3D character animation assignment- storyboard and topology

I just started planning out my short 3d animation for character animation assignment. The deadline is the end of April or something like that.

My idea is a bit too ambitious for such a short deadline, but I also came up with a plan B story for it, that doesn't involve me modelling and animating a mammoth.


(animatic done with toonboom storyboard trial)

The production pipeline path that I am going to take is going to be slightly different from every one else's in the class. Since I've been using z-brush for almost two years now, I decided that it will cut some of production time.


1 modelling:
sculpt in zbrush---->retopology in zbrush--->export to maya and do some tweaks on topology


Making an animatable topology mesh in Z-brush and exporting it to maya is incredibly easy, though it had some quirks. Some people might say that it will take more time to do it with Z-brush, because then I have to redo the topology after I sculpt the character. To those people I say- no. It's far simpler and empowering. I get the shape to look exactly as I want it and focus on topology afterwards. So I do better at both shape and topology and I have greater control over the end result. I sculpted my mesh and then redid the topology in z-brush (If I export a high poly mesh it will just crash maya) so I made an adaptive skin (copy of the hi poly mesh) with proper topology and 2 subdiv levels stored in it. I just needed to add some extra edgeloops in maya.

Toast! storyboard ver1

Today I got some valuable feedback for the storyboard from my animation tutor at uni, who also has a blog here . He liked my storyboard. I am really glad that there is someone like him to show it to, because he's a guy with experience and his feedback is valuable..

Here is what I got this far:
First of all, the rules of my assignment do not allow me to make the animation longer than 30 seconds. But I have too many shots put in that small time window.And the duration of some of the shots is too short. So 10 seconds must go. For that I must cut out some of the first shots. Some other scenes need a slight change in the camera and the composition (more space between and around characters).


after thinking about it, I decided to make a short version of my animation (for the module assignment) and later a longer one which will be as much as at least 2 minutes!

Before editing my storyboard , I would like to post it in the name of good documentation and progress evaluation. So here it is, no revisions- purely as it came out of my mind:

Toast! storyboard ver1 01.02.2010



I used software called Toonboom storyboard to do it. You can download a trial version, but you should export your work as a video/pdf before you close the app, because if it has over 30 panels, you are not going to be able to open it again.

It's a really awesome application for storyboards- simple and powerful. This storyboard took about 2 hours to make with it.

flash animation project character designs + IK in cs4...

After completing my storyboard for the 30 second animation, the next logical step was to do the character designs- their size and colors. I still have the backgrounds to do, though I can leave them for the end.

name of project: Toast!
duration: 39 seconds (I might have cut it 9 secs, will try to beg my tutor to give me 9 extra seconds)

Character sheet:



Its not perfect perfect- I know, But i dont really need it to be at this point.

I will release the storyboard this week, at this blog .. I made both an animatic and a pdf storyboard

Meanwhile,I've been studying the new features of Flash CS4, since my experience is on cs3. The new version does introduce some really good features, namely inverse kinematics. After seeing how simple it is implemented and how powerful it can be, I decided to move to actionscript 3.0 fla files for the project (since 2.0 doesnt support ik). The new tweening system, the two types of armatures and their inverse kinematics are really going to save me a lot of headaches!

Watch about how to use IK in flash here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iql2VMnKCA

Welcome to my diary

Hi there. My name is Todor and I am studying Computer animation at Bradford university.

I have chosen this course for obvious reasons probably. It is simply the artistic process that fascinates me. I want to be a part of such a process,or be a driving force behind it. This certainly does not mean that my ultimate goal is to work at Pixar or something like that . I just want to work and love that work,because it is interesting. Be it a computer animation or a video game.

My professional background is a fairly short one. Before this university,I used to work at a small Studio back in my country. I got the job as a flash animator,because a friend's uncle knew that I'm good with software. So I went there and they gave me a short storyboard and the library for the production.They made me sign a contract. Two weeks later I knew how to use Flash cs3 and my first 3 minute scene was ready. The production supervisor at the studio first devastated me with his frame-by-frame review of what-was-wrong-with-it and then just praised it for being well played,timed and animated. In the following months I found out how great it is to work with a team of people and how well is that job paid. I found out how to create my own animation libraries, do much more for less time by reusing and remixing,rearranging keyframes. This involved almost no drawing, it was just moving the puppets,telling them what to do,lipsync and so on. At the end of the year the work dried up. My parents saw that I can earn by using my head and decided that I should study animation professionally. So here I am, trying to fit in. Maya is pretty new to me.

I always loved the idea of the digital puppet and the control that the animator has. It is my dream to move to 3d- 2d flash is restraining and not as powerful. Maya must be my new toybox now.

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things that I've done professionally :

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2008-2009- worked for Asikart studio as a flash animator. Mainly used Flash cs3 and Photoshop cs3.I wasn't supposed to draw anything- only animate.All the animations that I made were my own- I could never get the ones from the chara library to fit the storyboard.The character libraries that I had to work with were a complete mess.I had to spend a lot of time fixing and rearranging it,cutting limbs and moving symbols...It was made by some Chinese studio and even the layers were unreadable.. I got my paychecks at the end of each episode or branch of episodes- Scoyo and Bio- two german productions for kids learning interactive animations...I think that you can google scoyo.

2009- Before applying for university, I went to a classic animation course (dont let the name fool you- it was drawing on paper mostly) for a couple of months, which helped me better my drawing skills and have some fun with my old boss Robert Popov.

2009- I made series of illustrations for the cover of a book by Alistair Hayes- "The Salmon Road" . This experience helped me understand the shortcomings of CMYK colour mode and the importance of keeping colours in gamut range.

I got payed 100 euros for my work on the book cover. The book is not very popular, but it is still a published book.

2007,2009- freelance- worked as a website translator- translated tourism-related websites, while being careful not to mess up their html/php tags. I used to get a lot of paychecks through paypal. Some of the money that I earned from this job and other part-time works,I saved for the laptop and wacom tablet that I bought. I bought it myself- no mommy,no daddy heheh

2004-2007 - worked on the development of vector linux. You can see my nickname in the installer's credits- "blurymind" . I worked as a beta tester,packager and graphics design (custom icons,themes,application buttons..) This one was of course voluntary ...

Links

my Flickr Photo stream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8837376@N07/

My deviantart:

http://blurymind.deviantart.com