Sugarfoot CGI shots combo
Is been a while since I updated the blog. A lot of things happened meanwhile but I´ll talk about that another time. This time I´ll show you a video from a 2D animated TV show we put together last year at Uli Meyer Studios. It was directed by Michael Shlingmann who also designed the characters. The environment design was done by the visual sensei Alberto Mielgo. I had the honor of taking their creations and turning them into a glorious CG feast for a few shots . Basically I created the CG backgrounds and the vehicle. I modelled, textured, animated, illuminated, rendered and comped those shots. Good fun.
Concept designs by Alberto Mielgo (link on the right)
Have a look at some final images from the show.
Finally it´s out!! I´m glad to present you the shortfilm "Bungle in the Jungle", my brother´s final project at the Master degree in computer animation of the Universitat de les Illes Balears, MA ISCA. I really hope you enjoy the film in which Miquel and myself have inverted so many time and effort.
Please visit the films blog for more information and images:
http://bunglejungle.blogspot.com/
Have fun!!
I think it may result interesting to some of you see a bit of the process of producing a commercial and also the progress from the designs to the final animated film. So here we go.
The First step is the pitch. The agency shows the idea to different studios and every studio presents back his own vision of the commercial in a concept state. Then the agency shows one of the options to go ahead. The idea here was some robotic birds to atack a cargo of honeystars breakfast cereal? and then the captain stars (the bear) saves the day. Here are some of the concepts from the pitch (by Matt Jones http://mattjonezanimation.blogspot.com/ and Michael Shlingman http://drawnography.blogspot.com/:
Here are some designs for the kids that travel in the starship with the captain also by Matt Jones. The sculpture is by Cako Facioli.
While the characters where designed, the CG starships where also modelled by Leo Sanchez. The idea was that the captain ship would combine with the kids ships to create a super defensive weapon with the shape of a star.
cg models by Leo Sanchez
When those cg ships models where finished based on the concept designs you have seen in the pitch, Matt Jones took one of the cg renders in grey and painted over in Photoshop to determine the final look.
2D starship design by Matt Jones
Having this fantastic references makes my life a lot easier when I have to reproduce that look in CG. All the details are perfectly defined: color, line color, line thickness, gradients, level of detail, etc. Achieving that kind of flat 2d look in cg is not easy, especially because of the outlines. Cg outlines tend to pop in an out in a single frame breaking the continuity in the animation, therefore ruining the experience. To avoid that the modelling should be very specific, creating geometry edges that draw lines in the exact positions and faces that break at certain angles... well, I'm not doing a tutorial so I'll stop the technical mumbo jumbo. Here is what you want to see: pictures!!
cg final starships by Joan Cabot
And now, finally, my favourite part of the show: The mighty Birdmen. I think is a cool character design by mr Matt Jones and I had a great time developing the it in CG and finally doing the animation. Here are some concept drawings and poses:
I started modelling a simple version of the character with simple shapes to set the main pose and proportions. I also did a simple rig and an animation to use it in the animatic.
Then, once the final high resolution model was finished I started to create the shaders that define the look of the character. That part is a back and forth process between me and the concept designers that keep refining the details of the character on the go. Here you can see a cg render of the birdman and the same image after been retouched in photoshop and the comments about the changes.
Finally when all the elements are ready the animation starts. The first step in the animation process is to create an animatic to set the camera position, the basic shot action, the shot duration and to test the rithm and flow of the action.
Then I took every shot and started the animation of the starships. That was priority because the 2d animators need the cg reference to animate the kids inside the starships.
The final step was animate the six birdmen for all shots. Here is the final result.
