1242

No, not a year of historical note, that's how many frames my lil project has. 57 seconds. 24 frames a second. and it'll grow with intro and finishing stuff..
Hm, this is kinda big after all...

[ assuming 5 minutes to render each frame, that's 4.31 DAYS to render]
It'll probably be less, I tell myself...

Input from the Vetran

Trisha was nice enough to look at my sketched board for the puppy. Her advice and comments included such gems as:
-More props means many more hours modeling.
-You can keep it relatively realistic or you can go way beyond reality to cartoon land. Half way doesn't really work.
-Need logical believable reasons for things to happen (like puppy falling off trampoline
-Keep it Short!! Keep it Simple!!
-Good story makes a model seem so much more and a video work.
- Good model doesn't make good story.

I am currently leaning toward developing what I've got and keeping it simple that way. The ideas scrawled on the chalk board involve more props to build and going further from reality.

So, work on Opening sequence.
Split up flash file and have real timing instead of just doing 1 frame per second.
Look at ways the trampoline can end it.
Figure out how to end it.

Some ref pics

[Edit, added more pictures]








Some of the many corgi pictures i found today. They really do have a weird body shape...
I have a 'negative space' image of just the outline, but Blogger decided to stop uploading so I can't show it.
Anyway, Need to keep working on the tactics, figure out which ones I want to use by like next week so I can board em nicely and try the timing.

puppy ideas

New tactic/shot:
Don't show piling of things, just show puppy on top of pile (which wobbles) streaching and almost getting the cake before falling.

For the long jump, have slow motion shot in the air, with puppy perspective as the cake floats closer, then at the last moment puppy cam tilts down, then edit out to seeing puppy impacting on the fridge front. (credit: Bridget)

Generally I've got 2 ok and 1 good ideas; need more ideas. if I have 2 weeks to model, 3 weeks to rig (including learning to rig), then I just have 5 weeks in the term to story board... and I've used 2 of them up.
Also need to skin and light...

so here's some more brainstorming

Ok, what else can the dog do?
How else would a person do it?
Grappling hook
Stilts
Flap ears
Glider
Catapult
Slingshot
Cannon


How to make Trampoline funnier: zoom in for the almost, fly above, hit celinng. or
Series of shots just of cake, puppy nearly there, puppy too far away. One bounce or severeal?

Climbing suction foot thingys

Puppy pole vault

Ninja wire harness

Magic (spells chants, bag of stuff)

Use just mouth or paws too?

Combine boxes with trampoline

Plant instant ivy, let grow, climb, slip, tangled, stuck, sigh.

Comic transformation of puppy or keep realistic? (same as paws question.)

Like cannon idea…

Here's is the extended sketch out of ideas, with a leetle work on the first three and 2 new sections. Storyboarding went really slow at first; tried too hard to use the image research I've been doing to make realistic puppy. would be much better and faster without.
I'm tempted to take these storyboards a step closer to real animation with the frames and timings, don't know if the time spent is worth it...

Sketching Out

I hesitate to call this story boarding, but I guess that's what it is. The fun part about doing flash, other than the onion skinning and auto straighten-line bits, is you can make little movies!

Project proposaL:

0. A working title for your project
Hungry Puppy
1. Project goals (personal? professional? exploratory?)
Continue learning about maya in its near-infinite facets. Modeling the puppy, rigging the puppy, animating the puppy, getting a reasonable skin for the puppy.
Out putting a video. Storyboarding a video. Lighting. Sound?? Big if.
2. A project description.
(PreProduction planning for) A short (1min) video of an 3d animated puppy getting a cake from the top of a fridge in humorous ways.
3. Specific products of study or deliverables that you will be creating for your project.
A 1 minute movie clip (dare I say ‘demo reel?’), and a rigged puppy for future possible use.
4. Visual and/or written research for your project. Stuff done by other people.
Reference photos of kitchens, dogs, cakes, trampolines and other props used. Find a good soundtrack?
5. Treatment visuals for your project. This is stuff done by you. This can consist of links, a bibliography, images, etc.
Paper or electronic storyboard sketches of puppy ‘cake getting tactics,’ reference photos and sketches of puppy design, kitchen design, props design. Lighting reference photos. Maybe animation timing and movement reference clips
6. A written description of specific technical and research issues you will need to address during the course of your project.
Modeling for this kind of output (less low-poly than game). Rigging this model. Animating this model (sitting in on Miles class is key here…). Skinning this model. Lighting. Post processing, whatever that is…. ☺
7. A timeline of your project. When you will be doing all of this good stuff. You must include specific DEADLINES (for example: "January 27th", not "some time in January."
This I’m really not sure on. I’m feeling conservative and saying Pre production this term, and moving into modeling and setting up the scene next term, with finishing the term after that. So.
• Storyboard out the ideas I’ve got and come up with more by next Thursday April 16th.
• Next find puppy references and get a solid character sketch, for use in modeling, done by Thursday April 23rd.
• Meanwhile Ref pics of kitchen and props needed for tactics. Kitchen and prop sketches by the following Monday April 27th.
• (Continue sketching tactic ideas all this time of course).
• Maybe make hand wavy video for timing references. I have no idea how long that would take so I’ll say may 21st, the last critique day.
• This far out I’m not sure. Begin modeling the puppy.

The proverbial oops...

Yeah, of course I've done lots on my project since last week. We only present tomorrow. (no, I haven't put anything down on paper or done much thinking)
Well thinking "I should work on that" doesn't cont. Working at home with distractions doesn't help, or rather doesn't work, period. Even if the damm home and end keys work there and not here.
Ok, I did do some brain storming talk about the project with my muse girlfriend Bridget.
Puppy type: droopy ears, beagle (though I like basset hounds too). or pointy up-right ears like a Irish corgi.

puppy tactic: trampoline. potentials of puppy hanging from cake by jaws going "now what?" or flying up past cake too high going 'crap.'

I really need to storyboard sketch this stuff.

but first drafting out the statements.

Hungry Puppy

For my art 450 project, I am going to steal the idea my girlfriend suggested, a hungry puppy trying to get a cake off the top of a referidgerator.
Here is my brainstorming for the story or the shots:

Puppy jumping up to try to get at cake.
Opening. Pan up fridge to cake.
Rotate around cake to see puppy down below.
Cut to camera behind puppy, seeing back of puppy’s head and cake on top of fridge.
Cutie to puppies face drooling.
Cut to cake.
Cut to puppy trying things below, with an edit each time.
Tries:
• Standing jump
• Run and jump
• Stack and build something, tips over and falls
Cut to puppy laying, panting, and giving up.
Cut to puppy staring at the problem, seeing counter or alternate way (camera zooms to show audience what puppy is thinking).
?? cut to puppy having dawn of idea?? (need set up blackout ending…)

Black out,
Fade up on puppy laying after eating all cake.
the end.

The really fun part is I would like to do this in Maya. I'm thinking it's about a minute of video, give or take.
So this term may be taken up with pre production stuff, like learning then building a rigged dog of suitable cuteness, skinning him... making the room... yeah. I'll try to list it all out later.