The End of the Craziness!!!!!

So, I have finally finished all the hard work! All assignments are in and after what felt like a long wait (in reality it was not that long), I have my final marks back. So, how did I do? Did I do enough and work hard enough to graduate????? YES!!!!! I am excited to announce that I am officially graduating in two days!!!! I am so over the moon that I am graduating!!!! nothing makes me feel better than knowing in just two short days, I get to walk across the stage in my cap and gown and graduate! I have had such an interesting year with many twists and turns and now I get to reap the rewards! Well, I guess this means I need to think ahead to next year, when I go back to study the Graduate Diploma of Film, but for now, I will enjoy  this time of celebration!!!!!

Kiwianna Reflection

So, I have completed my personal project - Kiwianna and I decided it was a good time to reflect on my project, how I got on with it and what I could have done differently or better. Although my project is now complete, I do feel that some things could have been done better.

Some of the shots that I had, probably could have been more interesting, for example I could have had full body shots of the characters running through the gate or walking into the gate at the old man's house or I could have had some better environments and backgrounds. The short amount of time that I gave myself to work on my project restricted what I could do with it. Also because of the time I restricted myself to, I never put the sound in my project until all of the animation was done which was a bad move because it made the sound difficult to place. There is a reason that animators animate to the sound!

The large amount of characters was a little bit huge in general because that was eight seperate characters to create, rig and animate which is time consuming. I would not get rid of any of them though because each character brings something unique and familiar into the mix. I may choose to change the colour pallet of the backgrounds a little bit to more pastel sort of colours to make the characters stand out more against the backgrounds.

If I could have done things differently I would have given myself heaps more time to do the animation and I would have definitely put the sound in first. I don't think that I would have changed much else about my animation and I did really enjoy creating this project so I guess the next question is..... what is the future of Kiwianna????

I am hoping to work on it a little bit further and put a proposal together for funding. I would like to turn this into an actual web series because I think it's important for New Zealand children to have something that is from their own country and that they can relate to, instead of all the crap that they are watching on television and online. I am interested to see what I can do with Kiwianna and what the future holds for it!

Crowd Simulation

Our last assignment for our advanced animation paper was crowd simulation. We were to create a crowd simulation using the piece of software called Massive. Unfortunately, Massive has not been working on our computers at course this semester, so we have been unable to actually use the software. However, I have managed to research three different pieces of crowd simulation software.

GOLAEM

Screenshot of Nike advertisement: Dare to be Brasilian - crowd simulation done using Golaem.

Golaem is a piece of software that can be fully integrated into Autodesk Maya. This piece of software allows the user to be able to automatically place couples and groups of virtual people. It also allows users to paint crowds on with the density of the crowd being controlled by the paint colour. If the user wishes to create a certain formation for an army or other similar crowd, then geometry shapes or creating a unique shape can be created to get the correct formation required. The parameters of the crowd can be edited at any time while still keeping any customization and connections previously completed. Golaem uses a node based editor and also allows the user to simulate explosions, attraction and repulsion forces on physicalized characters. Golaem avoids filling up hard drives and networks with duplicated data. It uses a reference character and a small simulation cache to recreate every variation which is a highly efficient method to render huge crowd simulations. Golaem offers a 30 day trial of its software. The trial includes full functional software, a 30 day free node-locked license, unlimited rendering, sample scenes, character pack reviews and e-mail support. A three month rental license for Golaem is $1980.00 USD and a permanent rental license costs $6599.00 USD. It costs $1115.00 USD for support and yearly upgrades. To get an educational license a user needs to contact the company who own Golaem.

MASSIVE

Screenshot from the film Hugo - crowd simulation done in Massive.

Massive is a simulation and visualisation software system for generating realistic crowds. It was originally developed for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. Agents can be created and can have lots of variation built into them. Massive's system is designed for running these agents and with the interaction of these agents in a crowd situation, it creates an interaction/simulation that is highly realistic. Some of the studios that use Massive are Pixar, Sony Pictures Imageworks, ImageMovers Digital, Rhythm & Hues, Digital Domain, Framestore CFC and The Mill. these studios have adopted Massive to fulfill the creative needs of their feature length films. Some of the films that Massive have been used on are World War Z, John Carter, The Lord of the Rings and Hugo. Massive offers four different products for the software. The first one is called Massive Prime and is the premium package for Massive. It costs $16000.00 USD and comes complete with the first year's upgrade and support. The second is called Massive Jet and costs $6000.00 USD including the first year's upgrade and support. The next package is called Massive for Maya and as the title may suggest, it is for integrating with Maya. This particular package costs $3500.00 USD and also includes the first year's upgrade and support. The final package that is offered is called Massive Ready to Run Agents and costs between $1500.00 USD to $2500.00 USD. This package has pre-built characters who are already rigged and have cloth simulation, textures and other animation pre-loaded so that the characters are literally just ready to run.

MIARMY

Screenshot from Miarmy website.

Miarmy is a piece of software that is a plug-in for Maya. Miarmy has a fully functional animation engine which offers easy placement of characters for crowd simulation. Many different studios use Miarmy to simulate crowds, some of these are Real Digital, IM Animation, Fantastic Motion and Axis. There over 35 feature length films that have used or are using Miarmy and a majority of them appear to be Japanese films. Miarmy offers a three month rental priced at $1950.00 USD which includes support for the rental period. A permanent license costs $2650.00 USD and also includes one year of support and upgrades. There is also an option to get a company key for Miarmy which provides one unlimited license to be able to put it on many computers. The price also includes one year of support and upgrades.

Scene created using Miarmy from Miarmy website.

Kiwi Made

I have managed to succesfully complete the animation of the characters for each shot (including lip syncing and blinks), sorting the sound effects, music and voices for the episode and also rendering it out to a complete animation!

Screenshot of title sequence for Kiwianna.

I ended up getting my daughter, Gabby and one of her friends, Taylor to voice the characters Pipi and Tuibelle. I made sure that they used their normal every day voices, so that they definitely sounded authentically "Kiwi". My voice actor for Fernell was unavailable at the last minute, so I voiced that character and Steven Moseley was the voice for Terrence (the old man). I recorded the sound with the help of one of my course mates Seth James. We recorded a few takes and then I picked the take of each character that I liked best to use. I put these pieces of dialogue into my Premiere Pro project and matched them up to the shots that they belonged with, then exported the audio sequence out just for that shot. This enabled me to import the audio into my Toonboom scene to lip sync the characters.

Once the lip syncing was complete, I added blinks to the characters which was not a huge job. I needed to get the timing right and not put too many blinks in otherwise the characters look like that is all they are doing the entire time.

I used online websites with free sound effects and SIT's sound effects library to find the effects I was looking for. Putting in the sound effects after the animation was done, gave me quite a few issues. It was very difficult trying to match the sound effects with the action and I know why we should always do the sound first - to make our lives easier!!!!! I found a cool piece of music to use for the title sequence and the credits on a free music website and then all that was left to do was make the title sequence and put some credits on the end.

Glitched out animation.

My render time for my complete animation was only a few minutes because 2D does not take anywhere near as long as 3D animation to render. Once it rendered I played it through and to my disappointment something had gone when the sound had rendered out. Pieces of dialogue were playing in the wrong place. I checked my Premiere Pro project and there was nothing there that shouldn't have been there, so in the end I deleted out the shots that were having issues and imported those shots again, put them back into the workspace and this fixed the problem. My class mates got to have a good laugh at the glitch in my animation, so watch it and you might see why!

Scenes of Kiwianna

Each shot needed to have all of the assets required for the shot to work. I made a file for each one by exporting my animatic out, which created a file that was all ready for me to use for each shot needed. I put each shot's rendered 3D background in, the characters and any assets needed for the shot and last of all I put the sky in. I picked a few different skies that were roughly the same colour, so that I could have a realistically looking sky in each shot that the sky was seen in.

Screenshot of shot 002 with characters, sky and background in Toonboom Harmony.

The gang walking to go fishing.

Old man Thompson yelling at the young ones.

The animation is the next thing that needs done, followed by the lip syncing and blinks put into the timeline. The only things left to do then are to render each shot out, edit together the first episode using Adobe Premiere Pro and putting sound effects and music into the project. I am doing the sound last because I started to run out of time, so rather than put the sound on my animatic, I decided to leave it until last. This is not the way that animations are created as animators are meant to animate to the sound rather than the other way around. I may have problems doing it this way around as I may have trouble matching the sound to the actions easily. I guess, I am going to find out one way or another!

Assets & Cells

I have made assets and cell replacements for my characters. The cell replacements are for the blink cycles and mouth shapes for lip syncing. All of the characters needed top blink to help them not to look creepy. Each character has an already completely open eye as a default, so I created a half open eye and a closed eye for each character. The blink cycles were made up from these different cells. One blink cycle starts with an open eye, changes to a half open eye, to a closed eye, back to a half open eye and ends with a fully open eye.

Screenshot of different eye stages for blink.

There are only four characters that have dialogue that I need to lip sync, so I only have to draw mouth shapes for those particular characters. When you lip sync, you have to do what is called a dope sheet. This means you need to scrub through the dialogue and work out what the major word sounds are and work out how many frames those sounds are heard over - putting this information into the dope sheet as a reference. The next step is to put each mouth shape that is required into the right frames. If you animate every single little word sound it looks as though the character is furiously moving their mouth and less like they are actually talking so only animating the major word sounds stops this from happening.

There were only a couple of assets that I needed to create. I created fishing rods, a walking stick for Terrence and a dumbell for Wendy. These were created as character props.

Screen shot of Terrence with his walking stick.

 The next things to get done are to put each shot together by putting everything required for each shot into the same file. The library system in Toonboom Harmony makes this job a whole lot easier.

Character Views

My animated characters are being created as 2D characters. As I needed them in different views, I had to draw and rig each character in these different views. By different views I mean, a side view, a front view, a front three quarter view, a back view and a back three quarter view. I also needed to create blinks for each character in each view and create different mouth shapes to be able to lip sync the characters with their dialogue. Drawing and rigging all eight characters in each view was going to take me a long time, so I decided to go through my animatic and work out what characters were seen in which particular view and then only draw and rig what was needed.

Screenshot of Pipi in different views in Toonboom Harmony.

I drew each character as a whole and coloured them accordingly. When colouring each character, I created a pallet for the particular character and named each colour as to what it was used for on the character. As I drew each character, I cut each part of the character's bodies and put them onto seperate layers. I extended the line work and colour on each part so the when the character moved there were no breaks in their limbs/bodies. Then I moved each layer's pivot point to the place where I wanted the particular body part to move, for example on the top of the lower arm where the elbow would bend is where the pivot point for that body part was placed.

Screenshot of pivot point on Pipi's shoulder.

Once the character was rigged, I made blinks and mouth shapes for it. The blinks are made by cell replacement which is when you make different pictures of each stage of the blink and then make keyframes using each blink stage to make a complete blink cycle. The mouth shapes are also made as seperate pictures and then theses cells are keyframed into the animation timeline where they are needed to complete the lip syncing of the dialogue. I also only created mouth shapes for the characters that actually spoke and needed to be lip synced.

The final stage of sorting out the characters is to put them into a character library. The library system in Toonboom has the advantage of being able to be imported into any other Toonboom scene to be used. This means that no matter who the animator is or what the scene is that these characters or any assets using the library system will be consistent (or the same) in any scene. I used the library system for all of my characters to keep the consistency of my characters the same over all the shots in my animation. The pallets that I created for each character can also be imported into any scene just like the characters can.

As soon as all the character libraries are created, then it will be time to set up each scene and start animating!

3D Backgrounds

For Kiwianna, I decided to have 3D backgrounds for all of my shots. I used Maya to model the backgrounds. I wanted all the backgrounds to have a bit of a 2D look about them. I started off by modelling Pipi's house and garage (interior and exterior), complete with fences, driveway, footpath, mailbox and lawns. I textured everything with lamberts as I was intending on using the vector renderer in Maya which has an option that you can add in outlines to give it a more cartoony, 2D look. To make this happen each piece has to be a seperate plane so that the outline will automatically put itself around the edges that you want outlined.

Pipi's house and garage modelled in Maya and textured with lamberts.

The next scene I modelled was Terrence's (the old man) house with a front white picket fence, footpath and back fence using Maya. I also textured each plane with lamberts just like the previous scene.

Terrence's house modelled and textured with lamberts in Maya.

The last thing I modelled in Maya was a scene with a road works sign, road cone and "closed for maintenance" sign that are blocking a pathway. These were all textured just like the previous two scenes.

Road works, road cone and "closed for maintenance" sign modelled and textured with lamberts in Maya.

I modelled each scene and textured them all in the same way. Then I moved the camera to the appropriate place in scene to match the shot that I had drawn into my storyboards/animatic. Once I had the correct composition, I rendered the scene using Maya Vector renderer. Maya Vector render only uses point lights for lighting anything in the scene. Also if the ambience of the lamberts was a darker shade, it would show up as a dark shaded colour in the render. I had to change some of the ambience settings on some of the lamberts to make them show in the render, especially the darker colours. I also had to put point lights in to help lighten up parts of the scene. Once the scene was the way I wanted it, I saved each render as a targa and then imported these scenes into the correct Toon Boom Harmony scenes.

The next thing to do is to put the correct characters into each scene and position them into the right place in the appropriate background/scene. 

Kiwianimatic

For my personal project, I have decided to make the first episode for the web series. I decided to make this episode about meeting the characters and briefly getting to know each character's personality. The first thing I needed to get done was to write the script for the episode. I re-wrote the  script approximately 5 times because I was unhappy with the way the story read. I felt there was too much dialogue and not enough action to start off with and then after one re-write I had too much action and nearly no dialogue. It took me five times of re-writing the script to get it to the place I finally wanted it. I drew the storyboards and then put them into an animatic to try and get the timing right and to see if the script needed tweaking. Animatics are also created to see how the story works visually.

                                                                      Kiwianna episode one animatic.

After putting together the animatic, I had the timing of each shot sorted out. I was able to tweak the story dialogue and action to make the episode make sense and to get everything across to the audience that I wanted to. I was a little bit behind when I made this animatic so it didn't have any sound on it which an animatic is meant to have so that you are able to animate to the sound rather than putting the sound on last. The next step in this project is to draw all the characters, rig them and add cell replacements for mouth shapes, emotions and blinks.                           

Rotoscoping - Reteroscerpering

The animators have been busy working on the post production of Bones of Essimer. It has been edited down into a trailer because there was heaps of CG to composite into the whole cinematic. We have been compositing all the CG elements into each shot which involves keying the green screen out, camera tracking, sky replacements, compositing 3D buildings and background scenery into each shot, lighting the CG to match the live action footage, putting in atmospherics like dust and smoke and rotoscoping. Each animator was given a specific job to get done on each shot, so we worked like a chain and the piece of compositing software that we have been using is NukeX 8.0.

I was given the job of rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is when you use the rotoscoping tool to make a mat to take stuff out that does not need to be in the scene or that needs to be moved in the scene. After you have put your mat around the object, you have to go through the shot frame by frame to move the roto mat if need be. I rotoscoped nearly every shot and fixed the rotscoping in the two shots that somebody else did. I also removed all of the tracking markers in the shots that had tracking markers in them using the rotoscope tool. Rotoscoping is not difficvult but is a very time consuming job.

Screenshot of one of the Bones of Essimer shots.

I have also been working on the concept art book for Bones of Essimer. However, it has been put on hold for the last couple of weeks, while I have been working on my personal project. I will be getting back to working on this next week. The cover page and the first few pages are complete and look really slick. I can not wait to finish this and share the finished product with everyone!

Bones of Essimer has been a really interesting experience and this project made me realise that I want a career as a Producer. I intend on going back to SIT next year to study the Graduate Diploma of Film to upskill and gain experience on the film side. This also means that I will be participating in the collaborative film and animation project again next year. I look forward to working with a different group of people with new ideas and challenges. 

In the Producer's Corner

I have decided that I would like to take my career down the path to become a Producer. So, I have produced a few things this semester.

SIT TELEVISION COMMERCIALS

The first thing that I helped to produce, was a series of three television commercials that promoted three different courses offered at SIT - Bachelor of Digital Media, Bachelor of Audio Production and Bachelor of Applied Media Arts. I was resposible for working out the budget and being in charge of the spending of the money, helping to gain permission for filming locations, working out logistics, helping to source things needed for filming and just the general organisation of everything. Adam Browne (another third year Bachelor of Digital Media student) was the Director for these television commercials and he bought me in on this project. I enjoyed the experience of producing these television commercials.

HIRED

Hired is a comedic short film about two hit men that are given an assignment to kill a man who is responsible for stealing a mob boss's prized pet - his cat. Unfortunately, it all goes wrong and they end up shooting the cat as well as the person who stole the cat. After a meeting with a very unhappy mob boss, the pair decide that they will not be bullied by him and decide to turn the tables on the mob boss.

This short film was created by Vincent Bowes-Onions who is a third year Bachelor of Digital Media student but he is majoring in film. He asked me if I could help to produce this film with only a small amount of time to go before he started shooting. I sorted out locations for his film as well as organising the crew to arrive on time and the logistics of the film.

One of the locations was a park called Seaward Bush, which I had to get permission to use from the local Parks and Reserves office. I also had to notify the police (national and local) that we would be filming with fake/replica guns in case somebody from the public thought that they were real guns and called the police. If the police are called with a complaint and nobody is aware that it is actually a film set, then the armed offenders squad are dispatched to the location. If this happens and the police find out that it was only a film, then the police end up very angry with us. We managed to film in this location with no mishaps.

 Crew and cast filming at Seaward Bush, Invercargill.

We also filmed at Marco's Cafe on Tay Street in Invercargill, at SIT and at Vincent's house. There were some shots filmed that require visual effects done to them including some shots on the greenscreen that will require the backgrounds composited into the shots.

This shoot had a few hurdles and hiccups along the way, including two actors pulling out on the day and the day before they were required for filming. This caused some headaches but I was able to solve this by finding replacement actors at late notice. It was definitely a hard film shoot but filming was completed and it was definitely a learning curve for me as a Producer.

TIME LOST EMPIRES

Title made for television series - Artist: Bex Stanley.

I had a one day rest before the next film shoot was due to start. Steven Moseley, a Graduate Diploma in Film student, has created an idea for a television series called Time Lost Empires. It is a fantasy, victorian esk, steam punkish style series. Steven decided to make the first episode as his end of year personal project.

Amaranthine is a city protected by a time wall that the guardian Epoch erected to keep his people safe while thousands died, around the rest of the world. A catastrophic event has happened and all the magic that kept the world united harmoniously, has been shattered and has changed the world as it was known. The world is filled with magic and secrets. There are some people in this world that have magical powers or "gifts" as they are more fondly known as. Princess Aranna has a "gift" and has been kidnapped from Amaranthine. Unless she can be saved, Amaranthine may fall to the chaos that has consumed the rest of the world.

Concept art of King Leodrick - Artist: Bex Stanley.

This project required me to find and gain permission for filming locations, contacting crew and cast for meetings and rehearsals. I helped Steven with his casting auditions as well as helping to get costumes sorted for cast members. I spent every day on set helping where ever I was required which included preparing food for catering, being a runner and just an all round extra set of hands. We had a location drop out on us at the last minute but I was succesfully able to find another location.

Even though we managed to film most of this project, there are still a few shots left for Steven to film. Unfortunately. he will be pushing it for time, as everybody else is filming now and we are nearing the end of the academic year. I also will be unable to be on set for these last shots as I have to focus solely on my own project.

STILL IS THE NIGHT

Still frame from the short film "Still Is The Night".

"Still Is The Night" is a short film about three young men that live in a town similar to Invercargill. This town is not going forward and is stuck in a time warp as it has been struck down by the economic depression that is currently happening. It is almost a ghost town and the people there never progress and just get stuck there with no hope of getting out. The three young men, decide to rob the local petrol station as they seem to think this will be their ticket to bigger and better things. Unfortunately, the robbery goes terribly wrong when one of the men shoots the petrol attendant.

Adam Joseph Browne is the Director of "Still is The Night". I have worked on three different projects this year with Adam as the Director. Late last semester, Adam and I applied for funding for this film from the New Zealand Film Commission. We applied for the short film funding called the Fresh30 fund which gives the succesful applicants $30,000. It was an ambitious amount to apply for on our first attempt but we tried and unfortunately were unsucesful.

We decided we would make the film in spite of not getting the funding. Adam wrote this film and asked me if I would like to produce it. We have been organising and talking about his film for quite a few months now, so out of all three student projects that I produced, this one was by far the best organised, the easiest and the least stressful project to work on.

Adam and I started scouting locations and asking for permission for filming about two months before his shoot commencement date. The week leading up to the film shoot, both Adam and I were on set helping steven with Time Lost Empires but we managed to do the last few things that needed to be sorted which to be honest was not very much and took approximately an hour all together to get done.

On this shoot, Adam kept me off set, so that I could get some work done on my own personal project. I only spent one day on shoot and in actual fact it was a night shoot that started at 3pm and finished at 11pm. This was the night that we had to film the robbery scene in the petrol station. Tramway road Motors was the petrol station that we used in the robbery scene. It is in a residential area and because we were using fake weapons that looked real, I had to notify the police, so that the armed offenders squad was not sent to our location. Adam asked me to be there for this shoot, as the police had my contact details if they needed to speak to somebody about what we were doing. The police came once (mainly to be nosey) and this was because a resident called and said there was a huge light set up, someone taking photos and young people suspiciously moving road cones around at the petrol station. This shoot went off without a hitch or a bad incident involving the armed offenders squad.

Actor Taylor Barrett inside car - still frame taken from "Still Is The Night".

The next step for "Still Is The Night" after all the post production work is completed on it, is that Adam and I would like to send it to as many film festivals as we can. We will be working on this after our academic year is completed.

I have discovered after producing all of these projects that not one project is the same and each project comes with its own set of problems, twists and turns. A lot of the work a Producer does (aside from budgets, logistics, permissions and sourcing) is problem solving and on your feet problem solving at that. Some people think that I am crazy for loving producing and I don't know why I love it, I just do! I can't wait to get out into the industry and be doing it all the time!

Kiwianna

This semester we have been working on our own personal projects. I have decided to create my own animated web series. The web series that I am developing will be intended for New Zealand children from the ages of 9 - 12 years old and will contain 100% "kiwi" content. A majority of children's cartoon and television series shown in New Zealand, come from America and everything about them screams out America. New Zealand children need more exposure to things that are iconically kiwi including cartoons and television shows. I am creating a web series because viewing things online is fast becoming the way that everybody views videos, their favourite television shows and even films. Viewing these things online, means that the viewer is able to have control over when and where they can watch these videos, shows and films.

Kiwianna logo design

Kiwianna is not only the name of this web series but is also the name of the town that the series is based in. Kiwianna is an average sized town where there is little opportunity for young people to progress and there is also not many good activities for young people to participate in and so once you have done each activity in Kiwianna that is all there is to do.

The characters are humanoid New Zealand native birds and animals. They have no human attributes though. Their legs have been extended to make them walk upright like a human and their wings have been lengthened to make them work like arms, hands and fingers. The characters have been influenced by the character designs of Mordecai and Rigby from Regular Show.

 Mordecai and Rigby from Regular Show

The style of this web series will be having 2D animated characters with black outlines and solid block colours on 3D backgrounds that have a neutral colour pallet to make the characters stand out against them. The influences of the style of this web series are Regular Show and The Amazing World of Gumball. These two cartoon series have 2D animal characters that are humanoid without having actual human attributes. Both series also use neutral backgrounds that make the characters stand out against the backgrounds.

The Amazing World of Gumball

Hey Arnold!

The cartoon series Hey Arnold! has influenced the story. Hey Arnold! is a cartoon series that follows Arnold and a bunch of his teenage friends. It follows their ups and downs and all the issues that this group of teenagers come across. Just like Hey Arnold!, Kiwianna will follow a group of teenagers and watch how they deal with every day problems as well as introducing each character. Pipi Potaka and Tuibelle Turner are the main characters and are best friends. Each episode will follow both of these girls as they deal with new problems and will also let the audience meet Pipi and Tuibelle's friends.

KIWIANNA CHARACTERS

PIPI POTAKA

Pipi is a 16 year old only child who was bought up by her Mother. She is a well read and intelligent girl. Her Mother is a cleaner at the local primary school and they are a lower class family but Pipi's Mother always sacrifices everything and provides Pipi with everything she needs. Pipi appreciates everything she is given and every opportunity that arises for her and never takes anything for granted.

Pipi is well liked by all of her peers, although she has a couple of enemies that are jealous of her intelligence. She is kind and caring and always tries to help people in need. She tends to help too many people at once which usually ends with Pipi having an overload. She has a terrible temper when things have built up on her and everybody is a target when her temper rears it's ugly head.

Pipi's best friend is Tuibelle Turner. They have been best friends for years and years and they compliment each other nicely. The two girls are more like sisters than friends and they integrate into each other's home/family lives seamlessly.

TUIBELLE TURNER

Tuibelle is a 16 year old girl who lives with her Mother and Father in an upper class family. Tuibelle's older brother is studying engineering at university. Tuibelle's parents are very supportive of everything she does. She is Pipi's best friend and the pair are inseparable.

Tuibelle is a beautiful girl with an amazing singing voice. Everybody wants to be as beautiful and talented as her. Tuibelle is very competitive at times and does not always take rejection well. She can also come across as too sure of herself sometimes which can make her rub up people the wrong way.

WENDY WATSON

Wendy is 15 years old and is highly competitive. She is the sporty, athlete of this group of teenagers. Her competitiveness comes from her Mother who is a big time lawyer in Kiwianna. Wendy’s competitive streak can make her come across as aggressive and nasty. Her friends refer to this as beast mode and some people dislike Wendy purely because of this behaviour.

FERNELL FOSTER

Fernell is 16 years old and is a very spoilt girl. Her parents are very wealthy and give in to her every whim. She is left to her own devices a majority of the time as her parents are always away running their company. Fernell is a social butterfly and is constantly on her cell phone text messaging, calling and using social media. She is an awesome social events organiser and her parties are the best to be invited to attend. Unfortunately, this is all Fernell is good at and she is not very liked by anyone because she has little tolerance for people and is very bossy and bitchy. Her friends just tolerate her because it’s not worth getting on the wrong side of her.

KARL KAKARIKI

Karl is a 15 year old boy who has had a little bit of a rough upbringing. He has two younger siblings that his Mother spends most of her time dealing with, so Karl is the forgotten child. He is a clown and makes people laugh. He has the best intentions but tends to get himself in a little bit of trouble from time to time. He has a problem with stealing and will sometimes just steal something because he can. This makes Karl not trustworthy but his friends and people that don’t judge him for the trouble he has been in, find him to be a likeable rogue.

KEVIN KAWAI

Kevin is 16 years old and comes from a rugby crazy family. He is the youngest of four boys. Kevin might look like the stereotypical rugby player but his secret passion is flower arranging. His Mother is a florist and because he is the youngest, he spent a lot of time helping his Mother out in her floristry because he was too small to do bloke stuff with his Father and brothers. Kevin is not the normal boisterous rough and tumble sort of rugby bloke but instead is very caring, quiet and sensitive. He is constantly taken advantage of by people because of his kind, caring nature and he really needs to learn to stand up for himself every once in a while.

METUA MORRISON

Metua is a little older than the other teenagers in the group and is 17 years old. He is an orphan as his parents died when he was just a baby. He has no othe natural family and has been bounced from one foster home to the next. Metua has been living in his current foster home for the last four years which is the longest home he has had. He is wickedly talented at drawing, painting and just art in general. Metua is very pessimistic and spends most of his time depressed. Whenever it looks as though something positive is about to happen for him, Metua sabotages any chance of a positive outcome happening.

TERRENCE THOMPSON

Mr. Thompson is a 76 year old man who has seen many historical events happen in his lifetime. His wife passed away approximately 12 years ago which turned him into a grumpy and bitter old man. He dislikes everybody and especially young people. Even when the young people are nice to him, he cannot tolerate or find a way to like them at all.














The web series will consist of six episodes that run for no longer than three minutes each. I have come up with a plan for all six episodes and an idea or theme that each one is about. In the first series/season, the episodes will introduce each character and will show in depth, each character's personality. The very first episode will be the one that I am making this semester and it will introduce all of the character's briefly, so that the audience can get a rough odea of each character's personality.

TREATMENT

EPISODE ONE

Pipi and Tuibelle are best friends. They are both unique and completely different from
each other but they have a few similarities which is what compliments their relationship. They hang out with a group of teenagers who come from all different walks of life. There is Kevin the rugby player, Wendy the competitive athlete, Fernell the party and drama queen, Metua the quiet artistic orphan and Karl the likeable, delinquent rogue. Then there’s old Mr. Thompson, the grumpy old man who sits on the doorstep constantly yelling and waving his walking stick at the group of friends.

Pipi and her friends are bored and hanging out in Pipi’s garage. They decide that they are going to go fishing but unfortunately, the path that leads to the river is being upgraded and the only way to get to the river is through old man Thompson’s back yard and he does not like people in general, especially not teenagers! The group devise a cunning plan to try and make it through Mr. Thompson’s property undetected while the old man is asleep on his porch in his rocking chair. After many close calls, with a ringing cell phone and fishing gear being dropped, the friends make it through to the old river gate at the back of Mr. Thompson’s property. As Karl fumbles with the latch on the gate, it makes a huge screeching noise which wakes Mr. Thompson. The old man instantly springs to action and walks as fast as he can towards the back fence. Karl panics at the sight of the old man advancing and accidentally latches the gate with his t-shirt stuck in it. Karl is trying to run and can not pull his t-shirt out. All of the friends rush to his aid and pull him with all their might and just as the grumpy old manreaches out to grab Karl, the t-shirt rips and the friends go hurtling to the ground. They all jump up off the ground and start running away down the riverbank with the angry cries of Mr. Thompson getting further and further away.

While the group are running, Pipi reminds the friends that they have to go back home
that way and all the teenagers grimace as they continue running down the bank.

EPISODE TWO

Pipi and Tuibelle team up to sell chocolate bars for their school fundraiser. The student or student’s who sell the most bars get a prize. The girls decide to work together and go halves in the prize. Wendy finds out what the girls are up to and due to her competitive nature, teams up with Fernell and challenges the pair to their own personal chocolate selling competition. The four girls go to war in a chocolate bar selling frenzy. They sabotage each other and come up with creative ways to sell the
bars. This competition makes the girls dislike each other and when it comes to a close, both sides believe that they have done way better than the other. Unfortunately, somebody else entirely, wins the prize for selling twice as much chocolate as all four girls put together. The girls are shocked and stunned but are also forced to apologise to each other and make a mends.

EPISODE THREE

Pipi and Tuibelle go on a mission to help Karl stop stealing and to try and find a way to cheer Metua up. Karl’s stealing is out of control and the two girls work with him to find ways to manage the urge to steal. Meanwhile, Metua is so down and out that the girls decide to find different ways to try and cheer him up. There is a small glimmer of hope that Metua will cheer up and he shows signs of this until something reminds him about his dead parents and they are back to square one. As for Karl, he ends up being accused of stealing old man Thompson’s New Zealand flag from his porch. The
girls have to help Karl clear his name and find out who the real culprit is as well as stop Karl from re-offending. Just when they think they have reached a break through with Karl, he has gone back to his old ways.

EPISODE FOUR

The group of teenagers have had enough of old man Thompson and his constant
yelling and disapproving of everything they do, so they decide to reap revenge on the old timer. They prank Mr. Thompson by covering his entire yard and house in toilet paper. To their surprise Mr. Thompson breaks down in tears when he sees the destruction they have caused. The teenagers start to feel sorry for the old man and approach him to apologise. After speaking to Mr. Thompson, they decide that he isn’t such a bad old guy after all and that he is just misunderstood. The teenagers offer to clean up the mess. They clean it and the old man is very thankful but when the group try to talk to the old man the next day, he is just the same as he has always been –grumpy and sour towards them. It seems the teens just cannot win when it comes to grumpy old Mr. Thompson.

EPISODE FIVE

Pipi and Tuibelle head out to go down to the local skate park. They are chatting about school and life in general when suddenly something grabs Pipi’s attention and before the girls realise, they are reminiscing about how they first met and became friends. They take a trip down memory lane to find out what made them like each other and what caused them to meet.

EPISODE SIX

Pipi and Tuibelle try keeping Kevin’s secret after they accidentally stumble across it. Somebody else also finds out and tells everybody and Kevin automatically accuses Pipi and Tuibelle search for the big mouth and once they find out all the details, Kevin apologises and life in Kiwianna goes back to normal for all the characters once again.

INTENDED OUTCOMES

I would like to get this web series funded first and foremost. I will be putting a proposal together and applying for some funding to make this web series and get it off the ground. The other intended outcome for this web series is for it to become a transmedia product.

The web series has the potential to have more seasons than just the first one. The seasons that follow would expand on the themes of being a teenager living in a small town and the angst and awkwardness that teenagers face in their daily lives.

A social media following will be built up using Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram. YouTube and Vimeo will also be used to showcase behind the scenes footage and interviews with the characters in short skits while the next episode is in production to help keep the audience and fan base captivated and interested.

Merchandising is also an option once the fan base has been built up. Once Kiwianna has a strong following and there is much interest in the series, the merchandising can slowly expand as the fan base expands. T-shirts, coffee mugs, stickers, posters and stationery will be amongst the merchandise that will be available for fans to purchase.

Eventually the series could be made into a feature film and the story could expand further on the daily lives of the characters of Kiwianna and the problems faced by New Zealand teenagers all over the nation 

Bones of Essimer

Bones of Essimer is still in post production. The animation team have been busy modelling and texturing 3D assets and backgrounds. Buildings, market stalls and an epic bone ship have been created. There is a lot of work that has gone into this project so far and there is still much more to go. The next step is to start compositing all these assets and the live action footage together for each shot. Then any atmospherics and colour corrections will be done and the final sound put with it and the cinematic will be done. Even though this sounds like it will be simple, it will not and there is a lot of work to be done.

I have been helping to sort out the final figures for the budget, to make sure that everybody is paid back for any contributions that they made to the project and also trying to sort through all the concept art and behind the scenes photos to create a Bones of Essimer art book. There are hundreds and hundreds of behind the scenes photos to sort through and there are so many good ones that it os hard to choose which ones to put in and which ones don't really need to go in. The book needs to be beautiful as it is one of our Pledge Me rewards. The other Pledge Me rewards are also currently being worked on as they need to be sent out to all of our awesome pledgers.

Our tutors are taking some of the Bones of Essimer concept art, behind the scenes photos and props to Armageddon in Auckland over labour weekend to promote Physical Realm Studio and Bones of Essimer. They will also be promoting SIT and many of the other art students that belong to SIT.

Bones of Essimer has been a really interesting project with lots of twists and turns so far and with so much more to do and so little time left, it will be interesting to see what the outcome of this entire project will end up being.

Fire and Water Simulation

In advanced animation, we have been learning fire and water simulation. These simulations have been really fun to learn but also very tricky at times.

We used FumeFX which is a plug-in for Maya, we started to learn 3D fire and smoke simulation. First off all we learned how to set up a FumeFX node and how to simulate smoke. We created a FumeFX node and created a source. Then we experimented with the different parameters to change the physical attributes of the smoke like the colour, density and the direction. We also experimented with the FumeFX box by changing the parameters of the x, y and z axes of the box. We made it boundless and changed the different sizes of each axis. We created a second source for smoke and aimed the two sources to each other to see what effect the simulation would create. I coloured the smoke from each source a different colour and then played the simulation through to see how the smoke from one source would react with the smoke from the source of the other.

Screen shot of experiment of smoke interacting from two sources

The next thing that we learned was how to use primitive 3D shapes to interact with the smoke created by a source. The smoke would react accordingly to the shape depending on what kind of 3D shape it was. We also learned that we were able to use deformers to manipulate the smoke, just as we had been able to use them in the Maya cloth simulations that we had previously created. We started work on the fire parameters at this stage and started to change these to give the desired look we required for our fire. I experimented by increasing and decreasing the fuel, expansion and turbulence parameters as well as changing the parameters of the FumeFX box by making it boundless on different axes.

Screen shot of interactive smoke with a 3D primitive

We also learned how to simulate using two different nodes by making one FumeFX node and setting it up to be the master grid and to use for N-sim. Then we created a second node and re-sized it to fit in with the first node and making sure that they overlapped. We then set the second node up so that it could be used for N-sim as well. This made the fire go through the first box and then carry on going through the second box.

For our final simulation, we were required to create an explosion that turned into a fire and set the surrounding area on fire using all of the skills and parameters that we had learned from all of our previous experiments.

For my final fire simulation, I used FumeFX in Maya and I decided to have a small explosion happen in a steel drum that would spit a few hot embers out onto the ground and burn on the ground as well as in the drum itself. I started by modelling the steel drum and giving my scene a ground plane. Next, I created a FumeFX node and placed the drum over it. I turned the ground plane and the steel drum into collide objects and changed the expansion, smoke density and fuel parameters to make the fire in the drum simulate how I wanted it to simulate. I set the expansion to 3.5 because this created the sort of small fire that I required as it stayed confined to the inside of the steel drum that I had modelled because with the expansion set at 4, the fire still appeared on the outside of the steel drum.

Screen shot of fire in steel drum

The next thing I did was to create a second node, so that I could attach a particle system to it, to try and get the look of embers being spat out of the steel drum. I then created a particle emitter and at the same time I put a gravity field and a volume axis on and made sure that they were all connected to the particles. I created a particle source from the FumeFX dropdown menu to connect the FumeFX node to the particle system. Once this was done, I played the simulation through to see how the particles were reacting. I ended up with way too many particles spewing out of the drum and had to decrease the amount of particles coming out per second. I also had to key frame the particles per second so that the particles did not start coming out of the steel drum until the fire had reached the particles. The magnitude attribute had to be key framed as well, so that the particles would go up in the air but would fall back down to the ground. This was done in the gravity field attributes.

Screen shot of particles without steel drum

Screen shot of particles in steel drum

Getting the timing right between the two different nodes took a little bit of tweaking and experimenting. Once that was done, the next thing to sort out was the bounce of the particles once they hit the ground plane after being spat out of the steel drum. I decided that I would just let the particles fall through the ground plane as this would make it look like the embers were hitting the ground and extinguishing. I had to composite the steel drum over the top of my particles as it looked see through in the final render and I also made a background for the drum using VUE which I also composited into my simulation.

Unfortunately, in my final simulation, I didn't quite get the timing right and the particles started to simulate before the fire reached the top of the drum, so it looks like a fire ball is forming and then spitting out embers.

Final Fire Simulation

The next simulation that we learned was water/fluid simulation. For this, we used Next Limit Technologies RealFlow. We also learned the water simulation in Maya as well as how to use RealFlow in conjunction with Maya. 

The first thing that was done was to navigate the interface and learn exactly what RealFlow could do. RealFlow consists of three major systems which are hybrido, realwave and the particle system. Hybrido can be used for large water simulations such as tsunamis, floods and big monsters moving through water. Realwave can be used for creating oceans and ocean surfaces and the particle system can be used for anything particle based such as creating simulations like the KFC Krushers advertisements where fruit and liquids collide with each other. All three of these systems can be used together in one simulation.
Daemons in RealFlow are similar to the parameters in Maya. This menu is where parameters such as gravity and volume can be chosen and the attributes changed to the needs of the project. The renderer in RealFlow is called the Maxwell renderer and the parameters for the renderer can also be changed to suit the needs of the project. After changes have been made in a simulation in RealFlow, the whole thing must be re-simulated in order to change the way in which the simulation reacts.

Realwave was the first thing that was used to experiment with in RealFlow. A flat plane was made and a fractal was put onto it. Once this was simulated it created quite a flat ocean with a little movement in it. More than one fractal can be put on at a time and the attributes can be changed to make the ocean’s waves and movements bigger. Next a sphere was made and turned into an active rigid body. This was to simulate a ball floating in the ocean. The attributes of the sphere were edited to change the friction, mass and other attributes that affected the way that the water reacted with the sphere. Particles were used to help make a splash effect when the ball hit the ocean surface. An emitter was created where the particles were needed. Next the k. volume or kill volume box from the Daemons menu was selected to help control the splash. This meant that any particles that hit the edge of the box would die. Last, the particles were made into a mesh by selecting the mesh menu and choosing the particle mesh legacy option. Then “Insert all emitters” was selected and then the build mesh option. At this stage RealFlow builds the mesh of the particles and the simulation does not need to be re-simulated after this. The mesh can have its attributes edited and building mesh helps the particles to show up in any renders.

RealFlow can be used together with Maya. RealFlow simulations can be imported into Maya once they have been simulated. In Maya, the Rfrk3 and RealFlow plug-ins need to be loaded for RealFlow simulations to be able to work in Maya. The Maya files must be saved in the same files as RealFlow. RealFlow objects and oceans/realwave systems can be imported into Maya as well as realFlow particle systems. The textures from RealFlow are not transferrable though and the hypershade in Maya can be used to texture the particle meshes.

The next experiment was using two emitters and a polygon to simulate something similar to the KFC Krusher advertisement. The two emitters were positioned so that the particles could hit each other and a polygon was thrown in the mix to react with all the particles. The attributes of the polygon where edited and the attributes of the particle meshes were also edited to create the desired look for the simulation.
Hybrido was the next thing that was used. An open top cube was created as the tank that hybrido fills up. The hybrido menu was selected and an emitter was chosen and the open top cube selected. Gravity was put on to stop the fluid from flying out of the required area. This was simulated and the tank filled up. The hybrido mesh needed to be used to create a mesh for this particular system.


The last experiment that was done was to model a low polygon model in Maya and import it into RealFlow to create a fluid simulation. Once the desired simulation was created with the low polygon model, the simulation was then exported out of RealFlow and imported into Maya. Once in Maya, the simulation/particles were to be textured in Maya and rendered with the high polygon version of the model.

The brief for the final water simulation was to create a river that flowed down a waterfall into a pool of water or lake at the bottom of the waterfall. The first thing that was done was a low polygon model of the river, waterfall and lake/pool was created in Maya. An opened top rectangular tray was modelled for the river and then a NURBS curve was drawn to make the shape of the waterfall. The NURBS curve was extruded from to create a slide-like polygon that would become the waterfall. A sphere was modelled at the bottom of this slide and the top half of the sphere was deleted to create the pool/lake. Low polygon rocks were modelled in the river and down the waterfall, so the water would have something to interact with as it travelled along. The last thing that needed to be made was a plane that could be turned into the pool/lake’s surface. This was modelled into the same shape as the pool/lake by selecting the make polygon tool and drawing along the edge of the pool/lake to create a flate plane in the same shape as the pool/lake.

The model was then exported out of Maya and imported into RealFlow. This meant that the water simulation could be created so that it would follow the model to become a river, waterfall and then a pool/lake. Once the model was in RealFlow, the first thing that was done was a fractal was put onto the ocean plane to become the ocean surface or in this case the pool/lake surface. Next, a circle emitter was created and placed at the start of the river. It was simulated to see how the water would react.


At 200 frames, the water did not even get half way down the waterfall. The speed was turned up and the number of particles were turned up and re-simulated. This caused too many particles to be created too fast and there were lots of particles flowing over the sides of the model. Another problem was that some of the particles were just flying off the end of the waterfall and were not actually going down it. A kill volume box selected from the daemons menu was placed over the river area to kill any particles that were overflowing. The particles speed was turned down and then re-simulated.

This solved the problems of the particles overflowing and the water flying off the end of the waterfall but the particles were not following the direction of the waterfall properly. A drag force box was put in at the start of the waterfall to slow the particles down. The drag force was started off low and then re-simulated. There was not enough drag force to make the water follow the waterfall, so the drag force was set very high and then the simulation was reset and re-simulated. This created too much drag force, so it was lowered bit by bit until the particles took the desired path. Once the simulation was done the particles were selected and the mesh was built.


The next thing that was done was the low polygon model was modelled into a high polygon model. More polygons were added to make the model smooth. It was scaled up to prepare it for Mudbox and so were the rocks. Then the model and the rocks were UV unwrapped and taken into Mudbox for texturing and painting. When the model looked the way it was visually required to look, it was exported and imported back into Maya. The water simulation was exported out of RealFlow and imported back into Maya. The mesh of the particles was selected and textured using the hypershade in mentalray. MIA material was selected and using the presets, the thick glass material was chosen to make the particle mesh look like water. The same material was put onto the realwave plane but was made a little darker than the river and waterfall texture. The physical sun was used in Maya for lighting and the attributes were edited to give the desired time of day. A camera was put in and animated to show the river, waterfall and the pool.

Screen shot of render view from Maya of river

Screen shot of render view from Maya of top of the waterfall

 Screen shot of render view from Maya of front of waterfall

My final simulation rendered out terribly as the camera in Maya corrupted. What I was shown in my render view (above), was not how the simulation rendered at all but I have added my final water simulation even though it is very difficult to see.

Final Water Simulation

The final simulation that we are learning is crowd simulation and we will be looking at Massive for this particular simulation. Not too much longer to go and we will be at the end of our advanced animation paper.