[NEW YEAR]

[News]

With the new year come new tidings! If you used to visit regularly you might be wondering where we all went. Things got so busy juggling my job and the project I had to condense the team by quite a bit and abandon the blog temporarily. 

But I've managed to get a new groove into how things are panning out and I'm back on the case. The blog is getting a new look to go with the new year. I'll be posting progress every other weekend as usual!



[Layout & Animation]

- Epilogue is being written and the background of the IP is being re-written
- Proton has a companion called CBR-0H: Cerebral-Battle-Robot Model 0 Class Helper
- Storyboards for ACT2 were adjusted to fit his new companion in
- New approach to finalizing shot 26's crowd has been achieved
- ACT1 animatic was roughly cut with sound, no shots were changed but the timing of cuts were generally extended
- Shot 7 has been revised and finalized 
- Shot 9, 8, 6, 4 and 1 are up for anim-revisions and polish, some need much more work than the others
- Shot 9 is up for cam-revision
- Shot 39 was extended and polished, still undergoing some minor revisions
- Shot 40 Had the monster polished and animation started on proton
- Shot 41 Had its camera changed and the monster was polished
- Shot 12 received some revisions
- The ambiguity of ACT2's # of shots has been rolled into sequences with their own shot counts
- Gauntlet sequence has been started for ACT2 (big yay!)
- ACT4 Layout has started
- ACT5 Storyboarding is being written - concludes ACT3 and gets Proton to the datacore, a grave question is proposed



[Tech Art & Design]

- Proton's current design is being used as a template for a true ergonomic suit design, Proton is also having a "zero-suit" designed
- 3D turnaround (Proton) 2D paint over of Proton's ergonomic suit (WIP)
- CBR-0H has a working template design rig up and running, it will be iterated on later
- Final rendered look is still being explored (tough one this!) new concept art is addressing this



[Music & Sound Design]

- Rough template score mashed together for ACT1, 3 and 4 
- Heavier doors, environment noise and monster groans




[Blog Related]

- A media page has been added which will contain all the pictures and videos for easy browsing
- Media will be posted next week, see you then!
- All previous assignment pages have been put to rest, this blog will no longer be a hub to pick up work and assignments



[Media]

Anim-Rig Test for CBR-0H

Sound Template for ACT 1


Shot 40-41 (WIP)

Proton Template Design Rendered

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[Proton (the film) is a Wunderwurld Production Lead by Patrick Colquhoun]

[Proton is Copyrights of Patrick Colquhoun 2011-2013]

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Busy Busy Busy!

Morning Zombies!

Late post for a couple reasons, I was trying to push a lot of work out this weekend and I got a bit carried away, another is that I'm juggling a lot of things planning how I'm going to continue the project and work efficiently at my new job yay!

I haven't posted an (relatively) new animation on here in a while so I'll be doing that today to make amends, there are many others but these were chosen:


28-Desktop from Patrick Colquhoun on Vimeo.


12-Desktop from Patrick Colquhoun on Vimeo.


6-Desktop from Patrick Colquhoun on Vimeo.
Finally got the upperbody reaction in, although I'm still not satisfied with the quality of animation I really have to stop tinkering with this scene now I've gotten around to all the adjustments I intended to change from the Richard Smith critique.

[Animation]

- Shot 6 had it's final revisions put in and polished
- Shot 12 had the exploding zombie animated, a new zombie added and animated, the main zombie polished off and simulation added to the head explosion with a proxy geo, another zombie is being added as well as setting up the background crowd
- Shot 27-28 "quick cut shots" are being planned for to develop more justified danger in shots 40-41 as Proton runs out of his uber cannon charges he misuses out of comfort and novelty
- Shot 27 had simulation added to it involving many barrels
- Shot 28 had simulation added to it with a tumbling zombie
- Shot 39 had story related revisions which are additions to the acting that needs to happen in the scene
- Shot 40 had story related revisions based on the above


[Tech Art]

- n/a

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Proton a WunderWurld Production

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Final Decision

It was interesting using polls to see what people liked the most, they actually picked the ones I gravitated to most as well and the ones that just weren't that great, well...they were just abandoned ahaha! That being said  I became quite comfortable with finalists and decided to scrap all the new designs I was pumping out in my spare time; flipped a coin and chose the winner.

Not much work happened this week as I was M.I.A. with the parents visiting for my birthday! :)

Although I did manage to get the new helmet design done in the evenings:

The wheels on the side will crank up and down to tilt the main antenna at the back, and there is a semi-cylinder attached to it which can swivel with the mini-antennas attached to it being able extend and retract; this was he can have more interesting ways to show he's listening to something or to show a certain mood. Essentially they'll react just like a cats ears.

 That's all for today see you next week!

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Proton a WunderWurld Production

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Mask Glyph Design Line Up #2

I've decided to do 2 more line ups after this one and the winner of each line up will then be pitted against each other in a 5th and final line up. It's very exciting to see which gains the popular vote!

Which Glyph Design Do You Prefer?
	#1
	#2
	#3
	#4
	None - comment below!
pollcode.com free polls

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Proton a WunderWurld Production

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Mask Glyph Design Line Up #1

Vote which one you like the most if any!

.

Which Glyph Design Do You Prefer?
	#1
	#2
	#3
	#4
	None
pollcode.com free polls

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Proton a WunderWurld Production

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CGSpectrum Follow Up

So following up on the Critique from CGSpectrum I added in a couple of new things to the shot, I haven't gotten around to everything yet, but some of the changes I did get in, especially at the end, made quite the difference that I'm quite happy with; for now. The motion blur was done in After Effects and it's interesting to see what it does, it can strengthen interesting fast movements but it's not going to cover up bad animation any day.

Some of the corrections listed for the shot need some more extensive work to be done and I don't have the time for breaking those parts into pieces and working in the new poses yet. It's great to see the immediate difference from professional critiques though. Thanks Richard Smith!

Here's the vid (Enjoy):

CGSpectrum Critique Follow Up from Patrick Colquhoun on Vimeo.


So now I got that out of the way, here's the news on work this week:


[Animation]

- The zombie walks have been transferred to zombie 2.0
- Shot 6 had some attention
- Shot 40-41 Proton has gone into spline
- Shot 29 had 3 of the approved zombies integrated, the 4th is still being re-worked and the 5th is just being started


[Tech Art]

- Protons gun had a significant list of updates including but not limited to:

• Hollowing out the engine case and extruding extra surfaces for integrating the regulator and engine
• Engine Piston Rotor
• Engine Piston
• Engine Piston cogs and fans
• Engine gears
• Jet engine fan
• Engine hot rod exhausts
• Engine Liquid cooler tank
• Liquid cooler pressure valves
• Engine Rotor Speed Meter
• Hollowing out the regulator case
• Regulator Fans and cogs
• Critical Mass Dial and Meter
• Critical Mass cannon lock
• Elbow Side Arm Attacher

- Protons Mask was also updated, some designs are being made so he has glyphs glow on his mask when he's at critical mass

- The gun has been dubbed "The Train" and also received significant updates to its rigging, screenshots below

The design style of the glyphs on his mask are going to be based on native Canadian artwork implemented with the sleek minimalistic approach similar to that of Disney's Tron:

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Proton a WunderWurld Production

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CGSpectrum Critiques Proton

Morning Zombies!


Last week I talked about a shot from the film being critiqued by the astute Lead Animator of "The Amazing Spiderman" blockbuster: Richard Smith at CGSpectrum! Well it has finally been torn to very small constructive pieces. It's quite insightful on on a broad spectrum of levels (pun intended) as it contains a lot of tips on aesthetics from pre to post production in animation, one of the most interesting ones being setting up animation for motion blur something I haven't considered before since I've never tampered with it and it's something great to take into account!


Here's the Video Critique (Enjoy!):


The only thing I disagreed with (and still only to a degree) is the pose around this part is that the weight is rested on his right shoulder:

Now it is a problem area, which is why I don't fully disagree, because the lighting doesn't indicate how close he is to the wall, and from that angle especially, you really can't tell. But even when the lighting is in I don't think it will fix it because the pose and struggle doesn't quite represent enough of a believable centre of gravity that Richard pointed out anyway.

I'll probably play around with adjusting the tilt of the shoulders in relationship to the arm to get a line action like the picture below:

At the worst, this part will probably have to be re-blocked to get the correct posing till I get a good sense of centre of gravity that is will represented from the camera angle as well and not just world space.

Now I already went back and adjusted some of the smaller problems and I'm leaving in the bigger ones for when the rig swap happens across the board so I can really delve into it as Richard highlighted a lot of areas I now want/need to go back to and polish with extra varnish!

I'd strongly recommend CGSpectrum; the critique is concise, very professional and straight to the point and this is only the tip of iceberg. I'll be going back for a Demo Reel Critique when I finally assemble one worth spending the money on to critique. They have a youtube channel with plenty of other interesting things on there besides just animation.




On other news today, I've been experimenting with stylizing the rendering of the film again, first I hit up photoshop but then Paulo introduced me to after effects and played around some more with that too. Right now it's just experimentation considering it's not focus of production time right now but something I definitely have to keep tabs on.

Knowing that the film may not receive the love and attention to texturing/lighting and rendering that I want it to, I'm looking at alternative ways to make the final look more interesting:

Original no filters:

With Filter #1:

With Filter #2:

No Filters After Effects Balance + Posterize:

The filters can add some more texture to the final render, but there will need to be heavy compositing to avoid light sources becoming too dominant or at least the correct light source being dominant.

On work done this week:

[Animation]

- Shot 4 had more polish added, again
- Shot 6 had some minor adjustments
- Shot 12 had its main zombie polished, camera moves added, gunfire and extra zombies added
- Shot 25 is receiving more love and attention
- Shot 27-28 has had new assets integrated for animation: props/zombies
- Shot 34 had some polish added
- Shot 39 undergone some adjustments
- Shot 40-41 has had the monster fully animated and is up for more polish when time allows
- Shot 29 has started to have its zombies referenced in
- 3 zombies from Shot 29 have been polished and approved, 1 more is being polished and the last is in the works
- Transferring animation to zombie 2.0 is being looked into


[Tech Art]

- More of the same from last week!
- Tampering with stylizing the renders


[Blog Updates]

- Progression Tracker has been updated.

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Proton a WunderWurld Production

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Bump in the Night

Good Afternoon Zombies!

So after a long slog zombie 2.0 is finished, courtesy of Josh:

[Un-click Me]

Which brings the next problem of re-doing the animation, because the transfer didn't work very well. Due to the innate differences in the rigs you could transfer the animation manually matching the rotation order but since aesthetically they're different and don't have all the same controllers i.e. 1.0 has an extra controller on its upper spine for further bending for extra overlap that 2.0 does not have; it didn't quite add up.

What will likely happen is that the head from 2.0 will be transferred to 1.0, in some cases for more special zombies like the corridor crawler, the body of 2.0 can be used. All things considered, I may very well end up copying what animation can be used and just re-do the 10 zombies again with the new rig, but at least it's not entirely from scratch, besides on the final cut there is supposed to be a final polishing pass so who knows :)


In other news it seems all of my shots from ACT3 will be wrapped up by the end of next week, so I can then start helping out with all of the above! Shot 26 is definitely not going to go on the back burner and will certainly be done at the end of ACT3 before ACT2.

Speaking of ACT2 problems have already cropped up concerning the corridor crawler, it was a really tight squeeze to get him in that tunnel at the right size, and now I have to re-think how it will work (cinematically) because moving him around causes a lot of crashing. This might mean I have to mould the fatality based the reality of how you would really kill this guy.

Logically you would just stand there and shoot from a distance, BUT, Proton is a viking with a gun, he does not think "logically", this might end up getting very creative Kratos style. This will likely be the topical discussion for tomorrow!

Zombie Carnage

Good afternoon zombies!

ACT 3 is finally coming to a close with only 2 scenes being waited on for completion, the boards for ACT 2's extension was finished last week and layout for it is being set up. However, we're going to get the new zombie finished and Protons 2.0 completely sorted out before any of it is animated.

Here's a few random panels from the new boards:

In other news I befriend Jeff Pepper over at CG Specturm (http://www.cgspectrum.com/) and he is patching me through to Richard Smith to critique some of the work done on Proton, it's not up yet but I'll post it when it is. Richard Smith has been a lead animator on quite a few blockbuster films like Sam Raimi's Spiderman; he's currently working at Sony Imageworks currently, so let's see what the industry pro's think of some of the work so far!

Let's hope it isn't massacred too much!

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Proton a WunderWurld Production

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Back On Track

Afternoon Zombies!


I've been away on an Easter break, I think it was actually more exhausting than my working hours! Since 2 weeks ago I've been working with Josh re-working the rigs, Proton's eyes were rigged up and Josh was also working his magic on the morpheus rig for the new zombie.

Currently I'm doing previz on ACT 2's Gauntlet sequence again, taking inspiration from the new "Witcher 2" trailer assassins of kings, some "300" and general self creativity. I'm getting pretty specific with what blows up and how, considering now that Proton's weapon was upgraded to a triple barrel oscillating plasma cannon, zombies really need to blow up when they get hit, either that or scorched really badly. Luckily nothing too intricate had been worked on pertaining to that so nothing has to be thrown out (yay).


For the below video clips I'm generally looking at choreography, timing and cutting. Things like slow-mo and  set are to be ignored.

Taking snips from all over, not going to use the slow-mo though.

Starting from (00:31) just taking a few seconds from there as burst of choreography into the scene.

Starting from (02:23) no slow-mo again, but it has very tight cutting with well laid out choreography and audio timing which is very, very cool.

Starting from (00:19) till the cut I always liked the twisting and savagery of Optimus in this scene.

So I'll be making a mess of the above integrating up to 12 seconds of carnage based choreography and zombies for Proton to plough through, loosely hooking up and wedged inside of Steffries current animatic, less acrobatics and more muscle. He's the type of person to be given a ranged weapon but still only use it for close quarters the majority of the time. 

The new zombie is a lot more gnarly, but there are a few more adjustments needed before I can start integrating them into shot 26. Speaking of which, the last zombie for the crowd is almost done (hooray Tobias). I'll be doing another pass on the animation of those zombies as a crowd and then I'll be able to dupe them throughout the tunnel.

All other scenes in ACT 3 are blocked or almost finished which is about 6 in total, 3 of which are going to be done very soon. So ACT 2 looks to be around the corner.



[Animation]

- Shot 26 has its last zombie almost finished for the crowd
- Zombie crowd is being setup to be reviewed across the board to work more "crowdly"
- Shots 39-41 are almost finished
- Shot 25 is chugging through blocking
- ACT 3 is almost done so ACT 2's final sequence is being worked on



[Tech Art]

- Proton is getting ready to have his UV's cleaned and then onto texturing
- Proton's eyes have been rigged and integrated
- Modelling on the soldiers armour and gun have been continued

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Proton a WunderWurld Production

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