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.

Effects Reference Images

This is a post dedicated to some of the effects that will be going into this film.

First of all, there's this tree I've been talking so much about. Essentially, instead of leaves, it has a bunch of portals into dreams that emit light and float around the ends of the branches. When clumped together and seen from afar, they create this cloud-like form that sways like it's being blown by wind. Here are some reference images:

Next, when Leo enters the dream he's looking for, he encounters an animated trail of smoke that leads him to the memory. This effect will look like ink that has been dropped into water, but will be animated with a life of its own. This video illustrates the effect I'm shooting for, but with quicker movements since it will be floating to somewhere instead of just slowing down in water: [Click Here]

Finally, when Leo runs through the DreamScape to approach the tree, his footsteps create a ripple effect through the floor. When his foot comes in contact with the ground, circular rings made of lights spread out from the center of contact and wave through the floor like a water ripple until they dissipate into nothingness once again.

This film is going to look awesome, I'm really excited!

Tree Progress: So Close!

Hey hey hey look! This tree is finally getting somewhere! After doing some crazy sculpting in ZBrush, I am now in the process of retopologizing since the poly count is ridiculous and some of the branches are probably going to be rigged. I have learned SO MUCH from doing this tree, I'm actually really proud of myself. 

It's taken longer than I wanted it to, but I don't regret taking on all of the work. I taught myself a program that I've never even opened before (ZBrush) and discovered that I love working on the retopology (probably a little more than I should...). Once I finish the branches, then it's back into Maya to do some modeling tweaks, and then to a UV texture artist so one of my texture artists can get started on making it look awesome. I also have someone currently working on the effects for the cloud lights. THIS IS SO EXCITING!