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[keondras-grad-film-production]

End of Project

A quick disclaimer, my film is not yet finished. There are a handful of shots stuck at the render farm that (hopefully) will be finished soon. But most of the pieces are there.

Shots with excessive noise are being used as placeholders.

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Weekly Summary (March 21 - 27)

Progress so far on my animation. This is will be one of the final passes for comp checking before rendering can proceed.

More lighting progress was made. Waiting for final feedback so cloth sim can be re-simulated in alembic and added to scene before rendering.

I also spent some time comping an image that will be used for convocation, which will also get repurposed for my poster.

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Weekly Summary (March 14 - 21)

While I am continuing to work on the timing of my shots and overall flow of my film, I am simultaneously finishing shots and filling them out via remote pc.

I have recorded a soundscape for my film using my own equipment that will be added when the layout is finalized in Premiere Pro (hopefully this week). Here is a sample of the audio:

Here is my visual feedback from my lighting class for my own reference:

As well as another shot I have done this week:

I experimented with using GOBO filters this week, and there is one being used on the plant and on the main character. They will be essential in building the atmospheric feeling I am hoping to achieve, although they can be quite finicky.

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Weekly Summary (March 7 - 14)

Animation

This past week I have animated the entirety of my film. I am now in the final stages of polishing on a shot by shot basis as per instructor feedback.

Shots with animatic frames to supplement will be the last to polish, as they will require the most effort. I will be working on them while the other shots are rendering.

Many of the shots have been reviewed several times and are polished and ready for rendering. This next week I will be filling out the scenes with my assets and working on the lighting so they can be rendered as soon as possible.

The cloth sim will also be re-simulated, re-exported, and re-added into the scene on a shot by shot basis.

Environment Look Dev + Lighting

Creating an atmospheric forest space requires the scene to be populated with a lot of trees. In an attempt to try and lighten scene weight, I have created aiStandIn files of them. They also animate, the only thing they lack is the displacement map, which is fine because they are only being used to populate the background of the scene.

I encountered an issue with textures and animation not appearing with my stand ins when working from the school's PCs, even with the images being located in the sourceimage folder. I am adding the link here for anyone encountering a similar problem, it seems to be quite common and has an easy fix.

I am slowly building my scenes shot by shot. This process is going quite slow because I cannot do it on my own PC, but I have still made progress this week.

And, for my own reference, here are the screenshots of the feedback I received:

Lighting a forest is proving to be one of the more difficult challenges I have faced as a 3D artist. As StandIn files cannot be seen in the viewport, and there are many assets in the scene, lighting becomes a bit of a guessing game to determine where cast shadows are going to fall.

Next week:

Building lighting environment

Applying animation feedback as necessary

Re-export and apply cloth sim

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Updates: March 7

"Man plans. God laughs."

Here are some project updates to (hopefully) fill in the gaps of my blog absence since the second week of the semester! :

My eye infection has almost completely resolved although I am still struggling with taking breaks to care for them as I continue to recover.

My graphics card is failing; this is evident both in extreme VRAM limitations in Maya, glitching in Marvelous Designer when simulating, artifacting in renders, strange viewport Blendshape glitches, and many other instances. Because of this, look dev and lighting will need to be completed using the EC remote PC, which has been a big contributor to my project delays as well.

My original Wix website reached it's file upload limit, and thus this blog was created instead. The overhaul is now complete, please excuse the mismatched post dates with post titles. Improved aesthetics aside, this is a much more convenient way to post about my project.

As for the film itself, during this time I have still made great progress that I am excited to share with you.

I have completed about 80% of the animation for my film. I continue to work diligently to make up lost time by meeting with instructors sometimes twice a week for additional feedback and review.

Below is a recent compilation of all animation shots in their current state.

As per this video, you can also see that cloth simulation via Marvelous Designer's alembic cache is now in progress. I continue to tweak the settings and the cache as animation improves, but this has proven to be a real life saver instead of using nCloth. It will especially be helpful come rendering time.

The textures are finished, and will be applied once the animation has been finalized. UVs are uniform in Marvelous Designer, which will make texturing a breeze. I have tried my best to make mundane tasks, like applying textures to every single alembic cache import, a bit more efficient.

An initial test render with single sided geometry in the alembic import.

Aside from the remainder of the film's animation that needs to be completed, my project is lacking in lighting development. This was initially due to a combination of my GPU issues and missing many lighting classes due to illness.

As I aim to complete the entirety of the animation for the end of next week, I will continue to transfer files back and forth from my computer to the EC computers via remote PC to continue environment building and work on the lighting.

Somehow despite all of my setbacks, I am still on track with my production schedule.

Next week's tasks:

Finish animating

Add all cloth simulations

Lighting development updates

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 2 Summary, January 17 - 24

PSA for my fellow artists: Please take breaks from your screen every 20 - 30 minutes. This past week my vision has been heavily impaired because I haven't been doing this (seriously I can't look at the light without it burning please send help it is now impacting my production </3)

Anyway, here's the progress for this week!

For future reference, this is a visual representation of the pipeline I have established for the final semester.

As per this pipeline, I have submitted another pass of animation for review and will continue to build on shots and work on a new set for this week. Next week will be the first inclusion of alembic cache clothing via Marvelous, so there will be renders included with the clothes as well.

For the next while I will prioritize animation progress over lighting, as right now I don't have much material to actually apply lighting to.

Next week:

- Apply feedback to existing shots (1 - 5, 8, 10, 11)

- Shots 12, 14, 16 - 22

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Semester 2 Week 1 Summary, January 10 - 17

This week was primarily used to prep material for my lighting class. I have used the time to fill out scenes in preparation for rendering (for feedback purposes).

Here are some of the shots as they have developed over time:

I have simultaneously been polishing animation shots as I fill them out.

The rocks and some of the plant textures in these shots are new, as I improved them over the Winter break. I have also made a tiny ladybug that is seen in the first shot of the film (he is currently lost in the displacement map of shot one, but he's there!)

Additionally, I have created a new production schedule for this semester. My goal is to have the animation finished and rendered on a shot by shot basis by week 9 (beginning of March). This will leave enough time to re-render if necessary, and allow for a buffer period. I would like to start compositing and editing as each shot is rendered out, but the bulk of the effects and audio editing will be done in March.

To stay on track, this means I will need to finish animating an average of 8.5 shots per week, which feels reasonable and attainable. Each week, I edit the necessary shots, export them as alembic cache for Marvelous Designer, animate the clothing, then import it into the scene. Then, I will submit it for feedback for my animation class so I can improve each shot and send it to the render farm as soon as it is finalized and approved. This creates a steady pipeline to follow while working.

Next week:

- Shots 6 - 14 polish and submit for feedback

- Continue building lighting environment

- Prepare collected audio samples for blog

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Final Week - End of Semester Wrap-Up

I would like for my inactivity in blog posts to be recorded: for two weeks I had a severe respiratory virus that prevented me from leaving my bed, which was very unfun. Then as an added bonus, the following week while I was still recovering, the SSD in my computer was suddenly corrupted and stopped me from working for another week until I could buy a new one. I was very fortunate in this instance that I didn't lose my entire project.

But, all things considered, I was still able to achieve my goal of the complete blocking of my animation for the end of this semester!

Because the remainder of the tasks I set out to do at the beginning of the semester are completed, the animation is the final piece of the puzzle. The current length is just over 5 minutes, I will be cutting some of the unnecessary shots to reduce the time. My current goal is 4 minutes.

Over the break, I will be working on additional tasks (like improving the animation and textures I didn't get a chance to improve while being sick) so I can get a head start on next semester.

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 11, Nov 16 - 22

This is the blocking I was able to complete this week. I have been quite sick so I will need to compensate for the time lost while I am recovering to maintain my goal of the entire blocking before the end of the semester.

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 10 November 8 - 15

I completed all the tasks I set out to do last week except for the texturing of the main tree (which I will complete this week). But, because of the reworking of my production schedule, it also allowed time for me to fix some of my model's details that I wasn't happy with.

I had some minor setbacks, like I had to re-rig each of my butterfly models but still managed to stay on track with my schedule because of the new adjustment.

Animation

I have done the basic layout of the first 3 shots. The first shot has a placeholder object for a little bug that I will create soon.

Model Textures

I textured the body of my character. I am still working on the SSS maps, but the other textures are finished.

I also remade the eye meshes and textures as they were looking too flat with just a sphere. They are rigged so her pupils can dilate.

There is a strange displacement issue I am hoping to resolve by next week. It is most noticeable on the face:

I have also continued to fill out my scene with plants. I am thinking about making one or two more tree variations.

Aside from texturing the main tree and modelling a few smaller assets, there is not much more for me to do aside from animating. I'll use the extra time to improve assets on a shot by shot basis as desired.

To-do for next week:

Continue animating layout

Continue building environment

Texture main tree

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 9, November 1 - 7

I completed last week's tasks that I set out to accomplish and am ready to begin animating this week.

The character rig is finished being rigged and weighted. As per my rigging and weighting skills, it looks a bit rough in some areas, but it will be covered in cloth anyway so I made sure to direct the most attention to the areas that won't be covered like the hands and feet.

I will be working on the skin texture next week as part of my plan to work on smaller tasks while I animate. I will also be texturing the main tree starting next week.

I have built the base scene for my animation and placed the necessary cameras for the shots.

Here are some render tests so far to check composition and make sure all textures are being referenced correctly.

To-do for next week:

Begin animating

Continue building environment

Texture character skin

Texture big tree

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 8 October 25 - Nov 1

Because of last week, I am slightly off course from production schedule. As I navigate my health issues, I have reworked my production schedule to help allow me to work on multiple aspects of my project while simultaneously working on my character animation, which will be the biggest undertaking.

Originally I had planned from mid November - December to just be animating and nothing else. I realized this was a bit unrealistic, as it puts strain on the timeline of tasks I need to complete before I can begin animating.

I am still on track to be animating the second week of November, but I will need to complete other smaller tasks while I do that. My plan is to lay out the basic scene necessary to begin character animation this upcoming week (basic elements), and while I am starting to animate, I will slowly add the remaining elements to the scene and fill it out (extra greenery, background trees, etc). During this time, I can do more texturing of things like the character's main body as well as improve textures I did not like. This way, I can accomplish more while still giving myself enough time to animate.

This week I finished the mask. I resolved the issues I was having with the displacement map and added a flower engraving detail to the right eye as I planned with the initial design.

I have also modelled the boots for the character. I have a leather texture that has not yet been applied. The model is simple, but I planned for the details of the leather to add depth.

Here is a photo of the skirt texture I finished as well.

After deciding on leaving her hood on for the duration of the animation, I also thought it would be easier for the sake of scene weight and time to simplify her hairstyle too. With the mask on, you will not be able to see much of her hair anyway, so I starting making hair cards that can be rigged with dynamic curves.

I will be adding more geometry to the larger strands of hair so they look more hair-like. I will also be making her hair a bit darker.

I have compiled a list of all these little tweaks so I can slowly work on them while I am animating the character.

Currently I am working on the character's facial blendshapes so I can bind the rig to the character model. This upcoming week will be weighting the character and laying out the scene for next week's animation.

The UVs have been laid out and I will be texturing her body when all of the essential elements are created so I can begin animation.

To-do for next week:

Blendshapes

Weighting

Basic scene layout

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 7 Oct 11 - 18

This week I have started to get sick so I was not as productive as I have been in past weeks. This will require some make up time in the future and an adjustment to my production schedule as I continue to look after my health.

I have modelled and rigged most of the environment props I need to fill out my environment. I have also animated them with a very simple looping wind animation so that they can be placed in the scene.

Several other trees were rigged and modelled not pictured. This task took the most time this week as it is a task I am not very experienced with.

The mask texture is being developed too.

The editing of the mask texture has taken time due to an issue I am having with Arnold rendering displacement maps. I will try to troubleshoot this as I finish the prop.

As we begin to quickly approach November, I will focus my attention on rigging and texturing the character so she is ready for animating the second week of next month.

To-do for next week:

Complete character (rigging and texturing)

Finish mask + add to rig

Weight rig

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Weeks 5 and 6, Sept 27 - Oct 4

I had several areas of focus for both the previous week and over reading week. I ended up straying a bit from my productions schedule, but I think the quality overall is better than I originally planned for.

I made a huge improvement to my texture workflow by learning Adobe Sampler over this most recent week. With it, I was able to create much more convincing (and visually appealing) textures for some of my nature items.

The first week I only made two textures with the program using textures online:

These turned out okay and gave me the ability to learn the program, but I wasn't fully satisfied with the results. I determined the issue was the image quality I was working with, and so I went out the next day to take photos with my phone camera.

You can see the improvement I made in a short time period because of this:

Continuing on from the week before reading break, I have rigged and textured the book prop the character will be using in many shots in the film. The low render quality does not highlight the nuances of the paper texture in the normal map applied, but it is there.

The book is rigged so that the book can open and close. In the animatic, the last page of the book turns and reveals a torn page from the book (not shown in images, but is there). It is rigged for this as well.

I would like to retexture the book cover in Adobe Sampler before rendering, but at the moment I have more important tasks to handle with first.

I completed my model's base clothing in Marvelous Designer. I did a sketch before I created the clothes in an attempt to finalize the design before creation.

My goal for her outfit was to create a combination of 1750 - 1800s historical fashion (pleated undershirt collar and sleeves, elaborate patterned embroidered skirt, gold threading, etc) to juxtapose the other elements of her clothes that feel as though they could have been made by a utilitarian adventurer for comfort and warmth while exploring (fur collar/scarf, leather boots, warm under layer, etc.) I wanted her to appear as though she once lived a life of opulence that has since been abandoned in favor of (self) exploration.

This is the current clothing model. Some adjustments and compromises were made to her design for the sake of time and to minimize difficult collision calculations (the ruffle collar was removed, as were the belt loops on the skirt.)

I still have to make her cape in Marvelous Designer. Other elements of her design (like boots, fur neck wrap, and belt) will be modelled in Maya separately. It took some time for me to re-learn Marvelous and make this outfit, so I will be continuing the clothing this week.

Some of the textures for the fabrics are also done:

The wolf mask has also been modelled. The mask in the animation is carved and made of wood, so I wanted the mask's surface to include some cruder, less refined details so it seems as if it was handmade. Before I bake this to the low poly version, I want to add some asymmetrical variation to exemplify some imperfections.

Textures for it will be finished this week.

In addition to environment prop textures, I have made some of the tree models and plant models that will be a part of a sort of modular kit for environment construction.

These have not been rigged yet.

To-do for next week:

Finish character clothing

Finish clothing textures

Start and finish mask textures

Finish environment props/kit and rig

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 4, Sept 27 - Oct 4

After some feedback, I have made adjustments to my animatic to help clarify the movement of my character.

I have finished my character model's body. This is what took the longest this week; while I wanted to include a character in my film this year, I am not the strongest character modeller and as such I ran into technical issues. Most of them have been sorted now, and it is ready for texturing next week.

(Please ignore the detached head.)

The face looks rough because it has a displacement map for the details, but I will soon bake the high poly sculpt to this base mesh before texturing this week. Only the lower half of the face will be seen anyway, so I focused most of the sculpting of the profile and the lip shape.

I am working on the textures for the second butterfly in my film. There were plans to have the yellow glow be an emissive texture, but after some render tests, decided it would be better to add the emissive properties in post with Premiere Pro. This will allow for better control overall, and keeps my scenes lighter when rendering.

I am still working on the textures for this model.

Finally, I started working on the book prop that will be used as one of the main items in the film.

The issues I encountered issues this week while creating my character's base mesh have caused a few setbacks in my production schedule. But because of the large cuts to the film's plot I made last week, the setback is only minor.

To-do for next week:

Begin modelling character clothing and mask

Continue developing butterfly wing texture

Complete book prop

Begin modelling, texturing, and rigging background trees

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 3, Sept 20th - 27th

My animatic is now finished and can be viewed below. Originally, the story I had in mind ended up being a whopping 6 minutes in length. Oops.

It has now been shortened to 4 minutes. This is still longer than the 3 minute film goal, however most of the shots are held ones that consist of the same subject being in frame for about 8 - 10 seconds, and that is where the extra minute is coming from.

This adjustment from 6 minutes to 4 will allow me to reallocate my time appropriately to work on other aspects of my project, and also cut some elements out all together (such as many of the additional props I had planned to model this week). Ultimately I think this decision will be better for the final product, though I wish I could have made it the total 6 minutes.

Some shots may seem out of place or abrupt because of this after-the-fact adjustment. I did not want to redraw the frames that needed more context (for example, the introduction of the red-yellow butterfly, which originally had much more of an entrance than appearing next to the red one) but I hope to use close-up shots to re-add emphasis. Instead of redrawing this, focused my time on building an asset for the project this week.

This week I aimed to model, texture, and rig both butterflies for my animation. I ended up completing one, which I can copy and edit to create the second butterfly.

I didn't have time to re-texture the second butterfly with the appropriate shaders needed to create the emissive effect of the wings. However, now that I have less props to rig this week, I can give it extra time without delaying my production schedule.

Last year I made a butterfly as well that was essentially a flat plane with a simple picture texture and a toon shader. This year, I want my animation to have a more realistic feeling to it, so I tried to replicate the texture of a real butterfly wing more accurately.

The base mesh of my character was something else I worked on this week. It still needs a head, hands, and the feet need more work, but I will continue this week. I didn't want to add too much detail to the body model, aside from making sure there will be sufficient geometry and edge loops for rigging and weighting accurately.

Lastly, this week I tested grass textures. I like how the image looks on the blades as a collective, and with some modifications to the base geo of the grass when I'm creating the MASH network it will look more realistic while still having that slightly stylized look that I admire.

To-do for next week:

Finish base model

Modify current butterfly for second

Start modelling clothing, mask, shoes, and other accessories for character

[keondras-grad-film-production]

Week 2, Sept 13th - 20th

My two main goals for this week were to draw as much of my animatic as possible and conduct tests for new skills I hadn't learned about yet. During this time I have discovered the new skills I can learn reasonably within the time frame of the project deadline, and which I will be saving for another time.

The Animatic

While my animatic is not yet in a shareable state, it is well underway. I am scheduled to complete it by next week so I can present it.

I tried to take my time while redrawing my original storyboard layout. I have come to find that the more time I spend on the layout stage of both the shot composition and the composition elements, the more success I have when it comes to creating a 3D environment. Without it, it can sometimes feel like I'm trying to build without a blueprint.

Now that I have redrawn my character numerous times, I have also finalized her design and reduced to be more manageable for modelling and rigging (which I will share next week when I begin modelling the base character).

I am currently switching between compiling my animatic and drawing the last frames I need. I predict my film will be about 3 minutes in length total, although most of this time will be taken up by singular shots that are held for lengths of time and beauty shots of my environment.

2. Testing Period

While there is not much to show for it, this week I began an intensive testing period of new skills I have yet to refine in Maya. This included testing the limits of what Dynamic Curves can offer me, troubleshooting with MASH networks and dynamic curve instances, and Bifrost (and a supplementary solution to using simulation for water).

First and foremost, because they were originally planned to be a huge part of my project, I spent a lot of time figuring out how dynamic curves actually work and what they offer in terms of animation and rigging. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were not only easier to work with than I thought they would be, but I ended up finding more uses for them than I had planned.

I was most anxious about the idea of using curves in clothing so that was the first test I underwent. My character’s model uses a cape that will cover much of her other clothing that is also being simulated. The idea to use dynamic curves instead of nCloth originally felt much more intuitive than using nCloth itself. And, in a way it was, although it does come with its own set of issues and bugs.

(Free model courtesy of Tomations on Sketchfab https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/anime-cape-022ea867aff746e295c55ed119ebefee)

The above video was my first attempt at rigging using dynamic curves. Admittedly I don’t fully understand how the settings impact the physics of the curves (I am very bad at rigging) but by altering the various curves settings, I got a result that is somewhat similar to cloth, albeit a bit stretchy.

This week I will do one more test with my base model and nCloth to determine which technique I will use.

The most beneficial dynamic curve test for me this week was one that accidentally helped me figure out how I will be populating the forest environment with plant life that moves in the wind (or at least seems like it does).

A simple mix of low poly grass blades and dynamic curves will allow me to instance the rigged model with MASH to create high density greenery at a very low cost in terms of scene weight.

The turbulence and speed settings allow me to control the "wind" or motion of the grass, which can be keyed for animation later on. I want to continue to improve on the quality of the grass by adding other variations of the grass blade to the instancer (to break up uniformity), but I will have the opportunity for this in week 7 when I have planned to populate with MASH.

This effect in MASH can also be cached for ease of use.

This same technique will be used in the tree branches to create a lightweight environment that moves like a real forested environment would. I am excited to see the final effect.

Bifrost was on the schedule for this past week as well, but I found that the result I was looking for could be achieved with Boss in Maya.

Boss uses cached playback and displacement textures to mimic fluid simulation. When this effect is layered it can create a realistic texture without simulating anything. This is a process I am much more familiar with and can control the result of easily. I plan to use this in my scenes instead of Bifrost.

To-do for next week:

Finish animatic

nCloth testing

Begin creating base model

Model, texture, and rig butterfly models