Papa Poule - Doing Backgrounds from 3D Model Screenshots

   So here are some backgrounds for Papa Poule which I did using the screenshots of the 3D model as reference. I think it helps so much in terms of getting the perspective right and position of things in the room. I've also used some texturing on the walls and floor as we had feedback from Kathy and she said to play around with textures and the overall style and design of the film. I think the textures work really well both in the day and the night palette.

Papa Poule - 3D Reference

   So the producer of Papa Poule, Kathryn, made a 3D model of Paul's room so everyone can see the layout and where everything goes which has been really helpful for me when doing layouts and backgrounds. It is sometimes difficult when dealing with different angles in one room to get the perspective right so I opened the model in maya and moved the camera around to take screenshots of different angles, I also tried to copy the angles from the animatic so I and other members of the team can get started with layouts and have the angle in a 3D model screenshot as reference. However, I'm not very experienced in Maya so it was quite difficult to navigate around and get the right angle. I asked Lucie for some feedback and she said some of the angles are a bit off but they're okay to play with at the moment, she's going to go in herself and take some screenshots as it's her vision so she can capture it more accurately than me. I think i'll still use my screenshots for practicing though anyway.

Storyboarding for landlubber

 

So the animatic showing is tomorrow so I was given a scene from the newest story to storyboard so Jess can put it in the animatic. These were done very roughly and simple but it's the first official animatic so I don't think a great deal of detail is expected (hopefully not anyway) 

Pirate Code Backgrounds

I haven't spoken to Jess yet to see if these are okay but she's going for watercolour style for backgrounds so I was playing around with some water colour brushes that I loaded onto photoshop and I think it looks pretty cool, I just need to figure out how to incorporate lighting and shadow/depth into it. I also quickly put some of the characters in to see what they look like against the background even though the story has changed a bit, I think with the softness in the background, the black outline of the characters helps them to stand out. At the moment I don't think it really looks very exciting or eye catching but i'll have a word with jess and see what she thinks. I quite like this style.

Here (below, I was just playing around with some of the brushes and changing the opacityto create different textures. Some of them look pretty good!

Papa Poule Layout testing

So Lucie has done the animatic, so I thought i'd start on doing some layouts based on what she has put in the animatic, it will probably change but I just wanted to get a feel of the layout of the room and practice more with the style and brushes. I'm still waiting on Lucie to have a final room layout design so there are windows in different places and things are changed around a bit but once that's been done we can start getting into the layouts and backgrounds which is exciting. I'm feeling better and more confident about this now, and definitely more motivated.

Papa Poule - playing around with textures

   After a meeting with Kathy, Lucie and Kathryn were advised to play around more with textures so I thought i'd have a go too by adding texture and changing the opacity and erasing, changing colours etc. I think something like this could really work with a few little tweaks here and there. We now have an animatic so I can start maybe drawing some layouts for the backgrounds and get a head start on backgrounds.

Storyboarding for Pirate Code

So I've been helping out with the storyboard, I originally drew it on bits of card but then re drew it digitally, they're only very quick sketches because its the first storyboard and the story is likely to change but we're hoping to get the animatic done this week. The story is really coming along, I have a lot of ideas but of course it's ultimately up to the director, JEss what's happening. I like being able to contribute to ideas and bounce of other people's ideas.