Spent most of the evening working on finalizing the Dungeon Painting environment. Did the final model and lighting tweaks, though some individual shots will undoubtedly require their own tweaks. Did some test renders, and got it to look pretty sweet. So, tomorrow I can start working on the first half of the flying carpet sequence (the second half is already done).

Spent the rest of the evening writing a dissertation on one of the Giacomo shots. The shot involves a handheld camera tilt from floor to ceiling, with Giacomo (a 2D animated character) dragging a live actor and attacking Wendell (a 3D animated character), while straight at (and ultimately into) the camera. As if this did not provide enough trouble, since we’re not a studio, it’s difficult to communicate with my animator. It would be a lot easier working out these timing issues if we were in the same building, preferably working on computers right next to each other. Then, he could see how it’s being composited, we could do test drawings and test composites real quick and get instant results. As it is, there’s usually a 24 hour turnaround from him getting me some animation, us being able to talk about it, and him being able to make the changes I ask for. Each step, though, makes it better and better. This shot should be finished by tomorrow!

It was a landmark week this week, but not quite as productive as I would have hoped.  The good news is that I finished the Wendell compositing!  That means that the creepy little guy is completely done.  It was kinda weird moving on.  I’m sure I’ll wanna tweak some stuff later, but I at least have good versions of all the shots.

My original plan was to go from Wendell straight into the Giacomo fog shots, of which there are ten to do.  However, I dawned on me that those shots won’t really affect the pace of the edit, whereas the flying carpet stuff will.  So, I decided to work on the flying carpet shots in the Mushroom Painting scene, since I had already built that environment.  It’s been interesting trying to get everything to fit in the limited space of that painting, but I think it’s coming along nicely.  Unfortunately, I got sick this week, so I lost a couple of days of productivity.  Hopefully I can catch up next week.

Not much to report this week, besides what I already blogged about.  After finishing the Wendell animation, lots of stuff started coming my way.  A couple of groups wanting to see the business plan for The Little Dream Engine, which will be my first feature film, and some interest in the script itself.  So, it’s mostly been a paperwork week.

I did manage to start working on some of the flying carpet scene inside the Mushroom Painting environment, which I posted about a week or so ago.  This was my first completed shot of the flying carpet (I had done tests before, but nothing finalized yet), so I was a bit worried going in.  However, the worrying was all for naught - it came out great!  It’ll be some time before that whole sequence is done, especially since I need to focus on compositing Wendell, but I’m certainly looking forward to it.

I just finished re-compositing the last of the too-clean-looking Wendell shots, as mentioned in my Derailed post. It was actually an interesting experience, going back to the first few shots that I worked on, seeing how far I’ve come in just the last few months. Makes me excited to see how good I’ll be a few months from now.

I had to relight one scene (4 shots), and that gave me a chance to tweak the animation a little bit. These were shots I did maybe two weeks ago, and I’ve already grown a lot since them. It opens up the question of whether or not I should go back and redo some of the first shots, or just press on since there is so much else to do. I probably see how I feel after finishing my first pass at Wendell, the fog, and the flying carpet scene. I may have time for reanimating while it’s in audio-post with David Wallace and scoring with Philip Yon. Or I may want to sleep.

Since starting this blog a week ago, I decided that I really need to have the Wendell shots done by the end of August.  At that time, there were 30 shots to go, so I decided finishing 10 a week would get me to that goal.  That means 5 on the weekend, and 1 per night during the week.  7 days later, I have 10 shots done.  Only 20 more to go!

Also, the first Giacomo shot came in from Jim Compher, and it looks great.   Very exciting to have a small piece of the “real” Giacomo in my effects project.  Jim also decided that it would be easier for him to work in Toon Boom than in Flash, so he decided to jump ship.  Guess that means we’re not a pure Adobe house anymore.  But hey, I’m more loyal to my animators than to a software company, and I want him working in whatever software he feels he can do the best work in.

For those keeping score:

• Wendell Shots: 27 / 47
• Giacomo Shots: 1 / 27

If only that were all that was left.  After Wendell, I still have “living” fog to animate, a jail-break sequence set in a 3D world, and a flying carpet chase!