Major: Lost Boy - Present Graeme - New Toon Lines

I have been playing around with my scenes to try and make them look like the final renders which previously contained the new AI Toon for Arnold but as these only show up in the renders and not playblasts it wasn't feasible as I need my post-viz for hand in to look as much like the final film as possible. In the rendering tab there is a toon section that I applied an outline to Present Graeme from which shows in the viewport and when I playblast, I Simply converted the toon lines to polygons in the same section to see if they would show up in a render and they do! I think it looks so much nicer and sketchier which correlates nicely to my concept art and I like that is slightly offset and imperfect. I will be using this instead of the AI toon as I don't like how perfect the AI toon looks and it's also annoying that the lines get thicker when the camera is further away - I will be applying this method to all characters and certain objects throughout the film especially in the Art Room instead of having to make alpha channels around boxes - I'll keep the ones that are done but will be adding more with this method. Because the toon lines are polygons there is a lot of options to manipulate with which I think can add some nice impact to anxious elements.

New Toon Line

New Toon Line with Line Extend Cranked Up

Previous AI Toon

Major: Lost Boy Post-Viz - Animation Progress #1 Scene 1 - Shot 1

Now the fun starts! I am throughly enjoying animating :D Some refinements can be made, I should start to get into the flow more with animating and get quicker, I followed the attached tutorial below to help with the lip sync as I find it kind of difficult to do it definitely can be improved but the video thought me a valuable lesson that I never thought of before - sound is delayed so the face shapes start before the actual sound happens. 

Lost Boy Scene 1 Shot 1 from Graeme Daly on Vimeo.

Major: Lost Boy - Present Graeme Rig Demo

Present Graeme Rig Demo from Graeme Daly on Vimeo.
Present Graeme Expressions from Graeme Daly on Vimeo.

Major: Lost Boy - Present Graeme - Rigged

Present Graeme is now fully rigged and ready to make shapes! I am going to do a full rig demo tomorrow.

Major: Lost Boy - The Art Room - Newly Lit Renders

Thanks to Alan for helping me out with learning about lighting the Art Room looks much more punchy now, I added area lights in and around the blobby paint like forms and bric a brac to make them pop out with a soft shadow underneath to ground them.

Render 1

Render 2

 Render 3

 Render 4

Major: Lost Boy - Young Graeme - Facial Expressions

Young Graeme is now near completion. The lighting turned out better with these renders, his teeth are a tad too white I think though as I used Light Linking/Breaking to show his teeth but not have the light affect the other parts of the face, I need to dial it down a bit.

 Expression Sheet 1

Expression Sheet 2

 Neutral Expression

 Scared Expression

 Shocked Expression

 Wide Smile

 Smile

Smirk

Major: Lost Boy - Mrs Pratt - Facial Expressions

Mrs Pratt's facial rig is near completion. I am not completely satisfied with her facial expressions yet - as she has no eyebrows and such an odd mouth I think the majority of her emotion comes from her eyes, I really like the way the sad emotion looks as I added in a blend shape which works nicely with the blink controls to get the sad emotion across, I will return to Mrs Pratt to add more blend shapes for the eyelids such as a wide eye look to add more emotion to her. I really enjoyed modelling her teeth I wanted her teeth to add character so I added a dead tooth which I think is comical. 

Expressions

Sad Expression

Teeth Close Up

Major: Lost Boy - Present Graeme - Expressions

I have completed the tongue, gums and teeth for Present Graeme, these renders don't have the toon shader overlaid on top of them I am having issues with them rendering. These expressions took some time as his teeth and gums did not fit his Blend Shapes correctly - I had to go in and edit his blend shapes but I am happy that I did this as I was not content with his expressions, I moved the blend shape next to the keyed control of the corresponding face and with having the edit turned on in the shapes window it allowed me to see what the edit to the blend shape was doing to the control for that face shape so it made it so much easier to correct. I nearly have the teeth and tongue done for Mrs Pratt and Young Graeme, I don't have a lot left to finish off all characters but I am going to finish off Present Graeme completely and then return to Mrs Pratt and Young Graeme down the line, I want to start animating and because the majority of the film is with Present Graeme I think it makes sense to animate as soon as he is done which will be soon :)

Left showing the Blend shape being edited and Right showing its effect Present Graeme Expressions from Graeme Daly on Vimeo.

Major: Lost Boy - Mrs Pratt - Hair Rigged

I have rigged the hair for Mrs Pratt and Present Graeme, I will return to rig young Graeme's hair as he has so many layers I am not sure what is the best way to attack this especially as one scene shows him flying up out of the closet with his art result turning into a helicopter rotor - it would be nice to have his hair ruffle to the wind.

Major: Lost Boy - Present Graeme - Hair Rigged