Lighting pretty much finalized
I am finally pretty happy with my lighting after hours upon endless hours of tweaking. I can now honestly say that lighting is not for me. The shots shown are basically all the different camera angles I will be using, shown in sequential order. I’m only using two passes, ambient occlusion, and beauty. The final two shots are from the animation after the credits. Enjoy!
Lighting Concept
I didn’t really start from scratch on painting the lighting, but had some lighting information from the render. However I enhanced the light and added a much more prominent outside light (moon). I would really like to achieve the look of of light streaming in through the window.
Spider Texture
I just finished the texture for the spider so I thought I’d post. Many other changes have been made to the scene, mainly subtle. Also Miss Muffet and the curds and whey are now fully textured. More images soon…
Textures
Well I didn’t do a paint over since I already have most of my textures applied and I thought it pretty pointless to go backwards. The textures aren’t necessarily finalized, but the overall look I’m happy with. The lighting isn’t finalized by any means, I’m just using this setup for now to demonstrate the relative light level and direction.
This is the initial shot. I wanted a good deal of red, or at least warm colors inside the room. In contrast, I wanted Miss Muffet and the outdoor environment to stand out (final shirt will be striped with black).
The hair has an opacity map to make the edges look more feathered. I’d like to still add some more natural skin features to Miss Muffet like creases in knuckles, fingernails, etc . The moon in the background is actually geometry with incandescence to make it appear glowing. The spider has no shaders applied to it at this time. I was also considering rendering some fur on its body.
Unfortunately, the couch most likely won’t appear in the final animation, except for a split second behind the spider. Maybe I can use it for something else one day. Notice the three pictures -will get you in the mood to make shaders.
A shot of the entire room as Miss Muffet is leaping from the spider. This view will not appear in the final however.
I was working on this environment map the other night and put a good deal of work into it, so I thought I’d post it.
Animation
This video focuses purely on the animation aspect of the project. I think the animation is done for the most part, but I might tweak some things and play with camera angles a bit.
Facial Rigs…aaaaand rigging DONE!
The animation features Miss Muffet eating food, which requires her to chew and swallow. There is a control for mouth opening and closing, and a “chew control”. I broke down chewing into three distinct movements of the mouth that cycle: chin down, lips out slightly, and cheek to one side. The chew control is set up so that when it is moved in a circle it essentially cycles through these positions giving the effect of chewing, and making animation much easier. When moved down, the throat control gives the effect of Miss Muffet swallowing. There are also some eyebrow and cheeck controls to show different levels of anxiety. Lastly, I added a control for subtle breathing.
The spider facial rig is very simple since the spider’s face is only seen up close once. Basically he can raise his eyebrows, blink, and smile.
Lot’s to add
Well it’s been a while since an update, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy! Here are a few images of my progress with the animation.
Full view of Miss Muffet rig
The rig features all the basic controls one would need for animation: fk-ik blending, reverse foot lock, knee lock, set driven keys for fingers and feet, aim constraint for eyes, and much more.
Some blend shapes for closing eyes and opening mouth wide. The eyelashes, teeth, and tongue are separate shapes, so I had to make expressions for them to move with the blends. The eyelashes actually have their own blend that works with the body blend shape.
There are actually blend shapes on the the knees, hips, and elbows to counteract the “rubber hose” effect that usually occurs when joints are bent in more extreme positions. An expression links them to the rotation of their associated joint, so blends happen automatically.
Full spider rig
Demo of spider leg movement. The legs are basically spline iks with three control points.
Close-up of spider’s face
This is the setting, with many new props added.
Window and curtains (plug and cord added to lamp – it’s the little things that help the most)
Ceiling fan
Couch with pillows
As far as the props go, nothing is final at this point. I may be changing them substantially to match the mood of the animation.
Principles of Animation as applying to my story
Anticipation (basically the entire animation is Miss Muffet waiting for the spider to strike)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3T-Y-JyOdc (also shows other principles)
Secondary Action (movement of hair, porridge in bowl)
Appeal (Miss Muffet is made fairly visually appealing so the audience can sympathize with her plight more)
