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!

3D Animatic Update!

Here's a new animatic with (almost) all 3D elements. The environments are very rough and the character is just a stand in since Leo is undergoing some last modeling tweaks before getting rigged. Enjoy!

Click Here!