MDDN 241 - Cell Shaded Mask

Above: a render of the completed character mask complete with toon shader.

So far that's all I've managed to model - It took a lot longer than it should have to figure out how to cut the eye shapes out of the mesh. Now I just have the tricky bit left: modelling the shapeless ball of limbs...
That could take a while...

MDDN 241 - Ideas.

So, I think it's about time to try and explain my idea properly. I know most of this may not be noticeable in the video so getting it down on paper is probably the best way of getting my ideas across.
I'm going to go into each thematic element of my idea in as much detail as I can. The exceptions to this are the elements that stem from my larger mythology: the black sphere and the world the character ends up in. The relevance behind these is not going to matter a great deal to the video and to be honest I could be here for hours trying to explain how the two fit together, so I'm just going to give a brief outline for those two.

Masks: Represent identity. With people the face is always what we focus on, and with my character initially having no face and a shapeless body we don't really know what to think of him. Once he creates a mask (ie: an identity for himself), that is instantly our focal point for the character and he begins to develop a personality. The other masks have relevance as well, the first creature we see being let into the afterlife will have a tired, gaunt-looking mask (he's old, and ready to die); and the bodyless (transcendent) angel masks are much larger and have much smaller eyes in comparison. They are also much more smooth and perfect looking, symbolising a more perfect being. As the character uses the mask, it's going to subconsciously adopt it as it's own personality until the mask defines it and becomes it's face.

Physical forms of creatures: These will be deliberately haphazard and imperfect. I want to emphasize that it is the mask and the identity which defines these creatures rather than shape.

Afterlife and the black sphere: The afterlife in this sense is tied directly to what the sphere is as a physical object. It's like a solidified black hole, you touch it and it tears you apart, atom by atom. It's not actually the afterlife, that's only a social construct on that particular world. It literally just deletes things from existence. Speaking of worlds, the sphere is also the only constant between hundreds of parallel universes, and it's directly linked to each one of them. Before the character touches it he sees a part of the sphere break off, and touches that instead. The sphere tries to destroy him through the fragment but can't. Instead he gets thrown into one of the parallel universes.

-I'm just going to stop here for a second as I've noticed something: As I've been writing this I've gone from referring to the character as an 'it' to a 'he'. It's developing a personality already...-

Anyway the universe he ends up in is going to be a jolt of reality to him. There is no afterlife. That's the main reason I want to use a completely different rendering style for it - to really emphasise that this is a completely different world.
As to the world itself, if I can model it there's going to be a ruined city-scape built on a crumbling metal shell that's held above another city underneath it by skyscraper-high pillars. and there would be ominous-looking black storm clouds in the sky.

I know parts of this are going to change, mostly due to a combination of my ability level and time constraints. But I want to keep it as close to this idea as possible.

Now I just have to get the hang of the cartoon shaders...

MDDN 241 - 'Surreality' does not look like a word...

First concept. 

Didn't know quite what I was aiming for. The walk/glide/roll idea could have gone somewhere but to be honest I already had a better idea in my head.

And thus, Better Idea.

<insert surrealist ramble>

A mask was the first idea I had for the Meaning object, and lends itself well to a meaningful, yet somewhat creepy tale about faceless beings and identity.

The character begins as a faceless ball of limbs that sees a vaguely humanoid creature with a mask for a face get let into the afterlife. After being rejected itself, the limb-ball finds a rock and carves itself a mask. Holding it as if it were a face, it is let through into the afterlife.

Above are a few extra mask designs I came up with. Top Left is more of a default look; Top Right is the sort of thing I imagine the initial ascendant to be wearing (old/weathered); and Bottom is a concept for the body-less angels guarding the gate to the afterlife (very smooth, undefined face/noticeably smaller eyes/potential 'wings').

Partly to try and cut render times, but mostly for stylistic reasons, I'm going to try using the cartoon shaders for this animation in an attempt to make it look cell-shaded. I think this will give it a much more defined and cohesive style while suiting the rather simplistic designs of the various entities involved. This is also going to accentuate the afterlife transition as I plan to have a final shot of the creature in 'heaven' that would use a very different rendering style. So far the two options for this shot are either hyper-realism or a black-and-white hand-drawn style (this would be accomplished by animating it in 3D then hand-sketching over the frame in Photoshop - similar to the Disney 'Paperman' animation).

MDDN 241 - Finality.

It is here! The promised day has come! Yet why do I feel like I've forgotten something...
Copying the 3 files onto the handin drive was easy, and I have checked multiple times against the project outline on the school of design website. But I still feel like there should have been more to it. All that work and the only real thing produced was a 1 minute video? And yet every time I have to consciously remind myself that I created this. There is more than a little pride in that.
This is what I'm here for, to learn to create. And once I think that, I start losing myself in ideas. Transient, insubstantial, yet increasingly possible ideas. I have always prided myself on my active imagination, and this project has brought me so much closer to unleashing it. I'm still severely hindered by my lack of knowledge of Maya, but from now on I'm going to make an extra effort to ensure that everything I do has a hint of my brainchild in it. When I think about it, that's the only reason I'm here.
It's the only reason I need.

MDDN 241 - And Thus...

So, with all four hundred and fifteen hours of rendering complete (and no, that's not a guess. I actually calculated it), my edited movie is ready to be exported and all that's left is to write a paragraph and blog about the proceedings.
That is not as easy as it sounds.
The way I usually do things is to spend a few hours/days straight working on a project, not derailing myself by trying to document everything as I go. As a result most of my minute-by-minute decisions are lost in the mists of time. Even so most of the editing choices remain fresh enough to merit this blog post.
Firstly, despite the amount of time this would have added to the project, I wish I had rendered a few extra shots. Although I had enough footage to fill the relevant portion of the video, I think the frenetic nature of the scene could have done with a few more shots.
Secondly, for some reason when I cached the particle effects the amount that ended up appearing was less that I had encountered in test renders. Although it still looked fine, it lacked some of the intensity of the test renders. To offset this, certain shots were brightened in after effects or had extra glow added.
Lastly, using PNG images was a big help with overlaying the text for the intro sequence, although - and I want to put particular stress on this - the transparency forced me to re-render half my video.
This was a major issue. Even after adding a black background most of the particles were barely visible, and no amount of after effects (that I was/am capable of) was going to fix it.
Hence the complete re-render.

MDDN 241 - While I Render...

So after the mad easter rush (practically 4 days straight working on this), I finally have time to sit and get the blogging and paperwork done for this project. As I type, eight computers in the design school are busy rendering my efforts. I know it's excessive but hopefully it'll be done tomorrow and ill get out of the way of the rush.

The modelling came with more than its share of difficulties, most of them due to my inexperience with the program. One in particular was resolved as I was making final preparations to render - if I had known that particular workaround earlier it would have saved me a lot of time and energy, not to mention allowing the inclusion of a couple of pieces of fancy camera-work that I had to abandon.

As to the idea of the project itself, since the last blog post I have completely flipped the concept on it's head. instead of the object changing materiality, the landscape around it is what will be changing. As to how it will be changing? That is what the vast majority of my time has been spent facilitating.
But i'm feeling generous, have a sneak preview:

edit: It appears I have already mentioned the change in tack. Apologies.