Coffee Table Re-Texture

My tutor suggested making the coffee table more grungy as the other furniture items are quite run down. I went over the textures in photoshop to make a more grunge like and it does look a lot better in terms of the rest of the furniture.

Furniture Research

Thought I'd chuck some furniture research up too before the hand in on Monday, just to get a better sense of the style I imagine the apartment to be. Reading the original script, I imagined a rather vintage style to the story as a whole - such as the set up of the apartment.
I haven't talked to the team about any of these yet, but it'll be something for them to look at and talk about when we're back at course next week.
I will be 3D modelling furniture and items in the next 2 weeks anyway, so best to get an early start. Plus it contributes to concepts (not character obviously, but still research for concepts).

OK SO I JUST GOT AN ANNOYING AND LATE IDEA THAT WE PROBABLY WONT USE BUT HEAR ME OUUUUUT.
I saw a picture of a set of drawers with a mirror and I thought 'Would the wife had spent a lot of time sitting there doing her makeup etc ?? I really reckon it'd be great if we could tie the mirrors connection into the story more as well. When I was looking at general mirrors the other day, I didn't even think of mirrors and drawers together -.- But yeah if it's too late, then bummer.

References
http://www.inessa.com/
https://www.etsy.com/listing/165925484/sold-vintage-hand-painted-french-country?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=PageTools&utm_campaign=Share
http://www.whitelacecottage.com/2014/12/how-to-distress-furniture-with-vinegar/
https://www.etsy.com/listing/88720317/painted-cottage-shabby-white-farmhouse
http://artisanupholstery.ca/2013/04/06/antique-doors-in-the-garden/
http://sofiasrusticfurniture.com/san-antonio-rustic-hutch/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78536495@N07/?changedlayout=1
http://www.littlevictorian.com/2013/06/design-basically-style.html
http://www.roseandgrey.co.uk/shoreditch-chest
http://www.housekaboodle.com/turquoise-barbie-house/
http://palletfurniturediy.com/pallet-table/diy-pallet-potting-and-entry-way-table/
https://www.etsy.com/listing/128001124/vintage-1930s-art-deco-waterfall-bedroom?share_id=7072836&hmac=756a4bfb114112ef9d15fe1414abeb2d5ec882af&utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=PageTools&utm_campaign=Share
http://weburbanist.com/2008/06/24/more-unique-creative-bookcases-and-bookshelves/

WEEK 4 Game Analysis

I feel like the choices I made in the turn based strategy game Banner Saga (2014) did contribute a sense of meaningful interactive moments. When I was younger and had no clue how to beat an enemy, I would mash the buttons and attack without thinking. I kind of had the same approach in this game where I straight off the bat would attack the enemy. This isn't a good strategy for the game.Banner Saga though.

The choices made between attacking the opponent or damaging their armor, sometimes, made a big difference in the outcome of the battle. When I first started playing, I would attack straight away to quickly exterminate the opponent, but as tougher enemies arose, I realized that I would need to deal with the armor first to finish them off more efficiently. Due to the choice of blindly attacking, I died quite a few times which was frustrating. Once I realized that damaging the armor would benefit my playable characters to defeating the enemies, I found the duels easier.

Although a lot of the time I made the choice to blindly attack, there were consequences for the characters I was playing, as in dying - or so I thought. One battle I played, a character did die in the battle and in the story. In another battle a character died, but was still alive in the story. This inconsistency caused me to realize that the choices I made weren't entirely bad, that is if the character was actually alive in the end of it. With this, it does feel like there's less stress on the choices I make as the deaths in battle and outcome don't affect the story too much.

In Fraser's spectacular lecture, there is a quote by Sid Meier saying "A game is a series of interesting choices." This applies in many games and definitely Banner Saga as what ever choice /move I make in a battle can lead to failure or success.

Also choosing what the playable character gets to say to another character. This doesn't change the flow of the story too much In the first story playing as Ubin, I chose to say to Gunnulf that he looks like a frog, thinking I'd offended him (I picked this because it was funny) when he replied 'better than an eggplant'. I did not imagine this response, but it helped show that not every choice you make in the game is as intense as in battling. The story didn't change as the conversation had simply ended.

In terms of battling, the choices I made were important as it could possibly result in a character dying. I feel like the writers of the game would've wanted these characters to die so the enemy could've been coded to target them. I would definitely have to play the games a few times to be sure though!

Mirror Research

WE NEED MIRROR RESEARCH!
I thought that if our character has straight hair, then we'd go for a round, circular mirror. If she has curly or wavy hair we'd go for a more rectangular shaped mirror. This way, the mirror and character would contrast more and the character would pop out more, which is want we want.
plus we don't want some extravagant mirror taking the attention away from the character.
Since our character has curly hair, we'll go with a rectangular shape. I will be posting some mirrors that I reckon will work and Patrick will work off that :)

References
http://www.themirrorlady.com/shop_by_price.php?range=0
http://www.hayneedle.com/accents-and-decor/mirrors_rectangle_list_188625_4295162695
https://locari.jp/posts/16536
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chelsea-Silver-Ornate-Leaner-Antique-Floor-Mirror-36-x-72-X-Large-/261709737572
http://www.stylemepretty.com/gallery/photo/386680
http://www.villabarnes.com/2011/09/bleached-mirror.html
http://www.architectureartdesigns.com/top-17-surprisingly-amazing-upcycled-vintage-decorations-for-your-dream-home/
http://thedecoratedhouse.blogspot.com/2011/08/chalk-paint-blues-distressed-waxed.html

Caricature Attempts

In our group meeting with the tutors, our tutor, Keat, suggested looking at caricature tutorials to help us draw our model and get a better understanding of her features. This really helped me as I was having trouble trying to stylize her, while we also wanted to make her look more realistic than cartoony. Plus Patrick suggested more three quarter angles :)
ALSO here is a lovely photo of our model Holly! #beautiful asdfghjkl

Concept Designs

Here are some concept designs! I'm not the greatest at concepts, but it can be fun and it's good to practice. Our character will be animated in a mirror, but not her whole body will be shown. I'm focusing on the head for now as this is basically where all the attention will go when the camera is on her. (Will probably only see her waist and up).

An important thought came to mind when I was drawing these concept up.
We will be having a photo of the husband and wife at the end of the scene and I thought it would be quite odd to have a life action character and a 2D character together in a photo (back when the wife was still alive). I thought that maybe we could base the design from a live action person that could take the photo with the husband. The husband has a sort of unclear image of what his wife looks like, this is why she'd look a bit different than how she does in the photo. Regardless of this idea, our group would need to discuss this idea before we could really go in further with the concept designing. PLUS we would quickly need to find someone who would fit the role of being the wife.
BUT until then, I will carry on drawing up concepts for my team. - Don't want to have nothing at all to fall back on to if this idea fails.

Another solution to this is incorporating the live action husband and 2D wife in the photo, but blurring the wife a bit, so that the audience wouldn't find it weird that a live action man was married to a 2D character. It'd be like the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Final Production Schedule

I'm posting this a bit late! I edited the part that was changed by the tutors, which is 3D modelling that I will be doing in weeks 5 & 6. This is on our groups google drive as well, but it's good to put it here on the blog too as it is a good reminder for our group.

Female Style

WOOT here's another blog post for today. This is a bit all over the place and at stages..I don't know what I'm talking about...bit tired. Just rambling on. Yeah, hope it makes sense!

Floor Plan & lighting

Today we decided on a rough layout for the floor plan and from what side of the room the man enters the apartment. I suggested that we change it to the man coming in from the left as the western world is left to right and it would be more clear for the audience.

In terms of lighting I first imagined the lighting being a saturated orange, but then blue represents sadness which is what this story is - sad. Having both blue and orange would be nice as they are complementary colours and would add nicely to the scene.
Lots of ideas were thrown around determining what kind of lighting we would implement.
- Small amount of light coming through the curtains.
- Light coming from a different room
-Bad lighting from a lamp
-curtains + curtain rod on the floor, street light emitting orange light through out the apartment, newspaper stuck to the windows to block out light.
We want to go with rather dim lighting as full on roof lights being on or strong lighting would be too much and ruin the mood.If the lighting is to be orange, it wouldn't be like fire lighting as it would be too warm - in terms of the mood rather than the temperature given off from the fire.

Final Script

Script 2 (Final)
So I haven't written a script in a while and I'm pretty bad at them...hopefully this is alright D:

Vending Machine
Live action character name will be Bob and 2D/3D character name will be Fluffball. (Just so I don't have to type them out every time).

INT: SPACE SHIP
MID SHOT
Fluffball is looking left and right around a spaceship and sees a button on the wall. The button is red and says 'Don't touch'. Fluffball then sneezes and accidentely head butts the button causing the ship to teleport to another world.
The ship and Fluffball shake until it disappears with a flash of light.

INT: HALLWAY (DIFFERENT WORLD)
FULL SHOT
A vending machine takes place in the hallway with Fluffball inside. Sparks of light shoot around the vending machine. The spaceship has transformed into a vending machine as a form of defence to blend in with the unfamiliar environment. 

PANS FROM RIGHT TO LEFT AS BOB COMES IN VIEW. STOPS PANNING ONCE BOB IS BY THE VENDING MACHINE.
A student named Bob walks over to the vending machine and looks puzzled as the vending machine wasn't there before. He shrugs and pulls some coins out and puts them into the vending machine. He buys a chocolate bar, but it doesn't come out. 

CLOSE UP
Fluffball is holding onto the so called chocolate bar as it is fake and part of the ship. 

OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT FROM BOB'S SHOULDER
Bob waits for the chocolate bar and spots Fluffball. They make eye contact.

CLOSE UP OF BOB'S FACE
Bob's eyes pop open in surprise, but then furrows his brows. He doesn't care that a never-before-seen creature is there, he just wants his chocolate bar that he paid for. He is angry.

FULL SHOT
Bob grabs the vending machine out of anger and starts to shake it. As the vending machine shakes, the environment changes. Bob looks amazed as he looks around while still shaking the machine. The environment changes from the hallway, to a beach, to a waterfall then back to the hallway.

The vending machine, Bob and Fluffball are all back in the hallway. The world starts to shake, there's a flash of light and the vending machine along with Fluffball are replaced with smoke. 

CLOSE UP
Bob's eyes are closed from the bright light, after a few seconds he opens his eyes to see the vending machine gone and a chocolate bar on the ground in it's place. 

FULL SHOT
He shrugs, picks up the chocolate bar and walks away.

INT: SPACESHIP
The once before vending machine is back to being a spaceship. The spaceship and Fluffy are back in their world. Fluffy faints overwhelmed by his little adventure.

Final Animation!!

YUS! I didn't think I'd actually finish today! i'm so stoked!!
After many weeks of frustration on Maya, here is my final animation. There's lots of things I could've fixed up on, like how his arms are shiny xD But the time limit didn't allow me too.
Overall, i really like it :D
Thanks everyone for your help!!

Start of lighting

Chucked a spotlight in and straight away I rendered the frame.
I might use this for when he gets caught and hold it only few seconds.
FREEZE!
DROP THE SPOON AND BACK AWAY FROM THE BENCH

Smooth Animating

WOOTWOOT My smooth animating is complete!
I added a few things such as a blink in shot 2 and delayed the left foot when he's slipping. Looks better with more stuff going on :)

3D Animation at it's finest

Accidentally turned the lighting on while I was smooth animating. Bit of a shocker. Oops.
The lighting isn't finished! Just had to add some lights so I could see my character when previously rendering.

Stage Blocking Awkwardness

The ik rig for the right arm is difficult to animate with >.< I'm pre positive that I didn't weight paint it well enough annnnnd now I wish I spent more time on it. I had to change my original pose to something like this, but even the right arm can't keep up with the more exaggerated state of the left arm.
I'll probably drop the symmetrical nature of the pose and have both arms doing different things.
Cool bananas.

First shot complete for stage blocking

FYEAH first shot complete with the much needed help from Taylor!! (thank you so much!!!) featuring a gnarly environment :D If I have time ..which is hella unlikely, I'll add more pots and pans n shizz.

Fancy Chef for Stage Blocking

Because Maya hates me and vice versa, the weight painting on the pinky for some unknown reason stuffed up. SO NOW the fat chef is a hella fancy and has his pinky sticking out whilst holding the spoon.

NOPE

I hate skinning

Skinning

On about Wednesday, I thought I was doing ok and was up to date UNTIL one hand's finger rolls were lost. When I tried again, the constraints weren't working properly, so I duplicated the hand over and re-orientated the ctrls to the finger joints AGAIN. Then I sorted out the finger rolls ONLY TO FIND that the ik rig for the right arm was out of whack SO I had to redo that. THEN the joints for said arm flew off in the other blooming direction.
Thanks to Michael and Keat's help, my ctrls are all good and working properly!
NOW I CAN FINALLY START SKINNING.
for goodness sake.
Due tomorrow.
FML.

Adding Eyelids

Keat suggested adding eyelids to my character as a squashed eyeball wouldn't look like he's blinking.
Just need to duplicate the first eyelid over!