Car Modelling Part 1

Lip Syncing Part 1

Lip_Sync_Part_1 from Levalin on Vimeo.

For our Maya lessons we are learning to lip sync. I aim to try this out with a different soundtrack to help understand how to make the mouth move in time with the words.

Character Designs

Just a few pages of notes from my sketchbook to help me figure out what I need to upload to the blog.



This first page is roughly my ideas of how one or two of the characters would look like. I looked at Native American Totoms to help me decide what animals each character will be. However the figure on the right is more to know proportions rather than appearance as I plan on having the 'Hairy Goth' covered in hair so their appearance won't be fully seen.

I came with the idea that as my story genre is Robots and Indians, i was thinking of a 'Nature VS Technology' like plot line. Or maybe even the other way around, nature wants technology back. Thew basic outline of my story is that the wolf character 'The Baby Indian' would be the hero and the cartoon would follow how the baby grew up to save the world around it. I also imagined the wolf character being a female for some reason.



This is my attempt at drawing the 'Hairy Goth' in animal form. The Goth I feel would be suited to a black bear. This is because according to Indian Totems, the black bear 'the Bear is the one to call when a steady hand is needed'. Plus the Hairy Goth I can see as either the sidekick or the bad guy. Though I'm leaning towards them being the sidekick rather than the bad guy.



The Hero I could imagine being the wolf character and 'The Indian Baby'. To Native Americans the wolf represents love, family and other similar qualities. However the wolf isn't afraid of doing things on their own either. As I could see the plot line being the story of how the Hero grows up and saves the world, I did some rough drawings of the main character at different ages. For the age of 3 I roughly based the design off of the Indian child seen in Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron. The child is only on screen for a minute but you do get to see her pretty well.



The creature in the corner I imagine to be 'The 50ft Football Hooligan' and their animal representative to be 'the bull'. I struggled to come up with an animal for this character as I see them as the bad guy. In their attempt to kill and destroy all nature (or technology) they use their football skills to do so. However I stumbled across the bull or Buffalo. Both have similar personalities. The main characteristics which stood out to me as good bad guy material was 'rushing into things without proper preparation'. The drawing in the bottom right hand corner is nothing to do with the project. It's just where I got so wrapped up in sketching that I accidentally went of track.

Bad Kids Go To Hell

Finished reading the free comic we were given the other day. Bad Kids go to Hell, scripted by Matthew Spradlin is a dark story about 6 high school students are put into weekend detention. With the library they are left in rumoured to be haunted and one half hearted seance gone wrong, events soon start taking a turn for the worst.

Overall I rather enjoyed the comic. Although it is not the sort of thing I would have picked out if in the bookshop I was glad I was able to read it. I rather liked the fact that the reader is left not knowing whether or not the events were caused due to 'supernatural forces' or whether or not one of the group really is, not all there in the head. The drawings I also rather liked. The style is very bold in terms of the outlines used. The world in which the story is set is also convincing. Each character has a mixture of good and bad within their lives, even if it is more of one than the other.

Overall I would recommend this to people. Although I would say not for those who don't like a lot of blood and violence.

Post Modernism- Rough Essay Idea

In the post-modernism lecture we had on Wednesaday, I was rather surprised to find that the film 'Snakes on a Plane' was considered a 'post-modernism' film.



Knowing that I have considered maybe using this film to base my essay on.

Documentry- Lost in La Mancha

On Tuesday we watched a documentary called Lost in La Mancha. Its about how director Terry Gilliam tried to make a film called 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote' based on the book 'Don Quixote De La Macha' and failed.

The documentary showed how a series of unfortunate events (not told by Lemony Snicket) saw the end of the film before it had even began. The reason for this was because the ideas that Terry put forward were too ambitious. It also didn't help that the actor who was supposed to play Don Quixote was too ill to do so, therefore the film had to be put on hold to see if he would get better.

Influence Maps

For our character design homework we were asked to create an influence map. An influence map is simply a collection of pictures from artists etc who have inspired your work. The bigger the image, the more influence it has.



There is a mixture of my favourite animals represented in different mediums and forms as well as one or two artists from Deviantart whose work I've stumbled across. I also tried to keep the images relevant to the theme I was assigned for the character design project. This is seen by the half white tiger half woman holding onto the yellow puppy.

Overall I find that a lot of different images inspire me so there isn't a large image which takes up the 3x3 square space. I may also come back and change it a bit because I'm bound to have second thoughts about some of the images used.

Totem Animals

Because one of my characters is an Indian, I thought it would be a good idea to use the animals that are used in Native American culture. I was thinking of using the personality associated with the animal to base my character's appearance so that there is a subtle hint about their personality.



Wolf-Deeply emotional, and wholly passionate, the Wolf is the lover of the zodiac in both the physical and philosophical sense of the word. The Wolf understands that all we need is love, and is fully capable of providing it. Juxtaposed with his/her fierce independence – this Native American animal symbol is a bit of a contradiction in terms. Needing his/her freedom, yet still being quite gentle and compassionate – we get the picture of the "lone wolf" with this sign. In a nurturing environment the Wolf is intensely passionate, generous, deeply affectionate, and gentle. Left to his/her own devices the Wolf can become impractical, recalcitrant, obsessive, and vindictive.



Bear- Pragmatic, and methodical the Bear is the one to call when a steady hand is needed. The Bear's practicality and level-headedness makes him/her an excellent business partner. Usually the voice of reason in most scenarios, the Bear is a good balance for Owls. The Bear is also gifted with an enormous heart, and a penchant for generosity. However, one might not know it as the Bear tends to be very modest, and a bit shy. In a loving environment this Native American animal symbol showers love and generosity in return. Further, the Bear has a capacity for patience and temperance, which makes him/her excellent teachers and mentors. Left to his/her own devices the bear can be skeptical, sloth, small-minded and reclusive.


These are just a few which stand out to me the most. There are a load of animals to choose from.

http://www.animaltotem.com/horoscope.html
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/native-american-animal-symbols.html

Character Design

We had the briefing for our second project today. For this project, the theme is 80's cartoons. The aim is to create 3 different characters for an upcoming Saturday morning cartoon. The characters have to be a villain, a sidekick and a hero. To give us a starting point for this project we were given 3 sets of different characteristics.

The 3 characteristics I have been given to work with are:

The Hairy Goth
The Baby Indian
The 50ft Football Fanatic

Along with the mixed characters we were also assigned two different genres with which to place our characters in. For my characters they are going to be

Anthropomorphic: Either half animal and half human or animals with human characteristics



Robots: Machines with human characteristics

Narrative Project

Yesterday we were briefed on our Narrative project, which is a group one. The group I am in is Group D and we were given the title of 'Night of the Invisible Blob from Mars'

The main goal of this project is to create a trailer which is no longer than 2 minutes. The trailer will then be featured in a Retro film festival. We will be required to create a group blog and run this project as if we are working in a professional studio. We will have to work out how everything will run including the financial side of things.

By the end of this uni we will need to have submitted:

Studio Submissions:

- a full 3D animated film trailer, promoting the main B-movie given to us at random.
- Documentation from the project
- 300 DPi's animation stills
- Press Junket and Poster (marketing)
-' A Making of' Document
- An up-to-date Studio blog

Individual Submissions:

- Your up-to-date- individual blog
- All technical tutorials uploaded to your individual blog.

Summer Project- Swirls Done

Finished all the swirly parts on one side. now to simply edit them, texture them and then duplicate them. I will also move them around a little when I duplicate them on the other side so it doesn't look totally symmetrical.

Summer Project Update

Just a quick post to show that I'm still working at it. Tom suggested using CV curves to create the swirly parts of my piece. So far I rather like how it's turning out. Will convert them to polygons once they are all in the correct place.

Better Texture Preview and Need Help!

I've finally textured the shape i've created and I'm rather pleased with how it's turned out. However now I'm at a loss on where to go. I'm not sure how to go about doing all those speccled parts around the shape and make it look one. Nor am I sure about how to get the darkened effect in the centre of the main object of the image. I do however have an idea on how I could go about doing the swirly sections which emerge from the centre. How would I go about creating all the sections I've said I was unsure about? I'm assuming the textures can be edited in Photoshop at the end, but I'd rather get everything right first so that I don't have to do large changes at the end. Plus I'm determined to finish this piece. It's one of the first pieces I'm proud of and would really love to see it in 3D.

Model Update

I was introduced to the 'Sculpt Geometry Tool' to help shape my model. I don't think we've used this tool yet or at least I don't recall Alan showing it to us. Its rather a useful tool for what I'm creating. Whether it actually is in the long run I'm not sure. It's helped to make my sculpted cube look less symmetrical by allowing me to make dents etc in the geometry without going over the top. The options within the tool are similar to the ones in the skinning one. In both one is able to change the brush size and also the impact it has one the model. also I have the choice on whether I push a piece of the model inwards or pull it out.

Re Modled

Went back and removed the sphere model I started with. It was recommended that I got rid of it and used a cube to sculpt out the shape in my concept piece. Plus it will be a lot easier to texture and also is closer to the shape I'm after. It also looks less symmetrical and perfect.

UV Layout and Render

OK I've started to layout the UV's for a sphere but, before I go any further I just want to check I'm doing the right thing.



The layout of the textures over the UVs



Th's is the result. Is there there a quick way to get the texture lined up easily or is it just a case o tweaking it until it goes around?