YPGTTO: Modeling Crowds

   To get some of the crowds, the YPGTTO team developed a plugin for preparing animations for  use in large crowds. In order to do this, each animation cycle was processed into an alembic cache, where it would be brought in and looped. A random generator allowed for the random application of colour and an animation offset was set for each citizen to give a bit of randomness to what stage of movement each of the population were in.

  The most time consuming part, once the caches had been created was to insert the crowds into the scene and have them follow a path, this was slightly tricky due to the meandering nature of the highways which went up and down as well as curving around.

  For a first test however, this turned out well. The crowd feels reasonably organic and there are plenty present to demonstrate the scope of the population within the Kingdom of Sound

A Modeling Sandbox

  I've been doing a little practice work on a model that I made long ago, I've had plans to revamp it for a while. With time in Mudbox I hope to make the skin considerably more convincing, which right now primarily serves as a base texture to build on. I mostly wanted ot go deeper with my modeling - better skin, better texture, better skinning, a test-bed for ways to create models that are a little more convincing

  The process was similar to the refinement of Four: A 3D model created in Maya transferred over to Mudbox then brought back to Maya as a low-poly model overlaid with a normal map.

It's not all geometry, underneath this structure is a skeleton so when the whole mini-project is finished this creature should be poseable, animatable and something that can be brought in to a more complex scene. At the very least I'm getting more familiar with Mudbox sculpting tools.

Showreel 2017

  As time goes by and the summer passes I feel it's about time to unveil a showreel composed of my best work up to the end of 2017. There's still some personal question of where to go but lately I have been drawn to character and creature animation. There remains a soft spot for the modeling side which I plan to brush up on.
  I don't have many examples of facial animation, having only really picked it up in my last couple of projects, but I plan to rectify that alongside a whole heap of ideas. I have my whole life ahead of me, time now to make the best of it.

Seat of Power Progress Stage Two

  Over the past weekend I felt sorely tempted to continue working on the throne room I had been building. Parts of it are coming together but I feel that while colouring has definitely brought out some of the design, there is still more to do.

  One thing I felt particularly inspired to do was ring some real colour to the scene. To demonstrate this was the seat of an empire, the room needed colour. It needed vibrancy so I thought to myself perhaps the ceiling is painted or frescoed.

  Perhaps in the final design, along with some decoration to bring out the pillars the ceiling will be decorated with all manner of paintings and murals. When you look above while walking though the room you should get a significant sense of the history and pride written onto the walls. To celebrate their client's glory, the builders of this room would surely decorate it to be the most beautiful in all the land.

  The whole room's purpose is to frame the grand throne in its very centre. Everything about in view needs to draw the visitor to the grand seat, and display it or whoever sits upon it as the most important thing in the entire room. The banners, the stairs, even the alcove at the back are all designed to focus the eye on the grand seat.

  I'm thinking leading up to the throne would be a large carpet, not as wide as the stairs but covered in pretty embroidered patterns.

  My plan for these banners is they would display the crest of the royal family that sits on the throne on the lower half.

Seat of Power: Progress Stage One

  The other night and tonight I got a little experimental again after rewatching some of the older episodes of Game of Thrones. I've sort of concluded that designing environments is one of the things that got me hooked into design so I've set this and the Treacy city as long-term brush up projects, something to let off some steam.

  Thinking on it I've always had a soft spot for the grandeur on display in places that are courtly and the elegant, places of power and majesty. If things are getting difficult to realise in reality, there is always the digital world where almost nothing is impossible with the right plan and a few tricks.

With this design in particular I've particularly enjoyed experimenting on how to make a vaulted ceiling, a staple of cathedrals and grand halls throughout Europe where stone slopes elegantly to meet the ceiling to provide something much more fascinating to the eye than a slab of concrete, stone or marble that can themselves be decorated a variety of ways such as painted murals or intricate stone carvings.

Huabanyouliu: Revising an Old City

As I looked to the future I had a suspicion that I may be looking for a job for a little while, so to keep my skills sharp I went back to an old design, the city I built in my first year with fresh ideas to make it more convincing. Maybe more expansive or more true to something Philip Treacy would design, as while the key buildings are certainly Trracy-like, I feel the rest of the cityscape could do with a more true-to-his-work look.

It's only a blockout so far, but going back to my inspirations I have a few new ideas for the city's layout.

  I went back to my old inspiration, the Zhangjiajie Forest National Park in China where the city was nestled in the pillar-like mountains to look for ideas on layout and construction. Maybe the mountains form part of the city itself. The original city's design involved many platforms, elevated psaces for people to move and interact. The mountains provide a perfect preface for such vertical construction, a foundation as the city reaches out into the air, it's people rooted in the rock but living among the clouds.

  Key structures will be installed, of course - the opera house and some of the platforms will remain as they are symbolic features of the design as it was during my final submission. I might not get to populate it, or expand it as more than an empty city once vibrant, but it's a wonderful exercise to fill empty time.

Zhangjiaje, in particular some rock formations that might work very well in the revised city. (Amusing Planet, 2015)

References

• Amusing Planet, 2015; [Zhangjiaje, in particular some rock formations that might work very well in the revised city]; zhangjiajie; available at https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoRrCKClHbHehbqdH2JRo_BKEbVicoS9rzqapdDKGSq1vYbmYx-K2pfMtxtllS_LmboW8M3n_bDTWtH-Jnz2F27WFiRrbn3FGEDRBTWDD9kMRYVFcXIhW_k1nx0373FOFZ_byjlJdXBRH/?imgmax=800 (last accessed 13th September 2017)

YPGTTO: Yellow Runs of Excitement

Finishing the second half of the task of creating a few running animations. The first was based on one created by the other team members who created quite a feminine gait, which I attempted to convey with these animations. The second, where Yellow runs while holding her dress, may have been a little ambitious. Based on how one way to run in a dress is to hold it up so it does not snag or trip you, in hindsight the dress may be a little short for what was intended but at least some variety is available for the crowds.

YPGTTO: Animating the Audience

Carpe Diem, as the Romans say. I've felt like things are quiet on my end; a bit too quiet to be comfortable so, introducing some more work done for the animation to accompany the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. So fat I have been asked for two jobs. The first, now clear, was to create a series of bows and curtsies that an audience to the king were to perform. The keywords of 'ostentatious' 'slow' and 'ceremony' gave me clear ideas of what I needed: Something elegant, something graceful and dignified. The highest leaders in a baroque realm were being greeted by a grand audience so nothing short of regal was required.

As well as this, the crowds needed some variety. As the Trombone and Tuba districts were a mix of golds and blues, so did the people need to match the palette of their surroundings. Some colours form other districts were also thrown in to the bundles to provide a more diverse crowd, which in the final production would speckle the seas of people with odd colours to add variety to the otherwise monochrome palettes.

With these, time was dedicated to some running. The project already had some neutral runs so I was asked to create some runs for characters that would be excited for one reason or another, and thus running to a particular goal.

The remaining sequence to make is one or two runs for the female character Yellow.