Group work,Dave modelling my whole set

I was having trouble modeling my set, as this isnt one of my strong suites, so I asked Dave if he would mind modeling it for me, as it might make it easier for him as he is also doing the tree, he sed he would be happy to model the whole set for me.

group work Tim, Back view of character

Tim wanted to know what the back of my monkey looked like for the clay model. As he is going to make me a better clay model so I can work of it When I model my monkey in 3d.

drakes fortune concept

I got the idea for the set layout when I looked at the concept art from a video game called 'Uncharted Drakes Fortune'.

I also got some ideas as to how to do the trees, this image was how I imagined my set to be, but I was having trouble bringing it all togther, then this image made it easier. I wanted there to be two levels to my set, which was fine untill I started to put the hill/cliff in it, and then it got muddled.This image made it easier for me to visualise how it could look.

revised tree

I decided that the tree needed to be a bit more styalised in the way of vines and be more crooked, so i gave it bigger flowing roots, which also adds more of my style to it ,aswell as to the set.I want it to look like an ancient tree over flowing with vines and roots. Like in the amazon jungle.

it makes the set flow easier aswell. its not an important factor, the tree was something i thought id finnished conceptualising. i had to call dave and tell him to hold on for a few days while i got the new tree sorted out!

animatics

So from the stills i timed my film using premiere, The first one was to long in places so I retimed it to come up with the 2nd animatic.
With this one I felt like it was just a bit fast,although I like the flow of this one better.
I decided to add some more frames to make certain actions more clear, because when I showed the 2nd animatic to people a few were confused as to what the character was doing.

The animatics will be uploaded shortly.

more detailed story board

This is my storyboard with some of the actions better drawn out.

revised set design

This is the new proto I quickly did in maya so Matt would have a better idea of how to do the plane background

set design work

I spoke to Paul about my set problems and he sat down and talked through what Iwanted from it,as my film is a short vinette thats focusing on character animation it was decided that the set was a secondary thing, I was getting a bit carried away with the mechanics of the set and Paul explained that with my film,camera angles are going to be important as the camera shots are going to be focusing quite closely on the character, with close up,medium and wide shots, we decided that the globe idea of the set would distort the image to much, and it isnt really needed, as all the set is there for is to do my establishing shot at the start of the film.

So it was suggested that I have a really long plane that slightly bends, like an horizon line, but do it so that when I do close ups of my monkey, the set will still be in view.

Paul suggested that I go back to my storyboard and nail the camera angles as best I could, so we can see exactly how the set will appear.paul also suggested iIcarry this through into an animatic.

Group work 3, James's job finished

These colors all came out looking really nice, I think I prefere the ones were his face is darker, But im still unsure about which one to choose, I think right now im torn between 3 and 4, but I think 5 would look good if it had 4's face shading. Very nice work by james and I got the work back to me in a good time frame.

work i produced while ill

The last few posts have been things ive done before I got flu, so things ive been trying to get done is the camera angles, As Paul said it will be an important part in what im going to do with my background, he said the dome shape would not work as it would distort the image plane to much, so he suggested that I have a single plane like in my original idea, just bend it slightly in a curve. But ive got a few pics of the new set idea that will be posted soon, and im working on the camera angles.

Group work 3, James to colour concepts

I showed paul my monkey colors, and he said that the problem with gold/yellow, is that it can make the character seem a bit sickly and ill, So we were talking a bout it back and forth and we decided that James will go away with my colours, and come up with a few different variations on my chosen colors, and see were we go from there. It will be the colours ive chosen, its just the tones that were trying to nail down right now.so James said he'd get them back for me and then once thats settled I can get to making the monkey in maya.

Rough colour concepts

These are some images of my monkeys color scheme and my background colors, Id like to have the colours quite bold, not ultra realistic but not to simple either. With the character and set being quite styalised i think realistic textures would contrast to much with the artwork. i also do not want to toon shade it, so simple texture designs are what I will be eventually looking for.

more images of designing the character

I was trying to figure out how long the monkeys tounge will be and roughing out a design for the 3d model.

background dome

The next problem that I became aware of at the pitch was my background. If I wanted to show any other camera angle apart from straight on,you would loose sight of the background. so to tackle this I made another one in maya, just to see what it would look like if it were in a sphere.The only problem with this is that it will distort the image plane to much so I will have to keep searching for another method of creating the background/