Time Line

In VFX we discussed calendar. Not all of this applies exactly to our project, but we should try to hit it as close as we can, Anthony would like our project to represent the Pre-Viz stage of the Animation Project at Push Button.

Nov   8  25% Complete
Nov 13  All Assets Complete
Nov 20  Deadline for Push Button (Game Level Animation Completed)
Nov 27  70& Complete
Dec   4  90% Complete

Since we want to hit Push Button we need to be accelerated. ALL our Assets need to be done (Modeled and Rigged) by Friday. Then we should divvy scenes out. I'm willing to do more animation if it means less UV mapping, though I don't mind creating textures once the UV's have been unwrapped.

[I plan to complete a tutorial on UV mapping in Maya tomorrow and maybe I'll be more confident about doing it after that.]

We can work on Animation and Texturing at the Same Time. I think Animation needs to be the priority, the Textures don't really need to be any better than what we saw in the Horton Behind the Scenes for now.

I think we need to assign Scenes To Everybody.
In My Photoshop File that I drew the Storyboards in, there's roughly 30 Scenes.

Animatic Revision 10 (3D Blocking Started)

Rumbly tumbly test

Footprints

update- hey so on the footprints, do you want the whole scene with the tree in it and footprints leading up to it. I can do that, ive uploaded to dropbox the models below but they are just plains with the foot prints in them, if you would like to see how they would look on the actual scene let me know.

I've created a footprint path for the elephant.  One is more accurate to how an elephant actually walks and then the other is the typical everyother print.  and a single print for placing.

basing my walk off of this guy \/

files have been uploaded to dropbox as well

Rocks... Yeah

Animatic Revision 8

Mouse Model

Hey guys this is the model I was working on Wednesday. I'll put it in drop box if you want to play around with it.

Pinterest Boards

Everyone should check out Pinterest, it is a great resource. If you have an pinterest account, I can add you to these boards and you can add pictures yourself. http://pinterest.com/bethips/obaat-setting/ , http://pinterest.com/bethips/elephants/

Link to Google Doc

Here's the link to the spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AleeKP-hfu1FdEppci1WY2JtaTB0bVNSSURjWm1HWWc

Title Art

Elephant front and side view

Mouse turn around and expressions

Things to do

Here's the list we came up with in class today of all the things that need to be done. 

ASSETS:

• Elephant Model
• Mouse Model
• Inflatable Mouse Model
• Flattened Head Mouse Model
• Peanut Cheeks Mouse Model
• Butterfly
• Apple
• Peanut
• Stars
• Sets
• Ground plane (with elephant footprints)
• Tree
• Rock
• Grass
• Elephant Rig
• Mouse Rigs
• Butterfly Rig
• Texture and Bump maps for all of the above

EFFECTS

• Stars Around Mouse's Head
• Elephant's Tear
• Stomach Grumble (visible sound waves?)
• Elephant Disappears Behind Tree (mask in After Effects)
• Dust
• Elephant Footsteps
• Dust Trails for mouse (like in old road runner cartoons)
• Mouse Falls into Elephant Footprints
• Environmental Dust?

CHARACTER EFFECTS

• MOUSE
• Squished Head
• Shakes Head to re-inflate
• Squashing Body
• Eyes Bulge when Elephant lands on him
• Squashed/Inflated body
• Eyes Bulge when Inflated
• Fur? (or just textured?)
• ELEPHANT
• Squash & Stretch
• Major Squash when Elephant lands on Mouse
• Stretchy Trunk

OTHER

• Finalize Animatic
• "Design" Butterfly
• Define Color Scheme
• Animation Style
• Artistic Style
• Model Assets
• Rig Characters
• Define a Naming Convention for all Assets? (could be useful)
• Animate
• Create Cameras
• Set-up Lighting
• Rendering
• ...what am I forgetting?

***Pushbutton Summit is November 28-29, which means we need to get as much of this short done as possible by November 21.  To help the guys that are also in the Visual Effects class, I think we should plan on getting at least 30 seconds completed by then.  This means everything in that 30 seconds is animated, textured, rendered, lit, composited, all the effects are included, etc.  There's a lot to do, so let's get started!  =)

***Also, start watching some of Pixar's Making Of videos, and reading some Ciggraph papers; anything to start figuring out how we should tackle the difficult scenes.  Remember, we want this to be as good as Presto (maybe even better).

Peanut

I told you I had a peanut Model Lying Around.


Color Map
Normal Map

This is a render from 3DS Max — the render from Maya didn't look good, admittedly I've never lit anything in Maya. This is the Low Poly Normal Mapped Version.

770 Faces

I'll drop the source files in the Dropbox that Zach shared with us.

Did you all get the invite I sent from Dropbox? They're offering 3 Gig free to students. And the more Students that sign up from the school the more space we get. UVU is about 290 points away from getting 8gb per student (We can get up to 25 gig). So get everyone you know to sign up for the extra space.

https://www.dropbox.com/spacerace

—Some Script Revisions—

One Bite at a Time

The sneaky mouse is sniffing around, darting from rock to rock.

His Tummy growls and he shushes it.

He hides behind a rock and then peeks over.

He sneaks backward and falls into a hole.

He's confused and feels exposed and scrambles to get out.

He surveys the scene, hiding behind a "tree trunk." 

The trunk (aka the elephant's foot) suddenly lifts from the ground and plants down on his head as the elephant shifts his weight a little.

The mouse struggles and struggles to get his head out and is unable to do so until the elephant shifts his weight again.

The mouse gasps and takes in air and then stumbles around dealing with the trauma of his flattened head, eventually shaking it off.

When he shakes it off, he darts out of the Danger Zone, stumbling in and out of foot prints until he is behind a rock a small distance away.

He then gets his first glimpse of the creature - As he looks on in awe his tummy growls and an idea occurs to him.

He sees what he thinks is a GIANT apple (The Back Side of the Elephant).

His mouth starts to salivate and he smacks his lips.

He sneaks up on the "Apple".

At the base of the back foot - the mouse realizes for the first time just how massive a morsel of food he has decided to tackle.

He gulps and briefly thinks about abandoning the task, but then his tummy rumbles and his determination is renewed.

He begins the mountainous ascent.

About the time he gets as high as the tail he's ready to tak a bite.

He tries to bite but cannot even make a dent in the thick hide.  

As He rests there, something rushes by him at great speed - almost knocking him from his precarious perch.  He clings tighter and looks around nervously.

He gets smacked by the tail coming back the other way.

He grabs out to the tail as he gets swept off of the shank.

The camera cuts to the front of the elephant, he's just swinging his tail as he chews on something - 

He's mindlessly just eating - in the back, you can see the mouse going in and out of view - clinging to the tail as a butterfly alights the Elephant between the eyes.

His eyes follow the butterfly as it lands - as soon as it lands, his blank expression becomes one of sheer ecstatic joy - the butterfly flies away and the elephant chases it enthusiastically.

The elephant runs around - the mouse clings on for dear life - the elephant gets caught up on his trunk and trips onto his face - tusks down in the dirt, launching the mouse into a tree which he slides down.

The elephant, his head near the ground sees the mouse slide past him and is scared - he pulls himself up and in his panic he "dances" around not sure what to do. 

The mouse gets up, dazed, and drunkenly  stumbles about narrowly avoiding getting stepped on quite by accidental chance in his panic to get away manages to get stepped on multiple times . (Do this from Mouse Eye View, and really push the extreme to show how dangerous a situation the mouse is in.)

Eventually the elephant scrambles up the tree.

The Mouse shakes it off, he looks around trying to figure out what just happened. - sneakily - wondering what became of his meal.   

He hears a crack or creak and looks up and sees the elephant clinging to a branch, which snaps.   

The mouse "Slowly" comes to a realization of what is about to happen to him and looks for a place to hide - Sees only the tree and heads in that direction.  

There is not enough time for him to make it - moving that direction.

The mouse gets squashed.

The elephant is still in a panic and rushes to hide behind the tree.  

(Try the Elephants Point of View from this point)

He peeks from behind the tree at the flattened mouse and feels bad.   

He creeps out and pokes at the mouse - a single tear escapes his eye.  

He performs CPR. 

As the mouse comes to, the Elephant hides again.

The mouse feels exposed and immediately hides behind a rock, then peeks out and sees the elephant looking back at him and Hides Again and  

The mouse is just miserable and sad and hungry, he sits there in self pity no longer even caring about the elephant—his tummy growls big and long - which the elephant hears. with his big ears.

The Elephant slowly approaches the mouse and stretches his long trunk out - cautiously (still scared) - and tosses a peanut on the other side of the rock (it lands on the mouse's head)

The mouse is upset at getting hit, but then notices the peanut and eagerly shoves it in his mouth.  And then cautiously peeks from behind the rock.   

He looks at the elephant. 

The elephant gives him a tentative smile.

The mouse smiles a giant peanut grin.

Fade to credits.

During credits - Still images

-Elephant revealing a large pile of peanuts

-Mouse diving in peanuts

-Mouse enjoying peanuts

Two things: 1) on my way out I talked to Marty and he stated that Presentations are Wednesday. 2) I Uploaded the wrong Video, the video I thought I had uploaded didn't have two minutes of Credits. I'll get the right one up later today.

Silhouettes

New Animatic (Version 7)

hey guys sorry for the delay... But this is just a low res idea of the tree, place holding leaves for the spheres.  Then further down I started on a actual detailed trunk, based off of some pics of trees from africa.

maybe a combination of both?  I really like the twisting trunk, but i could make it more skinny as to the other tree to work with the gags.

Test Animations

I did a few test animations to help us see how we might want the mouse to move; whether we want him to walk on two legs, all fours, or a combination of both.  The first video is just a biped walk cycle.  The second video is based on how a mouse actually runs.  The third video is another run cycle with the mouse moving more like a cheeta than an actual mouse. 
So far I think the mice that have been designed will work well with any animations we need to create; I haven't run into any problems that would cause us to re-design him. 
(p.s.  ignore the ugly rigging, I know it's bad. I just wanted to see how the mouse might animate, so I didn't spend any time on painting weights.)



 

 

 

 

Rough Mouse Model

Since someone else posted a rough model, I thought I'd show mine as well.

Elephant Character Sheet

Mouse Character Sheet

Mouse

Here's a quick model of the mouse.  It's not exactly like the pictures, but hopefully it will give us a better idea of what he will look like in 3D.

Hiding place

Footprint

Mouse Design updates

My Pose Sheet

Sue's Silohuettes

Sue's Pose Sheet

Concept art

Concept scenery

To Do for Wednesday, October 17

Animation Teams:
*Animatic timeline Cut/Adjusted to get the story across
*Characters
        -Go through silhouette process
        -Should have characters narrowed down or picked.
        -For Friday, Oct 19, Final Character Chosen, with character sheets
*If character picked, then update animatic to reflect characters.

Character Sheets:
***Major poses sheet that show personality and emotion
***Facial Emotion sheet
    * Base Emotions:
          -Happy
          -Sad
          -Angry
          -Excited
     *Other Emotions:
          -other emotions as appropriate

The Story

The sneaky mouse is sniffing around, darting from rock to rock.
His Tummy growls and he shushes it.
He hides behind a rock and then peeks over.
he sneaks backward and falls into a hole.  He's confused and feels exposed and scrambles to get out.
He surveys the scene, hiding behind a tree trunk. 
The trunk (aka the elephant's foot) suddenly lifts from the ground and plants down on his head as the elephant shifts his weight a little.
The mouse struggles and struggles to get his head out and is unable to do so until the elephant shifts his weight again.
The mouse gasps and takes in air and then stumbles around dealing with the trauma of his flattened head, eventually shaking it off.
When he shakes it off, he darts out of the Danger Zone, stumbling in and out of foot prints until he is behind a rock a small distance away.
H then gets his first glimpse of the creature - As he looks on in awe his tummy growls and an idea occurs to him.
His mouth starts to salivate and he smacks his lips.

He sneaks up on the elephant.
At the base of the back foot - the mouse realizes for the first time just how massive a morsel of food he has decided to tackle.
He gulps and briefly thinks about abandoning the task, but then his tummy rumbles and his determination is renewed.
He begins the mountainous ascent.
About the time he gets to the tail, he takes pause to rest.  As He rests there, something rushes by him at great speed - almost knocking him from his precarious perch.  He clings tighter and looks around nervously.
He tries to hide, but gets smacked by the tail.
He grabs out to the tail as he gets swept off of the shank.

The camera cuts to the front of the elephant, he's just swinging his tail as he chews on something - He's mindlessly just eating - in the back, you can see the mouse going in and out of view - clinging to the tail as a butterfly alights him between the eyes.
His eyes follow the butterfly as it lands - as soon as it lands, his blank expression becomes one of sheer ecstatic joy - the butterfly flies away and the elephant chases it enthusiastically.
The elephant runs around - the mouse clings on for dear life - the elephant gets caught up on his trunk and trips onto his face - tusks down in the dirt, launching the mouse into a tree which he slides down.

The elephant, his head near the ground sees the mouse slide past him and is scared - he pulls himself up and in his panic he "dances" around not sure what to do. The mouse gets up, dazed, and drunkenly stumbles about narrowly avoiding getting stepped on quite by accidental chance.

Eventually the elephant scrambles up the tree.
As the mouse finally shakes it off, he looks around - sneakily - wondering what became of his meal.  He hears a crack or creak and looks upand sees the elephant clinging to a branch, which snaps.  The mouse "Slowly" comes to a realization of what is about to happen to him and looks for a place to hide - Sees only the tree and heads in that direction.  There is not enough time for him to make it - moving that direction.

The mouse gets squashed.
The elephant is still in a panic and rushes to hide behind the tree.  He peeks from behind the tree at the flattened mouse and feels bad.  He creeps out and pokes at the mouse - a single tear escapes his eye.  He performs CPR, as the mouse comes to - Elephant hides again.  The mouse feels exposed and immediately hides behind a rock, then peeks out and sees the elephant looking back at him and Hides Again and his tummy growls big and long - which the elephant hears. with his big ears.

He slowly approaches the mouse and stretches his long trunk out - cautiously and drops a peanut on the other side of the rock (on the mouse's head)
The mouse is upset at getting hit, but then notices the peanut and eagerly shoves it in his mouth.  And then cautiously peeks from behind the rock.  The elephant gives him a tentative smile.
The mouse smiles a giant peanut grin.

Fade to credits.

During credits - Still images
-Elephant revealing a large pile of peanuts
-Mouse diving in peanuts
-Mouse enjoying peanuts

Mouse's bio

Primus Mouse was the first in a litter of 99.  He never knew his father, but heard there were other litters across the savanna, half siblings of his from the same father.  Primus is bright and caring, but gets carried away when it comes to survival. 

After the famine began, his mother left the nest to find food and never returned.  As the oldest, Primus knew that it fell to him to find food for his little brothers and sisters.  On his first excursion to bring back food, he learned that there was a warrior inside him, as he faced off with a small lizard over a berry they found at the same time.  He defeated the lizard and brought both it and the berry back to feed his kin. 

After a dozen successful excursions to find food, Primus began to find that he had to travel greater and greater distances in order to find food.  His brothers and sisters grew thinner and thinner.  They had to settle for sometimes eating dry grass or beetle shells just to keep from starving.  It broke Primus's heart every time he saw his siblings' gaunt expressions as they beheld the meager morsels he brought them lately. 

One restless night in the nest, Primus dreamed of a feast so great that it kept his family full and happy for the rest of their lives.  Visions of a large, shapeless, lumpy source of food woke him in the night.  Without waking his siblings, he crept from the nest out into the night. 

As he set out for the horizon, he resolved to find an all-you-can-eat food source for his family that would make a buffet look like an hors d'oeuvres.

mouse ideas

mice

My Mice Concepts From Last Night

More character designs