Environment Design

Since we started working on the script for some sketch ideas for the Seagulls interactions I thought it might be a good idea to create some designs where this comedy sketches are set in order to make it easier to model the environment props and scenes firstly which may help the Previs stage. The first design is based upon a dialogue the two seagulls have in the rear part of a restaurant where they have a dinner just like it happens in the Disney movie “Lady and the Tramp”: we thought that it might be a funny situation and it would fit perfectly with the comedy genre on which this project is an adaptation of. The design inspired by Brighton’s pier is also an idea for a setting; we thought that there could be an interactive moment with the person playing in the virtual reality environment where one of the seagulls would steal an ice-cream from him/her and the second seagull would apologise for him saying that when he is hungry he becomes cranky (Brighton seaside is a well known spot where seagulls tend to steal food from tourist and locals).

Story Script

Idea Generation for VR Collaborative 

Environment changes to city

*At the bin outside Italian restaurant, there is a table filled with oddities and piece of trash such as pizza crush and crushed coke cans * 

*The two Seagulls get to the rear part of the restaurant where they find an Italian set dining table *

Seagull two “Don’t say I never think about you”

Seagull one “how you set up the table?”

Seagull two “A couple of raccoons owed me a favour”

*Lady and the tramp situation-like where they end up eating the same spaghetti noodle and there is an embarrassing moment*

. Seagulls mistaking modern art for trash. 

Seagull one “I’ve never seen garbage set up so well”

Seagull two “But this is the latest installation by one of the most prominent artists of the moment”

Seagull one “It still looks like garbage to me”

Seagulls aiming on humans with a point system

Seagull one “Last year I almost got the second place in the Seagull Shooter Championship I would have arrived first, but a sudden gust of wind saved my last victim”

Seagull two “Don’t be discouraged, this year there will be more calm wind”

These sketches are some ideas we could use to set our narrative and create funny moments for the player to witness: these sketches are based on the comedy created by Joshua Barkman in his comics: we took cliches of seagulls (seagulls stealing food, seagulls eating garbage, seagulls pooping on people) and turn them into comedy sketches. As you can see from the script above we first describe the context in which the sketch is going to take place and after there is the dialogue , which will after be the speech bubble displayed in the VR environment.

Animation Testing with reference videos

For the animation, since it would not be displayed as a normal 3D animation (no videos start to end) but in a virtual environment and there would not be no voice over nor lip-sync, the way we plan it varies from what we are normally used to and we should adapt the animation to our needs. In our first meeting we decided the way the sketch are going to be represented and we are going to use speech bubbles just like it happens in comics, so that it would be already clear that we are referring to a comedy sketch, The seagulls would move similarly to how they move in real life in a “jerky” way.

With an a rig that we found online I tried to animate it trying to recreate some movement that the seagulls themselves would do in the VR; in this case I did a walk cycle followed by the seagull looking directly to the camera, which would be the player, from very close.

Characters Models

In order to animate the seagulls model in Maya I have created a character model sheet to have a reference for the character. Here follow few screenshots from the modeling process in Maya:

I first used a simple polygon and tried to make it match with the model sheet I hd previously drawn which depicted seagull 1 first in profile view and also front view with his wing spread out.

After having created the main body using the side view of the character, I after used the front view reference image and adjusted the model to it adding the legs too; I also started model the wing using another polygon shape following again the reference image.

I also extruded the faces at the end of the legs to create the paws using the study I carried on seagulls: they have webbed feet with three fingers pointing out at the edges.

Using a diamond shape I used the vertices to create the beak of the seagull: I have separated the top from the bottom in order to be able to animate the open and closed mouth after.

I after created the eyes socket to position two spheres (one small and one bigger) to use as the Seagull’s eyes: I assigned them a blin material and after I selected few faces of the sphere and make them darker to simulate the eye pupils.

I finally assigned to the different body parts a colour and rendered a picture in Maya using a directional light to show it to my team members.