Class notes

reminder of what was discussed in class.

Thursday, 6/1

Thursday, 5/25

Tuesday, 5/24

Allie is working on rocks, and Peter is working on amulet-tree connection.

Animators: When a shot is ready to render, please let Wyvern or another FX people know.

Wyvern's music reference:

• Generally represents moods well
• More mood contrast at certain scenes that need it
• Ritual music at beginning and end should have some connections
• Drum can get old. Sometimes silence is good

Thursday, 5/18

Technical references page has been updated with these music references:

• The man who planted trees
• Peter & the wolf
• Wanting for bridge

Post-production: Julian came up with the idea of displaying credits with clouds as effects. Wyvern thought about using a leaf and water ripple effects. What's your idea? Let us know.

Animators: Please look at your exact time & number of frames per shot to ensure accurate rotoscoping. You will also be directing your shot for motion capture.

Ann has done a beautiful job so far painting shots 1 through 3. She added paths around the altar in shot one to make it feel more in place. See shots 1-5 references to see what she's done so far.

Tuesday, 5/16

Class notes and animators' meetng notes. Contains important information for animators.

Friday 5/12
Render Meeting Notes:

• To reduce artifacts in the final render, save your procedural textures out at .jpg or .tiff images maps
• Shot 8 To Do List:
  
  • Fix bird shadow
    
  • Finish Amulet (ASAP) we need this before any final shots can be rendered.
    
  • fixing texture flipping on leaves for depth map shadows.

Thursday, 5/11

Class notes on music, sound, shots, and general notes for animators.

Tuesday, 5/9
Class Notes:

Animators: Here's how to use facial blending controls that Peter made to animate the girl.

Important: Place all textures in the CSE490ca_FinalProject\Textures directory otherwise the won't get backed up!

For Painters: You can use the machine called WALLACE in the little room in LA2 to run 3d Paint as well. Ask Chad Lindhorst for an account if you don't already have one.

Rigging: Have birds rigged by the end of the week so the cool zoology prof can look at them.

    Upcoming Meetings Times : Friday 12:30 : effects meeting 

From now on, every week we will have meetings on:

• Monday, 9:00, animators
• Friday, 12:30, effects
• Tuesday/Thursday, 10:30, entire class (2 hours)

Shot Notes:
Shot 1: 

• Get Prerigged Trees from Wyvern for placemen in the shot.
• Place invisible object w/ holes behind the overlapping plane-trees to achieve correct shadows.
• Add mist towards the distance to convey more depth.
• Place colored spot below the ground plane to simulate light transport (or write a radiosity plugin for Maya :)
• Watch at the terrific Majou no Takkyuubin (occasionally misnamed Kiki's Delivery Service) for reference on forest shots.

Shot 10:

• Light rays too straight.

• Trees in back are too flat

• New log needs to be imported.

Shot 33b:

• Add kicker lights a different places to add depth to the scene.

• Trees in back are too flat

Shot 33b:

• Add kicker lights a different places to add depth to the scene.

• Trees in back are too flat

Face Shapes Comments:

• Mouth edges should pull back more w/ smiles.

• Try a specular map on the skin to add varying regions of oliness/shininess.

• Perhaps increase specularity on eyes to add a watery effect.

Monday, 5/8

Thursday, 5/4

Animators will meet once a week now.

If there are any concerns about not being able to get your work done, e-mail Mark.

Everybody should have taken notes on your responsibilities and your next most important tasks, and talked to Barbara about them. If you missed class and have not done this, please talk to Barbara or one of the TAs about what you think your most important responsibilities are at this point.

Lighting people: Lights should be linked to only objects they illuminate. Otherwise rendering takes a long time.

Everybody:

• When exporting out of Maya, save to TARGA format. This will save time for rendering people.
• If any machine is locked as "Roy G. Biv", and you need it, please ask any of the three rendering people to log off. This is the login for the render farm.

Wednesday, 5/3, animators' session with Karen

• Shots 1 to 6
• More shots coming later...

Tuesday, 5/2

Buying pizza late at night has been approved.

Approval to buy 2 copies of Deep Paint. Will move additional NT machines into LA2 to run them.

All shot setups are done!

Barbara's golden rules:

• Keep a positive attitude! It makes the rest of us happy. Talk to Barbara or TAs if there are problems causing unhappiness.
• Do something. If there are problems or obstacles, take initiative to solve them.
• Work as hard as you possibly can, but don't push yourself so hard that you stress out. Let people know you need a break sometimes. It's okay.

• should now have two tapes of reference materials.
• need to block shots by tomorrow. See very top of today's notes
• hide objects in environment when not using them. helps speed.
• Make sure props are in scene before animating.
• when doing your work:
  1. Look for your name on the folders for each shot
  2. Know where the shot is in the story and the girl's mood
  3. Block the shots before tomorrow
• Remember safe lines when animating. Don't get too close to edges.
• Don't move sets around when animating.

• Take setup, put girl in correct position
• Put in & ensure right frame numbers. Movements need to be coordinate to show correct timing.
• Head & body positions and gestures need to be correct
• Render blocked shots in low res. See instructions above.

Lighting people should be responsible for textures in a shot. This means keep talking with shading people to make sure it's done, and done well.

Leaves:

• Really scary bumps on girls face was shown in class. They will be used to map leaves to leafman.
• Leaves blowing in circles & different shapes will be used during credits.

Trees: In addition to tree location & movement in wind, need to think about placement of different types (evergreens & other types). Right now they're inconsistent between shots.

Shots:

• Shot 1: Title tree will be done differently, as shot is now from a much higher angle. Also, leaves should be shaded.
• Shot 2: Will scale trees up and push them bac.
• Shot 3: Make shoulder joints work better using polygons & other techniques.
• Shot 4: Cupbies here will be replaced with final models, as will the trees.
• Shot 7: There's a lot of empty space. Make background trees taller & fuller.
• Shot 8: Animation shown in class
  • Lots of popping. Not sure why.
  • 2D motion blur affects the entire space within the its boundary, not just the leaf. Needs to fix. Swap out geometry for real one? Take texture map to plane, and trim edges? Render w/o displacement map?
  • Trees tilt from base. Needs fix.
  • Leaves should form line on the side, move in toward path, then line should go away as girl looks.
• Shot 11 & 12: Now combined. Camera will follow girl as she goes under the log
  • Log in there isn't final. Final log will be placed later, and is more horizontal.
  • Tree textures are procedural, which may cause pops. Be aware.
• shot 14: Girl on nurse log. Question on arched trees that take the amulet's form: Did they just grow that way, or did wind blow them in?
• Shot 15: It zooms in on river.
• Shot 19: Close up on girl. She kneels & looks @ bird
• Shot 20: Zooms down onto bird from top
• Shot 21: Cuts back to same angle as shot 19. Girl picks up flowers.
• Shot 22d: She finishes building altar. Color flashes across her face.
• Shot 28: Birds on branches. Not final models. Bird positions need to be adjusted.
• Shot 29: Girl standing, looking up @ birds
• New shot: Girl will form clay in front of a cupbie instead of next to the bird, and then put it in.

Thursday, 4/27, and Tuesday, 4/25

• We talked about shot 8. Notes are here.

Other things regarding sound and models (issues regarding either the modeling, shading, rigging, and animation of the models) below. Unless an item is marked "(4/25)", it was from class on Thursday, 4/27.

• Sound: ambient forest sound. Hope to have music cues by Tuesday.
  • Use better sound for birds besides crow sounds
  • Better timing of wind & river sounds. Need gust of wind during leafman
  • Feather flapping like pigeons rather than big birds. River sound could be more gentle. Wind too constant, like storms.
  • Don't cue bird until it is seen to give ambiguity.
  • Add new sounds, like leaves rustling, clay hitting stone, footsteps, etc..
  • Any sound ideas? E-mail list
• Add sound information to shot lists
• Altar stone:
  • Looks good. Trees are more important right now.
  • Give natural tilt rather than parallel to ground, make less symmetrical, more shapes than round. (4/25)
• Amulet:
  • Fix the two outer pieces so it won't dangle?
  • One for grandpa, one for girl. Each a little different. (4/25)
  • Material: clay-wood mix, maybe stone (4/25)
• Bird, live: Possible feather issues when rigging. Fix.
• Bird, dead: Close eye. Change beak.
• Bird, clay:
  • Don't have to be fancy; it's clay.
  • Wings attached to body as separate pieces to show the clay forming better?
  • Neck curve around body? (4/25)
  • Wings can be simplified (4/25)
• Cupbies for clay:
  • If it's cut out of rock, it looks more permanent, like it's been there for thousands of years.
  • Could be a stack arch of rocks like Goldsworthy pics (4/25)
• Elders
  • At beginning, just have them sit around altar instead of walking in.
  • Have difference faces for each elder
  • Take out most of the body, since it's not needed.
  • Make ears, but hide most behind hair
  • Mirror line down middle of nose needs fixing
  • Fix: head too small, shoulders too broad, arms too short
  • Make sure clothes around neck intersect properly.
• Girl: Hand-animate braids? Make good facial expressions too.
• Grandma: Hardware texturing takes too long. Try turning down quality and/or reduce number of textures (could re-use some throughout).
• Grandpa: Make his arms and body position more natural. (It looks like it floats right now)
• Maya: Import selectively to avoid important too many useless lights, etc. Also use group hierarchies to your advantage.
• Tree, title: Fade into it, give viewers more time to see forest.