Celebration is short because I still need to do a ton of work. I've composed a list of what I have achieved so far and need to complete for winter break. In terms of my schedule, I am a little behind, but will be able to catch up and even more during the holidays.
MODELING:
Here's what I have for modeling. For my characters, I completed my astronaut and alien. I've finished the exterior and interior models for the spaceships. I still need to model my large alien and my space landscape.
For winter break, I will need to model my large alien and space landscape. My large alien will only take half a week to complete and rigging won't be an issue. This is because he will be in the film for only a short while (30 seconds) and will not be needed to move around a whole lot. I can achieve the desired amount of animation if I create a few simple blendshapes and physically twist his body when he bounces on the small alien.
The space landscape will take the least amount of time to complete. I've already created the ground layer and will just need to model a few more rocks to dot the surface. I will model the rocks in ZBrush and import them into Maya.
RIGGING:
Overall, rigging is 80% completed. I want to thank Lisa Anderson for the body rig and Ryan Chen for the the facial rigging/skinning. They did awesome, incredible work. Everything is working perfectly and I am so glad that I turned to them for help. I am really impressed with what I have and greatly appreciate all the time and effort they put into it. Thank you guys! Here is an lip sync test with the astronaut made by Ryan Chen:
The rigging is done, but I still need to complete the skinning. For those who don't know, skinning involves conforming the skin of the character to their skeleton. I was hoping to finish skinning him before the faculty review but due to the complexity of the skeleton itself and time conflict, I will finish it up by next week. Maks Naporowski is helping me along the way. Here is work in progress:
For my small alien, Sean Manning is planning on finishing him up this week. It is looking amazing so far and I'm am extremely confident in achieving the desired animation I need. I especially love his expressions. Take a look!
I realized that texturing won't be as important or as time consuming as I thought. The only real texturing I will need will be for my space landscape. The environment will be very rich in red and pinks. I will use a rock texture for the surface and the rocks. A matte painting will be used for the backdrop. A sample matte painting:
Some examples of the colors I will be using:
In contrast, the colors and texturing of the spaceship will be very sterile. Very little colors and more white throughout. These would help emphasize the hunger and lonliness of the astronaut onboard. It will be sort of reminiscent of the coloring used in this fantastic, yet very similar short:
RENDERING:
I've determined that all of the rendering will be done through mental ray. Using this software will take a bit longer to output out, but it will look much better compared to using the normal Maya software. Plus, the rendering will take less than expected time due to the render farm being made available to us starting next semester.
IN SUMMARY:
So a list of what I need to accomplish this winter break:
- Finish skinning for astronaut
- Model large alien
- Model and texture space landscape
- Texture spaceship, astronaut, and small alien
- Render test footage
- Begin animation
To my classmates: Happy Holidays and good luck next semester!
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