too much still. :)

Pigeon update

I had the wing started but lost it from a crash. Sorry i'm not as far along as I should be. I will be coming to the lab every day this week though, so I will be able to catch up. hit me up with critiqueness please, that would be great.

DA BRIEFCASE!!

Rough Layout Start

I don't really like layout... but heres my terrible attempt at it. I got tired after 30 minutes of doing it and called it quits. I hated everything being gray so I started putting shaders on everything and thats when I realized I shouldn't be in layout, but should stick to shading.

I know theres a way to move a character with a rig but I sure don't remember how so I just like deformed the model. This gets the point across at least. It's bad I know... but its rough... really rough. And the 3D stuff in the background will end up as a matt painting on different layers. It's just there for placement purposes. And I don't suppose the pigeon will be sitting in front of the bench haha, I just forgot to move it. Oh what should we name the pigeon? It needs a name. ;)

LARRY MODEL!

He is finished!!! basically! Except his glasses...I'm gonna do that

We'll probably have to tweak a few more things as we go, but here he is! in all his 3 dimensional glory.