Major Project: Blog Submission

Post-Viz Mr Plimsolls from Katie Lima on Vimeo.

Major Project: Bathroom Animation Scenes

Some of the scenes for the Bathroom part of my film describing the fate of Mr Plimsoll's wife. There is some issues with the textures and the lighting in the bathroom set that need a go over to make sharper and less noticeable, to achieve a watercolour aesthetic showed in the backgrounds in 1930s cartoons. I also need to add a spotlight effect to the axe and fridge scenes so that it reflects what is shown in the animatic more faithfully.

Major Project: Mr Plimsoll- Facial Rigging

Fig 1: Mr Plimsoll's Facial Controls

Fig 2: Side Profile of Mr Plimsoll and his Facial Controls

Fig 3: Mr Plimsoll's Eye Blink 

Fig 4: Mr Plimsoll's Mouth Open and Tongue Out

 The facial rigging on Mr Plimsoll's is at a good stage, his mouth is able to open and close and there is quite a good range of expression there. the only thing that I would say is an issue would be the a modelling issue where I think that his mouth is a little bit too large, in a way that when pulling the controls in the corners of his mouth, they do distort a little bit and pulling the mouth controls into a tight expression like a 'shh' is a little hard to do because of the larger mouth.
I added an extra control in the nose to allow for additional movement in that area for when he walks and the blink, while taking me three tries due to simple mistakes I did with the blend shapes, works just fine.
Overall I am quite happy with how the facial rig has turned out, I might have to do some finessing in the mouth area to make sure that the skinning on the joints in the blend shapes are blended smoothly, but in general Mr Plimsoll is able to do what I want him to do now.

Major Project: Concept Art for Props and House Variations for Road Set

Fig 1: Variations of Houses for the Road set

Fig 2: Designs for Mr Plimsoll's Bag

Fig 3: Concepts for the Photo above the Fireplace in Mr Plimsoll's Living room

Here are some concepts for the bag Mr Plimsolls carries around in the first act of the film, variations of the houses that will be seen in the background of the road set for the same scenes and thumbnail ideas for the picture of Mr Plimsolls' wife that will be in a picture frame above the fireplace in Mr Plimsolls' living room.

The House variations are just to give the background of the road set a bit of character as Mr Plimsolls walks by. The houses are similar but the differences are in the features of them, and my plan is to take 3-4 of the designs to use for that set.

For Mr Plimsolls' wife I wanted to go for a character design that was quite hidden in terms of who she is, but for her to be portrayed as a positive person in Mr Plimsolls' life so having her also smile but be smiling in a way that is opposite to Mr Plimsolls, instead of being creepy, her smile is more genuine.

Major Project: Mr Plimsolls- Finessing the Skinning on Limbs and Pose Space Deformers

Fig 1: Example of Pose Space Deformer working in Shoulder and Knee of Mr Plimsolls

Fig 2: Skinning in arm following Ribbon Spines used for the Rubber Hose Rig Example 1 

Fig 3: Skinning in arm following Ribbon Spines used for the Rubber Hose Rig Example 2

Fig 4: Elbow is still able to bend naturally despite the influence from the Rubber Hose Rig

Sorting out the Pose Space Deformers onto Mr Plimsolls, I was able to give him natural movement in his shoulders, elbows, knees and hips without the geometry buckling. While I'm pleased with the final results it did take me a while and multiple back up saves to sort out parts like the knee to make sure that the other parts of the model like the shorts weren't doing anything weird like suddenly pop out when other poses in the legs happen, like raising the leg in a forward rotation.

After I was at a point where I was happy with how the model bent, I put Mr Plimsolls into a couple of poses only to see that the arms weren't flowing correctly in an arc when the elbow control and the flex controls are pull out together. So I went back into the Paint Skin Weights Tool to update the weights in the arm to allow fluid motion both when the controls are pulled separately and when they are moved together as well.

Major Project: 3D Environment- Mr Plimsoll's Bungalow Progress so far

Fig 1: Mr Plimsolls Bungalow

Fig 2: Close up on Roof

Fig 3: Close up on Fence and Gate

Fig 4: Model of Tree used in the Foreground

Here is the process of Mr Plimsoll's Bungalow at the moment, I still need to add the overgrown nature of the house, ivy on the roof and on the house, and the overgrown bushes that cover the front of the house. There is still some modifications that need doing on the gate panels and the windows still need developing.
Despite this I'm pretty happy with the progress so far with this scene, even if its still in the developing phase and in need of some refining.

Major Project: Environment Concept Art 02

Fig 1: The Road Mr Plimsoll's lives on

Fig 2: Mr Plimsoll's Living Room

These two concept arts depict the road Mr Plimsoll lived on and his living room for the ending scene. The idea for the road was that it would rotate as Mr Plimsoll's walks down the road, so to emphasise that idea the scene was drawn using curves and perspective was taken into account.

Mr Plimsoll's living room was design with the idea that Mr Plimsoll's was just a man who went through the trauma of losing his wife. To show that he reminisces the time he spent with his wife, I had the idea of the room having many picture frames with pictures of them as a couple. The run down aspect is more due to the fact that because of his old age he wasn't able to keep up with the house keeping. As well as preferring to spend the majority of his time outside of his house, wandering around the town instead of staying indoors wallowing in loneliness.