Deep Short Film

Finally an update

2010-12-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated in here for a while, but I'm doing great progress with the short film.
The rigging of the guy is done:

Also I've modeled, uv'ed, rigged and partially textured all props in the short.
The other character appearing is almost rigged as well.

Here is a mix of different stuff compiled:

Rigging has startet!

2010-09-03T17:21:00.001-07:00

I've moved on from modeling and has called the major stuff final.
I still need the boat, fishing pole and a bunch of other props, but as far as character, it should be done - pretty much.

Here is a screen on the character.
Most of the body is done.
I need to set up proxy models for fast viewport feedback, as well as the posibility to hide/unhide different parts of the body.
I still need to set up a few other things, such as automatic foot roll and finger bending.

I haven't even touched the face yet.

Cheers!

More character stuff

2010-08-06T16:18:00.001-07:00

Alright, I know I wrote I settled on the last design, but here we go again :D
A brand new design and THIS one is a keeper.

Still room for a bit of tweaking.

More character stuff

2010-06-24T02:19:00.000-07:00

I've continiued on the main character, and this is the model in his final stages in maya:

brought the head into mudbox, because I wanted to try something out with displacements, where I used the Flatten brush to flatten patches thus creating a more old and used look, almost like it is carved in stone.

I also did a very quick diffuse map, just to give it a bit for color.
I will probably redo the sculpt, it was more a concept sculpt and done in about an hour.

Anyways here is the look and I think I kinda like it :) :

Modeling main character

2010-06-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

Alright, so modeling of the main character has finally started for real.

I had some ideas I played around with and ended up with a concept sculpt in mudbox which worked alright.
I'm now trying to model it in maya and get at nice edgeflow.

It still misses a lot of stuff, but the main thing is down alright. I'm probably gonna make some changes in the flow, particularly the flow from below the lower lip should go around the nose instead of straight to the eye.

After the basic model works, I will need to go in and tighten up some of the edges, because right now it will smooth too soft and too even across the mesh, which I don't like.

Anyway, here is a turn.

Cheers

Animatic: done!

2010-05-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

Yipeee!
I've decided to call it quit in terms of animatic.
It is now time for the actual work.

I feel I have a solid foundation to build upon, and it will give me great confidence during animation, that I know exactly what needs to be done and that I'm not gonna do any "waste" animation.

Another thing is I'm gonna put up the first 1:20 for public display.
So here it is, the public part of my animatic.

Deep short film, Public animatic from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Title card and RnD

2010-05-27T02:02:00.000-07:00

Alright, time for an update i recon.

This might seem like an inactive blog but the project itself is very active.
Storyboarding is pretty much finished and I've slowly started my cg work.

I've had a lot of trouble finding the visual style, but I think I now have a pretty good idea about what I want to do.
I'm thinking of putting the first part of the film out there for the public to follow, and make it a open project, at least for the first minute or so.
I've been doing quite a bit of research and testing on how to create underwater look.
One of the more successfull one can be seen here:

Underwater RnD from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

I've tried to set up a pretty "realistic" environment for this test.
It is a box filled with fog, that I cast light into. The light is broken up by a plane with a ocean texture as transparency.
The glow of the sphere is actually not a "faking" glow of blured light, but a more physical correct glow, of attenuating light, lighting up the surrounding fog.
With this approach, which might not be the most render-friendly, I should be able to pretty easily add any element I want and it should behave nicely :)

Oh! and check out the new titlecard:

Cheers

Water shading test

2010-04-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

A rendertest, as part of my research for Deep.
This is test to see how easy/hard it was to setup water with reasonable rendertimes.

They came in at around 1:10 a frame, at 1280*536, which I'm very satisfied with, as well as the look.
It's created in maya, and pretty much used standart maya ocean (with shader) and a wake attatched to the sphere.
Used a HDRI map for reflection (not visible as background), and got a z-depth pass as well.
They were all combined in after effects, together with background and a bit of color grading.

Underwater study

2010-04-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

I'm continueing test, trying and reseaching all the technical stuff, besides all the story work.
I need to figure out, how I'm actually going to render, and setup all this stuff, and especially water surfaces and underwater fog effect.

The latter is the focus of this little test.
Here it is, rendered out from native maya render (software) with rendertimes around 15 seconds on a fairly old 4gb ram computer.
This is straight out of maya, no touch up.

Obviously, all the fine tuning which will take it from workable to beautiful is left to come, but the generel idea seems to work fine.

Volume light (water) reseach from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

More to come!

Shot Overview

2010-04-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

Not a big update here, just wanted to give an idea of the scope of the film.
Even though the animatic isn't quite finished yet, I've started to numerize each shot and trying to get a broad perspective of the whole thing.

I don't have a huge pipeline setup or anything, and quite frankly I think it'll confuse me more than anything, so instead I'll resort to simpler methods and did a shot chart in MS Excel.
So here it is, divided into animatic, 3dlayout, animation and final.
I can't wait to get a lot of purple X's.

And for those of you, who don't wanna count, there are 61 shots so far... more to come!
Cheers

Film progress

2010-03-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

I showed my animatic at it's current state to my two teachers at animation school this week.
One was co-founder of the oscar nominated studio Cartoon Saloon, Fabian Erlinghäuser, the other was newly graduated animator, Frederik Villumsen.
It went pretty damn great, if I may say so :)

One of my main concerns with the story, of cause, was whether or not, people would actually get it. A lot of compex emotions and storypoints are being told within 5-6 minutes, with no dialogue, just body language. I'm relying a lot on posing and staging to tell this story.

But to my great pleasure, the both seemed to get the story, even the little hints of character trades that is spread throughout the story. They both contributed with great ideas and adds, and though they viewed it seperately, they came with pretty much the same remarks and ideas, so I have a strong feeling of what to change, and how to do so!

That's the story update. It's making slow but steady progress, and I think it's coming out great.
I feel good about the story as it is, and I'm sure it will benifit my tremendously, to have a solid storyboard/animatic down, when going into the actual production. By then I will know, that every single shot I'm sweating over, will have a significant contribution to the story, which is always a great feeling.

So moving on from the story, I've also done a bit of work on the 3d character.
Gone in and build the shape and character, from the basic shapes I've posted previously.
I realised some things worked out great in the rough sketch, that just won't work in 3d, for instance the neck area, where he needs room to rotate his head, and as I want to keep it fairly close to reality in terms of proportions and body structure, I ended up moving his head above the shoulders. I think it gives a more natural look to the character, and combined with some old-man poses, I'm sure he'll look great.

Here he is, so far:

Wow! that was a lot of words, I've probably lost the one (if any) reader out there, so I might as well sign off.
Have a nice evening!

Cheers

Possible main character

2010-03-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

I've done it, scraped it and done it again probably about 10 times by now, but here is first real character design attempt that I post online.
I played around with different shapes and ended up with a very rough 10 sec. sketch that looks like this:

I kinda liked the design, the high shoulder, the fragile lower legs, the sorta unease and rigidness it has. I think this could be a really cool way to go.
So to test it out, I did a super fast mockup in maya, just blocking in the basic shapes.
It still need to be pushed a lot, right now it's a bit too flat and doesn't have quiet the contrast in form that I'm looking for.

But here it is, the initial blocking of shapes, for what might be the main character of my short:

Cheers

Color tests

2010-03-06T16:23:00.000-08:00

Time for an update.
This is four storyboard panels, with some color slapped onto them.
It may or may not represent the final look, but it certainly shows a way of going.

Anyways, check em out, and come back for more soon, hopefully :)

Maybe I should sum up, where the film is at the present moment.

Storyboard/animatic is in progress, close to finish
Character design of main character is close to finish
Look dev. is as you can see stated and in developement
Prep work (research) is being done in terms of 3d and technical challenge

And that's basically it for now.
I don't have a lot of sparetime to use on this project, hopefully around summer time, I can focus on this film (besides school of course), and I'd like to go into production, modeling props/character and starting 3d layout, within 3-4 months, but before that I HAVE to solve the remaining story issues.

Cheers :)

Underwater look developement

2010-02-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

This is an early render, trying to hit that underwater atmosphere the film has.

Underwater Look devlopement from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

With very small rendertimes (300 frames in just an hour at 640*480, that appr. 12 sec. pr. frame).
A few touch up in post.

main character

2010-02-08T17:27:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't uploaded a lot, but I feel in the mood for sharing some more stuff, though I guess no one actually reads this blog.

This time, it's the head of my main. Not sure if it's the final or what ever, but it gives you kinda an idea of where I'm going with this.
I just threw on some quick colours in Photoshop.

Hopefully I will soon again have time to work (and maybe finish) the storyboard/animatic. It still need some redoing, to add some more drama and feeling.
When it's done, I promise to share a bit.

Look design

2010-01-26T16:48:00.001-08:00

A new picture is up.
This time I'm exploring the look of the film.
The background is a mixture of a lot of different stuff, but mainly a water color test.

The storyboard of the film is close to tied down.
More updates to come soon!

Brand new concept art

2010-01-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

Here are 2 brand new drawings, exploring the look of the film.
More info to come!