Welcome to the production log of my 3D Animation Masters Project at Bournemouth University. We were given the opportunity to work on either 2 short single term projects or 1 that extends across both terms. I chose the latter, and also decided to work on an individual project instead of being part of a group. All of us were assigned weekly tutorial sessions with a tutor whose main task is to discuss our progress, guide us along and offer feedback. At the end of the day though, it’s down to the students to decide what they want from the project, how much effort they want to put into it and keep it squarely on track.
Ahmad Al-Mahir Online
Indulging in drawing and visual storytelling with bites of commentary
“Wait, Mister!” – Draft Storyboards
April 30th, 2006
OK. After coming up with the story idea, the next step for me is to put it down on paper. That’s where the thumbnails and storyboards come in. As promised, here are some sample panels from my first draft. With the lack of certain standard storyboard features (e.g. text describing actions and sound effects/music), what I have at this stage looks more like a set of glorified thumbnails, or a rather pedestrian comic. Sketching out all those panels (37 in total) took me about a full day to complete. It helped that I already had most of the shots visualized in my head. I then did some minor digital tweaking and coloured some of the panels just to quickly test out a raw colour scheme. Overall, I’m pretty happy with it. I’ll have to get started on the character designs next, do up more colour tests, and piece together a basic animatic to get a grasp of the timing for the short film. The target for the completion of all these components is this coming Wednesday afternoon – in time for my second tutorial. We’ll see how that plan goes…
Week 02 – 2D Animatic. Character Design V2. Colour Test. Modelling Practice.
May 7th, 2006
I’ve managed to piece together a 2d animatic from the storyboards and after some suggestions from my supervisor, managed to cut the animation down from almost 2 minutes to 1 minute 30seconds. Of course this is a rough estimate. I’ll have a better idea when I get round to the 3d block test. In the meantime, some shuffling around of shots and changes in camera angles and pacing are in order.
I’ve more or less finalised the design of my characters (the kid proved especially difficult) and came up with a basic colour palette for the scene, and tests for Mr. Knox and Kid:
I noticed quite a number of my fellow students have already started modelling their characters, so I decided it’s time to brush up my extremely rusty modelling skills. I’ve been practicing for the past couple of days on Mr. Knox’s head. I’ve drafted up a simple action plan (schedule of tasks) which I’ll be presenting at this coming tutorial session. The next version of the animatic should also be ready then. Hopefully I’ll be able to move on to the block test right after. And I’ll probably continue working on Mr. Knox.
See ya soon!
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Week 03 & 04 – 2D Animatic V2. 3D Block Test. 3D Model – Mr. Knox.
May 18th, 2006
I was slogging over the animatic and the block test over the past couple of weeks which caused the delay in my update. I’ve managed to refine the previous animatic and began work on the block test last Thursday. That took me about 3 days to complete. I also continued working on Mr. Knox’s head and body which were expected at this week’s tutorial session. I cut down the animation further (it’s now 1 minute 20 seconds in duration) and apart from a couple of shots that needed changing, the block test went over quite well with my tutor. Here’s a shot from the animatic and corresponding block test:
I pulled the camera back slightly because I felt the longer shot made for a better composition. At the very least it looked more balanced to me. There’s quite a few of these tweaks that you only find out when you go from 2d panels to 3d space in the blocking stage. Anyway, I’m putting off refining the block test for the moment while I focus on getting both my characters modelled, rigged and animation tested. That should take up the next few weeks.
Here is Mr. Knox fully modelled without textures:
I’m off to start work on the kid next. There’s a mid-term presentation scheduled for next Thursday for us to show our progress so far and I need to get both characters ready by then. In fact, according to my planned schedule, I should be rigging either Mr. Knox or Kid next week! Expect some sleepless nights for me!
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