Monday 19 March 2012

So today,

I've been messing about with 3D animatic stuff.

Probably better things I should be doing, but I was in the mood for Maya. Which is rare.



Here are some snippets of what I've been up to.








And it won't let me upload the playblasts. Grand


Friday 16 March 2012

Okay,

Okay, hi guys. Sorry this has taken so long, but changes in effect are as follows-

  • The kids/opening scene is now in 3D.
  • The monsters in the kids drawings are shown.
  • Rather than cutting to the battle scene, the monsters "emerge" from the drawings. 
  • The monsters will gradually change from 2D to 3D as they emerge. 
  • The mum will only be shown as a shadow (monster scene), then as feet (kid's room)


 The storyboards have been redrawn (in thumbnails) and today I am working on re-drafting the script to accommodate the changes. When this is done, I'll start re-drawing the new storyboards (most of them are drawn on post-its at this point, haha).

Next week is big push week. Hopefully get the kids' room finalised, the monsters' character designs finished and the animatic nailed down. 


Wee bit behind schedule, but getting there. 

Monday 12 March 2012

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Peer Review.

So Monday was DOOMSDAY. Or the Peer Review, what ever you want to call it.

Went into it feeling generally awful, following 3 weeks of basically agonising over storyboards/animatics. None of which I actually showed at the review- that's how bad it got. 

To put it lightly, the problem was basically that I had no idea what the problem was. I knew I wasn't happy with it, but being basically trapped inside your own head with your own idea for so long, it's hard to look at your work with a level head and fresh eyes. I just knew that I didn't want work that I wasn't happy with to be everyone's first impression of the film.

Anyway, the review went surprisingly well considering my initial mood and lack of animatic, and I was soon chirped up by the excitement that comes along with animators hearing an idea for the first time. The group that were in were great, and we had a good chat about where things could go. Mad how people can just come in and look at something in a completely different way!

I'm beginning to ramble now, so let me steer this post in a useful direction! Basic notes from the meeting were as follows!
  • Why is the 2D section in 2D? Same for the 3D scene? Could they be swapped, or mixed?
  • Do the monsters need to be in a "lifelike" style? Couldn't they keep the look of the children's drawings?
  • Why don't you get to see the kids' drawings? Could they be brought in? Animated even?
  • What shortcuts can be taken to minimise 3D workload?
And the classic...
  • Do we need to see the mum? How can we "imply" her?

So yeah. Not entirely topics that hadn't been considered before, but the people present were able to offer up new opinions and ideas for dealing with them.

To be honest, the most valuable thing I have taken from the peer review isn't the ideas that were bounced around, but more the kick it has given me to stay passionate about the film, and keep thinking about how to make it the best it can be. Just what I was needing.


Conclusive, "re-birth of 'Monsters'" post to follow!

Cheers, 
Nikki