Primitives

Finished writing out my storyline on note cards the other day.

Moving on now to doing a quick visual of the story in Maya using primitive models for the objects in each scene. I also rigged up a quick biped model so I could have a posed representation my main characters in each of the storyboard shots.

Check 'em out, and don't judge cause this shit is quick.

Storyboarding

Attempting to write out/organize the story floating around in my head.

I'm having difficulty not getting caught up in the details (camera movements/cuts, technical issues), and focusing on the broad story points and environments. Think I will go out to askwith tonight and check out the "Beckett on Film" DVD that John Marshall suggested. Hopefully checking out some minimalistic set design will help me to clarify what I will need to include and what I will be able to toss.

The other, and potentially more serious problem, that I am having at the moment revolves around my tendency to opt for more literal visual representations of the experience that I am exploring. As it was said earlier today "enlightened states are anything but literal", but the problem that I see with completely eliminating the potentially cliche, but recognizable, elements is that the animation might become unintelligible to anyone unfamiliar with its subject matter. But then the question is, do I care? Should I care? At this point I don't even know if the project I have undertaken was something that was meant to be understood in the first place. I am interested in the fact that this experience is beyond general understanding, so is it a futile effort to try and make something decipherable? Could be.

At this point the animation is more about the atmosphere: ethereal, surreal, unabashedly visual. I guess it will just evolve from there.

Assets

Time to start making them.

I've been reading pretty much constantly for the past couple weeks, and if anything, have gotten more confused and conflicted about my storyline than I was before. I have more possible components to include than I could ever need (don't want this to turn into a visual vomit fest this early in the year...). I have a problem where if I don't know exactly what I'm doing, I don't do anything visual until I have made a decision between all the ideas floating around in my head. This hasn't really been getting me anywhere and November is creeping up more quickly than I would like. Considering that I want to have all models, textures, and rigs done by the end of winter break, I really need to get my shit together.

Taking advice from John Marshall I think it would be best (in the interest of time) to do some photo mash-ups for rough character sketches rather than spending the time creating hand-drawn pieces. That way the color scheme and rough form of the figures/environments can at least get out in the open for critique and analysis for visual qualities.

Too much reading and not enough 3D makes Victor a dull boy.

.Read.Read.Read.

That is exactly what I am doing, and what I will be doing for the remainder of the week. Most of the books I ordered have come in, and the Carlos Castaneda books in particular offer some interesting insight (and storyline) into this abstract transition I am trying to understand.

Also, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is an amazing, if dense, read. Lots of vivid and graphic imagery in there.

Back to it.

Refining the 3D Skills

Thought I might post some recent work. Did this creature over the weekend to explore sculpting musculature in Zbrush as well as working with the re-topology tools within the program. Being able to use both of these things will be very important for making animation ready models for IP. (Text on piece complements of Eileen Tjan) :)

Rigging comes next week.