For the group project, we each had to roll a set of die which will help create a story prompt for the project. For the dices, I decided to go for the theme of mythology. After rolling the set of dices, I got a cloaked entity on a boat, a pair of hero/lovers/brothers and an ogre. The story that I pitched was this; In a full moon, a mysterious entity sails ashore into a near village. It begins to chant cursing the plaguing the village. The two brothers were in bind trying to find a way to cure and save the village from the curse. They learn that an ogre in the mountains had a cure but in order to get there, they would have to climb the harsh mountain in order to reach it.
In the continued session of this module, as a class we voted on each groups best pitch. For my group Khoa's idea was chosen to be made into the animated short. His pitch was "The Raccoon, The Tiger and The Wheel of Eternity". The Raccoon plays as the protagonist, finding his way to a maze tomb where a sacred treasure resides in. The tiger is the 'antagonist' guarding the treasure from anyone greedy enough to enter the labyrinth. Using his wits and agility, the Raccoon was able to bypass the trials, allowing him to obtain the treasure; just to be trapped in the eternal labyrinth as there is no escape to the maze once you enter.
Week 2 [8/10/19]
After meeting up and talking with the group, we broke down the story to see Khoa's version of the story; since he was the one who came up with it. His vision of the story features the Raccoon being an adventure with the trait of a thief, that goes through a maze to obtain the treasure that is the wheel. However he is faced with the Tiger who is the guardian of the treasure which traps the Raccoon in the wheel forever due to his greed. After getting a brief idea of his vision of the story, we gave ourselves tasks with thinking of concept ideas for the story and character designs and development.
I started off with character design and the theme that I thought of was more adventure based. As the Raccoon is the protagonist, I decided to think of ideas for the face of the raccoon.
Character Concept - Raccoon Head Designs
This was somewhat challenging as I would say I'm better at designing monsters and human characters better than animals. I couldn't really come up with the whole entire design of it as all I thought of was the head with just a normal Raccoon's body. Since I was having trouble with the Raccoon, I moved on and designed the Tiger instead.
Character Concept - Tiger Character Design
As the Tiger was more of a stoic, godly and knowledgable character, I decided that he would be sitting on a throne / cloud overseeing the entire labyrinth; controlling what goes on within it to try and trap the Raccoon. It's design is more on the realistic side, keeping the proportion and overall aesthetic of it the same. However I added an extra layer of fur to depict a fur gown of some sort, diverting from the complete realism. The stripes of the tiger are all vertical are longest closer to the head diminishing in length throughout. Inspired by tribal Avatar, I added some facial stripe designs to make the demeanour more godlike and knowledgable.
Although character design was not my strongest aspect in the project, I moved on and started to think of the environmental and assess concepts for the story. As Khoa mentioned that the Raccoon will be entering some sort of gate to the labyrinth, I started to think of the designs of the gate itself.
Asset Concept - Gate Designs
I was immersed with the design of the gate. The whole concept of having a Tiger as the stoic god like character got me thinking of the Chinese Culture, hence why the designs of the gate resemble a lot back to it. The first concept of the gate was a Ying and Yang symbol. Dictating the whole concept of balance and good versus evil, how the Raccoon is the evil as he greeds for gold and treasure and how the Tiger is 'good' as he keeps those who are fill with greed away from it. Everything needs a balance. The way the gate reveals the labyrinth is also special as instead of it symbol opening up splitting from the two halves, it rotates open. I envisioned the environment to be ruin city, where everything is constructed from stone with moss covering it. The only exception is the gate which is either made from pure gold as I envisioned the labyrinth inside to be a gold city or made from Jade, fitting the Chinese culture theme.
The second gate that I designed was more of a generic palace door, with the exception of a labyrinth like decor in the centre of the gate.
I really liked the idea of the gate spinning open. With that, I designed another gate that is formed from multiple circular plates. The gate will slide open counterclockwise, each eating up the previous plate until there is only one plate left in the bottom; revealing the labyrinth. Besides the spinning gate, I also thought of special effects that could potentially be added on top of the spinning motion of the two gates.
For the Ying and Yang gate, I decided that after the entrapment of the Raccoon is shown, it could pan out from the labyrinth and showing the gate spin back shutting the Raccoon inside the labyrinth for eternity. On top of that I decided to also add an orange like mirage of the Tiger biting down whilst the gate spins shut; enforcing the entrapment of the Raccoon. For the circular panel gate, I decided a misty figure of a tiger could run along the circular plates as it closes to illustrate the entrapment.
After presenting ideas with each other later the week, we decided to develop on what happens within the labyrinth. As I had a clear idea of the structure of the entire thing, I made some designs and annotated them structurally.
Environment Concept - Story within Labyrinth
For what happens within the labyrinth, Khoa suggested that there could be three types of obstacles that could demonstrate three specific traits of the Raccoon. He suggested the following; Strength, Agility and Wittiness. From those traits, I designed possible trials and obstacles the Raccoon could encounter within the Labyrinth.
To depict strength, the Raccoon could use his strength to push against walls that are supposed to crush him. Alternates include him defeating beasts such as a giant Tortoise and Bull. To illustrate his agile trait, jumping over swinging axes was the idea I thought of. Finally, to depict his witness, trials such as him not being tricked by deciding imagery in a mirror was one. Others include problem solving such as completing a puzzle or a algebraic question.
Environment Concept - Labyrinth Aesthetic and Themes
After thinking about the possible trials for the Raccoon, I started think about the structure for the labyrinth as a whole. Two ideas that came to me was the labyrinth being an entire circular or square maze. However, those concepts were too complicated to depict within the story, therefore I decided to condense the complexity and made it like a large rectangular area. First, the Raccoon will be jumping over some swinging axes, then he will get chased by entities; mummies or creatures depending on the theme, leading him to a mine cart. He will then jump onto it and whilst being on the cart, he will dodge arrows, lasers or elemental projectiles, again depending on the theme before derailing to where the Tiger resides in. The Tiger will allow the Raccoon to pass to obtain the treasure, however it will then revealed to the audience that the Raccoon was allured to the thought of obtaining the treasure that he was actually already imprisoned by the Tiger for eternity.
For the Runic theme, the exterior and the interior will be made from mossy stones. The enemies that he will face will be mummified and traps such as arrows and fire will project towards him. For the Egyptian theme, the interior will be made from pure gold. He will be chased by mummies and elemental projectiles will be fired towards the Raccoon.
Solidifying the concept of the story as a whole to the group was great as everyone did understand the concept. With that, I started doing concept arts for the Gate and environment as I was more clear and innovative in that aspect.
Concept Art - Jade Ying and Yang Gate
As I envisioned the Theme to be more Runic than Egyptian, I worked towards that theme. The Jade texture is shown on the Ying Yang gate plates whilst the wall itself was a mossy stone texture with vines covering it.
Concept Renewal! [9/10/19]
As we were working on our concept art for the story, Cas opposed to the concept of the story as she believed it to be too complicated and non feasible with the time we had. With that said, she decided that the concept of the story would be more retro based. Instead of having a whole adventure with the Raccoon inside the labyrinth, the Raccoon will go into the video game to go through obstacles to obtain the trophy instead. Although we were into the concept art phase, we all liked Cas's idea, so we decided to go with it in the end.
With the renewal of the concept, we began to discuss the new ideas and concept Cas has for her story.
The main changes that was suggested was a new creative approach towards the story. The story currently is set in an ancient tomb and the Raccoon just approaches it; however with Cas's idea, it adds a backstory to the Raccoon as well as it being able to depict the Raccoon's characteristic.
Instead of the whole ancient tomb labyrinth setting, it will be an Arcade Retro theme. The Raccoon will be scavenging for rubbish and throwout food near the arcade; eventually stumbling in it. After tumbling climbing into the arcade, he will then be mesmerised by an Arcade game. The Arcade game will be the portal between it and the "Wheel of Eternity" which will be the treasure of the game. He will then travel into the game, where we will be using 3D animation for the environment and possibly the characters. The concept of where the Raccoon gets trapped will still apply just presented with a different theme.
With this change, we began to work towards the new theme and concept with concept art and design. I was tasked with designing the Tiger and the interior story.
Week 3 [14/10/19]
I was was developing some concepts the interior, I thought of the colours that can be implemented within the 3D world. As Cas wanted the story to be of a Retro Arcade theme, she suggested Vice, which allowed me to get insight of what colour schemes she was looking for. I then made a potential colour palette that can be used in the 3D environment.
Colour Palette - Vice Retro Colour Scheme
Through thinking of concept of how the Raccoon will enter the game, I thought of these portal concepts.
Asset Concept - Portal Designs
By untiling the colour scheme developed, I created these portal designs. The first design is mainly inspired by the visual of the audio waves in is composed of layers of triangular mosaic patterns. The portal pulses and each layer shifts in a constant rate. The second design is a pulsing oval portal, with glitching rectangular shapes surrounding it. This idea is mainly inspired by Final Boss Veigar, specifically his recall visual from League of Legends.
Developing the design of the tiger, since he will be in a video game setting, I believe making him look like a final boss or a very abstracted vision of a tiger would fit the theme. Since from the previous concept of the story, the most abstract part was the patterns on the Tiger's face. From that I decided to keep those sort of patterns and along with that, the Tiger would only be a giant head entity in the game.
Maintaining the colour scheme, I designed the Tiger keeping the essence of the marks from the previous concept.
Character Design - Tiger Design with Low Poly Effect
As I envisioned that the tiger is in a game world, I tested the Low Poly effect on half of the painted tiger in Photoshop. Low Poly effect is somewhat a mix of almost being pixelated by instead of squares, it's the composition of triangles. The process was extremely time consuming and the effect did not turn out great in the end. However since the Tiger would be modelled in 3D using Maya, the Low Poly effect might work out in the end.
Although I was tasked with developing characters and the interior of the game, I thought of an opening scene of the environment of the arcade exterior and made some quick concepts of it.
Environment Concept - Arcade Design 1
The first background concept is that the Arcade is located in an isolated area. The trash bins also give the Raccoon a bit of character as he's going to scavenge through the bins before stumbling in the arcade. The single street lamp also enforces the arcade being isolated.
Environment Concept - Arcade Design 2
The second concept is of the Arcade in the street, located between two shops. The arcade is more 'modern' in this setting and more environmentally filling.
Environment Concept - Arcade Coloured [Rough]
The concept of the arcade is that it would have a sign on top that hints the theme of Retro Vice Miami as the colour scheme of the game interior is Vice. Although I wasn't tasked with the Arcade exterior design, my group mates liked the design of the sign, therefore I refined the sign itself for further design inspiration.
Asset Concept - Arcade Sign Refined
As Kathryn and Cas are focussed on the exterior and mainly the 2D part of the project, Khoa and I will be developing our final ideas with the story of the game interior visuals and concept. As I was thinking of the game interior concepts, I thought of arcade game concepts that can be implemented as obstacles in the interior.
Concepts - Arcade Game Concepts (1)
Concepts - Arcade Game Concepts (2)
By thinking of both mobile games and arcade games, I thought of three different concepts that can be implemented as obstacles for the story. The first one is of the game Crossy Roads, where in the original game, the chicken has to jump to cross each section of the road whilst avoiding vehicles. The second obstacle are simple blocks are act like Mario Thwops and the final obstacle are platforms that leads the Raccoon to the treasure but obviously will be a trap.
With the concepts of the game finished, I developed on the Tiger.
Character Concept - Tiger Designs
As my aim was to create a floating head final boss concept for the tiger, I thought of abstract ideas that can also intertwine with the game theme of the environment. All of the designs with the exception of one are composed of shapes that are unified to form the shape of the Tiger. The abstractness of the design does give off a 'Final Boss' vibe which works really well with the game concept. I also added a crown on top of the Tiger to signify that he's the boss / ruler of the in game world.
In the end, the second design, from the top row, was chosen to to be developed upon. However concerning that the design does not look Tiger like and more like a Lion due to the exterior triangles forming like a mane, the colour scheme of the Tiger will be Orange and Black.
Concept Art - Tiger with the Wheel of Eternity
For the facial features for the Tiger, I decided to make it the same colour as the pinkish-maroon from Miami Vice scheme as it's similar to a Ruby colour whilst fitting with the colour scheme. I also made the other features the same colour to keep the colour scheme simple and effective.
I then placed it in a rough background environment that is similar to the one that will be created in Maya to see how it looks. It looks nice as it doesn't completely blend in with the background.
As I know the Tiger will be enraged in one scene; when the Raccoon gets onto the pillars near the treasure, I created an enraged expression of it along with it placed in the game world.
Concept Art - Enraged Tiger Annotated
This depicts the motion of the enraged Tiger. The shapes of the eyes will change from a octagonal Ruby to more of Teardrop diamond shape; fitting with the Gem theme. The claws will also be facing upward to motion the pillars to arise from the ground. The 'fur' surrounding the face will also expand and spike out to further illustrate aggression.
Concept Art - Tiger Raising the Pillars
The pose of the Tiger works well with the environment and the change of the hands do work well with motioning the pillars.
Week 4 [21/10/19]
For this week, we've been tasked as a group to get the storyboard completed so we can refine the story if necessary for the animatic. I was tasked with the fourth quadrant of the story, which focusses upon what happens with the Raccoon in the game in the end whilst Khoa will be working on the earlier stages of when the Raccoon arrives in the game world; Kathryn and Cas will be working on the first and second part of the story for the storyboard.
Storyboard - 4th Phase
The 9 panels of the storyboard illustrates the scenes of the animation. The Raccoon jumps, reaching for the centre of the wheel. Bars will then expand and trap the Raccoon from within leaving the Raccoon in confusion and shock. The wheel will then start spinning, forcing the Raccoon to run. Whilst this happens, the Tiger will laugh and phase out of the game. We will then zoom out from the game and we will see the Raccoon trapped in the game in the arcade.
Concept Upgrade! [22/10/19]
After talking with Dotty about our story idea, we got bunch of new details that can be added for the story; like camera shots and small details like character intentions. One main thing is that there is no intention / motive for the Raccoon to be interested in the Wheel in the first place since it is a treasure. Therefore to depict his love for treasure / gold he will be scavenging for coins instead in an arcade. As I am responsible for designing the wheel, I will have to make it look like or be reminiscent to something valuable.
Asset Concept - Wheel of Eternity Development
These designs are coins that can potentially be the coins the Raccoon savages for. The designs are separated into different styles. The first one is of the motif of the Tiger, the second is of the crown on top fo the tiger, and the third is of the Ruby gem as the Tiger's nose; all engraved onto the coin base to make it more interesting and unique. Each variation of the design is also different.
The Tiger coin has 4 styles. It has a dulled down colour wash on the motif similar to the coin itself, one that is lighter, with the crown shining in comparison. One that is dulled down similar to the first style, difference is that the facial features are rubies and not gold. The last one being similar to the third variation just that the crown is also shining gold.
The second coin design is the crown embroidered on the coin base and it has four variations. The first one has a dulled gold crown on the coin, the second has the crown with a brighter gold. The third one has a silver coin base with the crown in a similar hue and the final one has the silver base with a shiny crown. The third design is the same concept as the crown however instead of the crown embroidery, it's a Gem.
The silver variations of the coin can be lesser valued coins that the Raccoon can possible scavenge for in the beginning of the story.
As we discussed with Dotty previously, the Raccoon needed a motive to be attracted to the wheel in the first place, so the wheel itself will have to be redesigned. Through designing the coins, I decided to use the Crown coin as the main design for the Wheel.
Asset Concepts - Wheel of Eternity Designs
I struggled heavily with the design of the wheel due to it having to look like something that should be yearned in the view of the Raccoon yet also being able to function like a trap. The wheel is going to resemble the coin in terms of colour and overall aesthetic. Through trying out different shapes and styles, I decided to go with the top left design.
Asset Concepts - Wheel of Eternity Design [Final]
The design is a dodecagon with the aesthetic being like a coin and a hamster wheel. The centre is the giant gold coin which the Raccoon will be attracted to, jumping to grab. The gold ridges that resemble the ridges on a coin will extend from the sides attaching to the centre coin trapping the Raccoon.
Week 5 [28/10/19]
Progressing on with the Animatic, Kathryn composed and split the storyboard into 4 different sections for the group to choose and create the animatic from. I got the 3rd part of the story which depicts the Raccoon running and jumping on the raised pillars, into the wheel itself.
Rough Animatic of Part 3 - by Kathryn
I will be completing the animatic by refining the drawings and backgrounds of the shots, timing and adding in sound effects. This will help push the pre production to completion much faster which will be better since we will have more time to animate.
Besides making the animatic, I also focused on the final production of the Tiger. Through the help of Khoa, he created the Tiger that I designed with Maya. I then used Khoa's completed Tiger model to rig and animate his movements.
Animation - Enraged Tiger Raising Pillars
Through using the animation function from Maya, I animated the Model Khoa created in Maya. As I already had the movement concept of the Tiger since the development of it during week 3, I was lucky enough to direct the Tiger's movements and animation.
In this short clip, it can be seen that the Tiger is enraged portrayed by the change of the eye shapes, as well as the movement of the furs spiking outwards aggressively. The movement of the hand also suggest the command of rising the pillars from the ground.
Week 6 [4/11/19]
After reviewing the part 2 and part 3 of the animatic, I thought that there should be some changes and discussed it with Khoa; since he and I are working on the scenes that are in the 'game' world. I decided to rearrange and change some of the shots and scenes from the animatic.
Animatic - Changes to the Original Part 3 Animatic
Working on the animatic that was tasked last week, I made a rough animatic separating into different scenes from the animatic. Separating the animatic into 7 scenes, based on the backgrounds, I made a really rough version of the animatic without the scene 5; the shot where the camera slowly pans out as the Raccoon jumps on the pillars following a transition, as that was a bit difficult.
As scene 1 of the animatic will be the animation of the 'Enraged Tiger Rising Pillars' I didn't have to recreate it for the animatic.
Animatic - Scene 2 [ROUGH]
ORIGINAL - Wide shot of the pixel monsters, rushing towards the Raccoon.
CHANGES - In this scene, I did a close up shot of the Raccoon's feet along with the floor grid flashing, signalling the floor that is going to be raised.
Animatic - Scene 3 [ROUGH]
ORIGINAL - Medium shot of the Raccoon running and dodging the projectiles from the pixel monsters.
CHANGES - Following up the previous scene, I decided this shot would be a transition shot from the Raccoon's feet to its face to show his expression of shock.
Animatic - Scene 4 [ROUGH]
ORIGINAL - Close up shot of the Tiger Enraged once again as the Raccoon is able to dodge the projectiles from the pixel monsters.
CHANGES - Rearranged scene 7 of the animatic but removing the pixel monsters. [Medium shot of the Raccoon jumping on the rising pillars]
Animatic - Scene 5 [ROUGH]
ORIGINAL - Close up shot of the Tiger's hand motioning the rising of the pillars
CHANGES - Instead of having him rise the pillars again, I think that shot is moved to the start as that alone is all that's needed to signal the rising of the pillars. Wanting to include a dynamic shot, I decided that the Raccoon can jump on the rising pillars as the camera pans back. Finally the Raccoon will be able to jump in front of the camera following a transition.
Animatic - Scene 6 [Rough]
ORIGINAL - Close up shot of Raccoon, signalling of the rising floor plate.
CHANGES - Transition shot from previous scene, jumping closer to the ultimate coin within the wheel.
Animatic - Scene 7 [ROUGH]
ORIGINAL - Medium shot of the Raccoon jumping the pillars and dodging the pixel monsters.
CHANGES - Medium shot of the Raccoon jumping off the last pillar to the ultimate coin. Slow motion shot of the Raccoon as he is mid air to make the scene more dramatic.
From the original animatic that I was tasked with, I changed majority of it by removing or rearrangement. In the animatic that Kathryn created, the first scene depicts the Raccoon in tangle with the pixel monsters. Instead of that taking place, I decided to remove those scenes as those events have passed during part 2 of the animatic. Part 3 of the animatic will purely be focussed on the Raccoon's journey to the wheel through jumping the pillars.
After completing the rough animatic, I composed it together with the new timing of each scene. However, it looks rough and unfinished, so I decided to refine the drawings and backgrounds to make it look more consistent and unified.
Animatic - Final [Without Sound]
After refining each scene by rough animating the Raccoon in each scene, I got a much better result in terms of timing compared to the rough animated that was composed earlier. I refined the background and made it grey, consistent with the 3D background which are uncoloured. Moreover I also made the Raccoon white to make it more visible from the background and other elements within it.
Having the visual aspect of the animatic completed, I worked on the audio section of the Animatic.
As the setting is within the 'game world', it would be extremely fitting for it to have an 8 bit synthetic audio along with 8 bit sound effects. With that in mind, I browsed for various types of 8 bit sound effects that can be utilised for the animatic.
Animatic - Sound Effects (1)
Finding a suitable 8 bit audio for the Tiger was difficult as most 8 bit sounds that I found were all sound effects and none human / creature audio. Eventually, I was able to find an effect that resembles a muffled 8 bit roar of some sort. Along with that I paired three other roars sound effects that I found within the same video to make the roar os a tiger more dynamic. I also added an 8 bit 'eruption' sound effect before the roar to depict the anger of the Tiger and the motion of the spikes that flare outwards.
Animatic - Sound Effects (2)
A sound effects that I added in was an 8 bit buzzing noise that can resemble the flashing of the floor panel to signal the rising of it.
Finding a suiting base 8 bit sound track was somewhat challenging as it had to be an 8 bit soundtrack that provides an adrenaline rush type aspect, mirroring the movements of the Raccoon.
Animatic - Sound Effects (3)
Moving on to the sound effects of the pillar rising, there were a lot of sound effects that has an ascending tone. Finding the correct one to depict the rising pillars was not that difficult as I had a lot to choose from. The sound effect that I went with was an ascending tone with shaky rumble to it. The quirkiness of the sound is able to portray the contrasting motion of the smooth rising of the pillars to the rumbly shake that the sound gives off.
Animatic - Sound Effects (4)
From the previous sound effect of the rising pillars, I added an effect of it for scene 5 as it also depicts the pillars rising in the background. This time, I used another quirky ascending sound; a more bouncy one to contrast it from the previous sound effect. On top of that I also added in sound effects for each jump the Raccoon makes. To tie into the theme for his love of coins, I decided to add in various coin sound effects as his jumping sound.
Animatic - Sound Effects (5)
For the final scene, the Raccoon jumps into the air and collects the ultimate coin. For this sound effect, I added a sound effect in that was able to both depict the coin collection sound and a 'victory' sound. With the elongated time from the slow motion, the timing of the full sound effect was able to fit in without any issues.
Animatic - Final [With Sound]
With my part of the animatic completed, I will be able to focus on animation. For the final animation, it's discussed that we will be working in pairs, essentially split into 2D and 3D.
For the scenes in the beginning and end, Cas and Kathryn will be working on the backgrounds and Raccoon. As for the events that happen inside the 'game world', Khoa and I will be working on the camera movements and character animation. Since Khoa did all of the 3D modelling and rigging for both the environment and characters, I will be working on the animation part of the pixel monsters, Tiger and I will also try to model the Wheel.
After reviewing the animatic, we agreed on a few changes. Pixel monsters and the Tiger should be included in more scenes. Mainly where the Raccoon is being chased, the pixel monsters will attack by shooting projectiles, then diving at the Raccoon before the pillar rises. The Tiger will try to catch and attack the Raccoon whilst it's jumping on the pillars before reaching the Wheel. On top of that, we thought the transition between the 3D Raccoon to the normal, 2D, Raccoon would be done through using 'barrier' effects. The first barrier would be located at the very first pillar the Raccoon jumps on, forcing the pixel monsters to back off. The second would be surrounding the Wheel, when the Raccoon jumps and makes contact with the barrier, he would change back into his 2D self.
Starting on the model animations, I worked on the animations for the pixel monsters. Khoa and I discussed that each pixel monster should have three actions, idle, attacking or shooting and diving. Each being utilised at different scenes within the 'game world'. The pixel monster were designed by Kathryn and modelled by Khoa and I will be doing majority of the animating. The first monster that I animated was the Octopus pixel monster.
Animation - Pixel Monster [Octopus] Idle
Animation - Pixel Monster [Octopus] Attack
Animation - Pixel Monster [Octopus] Flying
The animation of these models are not smooth and instead are key frames. Moreover the models are also pixellated as it will be rendered in low quality. This is intended as this ties in better too the theme of a retro arcade game.
Week 7 [11/11/19]
After a hectic week, as a group we got down time as we were fairly ahead of our schedule. Nonetheless, we had to prepare for a group presentation for Friday and I decide I would make the presentation.
The presentation that we had to do roughly outlines our project's progress. Although I wanted to include all of the preproduction concepts and drawings, I decided it should be separate between the weekly update presentation and concept art book.
In the end I included only the finalised character designs, some 3D gifs of the will be 2D backgrounds of the Arcade, 3D 'game world' backgrounds and some animation gifs of the characters so far. I also created the front cover of the presentation which will also be used as the concept art book cover. However the design could be improved upon as I believe it is still a bit plain and doesn't really encapsulate the story concept.
Presentation - Week 1
With the presentation completed, I worked on more animation tests with the pixel monsters. During the prior week, I've tried to playblast the animations of the Dragon and Hornet monsters in Maya, however all of the playblasts crashed the Maya files and none of the playblasts worked.
However, for some reason, they stopped crashing and I was able to create short gifs of the Animation of each Pixel monster in both ArnoldRender types. The lower I set the ArnoldRender, below 0, the lower quality the render will become. This benefits hugely with the fact that the Pixel Monsters can be pixelated easily.
With each Pixel monster, l've settled with three poses. Attack, Idle and Flight, just like the one I've done with the Octopus model.
Animation - Dragon Attack [-2]
Animation - Dragon Attack [-3]
Animation - Dragon Flight [-2]
Animation - Dragon Flight [-3]
Animation - Dragon Idle [-2]
Animation - Dragon Idle [-3]
Animation - Hornet Attack [-2]
Animation - Hornet Attack [-3]
Animation - Hornet Flight [-2]
Animation - Hornet Flight [-3]
Animation - Hornet Idle [-2]
Animation - Hornet Idle [-3]
Animation - Octopus Attack [-2]
Animation - Octopus Attack [-3]
Animation - Octopus Flight [-2]
Animation - Octopus Flight [-3]
Animation - Octopus Idle [-2]
Animation - Octopus Idle [-3]
Each render of each monster poses are both done in [-2] and [-3]. The style of the render doesn't have a drastic difference, however the subtle pixelated edges of [-3] does give the monsters a stronger sense of it being pixelated compared to the [-2] render. I believe the [-3] render style is better than the [-2] as it's more apparent that it's supposed to be pixelated; all in all fitting better with the theme.
With this week being more of a downtime, I've tasked myself to finish animating the Tiger model by sometime next week, as well as modelling the Wheel itself.
Animation - Tiger Trying to Catch Raccoon
This rough animation is a test of the Tiger that will be in scene 6 part 3 of the animatic. As discussed, the Tiger will appear in this scene, trying to catch the Raccoon before it jumps into the wheel.
The timing of the Tiger's movements is adequate in speed, it fits well within the time of the timed animatic of the scene. The only issue of this animation is the scale of models. The scaling is still a bit off as the Tiger is too huge compared to the rest of the rough background.
Assets - Wheel [Top]
Assets - Wheel [Side]
Assets - Wheel [3/4]
Using maya, I made a rough model of the Wheel without colour and texture. I will be using this model to help me create a finalised version of the model by the end of next week.
Week 8 [18/11/19]
During this week, I focused solely on the wheel itself; from modelling and animating it. From last week's model, although the model itself was true to the final design of the wheel, I tweaked the design more through the use of Maya.
The design changed drastically and I remodelled it to make it resemble more like casino wheel on the inner face of the wheel instead of making it flat. The shape of the bevels also create a slight resemblance of a coin engraved onto the wheel, which worked aesthetically.
Assets - Wheel Remodelled [Top]
Assets - Wheel Remodelled [Side]
Assets - Wheel Remodelled [3/4]
Assets - Wheel Remodelled [Front]
With the help of Khoa, I also added colour and texture for the wheel. The wheel itself has a brownish - gold tint with a slight reflective surface, making it less dull and visually more valuable. Moreover, since I intended the wheel to look like a Casino wheel design wise, I added a jewel on top replacing the giant coin to make the design more coherent. I gave the jewel a reflective texture to it similar to the Tiger's eye texture as it resembles a Ruby.
After modelling, I animated the wheel. As the wheel is static at all times, the only animation that was needed is the closing of the wheel. I might add an idle animation of the wheel spinning in the background just to make it more appealing / attractive.
Animation - Wheel Closing [Front]
Animation - Wheel Closing [3/4]
From the prior design, the coin was supposed to be the centre piece that the bars connect to, however I believe that design wasn't that great as the bar's thickness and the coin's thickness were too different. With this design, I was able to shift and Ruby back in a way that allowed the bars to connect to each other which works better visually.
As we needed to decide how the Raccoon would move; on fours or two legs, I did a quick animation test on a run cycle of the Raccoon.
Animation - Raccoon Run Cycle [rough]
Although it's rough, the timing could've been better as it seems very stiff. Nonetheless, Raccoon moving on all fours does seem more fitting as in the animatic, the Raccoon does climb, crawl, walk and run on all fours already.
During Friday's session, we got feedback again for our progress. As of now, my part is to finish the Wheel and the movement of the Raccoon once the rig and model is fleshed out. I will have to refine the aesthetic of the Wheel as it looked too dull.
Week 9 [25/11/19]
Working on the wheel, I unfortunately had to remodel and reanimate the wheel as I lost the file. However it didn't take long as I already had the creation process in mind. To make the wheel less dull looking, instead of only adding a Lambert shade texture, I used Ramp Shader instead, which allowed me to control the base colour, highlight, and shadows. With that I made the wheel more 'shiny' looking.
Assets - Wheel Final [Front]
Assets - Wheel Final [Perspective]
With this redesign, the colour is more 'gold' and less brown. The interior is also deeper, allowing more room for the Raccoon to jump into during the scene. After finishing the model, I got into the Animation.
As during the feedback session, it was suggested that the wheel should also close with more force and less 'predictable', I sped up the closing of the bars and made the wheel shake from the force.
Animation - Wheel Closing [Front]
Animation - Wheel Closing [Perspective]
Reviewing the final product, I still believe the wheel tint could be more 'gold'. So I changed the colour once more giving it a darker hue.
Animation - Wheel Closing [Perspective]
Animation - Wheel Closing [Perspective]
With Khoa's advice, instead of having 6 different colours on ramp shader, reduce it down to three so the contrast is more apparent therefore making it more shiny. I also added a 'shake' motion once the bars connect, making more aggressive and forceful.
Working with Khoa's Raccoon Model, Khoa and I discussed that we should divide the animation actions for the character. We agreed that I will be focusing on the different way the Raccoon will jump, whilst he would be focusing on the walk and run cycles.
Animation - Raccoon Low Jump [Perspective]
Animating the Model as a whole was incredible difficult as there are so many aspects of the character that has to move simultaneously. With it doing dynamic movement added on to the difficulty of the task, however I was able to make it easier for myself by working limb by limb; starting off with the torso, head, tail and last the limbs.With one completed, Khoa and I discussed that we should have at least 3 jump cycles that can be cycled through for the animation to make it more interesting. I plan to make three other ones, which is a high jump for longer distances between pillars and a 'slow motion' jump. If I have time, I will try to animate more dynamic ones which includes flips and turns.
Animation - Raccoon High Jump [Perspective]
Animation - Raccoon High Jump [Front]
After working out how to move the model systematically, this jump was much easier to accomplish. Keeping in mind that the Raccoon will leap forward and not on spot, I made his arms reach forward and legs extend backward, giving it the illusion of it leaping forward. The actual movement of the model, on the plane, will be done when imported to the animation environment.
Animation - Raccoon Front Flip [Perspective]
Using the low jump animation, I moved the master control of the model which controls the whole model by itself, allowing me to accomplish this animation easier. The difficulty is moving the master control due to the fact that the distance between the Raccoon and the base is relative, therefore moving the master control also offsets the model.
Animation - Raccoon Horizontal Flip [Side]
Reusing the high jump animation I used the same technique as above; moving the master control of the model to create the horizontal flip. This was even more challenging due to the fact that I will also have to be mindful of where the centre point of the Raccoon is from each frame; therefore I will not only have to think about x and y axis but also the z axis.Besides having to refine the jump cycles, especially the front and horizontal flips, over the next week, I will finish the 'slow motion' jump which will be used when he jumps and reach for the Wheel.
Animation - Raccoon High Jump V2 [Perspective]
Reviewing the High Jump animation once more, Khoa suggested that the tail should thump downwards after it lands, providing the believability of weight.
Animation - Raccoon Slow Mo. Jump V1 [Perspective]
Moving onto the last jump cycle, the slow-motion jump was the most difficult by far as I tried to recreate the effect of it being slow-motion by scratch. However Matt suggested that I should first complete a normal speed of the jump, then manipulate the Animation graph; using the Region tool to essentially stretch out the timed animation to make it last longer.The first version of the slow motion jump utilises the same animation as the High Jump. For the final version, I will have to change the max height and the angle of the Raccoon to make the trajectory less arched but more evenly distributed; as this is a long jump rather than a high jump.
Animation - Raccoon Slow Mo. Jump V2 [Perspective]
After refining the jump, it is clear that this is more of a long jump rather than a high jump. The only thing left to do is to slow it down to see if it fits with slow-motion.
Animation - Raccoon Slow Mo. V3 [Perspective]
The slow motion jump eventually worked out way better compared to the first rendition.
After finishing the jump cycles, I worked on the Idle Animation for the Tiger.
Animation - Tiger Idle Animation
After completing my part of the animation, the only thing left to do it to refer all these animations to the background. Next weeks goal is to have the animations be imported into the background. If I have more time, I would then go back to some of the animation cycles to refine them as much as I can before Christmas.
Week 10 [2/12/19]
This week, I encountered a huge technical issue which set back my work. As I was referencing the animations into the backgrounds, the size of the models were different; when I tried to resize it, the model broke and the scaling of the model and model controls did not scale linearly. Therefore this meant that I had to reanimate all the animations through the use of the new model which Khoa created which had scaling done. This also meant that I had to animate the models in the backgrounds as I go through them.
Although this means the previous animations were not usable, the process helped me familiarise myself with the technicalities of the model as well as the movements that I will have to recreate.
Week 11 [9/12/19]
As I plan to animate my part of the project in one Maya file in one go, Khoa suggested that I break them down and animate them scene by scene separately to avoid Maya crashing as even the background alone with all the elements, were a heavy load for Maya to process. Therefore I looked back at the animatic to have a clear breakdown of how many different scenes and therefore background files in Maya I should create.
Using the completed background set created by Khoa, I duplicated 6 different background files each of a different scene.
As this is the last week before the break, I discussed with Khoa about the render settings as I want to try to render my scenes once I complete them. Using the first scene that I completed which was of the Tiger rising his hands to gesture the rising of the pillars, Khoa and I tried to figure out the render specifications.
As we were rendering, we realised that the scene does not come out as the same as shown in the file. The rendered version is a lot higher in colour saturation and it looks really off. After fidgeting with the settings, we got it to look somewhat decent and similar to how it should be visually.
Animation - Scene 1 - Tiger Rising Pillars
Week 12 [16/12/19]
During this week, I started to sort out the different backgrounds for the animations. The main background file has all the elements, set pillars, pillar for the wheel, sky elements, mountain elements and toonlines of the platform and the other background elements. As some scenes did not require all of the elements, I removed them based on the scene to reduce the size of the Maya file so it will take less time to render.
The main components that I have to work on were to remove the pillars and referencing both the Tiger and the Wheel if needed. I worked systematically from the easiest scenes first to the more time consuming ones.
Starting with the second scene; where the Raccoon realises the pillars are going to raise, I removed all the background components, leaving only the toonlines and sky and foreground elements. I also replaced all the place holder pillars from the original file so I can place and change them how I want to in the future scenes.
After completing the backgrounds I worked on the first second and third scene. It was simple as the second scene only shows the Raccoon stepping on the pillar which will rise and the second is a still of the Raccoon jumping on the first section of the rising pillars.
Animation - Scene 2 [Rough; playblast of the pre-render]
Animation - Scene 3 [Rough; playblast of the pre-render]
The scenes completed were simple so it didn't take much time, as I was also familiar with how the Raccoon would just from working on the previous model, it was easy to get a hang of.
For the following week, I will want to finish animating the fourth and fifth scene of the Raccoon progressing upward to the Wheel.
Week 13 [23/12/19]
Through this week I will finish the fourth and fifth scene as I plan to work a bit on the sixth scene. The fourth scene is one of the more complicated ones as I had the set a camera which panned back like the one in the animatic. I also had to recreate the pillars as the placeholder ones were not the correct dimensions. This scene was difficult to create as the camera made the perspective of the camera made the placement of the pillars through the camera look off even though they weren't.
As I discussed with Khoa beforehand, we wanted to implement more of the Tiger in the scenes as in the animatic, it only appears in minimum scenes either as the background character or a small action scene dedicated to the Tiger. So to add more of the character in the animation, we decided to have him try to interfere with the Raccoon during his progression to the wheel. will finish
After animating the jump sequence of the Raccoon for the fourth scene, I moved onto animating the jump sequence on the fifth scene. I did this so I can get the Raccoon animated first and not be stuck on animating the hands of the Tiger.
The model of the Tiger as a whole is locked, so Khoa created a separate file with only the Tiger's hands. This is specifically for the second scene as the whole Tiger is not required and will not be visible. Khoa also added joints for the hands to make it able to 'claw' and 'grab'.
The fifth scene was easy to animate as it was a static shot; although I still had to fidget with the camera perspective. Although I planned to finish the two scenes ahead of time, I encountered a technical issue which set me back a bit. For next week I will have to finish adding the Tiger into the fourth and fifth scene.
Week 14 [30/12/19]
After animating the Raccoon from both scenes, I animated the movements of the Tiger.
Animating only the hands was easier than the whole of the Raccoon and I got through the fourth scene easily, however the difficulty was thinking of different motions that the Tiger can do as an 'attack'. To help with my struggles, I referenced "Crazy Hand" and "Master Hand" from the game "Super Smash Bros Ultimate". Both characters of that game are bosses which are essentially gloves. The move set of the characters are represented by their names; Master Hand's movements are more elegant and swift, whereas Crazy Hand's movements are more unpredictable, jagged and dramatic. From those references, I implemented a bit of both into the Tiger hand movements; swift however the attacks are forceful.
Animation - Scene 4 [Rough; playblast of the pre-render]
Animation - Scene 5 [Rough; playblast of the pre-render]
As I discussed previously with Khoa, we also wanted to implement a dynamic set of jumps for the Raccoon, such as the flips and long jumps completed with the previous Raccoon model. However I decided not to as the dynamic movement of the hands were a good balance to the simple movements of the Raccoon.
For the last jump, I recycled a jump from the fifth scene and extended the animation to make it slow motion. I also started animating the wheel as it was static throughout the other scenes. In the sixth scene, he jumps into the wheel as it expands so the Raccoon can land in it.
Animation - Scene 6 [Rough; playblast of the pre-render]
After finish animating these scenes, the last scene to animate was the most difficult one for my part of the project. I had to animate the sequence of the Raccoon getting trapped in the wheel and running whilst it slowly pans out to a pixelated form of the game screen.
Week 15 [6/1/20]
Coming back from break, I finished as much as I could however I still did not finish my part of the Animation. Through today, I managed to finish my final scene and most difficult scene for my part of the project. The difficult part was the transition between the zoom out of the 3D medium to the 2D pixel art game screen. Moreover the movements of the Raccoon were new to me as I had to animate him in different poses other than the jumps I've been animating.
Originally, I was animating on the same file as the sixth scene, the slow motion jump, however as I was animating the whole sequence, the scene was extremely long and I decided to split the slow motion jump and the Wheel sequence into different parts of the animation.
After the Raccoon jumps into the wheel, I added a 'victory' jump pose before the whole trap sequence. I decided that I will also be utilising more of the facial features of the Raccoon as this scene will have a lot of close ups of the Raccoon inside the Wheel.
As in the animatic, it didn't have the Wheel rattling after the bars connect, the interaction between the Raccoon and the Wheel would be slightly different. Before having him to realise he has been trapped, he will be tossed around in the Wheel as it closes before having awake to him being trapped.
The difficult part of this animation was to synchronise the timing of the rattle of the Wheel and the tossing of the Raccoon. It was also very difficult as I had to animate every part of his body to make the fall of the Raccoon believable.
As I mentioned before about utilising the facial expressions more in this part of the animation, I used the cheerful expression in the beginning to express his emotions of being happy finally obtaining the Wheel that he wanted. I also had him express his sadness and grief for being trapped in the Wheel after it shuts on him.
After he falls over and awakes to him being trapped, I then animated him tugging on the bar of the Wheel to emphasise that he's been trapped. The transition between him standing then going into a running motion was difficult as it seemed awkward to execute. However after all that, I finished animating the last scene of my animation.
Animation - Scene 7 [Rough; playblast of the pre-render]
To make the scenes more consistent and coherent, Khoa helped me render out the scenes as he had already done so for his part of the animation. Before rendering out the scenes, I gave my scenes out to Khoa so he can check if there were any changes that had to be made or refined. Some minor changes that were made before rendering was the appearance of the Tiger. Instead of having him appearing in the scene, he 'spawns' into the scene, making a connection and reminder that the Raccoon is in a game and the final boss of the game is the Tiger; final bosses always have a dramatic entrance. Another change that was made was the shot of the Raccoon tugging on the bar of the Wheel after he falls from the rattling. In the scene, the face of the Raccoon gets blocked by the bar, to solve that another camera perspective was placed so the facial expressions were visible.
The major changes from the original to the final version was the end. As I struggled with the transition between the 3D medium to 2D pixel art screen, Khoa decided that he will help me and use the special effect that he used in his scene of the Raccoon entering the game and apply that to the Tiger. The effect essentially allows a model to be disassembled or reassembled into and from pixelated bits. After zooming out of the Raccoon running in the wheel, it pans to the Tiger and it dissembles itself and disburses to pixels.
Animation - Part 4 Final [unedited]
My job then is to edit in the sound effects, overlay filters for the scenes that are too bright after rendering; specifically scenes that have the Raccoon inside of the Wheel and if possible make a transition between the final bit and the 2D pixel screen.
During the editing process, I could not fit a filter in that would balance out the saturated colours without distorting the background colour elements. Unfortunately I had to leave the colour difference parts out and progressed on with the sound editing.
Similar with the sound edits I compiled for my part in the animatic, I recycled some sounds of the Tiger and Raccoon jump sounds as much as I could as the final animation is different. In the end, I found new 8 bit sound effects to replace the ones from the animatic as it fits the whole arcade vibe a bit more, it also feels more solid compared to the sounds I used in the animatic. In the end, I rearranged and added in the first scene to the unedited version, along as new sound effects that I gathered during the editing process. All in all this projected helped me grow a lot as an animator and as a person. I learned a lot of things both animation related and as myself, how I am able to function within a group.
Animation - Part 4 Final [Edited]
After Cas and Khoa's editing, they compiled the final version of our group animation, Mystery Arcade.
Animation - Mystery Arcade!
