Lighting Key Progress

• I'd like light coming from behind screen-right to avoid casting shadows across both of my characters.
• I increased the intensity and saturation of some of the colors and added shifted the hue from green to more yellow (I always think things are more green than they are). 
• The dog silhouette is getting lost a bit, but I think that's just my poor painting skills.
• More of the fence may need to be put into shadow.
• The sidewalk in front should probably be a lot brighter
• I'm not so sure that my current trees really match the reference trees I used when modeling them. I may need to go back and see how their leaves handle light

Current paintover progress for lighting key. 

Paintover layer with the basic 7-point lighting rig, flat shaders, and transparent sky for color blocking

Animation Reference

 

Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion Print no. 707, 1887

Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotoion, Print no. 709, 1887. 

Muybridge Mutt on Flickr

 
Muybridge Locomotion, Dog Running, 1881

Shot Breakdown

 

Storyboard, for reference...

Shot 01: 

shot01.ma

Medium to close focal length, glancing downward

Dog enters screen right and runs around tree

Assets:

• Dog
• Dog's tree
• fence
• grass
• ground

Shot 02

shot02.ma
Close focal length
Dog's perspective of cat sitting perched on tree, low-angle

Assets

• Cat
• Cat's tree

Shot 03

shot03.ma
Wide shot, establishing

Assets

• Cat
• Dog
• Cat's tree
• Dog's tree
• ground
• fence
• sidewalk
• grass
• extended ground plane?
• street?
• matte painting backdrop

Shot 04

shot04.ma (set from shot01.ma)

Medium to close focal length, glancing downward 

Dog stares blankly, maybe looks back at audience and then back to cat, tail starts wagging, and exits screen left.

Assets

• Dog
• Dog's tree
• fence
• grass
• ground

Rigging Day with Krista Notes

Notes

Connection Types

Direct 

Indirect Connections

Direct (Node) Connections

Conditional Connections

Joint Orientation

You want joints to orient along the joint chain so that the axes all flow with the chain

Swineburne Rigging Videos

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/tutorials/P-maya/T-Maya-Rigging-Rigging-a-biped-character-for-animation/ID-125/

Form: Turntables Submission

Dog Model | Barking up the Wrong Tree from Justin Sheehy on Vimeo.


Cat Model | Barking up the Wrong Tree from Justin Sheehy on Vimeo.


Cat's Tree Model | Barking up the Wrong Tree from Justin Sheehy on Vimeo.


Dog's Tree Model | Barking up the Wrong Tree from Justin Sheehy on Vimeo.


frontYard.mov from Justin Sheehy on Vimeo.

Modeling Review Day: Notes

Tips

• Model characters in multiple poses instead of one with a rig
• Try not to optimize your model too much ahead of time, but do think about how it appears in your scenes as you go.
• When you use a mirror modifier, make two extra edge loops surrounding the center merge line; you'll have to do it later anyway, and it will clean up your topology considerably
• Maya has an extra tool for splitting faces via the hotbox (not the menus) that does not snap to edges at predetermined intervals
• Use V-Ramp materials on eyeballs to preview your character more accurately
• Model without Smooth Mesh on at least until you get a strong silhouette
• If your character doesn't move too much, model them in their static pose instead of trying to pose them into it later
• Use the Sculpt Geometry tool (like Blender's Sculp Mode) and the Relax tool to massage out kinks in meshes
• If a span curves in unexpectedly in Smooth Mesh Preview, check that the face is connected all the way around and does not have any dupli-verts.
• When you want to undo an extrude, make sure you undo both any movements and then the actual extrude command (look in the help bar for confirmation of the correct undo movement)
• Watch out for inner faces when box modeling in mirror mode. A good indication is when your mesh turns inward slightly along the merge line.
• Christine is AWESOME, especially at fast retopology

Lookup

• Does changing Maya's units change the way that cameras measure?
• Are there any side-effects to loading Student Version files in Maya?

Remember

Models are due on September 20th

Update from Model Review Day 2 | 09/18/2013:

TODO: Add notes from sketchbook

Modeling Progress

TODO: Get progress images from vitaly for upload

Hehe

Character Reference

Dog

First, I listed the body types of the dogs I wanted. I particularly wanted to pursue these features:

• short, stocky legs, but not as short as a Dachshund or Corgi
• Larger head in proportion, for a cuter feel
• Pointed ears with the ability to flop down
• Shorter, bushy tail that would be easy to wag

Then I went to the animal expert and dog lover Amy Richards to help me pick out some breeds. I assumed What I wanted would be a mutt, so I told her not to take any breed I pointed out too strictly. 

I particularly liked the following breeds:

• Australian Cattle Dog
• Lancashire Heeler
• Corgi mixes

From there, I had Amy draw me a few quick designs and orthos.

The focus was more on silhouette and proportion than on physical features

Cat

For my cat I was far less specific. I just wanted a pretty plain ol' housecat

You can see in the image above the kind of sketches the Amy helped me come up with.

I think I saved those images on my drive in the lab, so I'll have to upload them later

Animation with similar dog character

I was referred to a story in a similar spirit to mine, good stuff.

Thanks Cameron Coker!

Storyboard Critique notes

Suggestions

Show cat while dog is still running around the tree to cut down on dog animation
Have dog maybe rear up with excitement when running around

Consider dog looking at camera ("back at owner") before running out of frame

Storyboard Update

Story Development

After my last draft, I was having a considerably difficult time storyboarding.
My group met with Jared on Saturday, and I discovered that my real problem was that my characters were not well defined enough for me to make informed story changes.

I spoke with some second-years about the story problems I was having, and Cameron Coker was able to help me simplify the story back closer to my original pitch.

The number of shots reduced, the story became simpler, and it retained the light-hearted joke of the original in-class pitch.

Here's my latest iteration of the storyboard:

"Barking Up the Wrong Tree" Story Development

Elevator Pitch

A humorous short about a dog that barks viciously and enthusiastically at a tree in attempt to catch a cat that has run up the tree, only to find he is barking at the wrong tree.

Look & Feel

Dark Mood

As though this is how menacing the dog imagines he is.

Claustrophobic, close cameras, harsh lighting, sharp light falloff, limited color palette, angular forms. 

Sunny Mood

Bright, diffuse, morning look. Colors are closer to "realistic".

Summary

Open with title card.

Fade, show only black for several seconds.

Suddenly, close up of dog barking

Close shots of "menacing" features: teeth, scowl, posture, etc. 

Perhaps a bark in pitched-down slow-motion.

Continue for roughly half of the short (15s)

Cue (perhaps audio?)

Dog stops abruptly, perks ears. Turns sideways, so you can see his face over his shoulder

He looks almost derpy, tongue lolling. His head darts, "searching".

Dog's POV shot of cat in a different tree

Same As shot of dog, blank stare

Wide shot showing mostly the scene, both trees in frame, separated by the sidewalk up the center of the lawn, animals looking at each other.

Linux Commands

Some fundamental linux commands (not specific to the pipeline)

gnome-open .  # or xdg-open
alias 
env
grep --color --line-number --with-filename -r "keyword" .
env | grep HOME
which scriptname
pwd
ls
source
man

Idioms Brainstorming

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

A determined dog enters frame, barking voraciously and jumping/growling/pointing at a tree. This carries on for a lengthy amount of time. A cat is revealed to be perched in a different tree a few meters away. The dog realizes (perhaps through an audio cue) that he has been "barking up the wrong tree"; he pauses, panting, and then runs towards the "correct" tree, still barking.

Steal Someone's Thunder

One character holds a jar. It contains two dark, ominous clouds, that crash against each other, producing light. The character sets the jar down on a shelf/trophy case/table, and it shakes slightly each time the clouds collide. The character leaves. A second character enters and takes the jar. Admiring it, he opens the lid ever so slightly. The jar erupts and the thunder cracks in his face.

Get your goat

Two characters interact. One begins annoying/angering/agitating the other. The agitated one communicates/says/subtitles that the other "got his goat". A small, wide-eyed goat stands up and shuffles across the table.

OR

The goat is used as a weapon. The agitated character holds it under his arm, cocks it like a shotgun, and it fires a laser from its mouth.

OR

Something equally ridiculous.