Daryl-Rhys Taylor Design Journal

Almost Done

2007-11-29T03:06:00.000-08:00

We finished rendering last night. We did all the rendering in a day, because we didn't have any fancy ray-tracing. We couldn't get it to work right and didn't have the time to learn how to do it right. Maybe if we didn't try for so long to get that annoying mental ray to work. Anyway it adds almost 60 to 100 times the render time by using ray-tracing. We will be editing it today. No it's not the most fancy but we kept to our production schedule.

I personal felt we had to settle with things, like the lighting and the texturing, in this project as we were learning as the project was being created. Hence, we didn't have the time to experiment with settings because everything was experimentation anyway. I would have preferred to have lectures to teach us how to do this things.

However after a lot of stress and long nights, I think we have a half-decent film. Hopefully, this will get us a good grade.

It has been an experience which I will most likely have to do again at many points in my life.

Rendering and current progress

2007-11-28T08:30:00.000-08:00

We are actually rendering now. We had to settle on a lot of things, like some objects not being textured and only using basic depth map shadows, instead of fancy ray-tracing, to cut down on the render time. We split the project up into six scenes, the Opening map scene, the exterior scene with the bloke, the shocked scene, the picikle pick up scene, the door opening scene and the final interior camera pans scene. Scenes that have been rendered are the opening scene and the shocked scene. The exterior scene and the pickle pick up scene are currently rendering. The big scene is the interior camera pans scene, which will take a while. We cannot leave that to render as it has many different cameras in it. The curtains have unfortunately had to be deleted as something went wrong with them and they kept going through the walls. The shocked scene might need to be re-rendered as the lighting has been altered in other scenes. Here are some pictures from the currently rendered scene.

New Credit Sequences and Progress

2007-11-26T08:36:00.000-08:00

I have edited the opening and ending credit sequences, making some
parts a bit slower. I have also added some music. For the ending
credits it's a mp3 I got from www.rareware.com called Ugga Bugga from
Conker: Live and Reloaded. The Opening Titles is the theme tune to
Doug. I just thought it fit.
Also here's a picture from one of the current scenes.
The Textures were finally finished last night. All that is left is to pllace the animations into the scenes and render. Yeah.

Current Progress and Conclusion

2007-11-25T06:20:00.000-08:00

O.K, I would just like to take a few moments to write about the current progress of the project. The animations are all completed and have been saved as individual animations, some in clip format to the Public Folders. All early backgrounds and useless props have been removed from these files, so the new backgrounds can be placed in. Cameras have been figured out as well. Textures are mostly complete, some of the prop animations might need to be textured but that shouldn't take very long. I do believe that the outside of the building also needs to be textured. These will be ordinary planar maps as UV maps are proving to difficult.

On the rendering side, Harrison had decided he wanted to render in Mental Ray, because it makes the quality of the images better. Unfortunately, we had some problems with our reference files, and after many hours of trying to get Mental Ray to work, we eventually decided to give up on mental ray, and render it normally.

Unfortunately, Harrison only read tutorials on how to light in mental ray, so had to read some new tutorials.

Currently, my particular skills are not too useful at the moment. However on Monday, we should be able to place all the parts into one scene so we can tweak it here and there. Then we should be able to render it.

If all goes well, it should be completed by Friday, if we get a C I'll be happy.

New Opening Title and Ending Credits Sequence

2007-11-25T06:07:00.000-08:00

I quickly did these credit sequences yesterday. I was going for a Monty Python like sequences. These are early drafts so can be altered.

Early Test Version of Film

2007-11-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

Here is an early test version of the film. It of course needs to be lit and textured, some of the props need to be placed in and moved around. I think some of the cameras shots need to be cut down and the counter needs to be cut back so the bloke can be seen, but otherwise it gives a pretty good indication of the final film.

Composition Test

2007-11-20T07:20:00.000-08:00

Here is an early test to see how we might go about composing the scene. It was done in Premiere with a background picture and the map scene on top. The effect is o.k., but I afraid that it might look a little bit composed.

Flag

2007-11-15T05:57:00.000-08:00

Practice Flag for curtains.

New Models and Animation

2007-11-13T09:56:00.000-08:00

Here are some new models and animation. This is the signpost, hope you like it. I also animated some props and have modified the previous animations, we don't have a door knob anymore.

New Models and Animation

2007-11-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of some models I have done today. It is mostly of small, miscellaneous items. I have also done some animation of a glass and fork falling off of a table.

Map Animation

2007-11-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

Here is the actual map animation. It turns out making a map fold down in Maya is trickier than it looks.

Modelling

2007-11-09T08:07:00.000-08:00

Here are some images of models that have been made by me. The camera was made by Harrison. I am currently in charge of modelling little objects and miscellanious items.

Pictures from Animation

2007-11-09T08:05:00.001-08:00

Here are some more images from my previous animations. Enjoy!

Map

2007-11-09T02:45:00.000-08:00

We need a map for our project, so Simon suggested I print one off and soak it in tea at home.

The first attempt didn't go so well. I think I left it in too long, but the second attempt went o.k.

And here is what it looks like in Maya.

I have also done a quick animation of the map folding down.

Animation

2007-11-06T03:50:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the early animations of the character I did over the weekend. They have been tweaked a little since then, but I have the current videos to show you now. Above are just some drawings I did to help me figure out rough timing.

In this first shot of the character walking, I felt that he would be very excited as this place he has been searching for many years. Hence I felt he might be a bit peppy in his walk with his head held tall. Then he would almost be bursting with excitement to be here so would be shout to the heavens. To savour the moment I felt he would take his time and slowly open the door.

Here is old timing with the rough camera angles and the new timing.

The next video is of the bloke shocked. I felt that he would be stunned and crushed to see his restaurant that he has been searching so long for in utter ruins. He would be so disheartened. I tried to show this in the animation.

Finally, he would be so happy to see the perfect jar of pickles he would slowly, but with eager anticipation try to reach out and grab it, salivating in the process.

The History of the Future

2007-11-06T03:31:00.000-08:00

Here are some images form a book the Jared so kindly lent us, called

"The History of the Future, Images of the 21st Century" by Christophe Canto and Odile Faliu.

The book serves as a time machine, where the authors comb the past to find images of the fabulous future people believed would happen from the 1850's to the 1950's. Of course, we are interested in the later part of this timeline, the 40s and 50s mainly, possibly the 30s as well.

Some of these images are of prototype cars from 1965, spaceships and cars designed by people from the 30's, with trains that look similar to the ones designed by Raymond Lowey. Other images show Utopian societies of the future as imagined by people from the 40's and 50's of what life would be like in the far-off year of 1980.

What all images share are a fun, perfect view of the future, where man is shooting towards the stars, with designs and architecture that reflects that belief. Curves, simple geometric shapes, colours and chrome all serve to envision this future. These are all the founding principles of Googie design.

Raymond Lowey

2007-11-06T03:18:00.000-08:00

All images are obtained from http://www.raymondloewy.com , the official web site of Raymond Lowey.

Raymond Lowey is one of the founding father's of retro-futurism. He transformed countless items by streamlining, a concept he originated. He described it as "beauty through function and simplification". His simple shapes, uplifting curves, chrome metal and bright colours all invoke the fun Googie artwork that we are trying to obtain in our project.

Desert Research

2007-11-06T03:00:00.000-08:00

Here are some images of research I did looking for deserts in animation.

First and foremost I look at Road Runner cartoons especially the earlier cartoons from the 1940's. Later into the 1950's the backgrounds in all Hollywood cartoons became more simple, stylized and UPA like. Even though I like those backgrounds very much I felt these more realistic backgrounds are better suited to our project. Most of these pictures come from the Road Runner cartoon "Fast and Furryous", as seen on Youtube.

The other animation I research was the movie Home on the Range. This, the last Hand-Drawn Disney animated movie has wonderful backgrounds, that really evoked the American Mid-West. It also shows that deserts can be quite colourful with blue cactus and purple grasses, so we can have fun with the colour scheme. Here is a clip from the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6m2vmtN2f4

New Model Sheets

2007-11-06T02:57:00.001-08:00

Here are some new model sheets of tables, chairs and counters.

Final Designs

2007-10-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some final designs on squared paper based on the concepts in the previous posts.

New Concept work

2007-10-30T05:12:00.001-07:00

Here are some new concept work I have done for the project. Most of it are concepts to final designs of the restaurant.

These restaurants, which are the close to the final designs are loosely based on an restaurant I found during research. I posted a picture of this restaurant in an earlier blog. I like how these arches make it look like a rocket taking off. It should look really good when fully modeled.

Here are some concepts for the counter stools. They use a lot of open scaffolding and metal work in googie architecture, so I decided to make the legs look like scaffolding.

Here is the counter. It has shelves not much else to say.

Here is the coloured version of the restaurant. I noticed that they use a lot of white and a lot of chrome. The other colours are just to brighten it up.

These are abandoned concepts for the restaurant. I felt that it was too simple and looked too much like a house. The sign however I liked very much.

Current Progress

2007-10-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I would just like to take a minute to talk about the current progress the group and I personally are with this project. At the start the group in general really didn't have much idea where we were going. The option of being able to do anything really left us with nothing. I personally wanted to do something simple using fifties retro-futurism architecture, because I like it a lot and it would be not too challenging to model. I had ideas of fifties bars and bar fights but none were really registering with the rest of the group. We also had a group member leave at this point, so the group's moral was at an all time low. Whilst Harrison and Simon were away in Barcelona, I had the idea of the abandoned fifties restaurant. Using the London site visits as lighting research, I forged ahead with my idea. After meeting with Jared, he focused our ideas down to an abandoned fifties restaurant and in a day we came up with the pickle idea, which is explained in an earlier post. Research and rough designs have been and are being created now. Research has included fifties architecture and restaurants in particular, retro-futurism and animated shows and movies with a retro-futurism design element to them, like the Incredibles or Kim Possible. A rig was downloaded at some point and I practiced animating with it.

Currently now the storyboard has been finalised, which has been drawn by me, and has been turned into a rough animatic by Simon. Rough Models have been created by Harrison and research has been researched by all members. Currently, I am serving as storyboard artist, researcher and background designer.

Since the project is going slowly, the group decided to split the environment up into different sections, and each go off and finalise the design over the weekend. Soon, we should be able to start fully modelling and animating.

I believe that's where the group is so far, and I just hope we are able to finish it in time.

Daryl

New Research

2007-10-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here some images I have obtained for Research. I got most from the internet by typing in counter's into google and some are from Ikea's website. Denny's restarant chain and Ed's Diner also proved useful as they have a fifties' motiff.

Site Visits

2007-10-26T05:45:00.001-07:00

These are the two site visits I went on.

The first was to Dennis Sever's House. He decorated the house to look like it was occupied by a family in the 18th century. Photography was strictly prohibited, so just drawings I'm afraid, which was very difficult because by candlelight. Even though the decor wasn't too helpful to our fifties theme, the gloomy and spooky atmosphere and placement of shadows did create a barren spooky atmosphere which I believe would help with the abandoned restaurant idea. This plays of light and shadow was what I was concentrating on in these images.

Sir John Soane died in 1837 and allowed his home to be open as a museum. To say he was a bit of a pack rat is a bit of an understatement. Again the actual interior decor wasn't too useful, but the play of light, especially in the crypt area, did create a very spooky atmosphere which I think we could use. I have included my sketches as well as some postcards.

Production Schedule

2007-10-26T05:43:00.001-07:00

Here is the current production schedule. It's up on the group blog too. Sorry it's a bit rough.

New Storyboards

2007-10-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

Here are the new storyboards. The one where is his walking and excited goes after the map scene and the other's go behind the first camera pan.

New Storyboards

2007-10-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here are the new storyboards. Upon viewing the first, it was felt that

a) it was too long and complicated to do all those first-person shots and

b) it was still focusing too much on the character and not on the environment.

Hence we came up with the idea of filming it as if the guy himself is filming it with a camera. This approach allowed us to accomplish simple camera pans and to use the tool of the person turning off the camera and re shooting from another point in the restaurant. This gives us full use of the environment and the only bits of the character that is seen is his arms.

Pizza Planet

2007-10-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some images of Pizza Planet I got from an Art of Toy Story book. I thought these restaurants were really googie and would serve as good research.

Concept work

2007-10-23T08:59:00.001-07:00

These are some concept sketches I did at the weekend of the restaurant and the sign. As you can see I also couldn't resist doing some sketches of the character as well.

Storyboard

2007-10-19T09:43:00.001-07:00

We finally have an idea that works. The group has decided to use the abandoned 50's diner motif and combine it with the Nevada Desert. The Rough Script is as follows.

Ext: Nevada Desert

A man is looking at a map. He has been on a fifty year search to find the world's greatest pickle.

The map folds down to reveal the diner. Tumbleweeds blow in.

The man walks up to the door. A sign above the door states "home of the world's greatest pickle"

Excitedly the man opens the door as the camera pans in

INT: Diner

The diner has been abandoned for years. The desert wind blows the curtain. The Toilet door slams in the wind and half-empty glasses roll off the tables. Shocked the man walks through this. His eyes glance at the jukebox, which is still emitting a neon buzz. One record is not broken, he decides to play it.

The music comes blasting out and startles him. He fumbles and knocks the counter, he hears a crash. He looks behind the counter to see a old pickle jar on the floor broken. He pans across rows and rows of broken jars until he finds one perfect jar.

Slowly he lifts it up to the counter. He slowly takes off the lid and produces the perfect pickle. Slowly he moves to his mouth to eat it and the camera pans away as he happily munches his long sought after pickle.

End

Expressions

2007-10-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a rough expressions sheet I did for the bloke model. It helps me prepare for doing the storyboard.

Test Animations

2007-10-15T03:41:00.000-07:00

I downloaded this rig called bloke from

www.3Dcentral.com.

It's a really good rig, fully posable, a wide range of easily controlled facial expressions and it even stretches. It's so much better than anything I ever made.

He's a bit grey and naked, but Mike said it doesn't have to look like it fits in with the backgrounds.

I have done two tests, one a walk cycle, the other an expressions test.

Lou Romano

2007-10-15T03:25:00.000-07:00

I need some help on how to tone done colours and how to use light but luckily I found some pastels that Lou Romano did (he was the production designer on The Incredibles by the way) when he was working on the powerpuff girls. Here he really plays with the light and shows how you can tone down colours.

All images obtained from louromano.blogspot.com

New Research

2007-10-15T03:11:00.000-07:00

For my new idea, I had to look specifically at restaurants from the 1950's. Luckily, my old research can remain useful as Googie architecture was very prominent at this time. Restaurants at this time were usually characterised by a few characteristics.

1. Bright, primary colours

2. White walls

3. Clean

4. Curves

5. Leather

6. Crome metal

7. The kitchen is visible to the customers

8. Neon

So to make it look run down , we would have to break these curves, tone down the colours and dirty up the place.

Here are some of the images I used as inspiration.

http://www.homearcadecorp.com/seating.jpg

http://www.homearcadecorp.com/seating2.jpg

http://www.vivalasvegasweddings.com/images/hotel/rooms/big/diner4.jpg

http://www.cruiselines.us/cruiseship_prideofamerica17.jpg

http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/diners/mayfairExt.jpg

New Idea

2007-10-15T02:58:00.001-07:00

Since my last big idea was meet with a rather luke-warm response and since we are rapidly running out of time, whilst my team mates are away in Barcelona, I decided to have a brain storming session, and I think I have have come up with a good idea.

The year is 1954, just outside of California. Aunt Pearl's diner is the busiest cafe on the interstate. Travellers from all over would stop for some good food and the friendliest service. It's the happiest restaurant you will ever see. But over the years, less and less people came and eventually the place was boarded up and abandoned. Time has not been kind. Chairs and tables broken, glass smashed and leftover food just rotting away.

This once joyful place has been left to rot and die, with only the flickering of a broken neon sign as a sign of what this place once was.

I felt that having a restaurant that was once a happy place, but is now rundown would be on one-hand fun to do, but on the other sad and poignant.

I have done some concept art to illustrate my point below.

Early Concept

2007-10-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

These are some early concept work I did recently, trying to figure out the layouts and trying to design props in the Googie style.

Early Research

2007-10-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

With this project, I didn't really want to go too realistic. Playing to the particular preferences and to the skills of Tony, I felt the project should go for a cartoony, stylised background. I didn't want the fight to be gritty and dark, like Fight Club or something, I wanted it to be exciting but fun too. I had in my mind something like the backgrounds to the Incredibles or the Jetsons and I discovered retro-futurism.

According to Wikipedia, Retro-futurism is a return to and an enthusiasm for the depictions of the future produced in the past both in science fiction and in non-futurism. The key architecture of retro-futurism is Googie architecture. Also known as doo-wop, it is influenced by car culture and the Space Age. Originating in California in the late 1940's, it continued into the mid 1960's. It epitomizes the spirit of a generation, looking onwards and upwards to a bright, technological future.

The elements of Googie are up swept roofs, large domes, exposed steel beams and lots of Kidney Bean shapes. All the examples below are either obtained from wikipedia's Googie architecture page or http://www.spaceageity.com/googie

I saw these buildings and thought that they where so much fun. The colours, the shapes, if the background looked like this not only would it be great to draw and model, but it would always keep the tone lighthearted.

From further reading I discovered that Googie architecture is exemplified in The Jetsons and in Tomorrowland in Disneyland.

It is also heavily used in the backgrounds of the Incredibles, which makes it perfect for our background. The example below is scanned from the book Pixar: At the museum of modern art.

By reading an article at Animation Art Conservation called "The Background Art of Kim Possible" the background artist Alan Bodner was influenced by the futuristic designs created during the 50's and 60's. Looking at some of these backgrounds I felt if we could do something like this in three dimensions that would be great. The examples below were obtained from http://kim-possible.info/index.php.

All these images are copyright Disney.

Early Ideas

2007-10-09T05:30:00.000-07:00

The group decided last week that each member would go away and come up with their own ideas and concepts. After a little bit of thinking I came up with this idea, a bar fight where both the fighters are invisible. The only way you can tell that the fighters are they is by the objects they pick up and crash into. That way the group could produce an interesting character piece without having to actually model or rig any characters. I felt that this was a good idea and drew up some rough storyboards. I haven't placed the whole storyboard up here, because it is probably going to change.