This week I have tried to assign a sit position that I will need in a scene so that I could directly import this cat version when I will be needing it.
For the fisherman project I have experimented with the texture of water which would be an essential part in the animation.
One way to add a water-like texture to a Polygon, in this case a plane, is to assign a standard surface first and into the bump map value a noise shade increase the frequency to 22 to simulate the waves, for the animation I have used the input =frame/50 to add a subtle moment over time in the viewport.
I have also experimented with the ocean shader applied on the Polygon directly however in the render view it would appear pink, as if it does not recognise the shade.
I carried a quick research on how to solve the problem and using intend of arnold, maya software
I have also rigged the fish for the fisherman in order to make the fins of the fish flip independently from the rest of the body and I also added some controls that will be useful in the animation stage and a scale option to the main asset control so that when I will import it into the scene I will be able to adjust its size.
As I did for each model which as a mesh, controls and rigs I have organised them separately in the outliner.
Since e then some of the fins will be moving independently I have added some skin weights to the involved areas.
Other two props that be be appearing in a scene are the basket and the fish skeleton, so I have modeled the props in maya.
texture for the fisherman and cat
Since I want to add a lever of “realness to my models, I have researched some ways to add some clothes texture:
To do this adding a bump map value to standard surfaces I had previously created. in the bump map assign a file of a cotton pattern (for the fisherman clothes) and multiply the uv sample to 6 and the bump value to 0.150.
I have assigned a automatic uv map to the mesh to make sure that the texture would appear homogeneous on the model.
how the shirt and the suit looks in the viewport
rendered picture
This week I also experimented with the hair render texture for the fisherman project.
The first method I have used is to paint brush the brows Polygon
Unfortunately I could not make them show in the render view after I converted the paint brushes into curves, so I tried a new method
I have applied some xgen hair “guides” and adjusted their curve and position, however I was not able to modify the length the width and the density of the hair.
Since I was not able to add xgen to the cat to add fur to it, I have thought I could apply the same method I had used for the Fisherman clothes adding a bump map value to the texture.
In this case I have used a short fur texture, this is the rendered picture
In the first phase as you can see the bump value was too big and the subdivisions were not enough.
This is the latest version
In the concepts for the character I had added the pupil shape that I could use for the cat’s eyes to convey different emotions, so I have created a second set of eyes with the pupils being very narrow.
to switch between the two I have created the set driven keys and added an attribute to the eye controls that triggers the visibility of them: when it is on one the eyes with the narrow pupils are visible and when is on zero the “normal” eyes are visible.
Animated Shorts without Dialogues
For my project I won’t use dialogues so the sounds will have huge impact on the overall experience of the animation communicating the story and helping the visual delivering the overall message.
This video was very inspirational and informs about the sound design process and it introduces the world of sound that has to be created for a film where everything has to be coherent. It talks mostly about Wall-e and in general Ben Burtt works, he is considered the father of modern screen sound.
Disney early approach to sound was to use musical sound for sound effect, which is something I will like to implement for my personal project since I think it would fit well with the theme too.
This compilation of Tom and Jerry cartoons are a great example of the direction that I want to take for the sound design: