Nelly Luckett : BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester

Today I completed the side and back initial rigging for Ellie. As before, these will need additional blend shapes and other alterations to make the rig work completely, however this is the next step and doesn't form part of the initial rigging. This is the Side View rigging and skinning demonstration This is the Back View rigging and skinning demonstration

This is the initial version of the front rigging and skinning for Ellie. She needs to have corrective blend shapes to fix some of the issues with her and fill some gaps but overall she looks good so far.  This is what the front and back rigs look like side on. The distance between the sections of the rig is due to the spacing requirements for 2D animation, to ensure that planes don't collide.  This is the side view rig, with the arm located behind the body. I hope to get the rest of the views basic skinned tomorrow so I can move onto corrective blend shapes and then facial rigging.

Following on from Minor, there are still some elements of my film that need significant design work doing to them. To help get these created ready for animating, it was necessary to create inspiration boards to help with the design work.  This is for the cave in which Ellie and Pugwash hide from the ‘monster’. These are potential options for the chairs on which Ellie will end up above the clouds. These are references for the hands which will rise from the sea during the storm.  The cork will fly across the screen and start off the storm. The colouring land will have large areas that need correcting, the trees and environments will be built from sharpening and other such materials.    The photoshop tool icons.  Shrimp which will jump in and out of the sea in the storm.  The Forrest of legs will be one of the first obstacles that Ellie will encounter.  The Volouvants will appear in the storm and be chased af...

As Minor has now drawn to a close, and we move into the major project, it seemed a good idea to sum up what I have achieved in the minor project, and therefore outline what is left to be done in major. I have created a Work in Progress Art of document for the film. https://issuu.com/eleanorjaynedesigns/docs/art_of_wip_minor3 I have found balancing minor and the Extended dissertation tasks a little challenging however it has also been a huge learning curve as the 2D modelling, texturing and animation process is entirely different to the process used for 3D animation, and this is something that it has taken me a while to get my head around. I am currently working through the 2D rigging process, and this will continue over the next few days. It is a little more complicated than I had originally realised as you have to complete a complex process four times for each model. I also still need to construct the environments as 2D planes, and test animate these, as well as figuring o...

I am trying to do test renders for the Ellie model to ensure that the textures are working well, and I am currently having an issue where the renders are coming out very low quality despite a normal number of passes and a 1920x1080 pixel ratio and 300 dpi resolution. I don't know if I'm missing a setting, but this is what they are coming out like.

The modelling and construction process for Ellie is now completed, and all four views are ready for rigging. This will be my next process to engage with. I am aiming to get this completed for the front view ready for the minor check in on Monday, so that I can potentially get a walk or movement demonstration done for the check in and prove the functionality of the model and rigging. There are a few elements of the model that I'm not entirely convinced will work, which may need some adjustment or re-texturing to make sure they work.

This is the four views version of Ellie, which will b used for assembling the model in Maya to ensure that she is positioned correctly when assembling the planes. This also acts as a finished turn around for her, however this one is assembled in illustrator rather than being hand drawn. I have also completed the all views version for construction. These look a little scary at the moment but will hopefully look ok in the final version.

The files I had previously made for the turn around of Ellie looked OK at the correct size, however when scaled the quality deteriorated badly, so I've had to recreate each view in illustrator so that the quality will be good enough for the animation process. I have included these broken down high quality versions below. I am now moving into the rigging process for Ellie tomorrow, in the hopes of being able to have at least one walk cycle done for Monday's checkpoint. The first thing I need to do before using these is to scale them all so they are the same size. As these were drawn separately I need to readjust these.