23 Dec 2011

merfolk - Update



Here is a selection of renders of supporting character's heads. I've managed to create a system where I can quickly and efficiently create head blendshapes from a template, which when named correctly plug straight into a ready-made GUI set-up. This has allowed me to have multiple characters with facial animation and lip-sync. These are works-in-progress and still need some additional texturing and blendshape clean-up, but they give a good idea of the look of the final film.

22 Dec 2011

Innovations

This year, for my Innovations project I have decided to look at the work of Egon Schiele. I've been drawn towards his style since I first saw his work a few years ago in an exhibition about mental illness at the Wellcome Collection.

The aim of my project is to recreate an animated portrait in his style in 3D. Rather than trying to mimic the properties of a 2D painting,which is very difficult using a computer, I am going to consider how an artist like Schiele would approach new working in new media which was not available for them to use. His work often involved abstracting and distorting the human body, with sketchy lines and rough textured colours adding to the anarchic feel of his work. Here is a selection of some of my favourites demonstrating his technique.

Self Portrait
Self Portrait


Inspector Heinrich Benesch and his son Otto 1910
Erwin Osen 1910



I have started looking at his approach by sketching people in this quick style. I did a self-portrait trying to replicate his line quality and caricature, squashing the face (which makes it look hilariously feminine). The plan is to do many of these in different poses, with different levels of abstraction, so I have a decent amount of designs to select from for my 3D model. I'm also going to be exploring his use of colour and paint texture, which I feel is a vital part of his work.

15 Dec 2011

Lip Sync Test

Here is a quick ten second bit of animation I did using the facial rig from last year. Because they have no bodies, I actually found positioning the heads more difficult than animating the faces!

As my major project requires a lot of facial animation, this was a good bit of practice using my own rig, and it allowed me to make adjustments when building blendshapes for the characters in my film, by assessing what worked well, and what could be changed. Enjoy!

Final Major Project: merfolk

This year the biggest project we have our major project, for which I have written a short mockumentary about merfolk. The premise is that they have been living amongst people on land ever since the oceans became too polluted about ten years ago. An elderly couple are interviewed about how they have adjusted to life in Britain, and discuss the prejudices they have faced. Footage of events that have effected the merpeople community is include in the documentary, including appearances from Tony Blair, Nick Griffin and the Westboro Baptist Church.

I am at the point now that all pre-production is finished. I completed the animatic fairly quickly so I had a good idea of what I was doing from an early stage. I was concerned about finding appropriate voice actors, but in the end my two unnamed protagonists were voiced by my parents, who have done a surprisingly awesome job at capturing the optimistic yet vulnerable outlook of the characters. I had a rough script written, which was half-learned then recalled to maintain the feel of natural speech. I recorded tonnes of audio (with a lot of hilarious improvised outtakes) and then edited the best bits together, using real television and radio documentaries as reference. All the other audio is from real-life sources, news footage and interviews.

Character designs from initial animatic.
In terms of look development, I always wanted to go for something simple, and emotive. My film is pretty adventurous, with several speaking characters, and I wanted the aesthetic to drive the story, rather than being the main focus itself. After several concepts, I settled for this flat shaded look, with simple but interesting designs for the man and woman. It was vital they had distinct silhouettes, as the last shot is the two of them watching the sun set over the sea. The use of cel-shading has been great as it reduces UV-mapping and texturing, and gives the option of using more matte-painted backgrounds as opposed to modeled environments. I also like the juxtapositon between real-life situations and natural dialogue with such a stylised look. Although they are merfolk, this is not a fantasy film, and the focus is much more on their status as refugees than as half-fish people.

The main character models (minus final details). All land-dwelling merpeople are wheelchair users, obviously.



As of now I have finished the models for the two main characters, and have almost completed rigging. I should be at the stage of starting animation by next week. I am really excited to begin to bring these characters to life. I have also modeled and rigged Tony Blair's head and a protester merman who also has a speaking part. I have created a template for a rigged head, and have been efficient in creating multiple characters without having to individually build blendshapes for each one. Without this system I would have days more work to pull of this ambitious number of speaking characters.

An example of poses from merman rig (pre-skinning, hence dodgy elbows). Also, these poses are far more extreme than is required in the film, I was just testing the rig.

During screenings, the animatic has been pretty well received and I am confident that if I continue at this quality, at this pace, I will have a good final piece. I will post more info as the project progresses.

Stay tuned!

12 Dec 2011

SPIES

Here is a film I directed last year as a group project. There was a thing about Russian spies in the news, and for some reason I had this idea that a Russian doll would be perfect for espionage. We were limited to one minute, which was tricky but also helpful in making sure only the necessary shots to carry the story were included. It was great to try out all aspects of the film making process, and see an idea go from a couple of scribbles to a fully animated film, whilst enjoying working as part of a group and getting insight and contribution from others.

SPIES from Rory WT on Vimeo.


By Rory Waudby-Tolley, Jenesta Smith, Stuart Wells, Rebekka Hearl and Michael Marsh. Voice of the general by Zak McComas. Music from incompetech.com. NCCA.

3 Dec 2011

oooh, a blog

So I thought I'd start a blog, just somewhere to stick stuff I'm working on and/or stupid doodles.

Recently I've been playing around with toon shaders and contour rendering. This is a test render of a face I modeled and rigged last year, going for a sort of Redline style big black shadows. I got quite a nice fuzzy effect between the colours by whacking on a strong fractal bump map. Nearly finished animating a short piece of lip sync so should have that up soon.