Category: Advanced and Experimental 3D computer Animation

In this week’s session I have been given feedback on the storyboards ideas produced in the first week, and improved them by following the advice. I have also produced the matching mood board for each story idea and used the Pure reference to arrange them.

Idea 1: City Worm Girl

I have added the argument details between the worm girl and the chicken lecturer in the former’s imagination, these anthropomorphic creatures exaggerate their characteristics and pushing the narrative.

Idea 2: Pocket Fantasy

This story is surrounding the world building of people’s pocket, and not only daily items but also the relationship between characters are being exposed through the use of costumes such as the underwear which is featured in my idea.

Eventually my lecturer thinks there should be another underwear dragged out from the woman/man sitting on the foreground to balance the entire story.

Idea 3: I developed mainly this ‘food scam’ idea from a plain meal between a couple to the food is the scam which traps the rabbit in a dungeon and rescued by her fellow cat on time.

After the development of all 3 storyboards, we have been asked to select one out of three story ideas and turn into a 3D previs. And here is mine progression of the second idea ‘Pocket Fantasy’.

At the begging I used the measure tool in MAYA to make sure the scale of things in the first park scene:

I build the prop in another file and assign them different colours of the default material, I refer to any props I need to use in the scene, which benefit me from making any adjustment of their design later in the future:

I used the referring rig also and by linking the pocket to the character controller which allows me to control the animation of the pocket in my story:

Next week I will be focusing on the world building of the ‘pocket world’ and use the simple geometries or colours to represent the narrative between the girl and them, and planning out some basic animations for me to develop in the future weeks.

This week, I explored three ideas using storyboards with different camera compositions or angles. I used the reference pictures from mainly Pinterest to structure each concept and relied on simple geometries to visualize each story.

idea 1: City Worm Girl

In this idea, the main character, ‘City Worm Girl,’ is inspired by my laziness during the Christmas holiday—how I behaved like a ‘worm’ to stay in bed sleeping or eating is similar to how the creature lives in real life. By thinking deeply, there are also three stages of a worm in its life cycle: caterpillar, pupa, and butterfly. Therefore, correspondingly I have added two other stages to my concept to reflect how the protagonist is pushed and growing up eventually to complete her journey and going to the next one.

I have looked at different worm pictures for this project and found that their colour palettes are mostly in high saturation. I also think the patterns of the worm could be an interesting direction to explore the making of 3D tiled textures:

By adding more storyboard shots to my story, I have considered the possible rules of third & golden ratio to make the view more harmonious:

Idea 2: Pocket Fantasy

In this idea, the daily item of a man becomes the main inspiration to be explored. In a date between a couple in part of London, the female feels curious about what is in the pocket of the male’s jacket, therefore she starts her journey in the pocket world. In this pocket world, she found cookies, apples and chocolates which seemed quite normal in people’s daily lives, but also, she was amazed by male underwear she rarely approached in her life and had fun chasing them. This story is entertaining, engaging and fun, and it concentrates more on small items in life that people can easily ignore.

Idea 3: Food Scam

The third idea ‘Food Scam’ is mainly inspired by the overpriced food in the central of London, it tries to visualize how would food destroy a relationship between two characters in a restaurant. In this story, I tend to make miss rabbit focus on eating and enjoying her meal, but avoid the payment eventually in the end, and make mister cat to undertake the risk of the pricy food. The concept of this story is inspired by ‘Romantic Scam’ where the female utilized the guy to achieve their goals in their life. Meanwhile, I hope this story could emphasize the deliciousness of the food through my animation and the action of the character.