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This week (February 11th – 15th)

The team has completed this week the models of the bluff, Buttons (main character), the easel, stool, and the lantern. And now we are working on Captain Clayton’s model.

Based on a concept art, We rendered a sequence of the bluff to showcase our art style. This shows the bluff on the right, the moon on the left the ocean, and the reflection of the moon in the water.

We did a group voice recording session, where we invited faculty and students to do the voiceover for the character. With the direction of Anthony Daniels we were able to get a really nice set of recordings for the second animatic

After getting an updated version of the story because of the feedback we received, we updated the animatic to reflect the recent change. On top of that, we did a selection of possible camera angles to help us reduce the amount of animation needed for each shot.

For 1/4s walkarounds we prepared a demonstration of the lip sync animation tool for Maya. At the beginning of each presentation we recorded a faculty member reading a text. This voice file was the input to the lip sync tool to create a video of a character saying those lines. An example can be found in the video section of the website..

During 1/4s walkarounds we presented the art, models, art style, a selection of scenes from the second animatic, the lip sync demo and our schedule. We told them our challenges and we got great feedback about concept art, previz, art style, and also they helped us to understand our biggest challenges in completing the project.

Next week (February 18th – 22nd)

The team will be working on rigging Buttons, modeling more characters, doing a facial study of characters’ faces, and the model of the ship.
We will also meet with faculty to get professional actors for a final voice recording.

This week (February 4th – 8th)

The project had a lot of changes this week. We put together an animatic, which helped us to clearly visualize the story and obtain more insightful feedback. We received very helpful feedback from our advisor Ruth Comley and two faculty members: Anthony Daniels and Jesse Schell.

As for the concept art, we have been making some changes in the characters. We have been discussing a lot about the design of the moon. The story requires the moon to talk from a 2D painting inside the 3D animation, making it a difficult decision in interpreting how that would look. The team prototyped various options to try and find the best way to create this character.

We also have an example of Buttons, one of the characters that is currently being modeled.

The main focus for the project this week was about the story. We received feedback from Brenda Harger on how to make the story better, in hopes of increasing the likelihood that the park will approve and show the animation in the resort. This requires a few changes on the script that will be made by the writer throughout the weekend.

Next week (February 11th – 15th)

The team will be rehearsing for 1/4s walk-arounds, and we will attempt to update the animatic accordingly to the changes that are being made to the script. This will also require that the voices are recorded again. We will finish the models of Buttons and Captain Clayton as well as a facial study for the characters.

This week (January 28th – February 1st)

We did another iteration on the concept art and analyzed the best aspects of each character design.

The team also got control of the render farm at the ETC. During a meeting, the team received specific instructions, passwords, and documentation to access the render farm. This technology will let us render scenes for the project at a much faster pace.

We have been doing several iterations in our branding material got great feedback from faculty members. We also finished the team picture.

As part of the process of creating an animatic, we recorded the voices of some fellow students. These are going to be edited and added to the first version of the animatic as a temporary soundtrack.

To continue pre-production, the team has been working on Maya making the previsualization in order to flesh out the camera angles to help tell the story in a better way.

Next week (February 4th – 8th)

The team will be rehearsing for 1/4 walkarounds. We will put the previsualization together with the new sound.

Stardust – Week 3Based on the concept art, we will start modeling some of the characters for the film. We also have a meeting with Anthony Daniels to talk about the project. Also, he has graciously agreed to help us by voicing one of the characters for the final piece.

This week (January 21st – 25th)

Based on the film’s story, our capabilities, and limitation of 16 weeks, the team has been producing various concept art best suited for this film. We have been developing the characters to match their personalities from our story to the ones in the park.

We have been constantly changing our script throughout our meetings, including the removal of several time consuming scenes that could hinder the quality we would like for this animation. The team has also acted out some of the scenes with real toys in order to assist in the scaling of the assets and finding the best camera angles for each shot.

Branding has been an important topic of our meetings all week. While we have finalized both our poster and logo, we have started working on the website design and touch screen content. The team has also helped decorate the project room with GKTW pictures and movie posters.

As part of our research, we have been testing water and fluid dynamics with Maya for our ocean scenes. We have also established connections with Annosoft in using their lip sync tool to facilitate the animations for our characters.

Next week (January 28th – February 1st)

The team will receive control of the render farm. We will test our pipeline as well as render in multiple layers, which will help us test the art style we want for this animation. We will also start modeling some of the characters of the story as well as create the block animatic.

Our client for this project is Give Kids the World; a non-profit organization that exists solely to fulfill the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses. They invite these children and their families from all around the world to experience a memorable, joyful, cost-free visit to the Central Florida attraction.

Our project goal is to create an fun animated short film based on the story of how Clayton and Merry (the main characters on the park) met each other. This animation will be displayed on the park for the kids and their families during visits.

This week (January 14th – 18th)

After meeting, we all shared our experiences and expectations in order to get the best out of this project. We showed our portfolios, talked about our backgrounds and expressed how we hope to contribute to the project.

We have started this project with a client approved story, and have been reading it to understand what kind of visuals and sound effects are required. Also, we have been reading often to figure out the characters, their personalities and their interactions. Inspired by an element from the story we chose our team name: Stardust.

Based on the script, we have also created a first draft of the storyboards. These storyboards are being used to create an animatic that will help us estimate the length of the animation in order get a good, organized start to the production phase.

We also defined milestones within our pipeline: concept art, storyboards, animatic, voice recording, sound design, music, camera animation, modeling, unwrapping, texturing, rigging, character animation, VFX, lighting and rendering and finally compositing and editing.

Next week (January 21st – 25th)

The team will receive control of the render farm; we will choose our art style and will do some final changes on the script. After that we will be able to start working on the animatic.