Animatic - May 2nd, 2009

With all the hard work that went into rigging the waves, animating them still proved to be an "ant-work" process. Thus I decided to cut out the first shot of the film because of its length and complexity, and substitute it with several shorter shots.
This way, I could avoid animating the waves for a minute and a half straight.

During this time I added a couple of more shots to the film. Being a few weeks from the final deadline this was a risk, but it ended up making my job easier and making the film stronger.

Click to Play Quicktime

Smudged Edges

Several posts ago, I wrote about the smudged edges that I wanted to have on top of the geometry. I was partially successful in applying this theory to practice.

These smudges were created by assigning a toon outline to a surface shaded object and then attaching a paintFX brush to the toonline. The brush is then set to SMEAR or BLUR, depending on the desired effect.

It all works well until things are set in motion:

Click to Play Quicktime

As you can see, the toon line and paint brush causes everything to jitter when the elements are in motion.

Click to Play Quicktime

With minimal movement, things look better. Unfortunately the character will be riding the waves and moving frantically up and down. Due to lack of time, this technique will have to be dropped and the smudging will be done in post.

Foam

Water foam has been a tricky issue in this project and in my opinion hasn’t been solved yet.
I did a few tests after studying Maya2009’s nParticles. They are quite amazing in their collision capabilities, but the ultimately they are too slow and impractical to work with, considering the machines that I have available to me.

Below is a test of my result:

Click to play Quicktime

If time permits, I will try to spend a few days with Maya fluids to see if I can discover a more efficient way to create foam. All of these elements will be composited together to look more natural of course.

Building the Water

About six years ago, I wanted to animate an ocean for my film – More Human than Human. I have never attempted such a task and my instructor –-Raz Oved- - advised me that I should change my idea. Never the less I insisted, and Raz suggested that I would try making it in 3D. His exact words, if I remember correctly were: “There will be a lot of blood and tears in this process, but perhaps an ocean will come out of that”.
Indeed he was right, and after that experience I vowed not to make a film with an ocean ever again. I broke that vow a year later with In the Silence, and I am a breaking it once again with The End of Things.

Hatchiman will forever be linked to the ocean

This concept image represents the geometric look that I wanted for the waves.There are two types of waves here, the breaking waves are the ones that curl, and the surface waves are the ones that act as the water surface.

Theoretically, I would create a polygon box with many subdivisions, stretch it and then create some sort of rig to control the wave’s movement.

The Breaking Wave Rig

I experimented with several different rigs, before I found one that was efficient to animate with and gave me the results that I desired. The first rig consisted of an IK spline that controlled the back end of the wave. I could pull its segments up and down with the help of the clusters. The front curl was controlled with forward IKs. By selecting all the purple joints in sequence, I could curl them by rotating the Y Axis.

Click to play Quicktime

Next I tried to simplify and built a simple line of joints. The idea was to quickly animate the wave and not rely on too much automation. It was a simple rig, but gave stiff animation results.

Click to play Quicktime

Here is a similar rig to the last, with a polygon box smooth-binded to it. Not quite there yet…

Click to play Quicktime

These three attempts brought me to the conclusion that a spline IK would be useful for controlling the back of the wave as it results in a smooth motion. Forward IKs would be useful to control the curl. There was still an issue of the geometry curling into itself though.

To solve this, I created two separate rigs -- one for the back and one for the front. The back was controlled with a spline IK, and the front was simple joints. I wrote an expression where each joint in the chain automatically rotates and scales down an increment in relation to the joint preceding it. I created two attributes out of the expressions: WAVE controls the curling, while CURL controls the scaling.

Once the two rigs were complete, I connected them to each other via another joint and then smooth binded additional joints on top of the spline IK. I attached locators to each of these joints for quicker control and I assigned the WAVE and CURL attribute to the front locator. Allowing fast access to the curling attributes.


Later, I quintupled the wave and parented it to a nurb curve that allows me to control all five at once. Below is the first successful test animation.

Click to play Quicktime


The Surface Wave Rig

After creating the breaking waves, the surface waves proved to be an easy task. I simply created an identical rig to the back rig of the breaking wave, only with more joints.
I placed numbers as the controls for each joint so that I would be able to track the high points and low points of the wave.

Below is a test of the surface waves and the breaking waves together:

Click to play Quicktime

I would like to thank my good friend Thomas Huang for all the time and knowledge that he has given me with rigging these waves. Without his help, I would probably still be rigging today.

Elements Complete

A long silence from me usually means that things are getting done. Below are images of the three main elements -- modeled, textured and rigged:

Hatchiman

All models (including this one) were created in 3D Studio Max 2009. I have been using this package for many years now and I find it very comfortable for modeling and unwrapping. From here on, the rest of the work will be completed in Maya 2009, as I am learning that it is more versatile than Max, in particularity with animation and effects.

Blendshapes for facial expressions. There are only eight expressions (four for each side of the face) as not many expressions are required for this piece.

A rig was completed in a matter of three days thanks to Anzovin Studio's The Setup Machine. I have added the floating joints on each side and the center in order to help control the coat.
Again, this rig is a simple one and it is designed to accomplish only the animation required in my specific shots.

Gondola

Please note that the textures on all of the models are quite basic at the moment. I am using a simple Surface shader with a painted texture. In the following weeks I will begin to work on the rendering style and I am prepared to build upon these shaders.

The Gondola has a separate controller for the boat and the oar. It is rigged so that the lantern will swing and maintain it's arc when the boat it tipped. This was accomplished with the help of Maya's constraint system.

The Tower

The tower has two forms. On your left it is closed proper, and on your right it opens it's massive jaw in order to suck in Hatchiman. I still need to add the beam of light that will be projected from it's eye.

Blendshapes are used to control each of the tower's teeth individually. The top slider of each tooth controls it's sharpness, while the bottom controls it's position. After constructing this system I have discovered the sharpening blendshape does not make much of a difference and I will probably not use it at all.
I have decided to use blendshapes in order to maintain the tower's "flowy" effect.

Quick Paint Test

This is a quick painting that I did over a render of the model, this is a step towards the rendering style that I am going for. I would like to smudge the model's edges into the background.

First Animatic

The purpose of this project is to act as a style development for my thesis while also being a self contained little film. Thus the visuals will be more important then the story itself. In this animatic, I have attempted to present the seven simple shots that make up this piece as well as laying out a temporary soundtrack.

The animatic comes in two forms, standard and stereoscopic. The latter requires red and blue 3d glasses to view. The final film will utilize polarized projection, which requires colorless 3d glasses similar to the ones used in Sony's BeoWulf. This type of projection allows the filmmaker to keep the quality of the color in the film, but is a little more difficult to work with.

Standard Animatic

Length 1:29, 7mbs

Stereoscopic Animatic (Anaglyph)

Length 1:29, 7mbs

Hatchiman

I have used the character of Hatchiman in several films and stories before. He first appeared to me in a dream, or rather it was myself, standing in a yellow field with green sky, wearing the stitched leather garb.

First drawing of Hatchiman, the morning after the dream (2003)

I am now attempting to use Hatchiman in this project, as I find that he tends to lead me through different paths of self discovery. Thus below, you will find a brief history of his development and growth:

Following the dream, I was intrigued with the character's look and began writing stories with the purpose of figuring what the character was about. I now believe that the stories and comics that I drew were too introspective and thus felt like cliches. It was not until 2003, when I began working on a short animated film called More Human than Human that the character began to take form. In this short , a starving Hatchiman washes off the edge of the earth and is rescued by a Windor (dragon-like creature), who carries him to her nest.

More Human than Human, 2003, 4 minutes

Sensing Hatchiman's hunger, the Windor takes off to find him food. Unfortunately, Hatchiman's impatience gets the best of him. He lights a small fire in the center of the nest, and begins to boil the Windor's children. When the mother returns, Hatchiman burns her and pushes her into the sea. The film ends with a back shot of Hatchiman taking off his mask, revealing long black locks of hair. Coupled with his waify physic, this brings up the question of the character's gender.

While I am not sure how successful this film turned out to be, it never the less established for me that the character is selfish, impatient, ruled by his desires, and also, perhaps gender-ambiguous.


Soon after, I was to begin working on my thesis project at Camera Obsucra School of Arts in Tel-Aviv.

I wanted to discover more about the character, and so I began to write his childhood story, which asked the some of following questions; where and how he was raised, the society and the world that he lived in, his ambitions, struggles and goals. All of these traits were to be portrayed in my fourth and final year film, entitled Shadows Fall. I developed this project intensely over the summer of 2003 with the help and support of my instructors, Tami Bernstein, Amit Shalev and Raz Oved.

The cast of Shadows Fall

By the beginning of the first semester of the last year, I had two small books, each with over one-hundred pages of text, drawings and storyboards that would be used as the building blocks for the film. I also had a 10 minute detailed animatic to accompany these books. My instructors were very excited about my progress and were eager to see what I would produce. Unfortunately, the project seemed like it would be to grand to finish properly over the course of nine months and so I opted to scrap it. I proposed a different project starring Hatchiman, call Shadow Bazaar, but it was met with some hostility. I am not sure if it was simply a backlash to all of the anticipation brought on by the pre-production of Shadows Fall, or if the idea of the new film was inherently lacking (I think it was).

Thus I began work on another story with a different character that somehow led me back to Hatchiman!? This was the story of In the Silence. My thesis film for Camera Obsucra.

In the Silence, 2004, 7 minutes

In this movie Hatchiman began to establish himself as a wanderer, and a character that is only concerned with his own survival. I realized that most of his stories began or ended in the ocean. Even in the current tale that I am trying to tell (The End of Things) he is sailing at sea.

Character designs for In the Silence (2004), including sculptures for both Hatchiman and the Spiker

I left Israel in 2004 and with that I also left Hatchiman behind. Yet recently I have began to wonder about his timeline....

...how do his stories link up together to create an entire lifetime? Has he grown and matured with me over the years?

While The End of Things is not a film that will explore the character's personality, I am finding that it is helping me to discover new things about him, and thus about myself. Hatchiman perhaps, is an alter-ego of mine, a self-critique and a tool to solve (and cope with) my own personal dilemmas.

Recent stylistic designs for Hatchiman (2008)