The Final Stretch

This is it, we're coming down to the last two weeks!! For SCAD's Post Production class, everyone gets the first six weeks of the quarter to touch up on anything they want to fix and then that's it. We all have to hand in a finished film on February 13th. As of right now, we're beginning final rendering and compositing, as well as final sound mixing. I'm incredibly excited to finally finish this film, it's been a really long year. It seemed like just yesterday I was sitting in concept trying to create a script for this trailer. This short has come a really long way and I couldn't have done it without the help of my incredible crew, friends and family who have helped and supported me the entire way.

I've learned more about animation and production this past year than I have ever before; it's been an invaluable experience. I have touched literally every aspect of my film, from modeling to animating to lighting. It's been fun, but painful as well and while I've really enjoyed this experience, I'm ready to put it down and start something new.

My plans for this short aren't entirely clear yet, I'm not sure whether I want to submit it to festivals or release it online right away. I'll probably try film festivals, I feel that will be a smart way to get my concept out there.

As for long term plans with "Dream Runners" I have decided to officially pursue creating an animated series. I have dreamed of creating my own animation studio for sometime now and I want "Dream Runners" to be the studio's big project. I'll probably make a tumblr dedicated to concept art for the show at some point (for which I will post a link to once it's made). Also, there may or may not be a comic series. I've always imagined "Dream Runners" in comic form, but now I know it needs to be animated.

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by and followed the film, I'm sorry for not updating for long periods of time. Here's the latest image I've created that's going to be on the front of our crew shirts. Enjoy!

Onward to Post Production!

Hey guys! Sorry for the long hiatus, the last 10 weeks were quite the experience. I've been working like crazy trying to get this film to where it needs to be, and after many countless hours, I was able to hand in a fully animated, lit and rendered film!

Last quarter I animated all 17 shots on my own and worked with some really talented people who helped me out with texturing, lighting and effects.

Right now SCAD is on its winter break, so we don't start up the next quarter until January. So in the mean time I'll be tweaking animation, fixing some things on the rig and preparing the film for its final lighting and effects passes. All animation majors get the first 5 weeks in Post Production to finish any minor details of their film. So essentially, "Dream Runners" will be done by the beginning of February.

I'm unsure of wether or not I'll be submitting the film into festivals. In the case that I do, I won't be able to post it online for a year unfortunately.

Thanks for stopping by!

Massive Summer Update!!!

I've been very busy this summer between an internship, working on this film and running around with friends from home that I haven't had time to sit down and update this blog. So here it all is:

Leo

So for Leo, I had to retopologize his whole body because we ran into some issues with the blendshapes, plus I wanted to adjust his face a bit. Here's what we have now:

(also look at dat butt, I mean it's pretty sweet)

My knowledge from retopologizing the tree definitely came in handy, I don't know where I would be at if I didn't make myself learn how to before. I also learned a lot about UV mapping. I used 3D Coat to both retopologize and UV everything because I don't have the tools I usually have at school while at home. I must say though, 3D Coat is a really awesome software, especially since you can get a lot out of the free trial! Right now he is being rigged and should be ready for some basic testing very soon.

Tree

Oh man is the tree looking incredible! I was excited when the modeling was finished, but I'm even MORE excited now that the textures and clouds are really coming together!!

I mean look at this thing!!!!!! It's absolutely gorgeous and the fact that you can tell it's metallic makes me so ecstatic! My texture artist is seriously amazing, I'm so glad he's helping me on this project.

And this is the moment everyone has been waiting for (whoever you are): CLOUDS!!!! Look at that broccoli! I'm just kidding but that's what I think of whenever I see this, really colorful broccoli. But doesn't this look so neat?! The second picture is going more towards the direction that I want it in, more transparent and cloud-like. Right now, my team is working on some renders of the textured tree together with the clouds as well as testing out some billowing movement through the clouds.

Everything is really coming together. I've gotten some more feedback on the 3D animatic and there are some changes it's going to go through but once that's done I'm probably going to lock down the shots for good and it's straight on to animating! Thanks for stopping by!

Leo Rig!!!!!

I feel like this blog has been dedicated to the tree this entire time (haha............), so I'm pleased to announce that we now have a working basic rig for Leo! The reason he's only going to be basic for right now is for the purpose of handing in a new 3D animatic with Leo instead of the stand-in rig. The plan is to tweak some of the modeling (we've come across a couple of issues) and then give him an advanced rig with full facial and stretchy limbs. All that's left for the end of the quarter is to address some deformation issues and add facial blendshapes to the eyes and mouth. So here he is, posed out and looking cool!

The Tree is Done!!!!!!!!

The day has finally come: the tree has finally been completed! It's been a long couple of weeks but this thing is finally being passed on to my crew to be textured and given its glowing clouds of portals. I don't think I've ever learned/taught myself more on any project before this one and it was on something I really didn't even enjoy before (I still don't incredibly enjoy it but I have more respect for the art of modeling now). This project came with a lot of firsts: it was my first time modeling an organic form, my first time using ZBrush and my first time retopologizing a model. It's been rough and I could have gotten someone to do this for me in probably a week, but I'm glad I made myself take on this challenge because it's helped me grow as an artist. Anyway, enough of this, here are some screenshots!

And here's a render from just a lighting test I was playing around with, nothing serious, just wanted to see how it looked with the different colored lights.

More Effects

Here are the other effects that I'm planning on incorporating into my film.

The portals that Leo jumps through to get into the DreamScape and also into the dream he searches for are heavily influenced by the portals from the game Portal. But a huge difference is that these portals float in space, so they don't have the restrictions of being attached to a hard surface. With this in mind, the portals I want to achieve can hover and drift a little bit through the air while staying in the same general area. The actual form of the portal will have a bit of movement to it, with different strands of colored light waving around its edges to look like water waves. Here are some example images:

Last of the effects is the memory itself. Simply put, the memory looks like a glowing orb of light from a distance, but upon inspection there are swirling forms inside of it. The closest example of this are the prophecy orbs that are from the film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The forms inside never take an actual shape, they just sort of swim around.

Smoke Effect Concept

Here's a quick image I drew up of what I'm envisioning the smoke sequence to look like. The smoke will emit a bit of a glow, if not completely emit light altogether. 

Note: This is the part in the 3D animatic where the blue ball floats around Leo; the ball is a stand-in for this smoke trail.