The life of a man living under water is questioned when a boat floats over his head.
3D film produced in the Digital Character Animation course at Vancouver Film School. 2013
3D film produced in the Digital Character Animation course at Vancouver Film School. 2013
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Learning 3D Animation was always and intention in my career, but I was never very much into the technical terms that always ended up coming in a conversation about 3D animation. I had no idea what was Mental Ray, Paint Weight, Final Gathering, Lambert, Blinn, Anasopitropomorfic shaders... And to be honest I always felt a bit intimidated and discouraged when a conversation about 3D Animation started going to this path. If I was to go for the technical side my terms would be more Arcs, Ease in/out, Silhouette, Pose, Antics, Keyframes, Breakdown, but I guess the conversation I really love is about the Character's path and growth, the decisions and choices, the thoughts and whys, the Hero's journey [yep, the Hero's journey].
In the end it doesn't really matter if the visuals are awesome, the animation is smooth or the music is great. People may like and share it, but I believe a film has a bigger and amazing potential when it has a strong Story. Because of it, that's the part I love the most and (no surprise here) the one I fear the most as well. And by the way, it better looks awesome, feels smooth and sounds great as well. :)
In the end it doesn't really matter if the visuals are awesome, the animation is smooth or the music is great. People may like and share it, but I believe a film has a bigger and amazing potential when it has a strong Story. Because of it, that's the part I love the most and (no surprise here) the one I fear the most as well. And by the way, it better looks awesome, feels smooth and sounds great as well. :)
• STORY & CONCEPT
When I came to learn Classical Animation at VFS I was very eager to explore all the possibilities of the Animation. Aaaall of them! I wanted to squash and stretch the character as much as I could, deform, morph and all this stuff. That's something that I just notice now but it completely shows in 'this idea is not working', which is basically me trying to do everything at the same time. I'm very thankful that the amazing VFS Classical instructor helped me a lot to find a common line among my creative mess and sew my short well.
I think in 'tough west' the creative craziness was over and that's when I learned how to calm down and concentrate on the cinematography choices about the shots, composition and especially the Character's questions/choices. That was an amazing experience and I guess at the end every film and every piece of art is all about finding yourself.
Something similar happened to me at the beginning of Digital Character Animation. My first idea was to do a pizza delivery guy, running to deliver the pizza and interacting with some objects as he goes. Again lots of squash and stretch, cool running cycles, white BGs... but not an actual story arc. At the end I thought it had not very much potential.
I think in 'tough west' the creative craziness was over and that's when I learned how to calm down and concentrate on the cinematography choices about the shots, composition and especially the Character's questions/choices. That was an amazing experience and I guess at the end every film and every piece of art is all about finding yourself.
Something similar happened to me at the beginning of Digital Character Animation. My first idea was to do a pizza delivery guy, running to deliver the pizza and interacting with some objects as he goes. Again lots of squash and stretch, cool running cycles, white BGs... but not an actual story arc. At the end I thought it had not very much potential.
Although I could visualize a cool looking short, I notice quick that I was making up a simple film just to play safe, which is completely fine when you have an incredible tight schedule and you are scary because you are touching 3D for the very first time. But like I said I wanted to have the style underneath the Story umbrella, so I started drawing some isolated and unrelated dramatic/appealing shots. I thought it could be good to start with a guy hanging on a cliff and have the story going from there, or someone working on a gas station at 3am when nobody is there. Among those shots I drew a man with a diving bell and right above it a fisherman in the wide ocean, then I drew the fishing rod's line and both were magically connect! The diver and the fisherman sounded like appealing characters by themselves, I liked the vertical communication they could have and the fact that they were in different worlds. Some pages back in my sketchbook I had some random thoughts and lines about "expand yourself", dream stages/worlds, "free your mind", "searching for the unknown", "looking inside", "expand yourself", and basically about Evolution/Upgrowth. Out of those concepts + the diver and fisherman THE MAN WHO SAW A BOAT literally emerged.
• CHARACTER DESIGN & ART DIRECTION
Although the pizza delivery guy wasn't a good story, the Character Design was going to a good direction, so I kept working from there and developed the Character a bit more.
At this point I also started to think about the style and mood collecting reference images from artists I really admire:
One thing I knew since the beginning is that I wanted to make the two worlds very distinct, especially playing with the colors of each one differently. Below you can see the first color studies. In that matter Fe Ribeiro, my wife, helped me a lot. :)
Other thing that I had in mind very strong since the beginning was the idea of mixing 2D with 3D. I don't see a lot of this mix out there and I felt it could be something very cool to explore. So I decided to do a 3D character living in a very graphic 2D world with very graphic 2D animals. Below you can see some references and the first concept images mixing 2D and 3D.
• MODELING AND TEXTURING
So 2D will work pretty well with 3D. The style is cool. Everything sounded perfect!... Until you start modeling in the 3D space and you realize you have a very graphic style, which works completely fine in paper but not so well in 3D. Having a clay model really helped me to understand the tridimensionality of the graphic character.
Since the modeling techniques are very straight forward and simple, it can be quite frustrating to tweak and tweak your character and still don't get the look you have in the paper or in your mind. I think it's more natural for 3D to produce either really sharp/machine-like angles or super organic realistic shapes. Doing something graphic kind of means to fight back with what the 3D are meant to do. But it's definitely a fight worth fighting because the results can be very cool, not like the first tries below. :)
Since the modeling techniques are very straight forward and simple, it can be quite frustrating to tweak and tweak your character and still don't get the look you have in the paper or in your mind. I think it's more natural for 3D to produce either really sharp/machine-like angles or super organic realistic shapes. Doing something graphic kind of means to fight back with what the 3D are meant to do. But it's definitely a fight worth fighting because the results can be very cool, not like the first tries below. :)
After you have your character modeled you can start to skin him or get your 3D geometry and make a flat version. This flat version is called UV it allows you to paint textures in Photoshop. Once you reapply the UV to the geometry, the painted texture will show up in the geometry. I think seeing the images below is the best way to understand that.
• RIGGING
Rigging means to create the Character skeleton. Just like you don't stand up without your bones, a Character doesn't move without the joints. And the better those joint are placed, the better your Character will move. In a way Modeling has to do more with Art/Visual and Rigging has to do more with Movement/Animation.
Also while Modeling has a mix between art and technique, Rigging is pure technique, and for me that can make things less frustrating since everything "make more sense". It has less "guessing and trying to see how that looks" and more "thinking and solving ".
When you rig you think about the relationship between the joints, building their hierarchy so when you move your hips, your legs will follow it, for example. The next step is to set the relationships between those joints and the skin in a process called Paint Weights, where you selected the area you want each joint to affect.
Also while Modeling has a mix between art and technique, Rigging is pure technique, and for me that can make things less frustrating since everything "make more sense". It has less "guessing and trying to see how that looks" and more "thinking and solving ".
When you rig you think about the relationship between the joints, building their hierarchy so when you move your hips, your legs will follow it, for example. The next step is to set the relationships between those joints and the skin in a process called Paint Weights, where you selected the area you want each joint to affect.
• ANIMATION
Since the beginning I had in mind that my weak spots in Animation were about acting and subtle movements which are probably the most important things when you animate. It's much easier to do a character jumping and spinning than to convey with almost no movement that a character is thinking about something and that's why he moves that way. Like I said, doing the crazy pizza delivery guy I was actually playing safe.
About those subtle movements and acting, one thing that I didn't know is the concept of Eye darts, the fact that your eyes never moves smooth from one place to another, but it snaps and focus in different points along this path. I won't lie that, comparing to 2D, 3D makes those very small details such as eyes and fingers much easier and the fact that you can move them separated from the whole character is also a plus. Body language is another matter that I never put a lot of attention and it can help a lot creating strong and meaningful poses.
Although I got some cool shots where the character moves broadly, I think THE MAN WHO SAW A BOAT has not a lot of movement, but it has lots of Animation, meaning the character is very alive and believable and hopefully the audience will connect and care about him. I completely did! Below you can see the first Animatic:
About those subtle movements and acting, one thing that I didn't know is the concept of Eye darts, the fact that your eyes never moves smooth from one place to another, but it snaps and focus in different points along this path. I won't lie that, comparing to 2D, 3D makes those very small details such as eyes and fingers much easier and the fact that you can move them separated from the whole character is also a plus. Body language is another matter that I never put a lot of attention and it can help a lot creating strong and meaningful poses.
Although I got some cool shots where the character moves broadly, I think THE MAN WHO SAW A BOAT has not a lot of movement, but it has lots of Animation, meaning the character is very alive and believable and hopefully the audience will connect and care about him. I completely did! Below you can see the first Animatic:
• COMPOSITE
Compositing was a very important moment since it was time for the proof of concept. Time to blend 2D with 3D and make them feel part of the same world. Although my very very first animation tries were done in After Effects [6.0 with the TV tower logo...back in the day] I never properly learned it and that was my biggest project, which I enjoyed a lot doing.
The scenes were basically composed out of 3 main levels: the BG, the image sequence exported from Maya [I had just one pass] and a third level of 2D Animation which I called "Post2D", since it was traditionally animate in Flash after the 3D was completely done. In this level were all the bubbles, ripples, sand dust, water splashes and also the shadow that is project in the water when the man swims up.
After one week of compositing the concept proved to work quite well and the result made me happy. Below you can see some images of my "Post2D" animation.
• AUDIO & SOUND FX
I had the pleasure to work again with Luis Orlando Ruiz and Jonathan Bonder who were responsible for the audio in 'tough west'. This time they took care about Sound Effects and the 5.1 Mix while Daniel Simmons develop the incredible Music for the film. I was very impressed by how he hit the spot in his very first version! Below are some Music references and some thoughts I gave them about the Music and Sound FX:
morning has broken | I love the moments of silence and hanging time this one has with the uplifting piano. Very good reference.
solitary man | Builds up in a cool way ("don't know that I wiiiill..."). Just acoustic guitar and works fine. Ok, his amazing voice counts a lot! Maybe use some bass instrument to bring this bass voice kind of mood.
like a rolling stone | Definitely sums up the mood and feel I'm expecting the audience to have. Very good reference.
if you are going to san francisco | Also good mood!
blowing in the wind and the sound of silence | Those two are more to the sad side, but they all relate to the movie somehow. Musically and conceptually.
"More or less the lyrics of all these references are very related to the concept of the film, which is man searching for something. Although in the music they are searching for different things (love, a woman, dreams, happiness), in all of them there is this sense of searching for something, which in a way also means that they are lacking something.
Therefore, in my opinion, there is this "sadness/questioning" (the lack of something) and happiness (the journey of search for something) at the same time in all these music, which match a lot to the concept of the film, since it starts in a routine/mysterious mood and builds up to a joyful/relief moment. So, all of them have something that could be used in the film.
morning has broken | I love the moments of silence and hanging time this one has with the uplifting piano. Very good reference.
solitary man | Builds up in a cool way ("don't know that I wiiiill..."). Just acoustic guitar and works fine. Ok, his amazing voice counts a lot! Maybe use some bass instrument to bring this bass voice kind of mood.
like a rolling stone | Definitely sums up the mood and feel I'm expecting the audience to have. Very good reference.
if you are going to san francisco | Also good mood!
blowing in the wind and the sound of silence | Those two are more to the sad side, but they all relate to the movie somehow. Musically and conceptually.
"More or less the lyrics of all these references are very related to the concept of the film, which is man searching for something. Although in the music they are searching for different things (love, a woman, dreams, happiness), in all of them there is this sense of searching for something, which in a way also means that they are lacking something.
Therefore, in my opinion, there is this "sadness/questioning" (the lack of something) and happiness (the journey of search for something) at the same time in all these music, which match a lot to the concept of the film, since it starts in a routine/mysterious mood and builds up to a joyful/relief moment. So, all of them have something that could be used in the film.
• FINISHED FRAMES
