Pre-Vis, Procrastination, My house-mate made cookies

Lol, so Is decided to have a crack at my 3D pre-vis, because I thought it was time to finally get a proper handle on key framing, and a look at what my animation could turn out like (at it's very worst).

I looked at lot of pre-vis's to get a look at what to do, and got scared and just decided to do it.


I think i'm having an incy bit of a crisis of confidence with this mainly because I really liked the look of my animatic so there's the whole "do it in 2D?" thought. But I know why i'm choosing to do this in 3D (and not 2D) and I really really want to challenge myself, and I know i'll really be pushing my limits to get this to turn out how I want. ALSO once i've figured out my textures this will make it look rather 2D so huzzah.

So what did I learn?

1. Key framing is quite soothing - but only if you remember to key frame your changes of each camera and pose.
• In earlier scenes I was aware I needed to key frame the starting positions of poses I would later move, so when I move them later on, the poses were in wrong positions at that beginning. Touche Maya, lesson learned
  
2. Camera angles are EVERYTHING
• I think this DEFINITELY showcases my lack of Maya camera skills, and I struggled quite a bit with the placements and getting used to moving them. The scaling of my scene didn't help either I don't think. But I know I need to do quite a bit of research to find out how I can make this work for ME. And i'm gonna look back to what I did for the 48 hour film project in terms of camera work and angles.
  
• ALSO I didn't realise pretty much till the end that I wasn't always lining up my camera with my model haha. So this created a weird skewed affect that I didn't quite understand. Until I released that the camera and my model were miles apart
  
3. Save difference camera's as a separate scene
• Luckily this was a tip I picked up from Amit before I started so I was armed. Doing this DEFINITELY saved my arse a few times. So if I found i'd made a mistake, or accidentally moved a camera etc I could just open up the scene with that camera angle and edit away and do a new playblast

Next steps?

1. Research the hell out of cameras - To make sure I get the right angles and can use them confidently. I'm also going to take Phil's advice to think like a camera man! I'm going to do some practice, and avoid the linear look - the more natural the better.
   
2. Timing, timing, timing - This is something I really need to watch out for, especially when it comes to the dance sequence, but I think i'll have le-way here.
   
3. Short-Cuts, Kinda - Motion capture is definitely a potential avenue for parts of the dance, especially once the sequence is locked down. This will take a load of in terms of key framing, and stop me destroying Maya.

Shout out to the Wonder man for spending 10 painstaking (but only enjoyable) hours with me during my first attempt at this. Your soothing sounds and piano filled melodies are forever cherished. And my house-mate, whose chocolate cookies gave me the sugar laced energy to complete such a feat.








It's also time to start facing the the UV based texture monster that is texturing - i'm due to start this in a couple of weeks, and Phil has given me some ideas of how to approach it.

I've been nattering on about it for a while and my idea's about it keep changing, but he's strongly suggested that I bring in some of my concept art style to it, which I feel is definitely the route to go down with this character.

I've been umming and ahhhing a bit with toon shading because it still didn't seem right, but Phil's suggested I make my own changes to it via Photoshop. I'm going to start doing some tests in a couple of weeks, and i'm hoping the process will make me like texturing more!

Some examples of the style from The Wolf Amoung US which looks awesome

I think I could create something REALLY cool if I continue down the same line as my concept art.