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This week (April 29th – May 4th)
The final mix for the sound effects, voices and music was finished. Following our final schedule, the team rendered and composited all the scenes in order to have the final version of the animation ready.
During the BVW Festival, the team presented the short animation to a big crowd of students, faculty and visitors. We received great feedback from them about the quality of the animation, the way it looks, and how we were able to complete it in just one semester.
We also traveled to Kissimmee, Florida to present the film to our client. We met with Abby Kracoff, the Entertainment Director of Give Kids The World (GKTW). She gave us a tour around the resort and we tested the blu-ray disc of the animation. The moment we waited for a long time arrived a few minutes after sunset, when it was dark enough to show the premiere of the animation short in the pool-side venue on a screen fixed on a ship. After a short introduction of the team, the kids, their families, as well as GKTW employees watched the animation for the first time. After that, Abby said it was an awesome video that the ETC created for them, the families love it and it will be shown every week on Fridays at their Pirates and Princess party.
Next week (May 6th – 10th )
The team will be preparing the post-mortem, documentation and the asset library as part of the deliverable for this project. We will also be rehearsing the final presentation.
This week (April 22nd – 26th)
After soft presentations, the team created a priority list from the feedback given by the faculty as well as all the fixes we wanted to include in the final version of the animation.
This week the team’s effort concentrated in finishing the animation on the ship and moon scenes, and fixing some errors that we noticed in the latest playblast.
A detailed schedule was made to maximize the efficiency of the renderfarm, ensuring that we have enough time to finish the last few scenes while rendering and compositing other scenes.
The lighting was fixed and the stardust particle effect was added to the ship.
We tested fur on the characters but we decided to opt out for fur because the increase in render time was a stronger burden over the amount of realism it added to our characters.
Next week (April 29th – May 3rd)
We allocated some time to possible fixes, but the team will concentrate on the completion of the rendering and compositing for the final piece. The aim is to present the short film in an ETC premiere during the BVW festival next week, as well as traveling to the Give Kids The World Resort for the Princess and Pirates Party screening the following day.
This week (April 15th – 19th)
This week the team has been preparing for soft presentation on Monday 22nd. We will be presenting the bluff and the cabin scenes fully rendered and the ship and moon scenes will be a playblast. To accomplish this goal the team has been working on:
- Finishing the textures of the characters and 3D assets that are included on the bluff and cabin scenes.
- Getting a better animation for the characters on those scenes.
- Rendering the scenes where the animation and texture have been completed
- Creating the stardust effect
- Creating a consistent particle effect for windy
- Mixing the music provided by the composer with the voices to create the audio mixdown
- Testing the renderfarm
Some faculty members visited us to watch the current status of the animation and to give us some feedback before softs. Also, we got to show the latest playblast to an ETC alumni that is currently working at Dreamworks.
Next week (April 22nd – 26th)
The team will present on softs for the faculty to get some feedback. We will prioritize this feedback along with the tasks we need to do to complete the ship and the moon scenes. The plan is to fix the the shots according to the priorities we will establish after softs so we can start rendering on the 23rd. The rendering process will take a lot of time reason why we must start rendering no later than this Tuesday 23rd.
This week (April 8th – 12th)
This week the team has been working on the second step of the animation for the ship and moon scenes. The book textures were completed. Also, the team reviewed the ship’s texture and some modifications will be done based on the feedback. The textures for some of the characters were refined.
The last two characters, the moon and the cloud were finished this week. Also we asked fellow ETCers to provide us with some filling assets for the cabin scene. We now have a set of objects that can be placed inside the captains cabin.
In the rigging area, the work this week was focused on finishing the facial rigs for the characters and importing the lip sync files into the animation. We did a couple of tests on the stardust effects using Nuke, but now we decided to create the effects using Maya’s nParticles.
We have been talking with the composer and reviewing the music he is creating. We will be able to have a completed soundtrack for softs presentation.
The promo videos were shot. We will upload these videos next week to the website.
Next week (April 15th – 19th)
The team will have an internal screening one week before softs screening in order to set up the priorities. After that we will concentrate our work in those priorities to start rendering next Thursday in preparations for softs.
This week (April 1st – 5th)
This week, Miss Merry’s texture was completed and applied to the 3D model. We finished modeling some assets like Windy, the ship, and many props used for the characters, such as a palette and brush for Miss Merry to paint with.
The first layer of the animation was completed for most of the scenes. We recorded actors re-enacting our scenes in order to help our animators. This video reference shows all the movements of our characters. The book animation was made using the final version of the book. The layout for each shot is being created, including the pictures and the text that is shown on the pages.
The rigs for the characters are nearing completion and are continuously improved upon. Rusty’s and Miss Merry’s finger rigs were finished as well as the facial rigs for all the main characters.
As for the soundtrack of the animation, we have selected one composer and had a meeting to give him all the instructions necessary to compose the score. We’ve been testing the sound in different rooms of the ETC for soft’s presentation as well as the final mixdown of the audio, keeping in mind the equipment setup that will be used in the resort to screen this film will be different.
Also, in preparation of putting together the final film, we have contacted different people to get their desired information to be put on the credits.
Next week (April 8th – 12th)
The team will continue working on the short. With only two weeks before softs presentation, our artist will be concentrating on producing all the textures for the finalized models. The animators will be using the reference videos to work on the second step of the animation. Lighting and visual effects will also be set up. We will continue having meetings with the composer until we get the final version of the music.
This week (March 18th – 22nd)
The team has been preparing for one of the most important deadlines in the semester, halves presentation. We wanted to show to the faculty, visitors and ETC students the current progress for the cabin scene.
Colored versions of the characters were prepared, as well as a first layer of textures for Buttons, the teddy bear. More models were created; Rusty, the story book, a stardust jar, a more detailed version of the captain’s cabin, and a few cabin assets.
The first two layers of the animation were completed for the cabin scene. A first pass was made with all the key poses of the characters. Later, a second pass was made to add movements in between. The body rigs for the each of the main characters were refined in order to give better controls for the animators to work with. The dress of Miss Merry was made using Maya’s nCloth.
A video reference of the cabin scene was done by shooting footage of our teammates acting out the scene as the characters, so that the animators can have some references for animating the characters.
The editing of all the voice overs was made and added to the current animatic. This animatic will be sent to the composers to give them a better idea of what we are producing.
We had the chance to present our project to some of the Roche executives that are attending the innovation workshops on Tepper. We also presented to some of the WPO members (World President’s Organization) who visited the ETC, which provided us great feedback for our project.
While we are working on in layers, we are also preparing and rehearsing for the halves presentation. In the video section in the menu link above, is the most recent version of the animatic.
Next week (March 25th – 29nd)
Part of the team will be attending the GDC conference in San Francisco, CA. The rest of the team will be working on setting up the other scenes, completing the lipsync animation using Annosoft’s Lip Sync Tool, creating a music reference for the composers, and completeing a list of all the sound effects that are required for this project.
This week (February 25th – March 1st)
The team reviewed the new storybook approach to the script. We weighed the risks and benefits of switching to this method of storytelling and have decided to go forward with the storybook concept. We still do not know if GKTW will prefer our new version of the script. In order to move forward with these uncertainties, we have decided to proceed into production of the parts that will be identical in both versions, while waiting for our client’s response. The script has gone under multiple iterations throughout the course of the week and is ready for recording.
Captain Clayton is finished being modeled and is now in the process of being rigged. Buttons is going through studies on facial expressions and facial rigging. A first pass of body rigging has been completed. Ms Merry is nearly finished being modeled and will be completed shortly. Facial studies of Ms Merry have started as well. Captain Clayton’s ship will be completed by the start of next week. The storybook concept art will be finished by next week as well. Production appears to be rolling ahead!
We have also secured voice actors and a director for the script. We plan on recording them early next week with Ralph on an off site recording studio in downtown Pittsburgh. We aim to finish editing the voices by Thursday so that we can start doing initial animations to show for half presentations.
The render farm has been fixed, updated and is currently working with Nuke and Maya, our needs for production.
Next week (March 4th – 8th)
The team will have both Ms Merry and the ship fully modeled. Clayton will have his body rigging done. The book will begin to be modeled as well. We will record all the voices and initialize production of our animation.
This week (February 25th – March 1st)
The team reviewed the new storybook approach to the script. We weighed out the risks and benefits of switching to this method of storytelling and have decided to go forward with the storybook concept. We still do not know if GKTW will prefer our new version of the script. In order to move forward with these uncertainties, we have decided to proceed into production of the parts that will be identical in both versions, while waiting for our client’s response. The script has gone under multiple iterations throughout the course of the week and is ready for recording.
Captain Clayton is finished being modeled and is now in the process of being rigged. Buttons is going through studies on facial expressions and facial rigging. A first pass of body rigging has been completed. Ms Merry is nearly finished being modeled and will be completed shortly. Facial studies of Ms Merry have started as well. Captain Clayton’s ship will be completed by the start of next week. The storybook concept art will be finished by next week as well. Production appears to be rolling ahead!
We have also secured voice actors and a director for the script. We plan on recording them early next week with Ralph on an off site recording studio in downtown Pittsburgh. We aim to finish editing the voices by Thursday so that we can start doing initial animations to show for half presentations.
The render farm has been fixed, updated and is currently working with Nuke and Maya, our needs for production.
Next week (March 4th – 8th)
The team will have both Ms Merry and the ship fully modeled. Clayton will have his body rigging donel. The book will begin to be modeled as well. We will record all the voices and initialize production of our animation.
This week (February 18th – 22nd)
The concept art for the ship went through a series of changes throughout the week to make sure it is similar to the physical ship in the park. Since the animation is intended to be shown on the ship’s sails, we have to ensure our stylized ship is the most similar to the park’s representations in order to establish the connection between the animation and the park. There were challenges in maintaining the ship’s size and layout while fitting it into our story and its production needs.
The team has been working on the character models this week as well. Buttons is finished and is in the process of being rigged. A preliminary blocking of the animations for Buttons will shortly follow once the rigging is finished. Miss Merry and Clayton are still being modeled and are expected to be completed by the start of the following week.
We also did a series of tests on the renderfarm, preparing it for the production stage. Although we ran into some issues in file permissions at the start of the week, everything is now in working order. While the pipeline for Maya is completely functional, we are waiting for an approval to update the Nuke licenses for our compositing pipeline.
One of the major feedback from the faculty was about the scope. In order to address that issue, the story is currently being rewritten in hope for a shorter and more engaging story.
Next week (February 25th – March 1st)
We will start working on a new version of the animatic once the story is locked down.