lost things making of 2012

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Making

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By Ethan Shilling - A Flock of Pixels - aockofpixels.blogspot.com - Major Project


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Contents

Foreword 5

Synopsis 7

Character Development 9

Story Development 29

Production Process 35


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Foreword

This book takes a detailed look into the creative process behindcreating the animated short, The Place Where Lost Things Go.

Going behind the scenes will reveal how the animation was takenfrom its initial story idea, to the realisation of a memorable

character and the world he lives in.

The book also uncovers some of the technical challenges facedwhen using CG animation software, from rigging characters to the

dynamic effects that supplemented the animation.

Ethan Shilling


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Synopsis

Set in a other worldly space, a lonely monk must full histask of returning lost things to the real world.

Adventures await in the rst episode of the new series, ThePlace Where Lost Things Go.


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Character Development

Having decided upon the concept of haveing a place

where lost things go, the next critical thing wasdeciding upon a character who might work there.


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The MonkThe Monk was particularly fun to design; based offthe patron saint of lost things, Saint Anthoney!

The Monk could have looked very different had it notbeen for this one quick doodle!

As you can see, the nal design hasnt strayed to farfrom the original!


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The Monk - Initial SketchesYep, they look quite scary!


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The Monk - First Paintings


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The Monk - Refinement


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The Monk - Details


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The Monk - 2D to 3DTo prepare for the modelling process, detailed prole views of the character had to bemade. The multi-coloured line drawing provided extra guidance when working out the

shape of the body how the clothes overlay the arms and legs.


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The Monk - 2D to 3DEverything has to be modelled from scratch. The body was blocked out roughly rst.

Then the clothes were tackled. The last stage was to add in the details like the teeth.


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The Monk - 2D to 3DTo the right you cansee the UV map for the

clothing. The UV map is a2D representation of the 3Dobject unwrapped.Textures can be painted onthe map to add texture tothe 3D mesh.


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The Kitten

Unlike the Monk, the design of the Kitten

didnt come so naturally.

Even the nal prole views dont representthe nal kitten exactly. One of the maindifferences being the white chest and face,which were removed because it didnt lookright on the model.


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The Kitten - ReferenceReference material played a huge part in the design process. Plenty of kitten photos(and a few well known cartoon ones) were gathered and studied to understand their

shape better.


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The Kitten - Initial Sketches


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The Kitten - Initial Sketches


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The Kitten - Refinement


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The Kitten - 2D to 3D

The kitten was modelledin a similar way to the

monk. As you can see, thekitten was blocked out in

sections and later joinedtogether. The nal stage

was to clean up the joins.


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The Kitten - 2D to 3D

The Kitten also had a UV map, although the texturemap was kept simple. Most of the texture and shading

effects you see were created with the help of avelvet shader!

While I did experiment with fur, the results were lessthat satisfactory and needed a lot of time to render.


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Story Development

The story was the key to the whole project. While I had arough idea of what I wanted, I never intended to introducea second character, let alone it being a uffy four legged

character!

Unlike many previous projects of mine, this animation was previsualised roughly in CG before any animation was rened.During this process, the edit of the lm was being tweakedconstantly; several shots had to be changed slightly due toimpracticalities of the original story board, so this was an

invaluable step.


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Storyboards


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Storyboards


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StoryboardsNot all ideas that were drawn made it to the nal cut. These boards were of scenesthat never even made it to the animatic stage.

You may notice that there is a shot of the kitten hopping into the monks sleeve on theprevious page. This was omitted due to practical reasons.


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StoryboardsThis was an alternate beginning, introducing the character differently.


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Production Process

The next stage of production involves rigging thecharacters in preparation for animation.

This is the most technically challenging stage of theprocess.


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Character RiggingRigging is a process I always pay particularattention to. What you are seeing here are the

controls around the mesh that allow the characterto be animated in 3D.The Monk has so many controls that most of themwould be hidden while animating the essentialcontrols.


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Character RiggingI wanted to keep the focus of the project as animation-centric as possible. Rather thansimulating the monks clothing, I decided I wanted to be able to animate the clothes

traditionally. This meant that the rig required extra controls. That in itself was atechnically demanding challenge!

Before posing clothes After posing clothes


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Character RiggingThe Monk required an extra level of interactivity, withthis completely custom built UI written in the MEL

scripting language. This is how I was able to manageall those controls!


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Drawings to Pre-visto Animation


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Sets and PropsThe story didnt require elaborate sets as such. The environmentwas made with the props that the character interacted with and

unlike the character, the environment designs and general feel ofthe animation were developed during production.


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Sets and PropsA combination of custom MEL scripts, Maya Hair and Maya nCloth dynamics were usedto duplicate and randomise the distribution of socks and coins. Including the randomised

assignment of shaders.


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Tools of the TradeNo monk should be without these essential tools!

Each of them had their own unique rig for animation. While the shovel was the most

basic, the mop and broom had their own special controls for manipulating their ends.


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Tools of the TradeAll the tools used a simple IK rig.

Additionally, the mop works sothat all the strands are controlledglobally by two control handlesthat can be scaled to spread thestrands, positioned and rotated.

The brush on the broom can be

controlled similarly.


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Sets and Props


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Sets and PropsMultiple versions of the texturewere made to randomise the

crates.


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Look Development

Although each scene was litindividually, they all startedwith a template setup that I

made to light the crates scene.Quite often the character was

lit separately to the environment

to achieve the best results asquickly as possible.

More effects were added in postproduction to achieve the nal

look of the lm.


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Additional EffectsNot everything could beanimated traditionally. The

puddle of ink and the candleames were created with thedynamics systems available.

While the ink splash lookssimple enough, in order tocontrol the simulation to

produce the results I wanted,several cheats were used.

For example, the particles thatform the puddle were inside avery thin invisible cylinder tostop them moving about before

impact.And an extra force eld wasused to push some particlesinto the air as the kittenleaps from the puddle.

The candle ame was a dynamicsoft body mesh. A mesh that is

controlled by particle dynamics andsprings.

The nal look of the candle wasmade with a glowing shader. The

actual mesh was hidden!


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Title DevelopmentOne of the nal parts of process was to construct a title sequence. I needed somethingsimple, but still in keeping with the style of the animation. The sequence was pre-vised

rst, and then the graphics were added in later.

l D l


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Title Development


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A Flock of Pixels

aockofpixels.blogspot.com

2012

Making

of

By Ethan Shilling

lost things making of 2012

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