Checkpoint 2- End of Sprint 1 (18/09/2021)
The plan for the first sprint was to finalise the rig, greybox the environment, shoot reference and have all key poses blocked in, and so far the project is on track.
The rig has been updated, with slight changes to the face shape (new on left, old on right) and completely new textures.
A simple greybox environment has also been made, with just enough detail to allow for the animation without getting caught up in the details.
For the animation itself, I did run into some issues early on in the blocking pass. The faun has very long and oddly structured legs, and so the act of her getting down ended up looking much more awkward and more like falling than I had intended, losing the graceful poise that I envisioned her having. So, I changed the animation slightly so that instead of sitting by the riving and having a drink, she now sits on a rock beside the stream, enjoying the sunlight.
The cube is temporary for now and hopefully will be replaced by a pre-made asset before progressing much further. All and all, a successful first sprint for the project!
Checkpoint 1- Project Proposal (03/09/2021)
Welcome to the beginning of my project, Faun at the River!
This project is a short 15 second animation of a faun taking a drink from a stream. The faun rig has already been made, only requiring updated textures before it is ready to be animated. The animation itself will be done in Maya, and rendering completed in Unreal 4. The aim for this project is to create an animation which shows my understanding of the principles as well as the potential of my rigs, which haven't been used for much outside of basic game animations before.
Outlined here is the proposed timeline for the project, seperated into 3 major sprints. The first week will be spent updating the faun’s textures and constructing a basic environment. Weeks 2 to 5 will be spent animating. The next week will be spent importing the animation into Unreal 4 and fleshing out the final environment, and the week after that experimenting with water shaders and simulations within Unreal. The final week will be dedicated to rendering and compositing the finished product. Saving environmental details and water simulations until last means I can easily cut back on these aspects if the project falls behind, while the animation, the focus for this project, isn’t reduced in any way.
The first step in the project is to finalise the rig. The current faun rig is already about 90% complete, as shown here, and can be animated with. However, the textures are not suitable for the project, and so will be changed to present her as a ‘real’ faun, as per the concept art here.
Next, the environment in which the scene takes place must be constructed. Prior to animation, a simple ‘greybox’ style environment will be made, with key elements such as the bush, river, stones and trees represented as basic geometry to provide a clear layout for the animation. This will allow me to move on to animation early on in the project and focus on completing that rather than getting bogged down in environmental modelling, which while important is not the focus of this project. The plan is to further flesh out the environment using royalty free assets after the animation has been completed, with the potential for custom assets if the animation is completed early. After the environment is completed, the whole scene will be rendered in Unreal 4 using its cinematic tools.