Updated Alpaca Priorities

Rendering Issues Yet to be Resolved:

• 200 - occlusion and color don't match on first frame
  
• 230 - occlusion and color don't match on soft leafys
  
• 320 - occlusion needs re-done with white ambient on pond
  

Done!

• everything else
  

Color Reference

As requested here is a paint over I did to use for color reference.

Alpaca Priorities

Below is the Alpaca Project Priority List as discussed in this afternoon's meeting. While the list doesn't necessarily say what needs to get done, at least it gives a good idea of priority.

Rendering starts Thursday, and will be finished before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Scale:

• 0: No work. Ready to render.
• 1: Itty Bitty amounts of work.
• 2: A lot of work.
  
• 2+: Less talking, more working. There's more than a lot to do on this shot.
  

Shot List:

• 100: 2
• 110: 0
• 120: 1
• 130: 1
• 140: 0
• 150: 1
• 160: 1
• 170: 1
• 200: 0
• 210: 1
• 220: 2++
• 230: 2
• 240: 2
• 250: 1
• 300: 1+
• 310: 2
• 320: 1
• 330: 2
• 340: 1+
• 350: 0
• 360: 0
• 370: 2

Eye Color Test

Here is a color test for the robots eyes. I still feel that the light blue works the best. After checking some of our references, I noticed that wall-e doesn't necessarily have a color to his eyes, as they don't glow at all, but act much like a normal lens. The iron giant, however, has glowing eyes that seem to usually be white or yellow, but change based on context (especially if painted for a movie poster). In the last image, I gave him some wall-e eyes and tinted them the blueish color. It may work, but wall-e is far more realistic than our robot will be.

Color Changes

So it was suggested that I change the color of the alpacas and the suit to something more pinkish, so that it would provide a better contrast against the green/yellow landscape. Here is the result. I've also included a paint over of one of the layout scenes.

robot update

Here is an updated paint over based on a discussion from yesterday. I tried to make the robot look cleaner and more pristine, including saturating him some. The pink sky I think makes the world look bizarre and eerie. The blue makes it look happier.

Color and Texture

So, I started paintovers and gathered some reference for the colors and texture.

This is a photo I found that is a fairly muted version of the previously referenced color from cocotte minute.


This photo is good ref for the robot, who I figured might be a little rusty.



I liked the teal blue color mixed with the dull red of the rust.



The color in this is nicely saturated and may fit well on the robot.



A paint over of the alpaca model.


A paint over of the robot in his suit. I made him fairly dingy, but we'll need to consider what texturing on him will best serve the plot, especially since its so short.



Palette idea for the landscape, based heavily on cocotte minute.


Alpaca palette idea.


Robot palette idea.

Updated Master Checklists!

Thanks to a misconjumblecommunicrap, I have updated the Master Checklists to portray the differences in frame counts as well as updated the progress to the best of my knowledge. Check it out.

Good Reference Film

Watch this short film.

Now, pretend to be French.

UV Mapping!

All of my models up to this point have been UV mapped. This is just for demonstration purposes.

Strange

Forgot I had this, it was a t-shirt I found not too long ago that is strangely similar to our idea.

Layoutage

I roughed out some layout on a few shots a while back... so here is what I've got:

Shot 100:
Start shot framed on lower half of scene, and dolly up. Tree and sloping foreground hill draw eye to alpacas, while background hills guide eye to "asteroid."

Shot 140/160:
Super close-up. Strong rim lighting. Perhaps an even lower camera angle, looking up more. Putting robot off-center and at an angle draws the eye to the right side of the frame, where it needs to be in the next shot (150).

Shot 150:
Background hills form a "V" pointing to alpacas (still needs some filler on left half of frame). Robot rises up, occluding almost the entire frame.

Color Collage

This is another test where I'm trying to nail down the color palette. I took images from the interwebs and cut them out to form the shapes, also giving texture to each object. It's really tough to get the right balance of the pinks, peaches, browns, and yellow-greens... but this is getting there. Unfortunately, some of the saturation was lost in making the image web-ready.

Animaticiacs. . .

. . . and they're zany to the max.

Rough Paint-overs

We started talking about color palettes, and we all really liked the matte painting (below) from a short called Cocotte Minute, by a group at Gobelins in France (www.cocotteminute.net). Josef Albers is hard at work here, because when you sample the colors in Photoshop, the pink sky is actually more of a peach, the purple on some of the flowers is actually red, and so on.


So... I did a few quick paint-overs of the tree/hill, with this this color pallette as inspiration.

Early Shading Test

This is an early test that I did with some shading on the tree. I wanted to see how well it would disguise the cowlicks that aren't on the silhouette of the tufts... and it does a pretty good job for a static camera.

Alpaca Time

So, it's time to start the alpaca model. Here's what it would look like in a 2 dimensional world from a perfectly orthographic view.

Frenchies at it again

This short is from ESMA in France, and it has some cool lighting and effects, but the main reason I posted it is because of the kids' hair. It was modeled as tufts, and each individual tuft was animated, much like we plan to do on the alpacas.



Higher res available on their site: www.hugh-lefilm.com.

And this one is from the same school. It has some sweet cuts and transitions, but towards the end there are some really nice rock formations that we might be able to draw inspiration from.



Higher res available on their site: www.junglejail.com.

Another Environment

In the same vein as Jonathan's previous post, I painted an environment concept using most or all of the characteristics that we have discussed. As far as finalizing an environment, we are at the point where we agree upon the shapes and physical characteristics of the environments. We have yet to finalize a "look and feel" that is unique and something that we'd be proud of. Stay tuned for more reference on color palettes and texture.

Photoshopped Environment

Here's an attempt at putting all of our environment concepts together in the same composition. We all like the trees and hills, but the rocky undersides of the cliffs are still being discussed.

Trees ala Incredibles

Here are some nice trees I found in The Art of The Incredibles book.

Potential Cloud Direction

I really like the way the clouds are done in 300. They used a series of compositing tricks to mix watercolor and coffee stains with actual clouds, creating a surreal effect. We might take a similar direction, probably pushing the watercolor more (as in the graphic novel).

I did a test on this image from the movie to see what the sky would look like if it were blue.

This is a test of mixing different elements through compositing. Instead using of real clouds as in 300, I found some cartoony ones and created some blotchy paintings in Photoshop. It didn't turn out quite as I had hoped... but it's a basis for discussion.

Environs

Here are some environment concepts I've been working on, compiled together for ease of viewing.

robot modeling

I spent some time modeling the robot from the orthos that were approved at our last group meeting. I'm still not exactly sure how everything is attached (like his neck and arms) or what the back end looks like. I've done some research on some sweet vintage tail lights from classic cars. I've also included some reference to show the direction I'm going to go. I may even give him a trunk.









I also found an awesome toy which very closely resembles the faux alpaca costume which the robot will be wearing. I'm not sure exactly why this man is wearing a dead horses head and neck, but I would consider getting myself one if it was readily available/affordable.