Much of this afternoon was spent creating a basic animation as well as putting together all the assets to show what Forge has so far created.
I ended up making more footage than I needed, so I decided to upload a full video of what I had made. This footage is useful as it shows the total progression of the scales as they grow across the Fish's body.
Before the textures were rendered and before the scales were applied, I took a test recording to see how effective the camera was.
The final phases of mapping the coral are done and after a tweak to the shader the quality is solid enough that I can present this as a demonstration video. As well as a sequence showing the coral growing from a bud, I also created a turnaround to show the model as it would look in the final render.
As well as these tasks, I also took on the task of adding the strange growths to the body of our fish. While my initial plan was to use a lattice, this fell flat when I didn't fully consider the eye, but I compensated, as the manual application turned out to be rather therapeutic and progressed relatively smoothly and promptly.
I decided to make progress with the ravine, adding some ruggedness to the ledges. Some crags and points have been added but from now on it is going to be more tweaking. Textures such as a bump map will definitely useful from here on out to give the ravine a rockiness to it. The next stage so far will be to do something about how level the ravine floor is. I might taper it at the ends; have the floor rise upwards to indicate a point of origin.
There could be some more pushing back of the upper ledges, in theory at least. But the main thing that I feel now with the model is I can move on to rocky outcroppings because with the time at hand, I can't risk spending too much time on the tiny details as there is still plenty to do. Plants and rocks are needed for one.
Perhaps the area around the ravine is also extended. To get the effect these were displaced chunks of rock, instead of relying on further tweaking the angle of the ledges, I also changed the incline of the ground around the ledges to make a more defined incline.
In terms of scale there is still plenty of space, although most of the action might be away from the ends of the ravine. But this is yet to take into account how much space will be used by rocky outcroppings. Which will be the next phase after adjusting the height of the ravine at each end.
Today I looked into some progress with the ravine, the main location for the events in the narrative animation. This went though a couple of iterations as it initially got very complex, so I looked into some advice into how I could simplify the design. For this I went largely back to basics with the shape. Speaking with a first-year the thought occurred of giving the ravine more space in the middle, in order to give the camera and the fish room to move about without an ever-present opening above.
There is still a little more work to do with this. As I might give the ravine floor more depth and see what I can do with the ravine mouth. But the important part right now is the bowels of the ravine, as that will be where the second fish spends most of its time.
The concept art I am working from included rocky outcrops, another thing that could be added to give us room to work. It would also give a platform for plant life as the thing about a ravine is it is a very steep drop to the bottom and there might be little place for plants to settle and grow. Developing this will be my next step. The other thought was closing off the ends, especially as that is what the ravine does on the surface, and right now it seems a little jarring that where the crack is closing, the tunnel is just as wide as it is in the middle.
To get a sense of scale I brought in some of the blocked out plants of the last version of the model and set them somewhere. The fish will be smaller than these so the camera could find itself very close to the walls.
After a few delays over the past week, today was the day to which sound was added to Forge Studios' animatic for our narrative project. The outcome we are putting forward with our online greenlight. There is still some work to be done, might tone down the splashing. But as the animatic shows our project now has a working title: Ravine.
Below is the original version presented in a group discussion.
After making progress on the character project today I looked at polishing up Forge Studios' logo/title. From the start I had looked into the idea of looking like metal, something that would genuinely look straight out of a gorge or smithy's mould. When it came to lighting I had the idea come to be that the light could be centred around the glow of the O. And to give more definition I added some edge lights within the interior of the letters.
I chose to work on this one because this was the typeface the group was most agreed-upon with using. Hopefully what I have created goes a little way towards alleviating the feel that the flat colour design was more suited towards something formal like a law firm as opposed to something for a creative design studio.
So here I have an initial script idea for the group project based on our current storyboard. If we go by the rule of thumb that one page is equivalent to one minute of screentime, then we are in line with the two-minute mark. But that timing also depends on how we pace ourselves in constructing the animation itself. Something that will be worked out when making the animatic.
This morning I spent a little time investigating font styles for the studio's logo. It would be nice to make this shiny and embossed, like something made out of cast iron. But before we get to that phase we first need to work out the font we are using.
The one thing we could agree on was our O would be a diamond with a furnace or fire in the middle. This served as the basis of what fonts would suit our style as the various fonts would have to compliment the shape.
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I have investigated various thicknesses and degrees of condensing, as well as looking to see if our style suits a thick heavy blocky font or something more carved and refined. The last two I experimented with the diamond being larger than the font to see if it could fit.
Today the narrative group I am in had a tutorial session with Alan regarding the direction of our project. We had a few ideas between us however the one that struck Alan the most during the discussion related to an idea of a puffer fish and the decorate patterns they create in the sand to attract mates.
Figure 1: An example of blow-fish artworks
These little fish create amazing patterns by pushing themselves though the sand and using their fins as spades. I did some digging (no pun intended) to find how these little fish manage to create these amazing designs and came across a video from the BBC documentary Life Story.
As demonstrated, puffers work constantly for a week to create these masterpieces. And as with all fine art, it is very delicate work, which could be considered for the story. Maybe he can't work fast enough, maybe he's too clumsy, maybe other fish or natural factors could ruin all his attempts. Maybe he can't get the pattern to simply "look right" as it were. Whatever the exact situation, the idea was that our fish realises they can't express themselves by doing what all the other fish are doing despite his best attempts.
The idea we have discussed so far is that our protagonist fish struggles to make these designs, but in recalling a pst event, remembers that when nervous or agitated, like all puffers he inflates (the trigger as it turns out is easy enough; Pufferfish swell up by filling up their very elastic stomachs with water. So if it's an emotional trigger, a panicked gasp or hiccup could both signal a convenient transformation that might induce audience sympathy (it's pretty normal to feel embarrassed from some a public display of a panic-induced reaction) but that is not all that will happen.
Figure 2: When they're not inflated, blow-fish are tiny. Perhaps adorable.
Figure 3: I'm willing to say this one looks adorable.
But that is where our little fish will shine. As when they have this happen to them, the audience and the nearby fish see their body transform into a beautiful technicolour display. Although I suppose one extra obstacle would be that what is beautiful can be subjective. But the idea is that when it is discovered that this fish can do this, all the other fish are amazed. I personally proposed a fractal pattern but for now the actual design is not important. What is important is getting a story nailed down though thumb-nailing and story-boarding.
We were also discussing adding a cleaner shrimp as a friend who would try to help out our puffer with making their sand-art or try to cheer him up. The major inspiration for this was Hal the cockroach from the Pixar film Wall-E.
Figure 1: A little cleaner shrimp in an aquarium
References
BBC, 2014; Pufferfish 'Crop Circles' - Life Story: Episode 5 Preview - BBC One; YouTube; available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpdlQae5wP8 (last accessed 29th September 2015)
Figure 2: Wilson, T., 2005; [When they are not inflated, blow-fish are tiny. Perhaps adorable]; Zombie-2; available at http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/zombie-2.jpg (last accessed 29th September 2015)
Figure 3: Ninsi, 2012; [I'm willing to say this one looks adorable]; Cute Puffy Puffer Fish; available at http://i.imgur.com/9E1kJ.jpg (last accessed 29th September 2015)
