Fault Effect(TM) WIP

[Scazzino]

As I enter the final stages of the production here's an initial rough-cut story reel for Fault Effect(TM). Please keep in mind that this is just a hybrid rough-cut/story reel, so there is still quite a bit to be done and some of the animation is just placeholder stuff (particularly the character animation) till I get around to those shots. The timing of some shots will also be reduced as I'm rendering extra frames to have enough room to make adjustments during editing. There is no audio yet.

C&C welcome as always.



This WIP thread is a continuation from my earlier WIP & finished threads from previous phases of this project.

0090: 3D Character for Animated Series (Finished)
0090: 3D Character for Animated Series WIP
Instance Generator Lattice WIP
Generic Autiton Units WIP
Characters for 3D Animated Web Series Pilot (Finished)
Butterfly Effect WIP
Instance Generator Effects WIP

[3d4me]

Looking great...

I like it much better with the opposing steps.

[Scazzino]

Thanks 3d4me!

Yes. When I got to the other end of the corridor, they needed to go right and left out the exit in an alternating manner. So I figured I could have even-odd units go right-left and I offset the even-odd units by one step. This helped introduce a bit more interest to the marching column while still being able to keep them all as exact clones. Killed 2 birds with one stone... or rather 30 Autiton clones...

[Scazzino]

And here's the static storyboard with the shot breakdown.

[tobian]

That's quite enchanting actually, I am really looking forward to it!

Obviously there's a lot of blocking in there for the main character, but I got the general gist of it. Some of your pre-autons seemed to be sliding a little as they walked, especially as you got close to the foot on the 'looking up' shot.

Is that the whole short, or is this just the opening shots? It's looking good and I might suggest you fiddle with some of it using some grading closer to the final time, to get a more punchy look to it. Not sure what exactly, but you know what I mean, just fiddle about with it

[aurora]

Absolutely love'n it. Might I suggest adding in a little more play between the defect and the non-defect guys in addition to the butterfly? I'm thinking it would help push his unique and self aware personality.

[Scazzino]

That's quite enchanting actually, I am really looking forward to it!

Obviously there's a lot of blocking in there for the main character, but I got the general gist of it. Some of your pre-autons seemed to be sliding a little as they walked, especially as you got close to the foot on the 'looking up' shot.

Is that the whole short, or is this just the opening shots? It's looking good and I might suggest you fiddle with some of it using some grading closer to the final time, to get a more punchy look to it. Not sure what exactly, but you know what I mean, just fiddle about with it

Thanks Tobian!

Yes, much of the "animation" is just place holder stuff and not really animated yet.

There is a slight shift in the Autiton's feet. I may tighten that up but that closeup of the feet (and some of the other shots) will actually be much shorter. I rendered many of the shots out as 5 second clips just to give me enough to work with but will most likely trim them down, some to just 1, 2 or 3 seconds for a quicker overall flow. So that shift may not really show up much. After finishing many of the other shots I may tighten that one up a bit more if I have extra time though.

It'll be about 3 minutes which will be the entire pilot webisode dealing with 0090's origin. Each webisode will be about 3 minutes (about the length of a typical song or music video). I'm approaching each webisode as if it were one scene from a larger film. Each webisode will build upon those that came before to move the overall story forward. In the future if time and resources permit I may extend the format for longer lengths of 5 minutes or more.

I'm rendering everything out to HDR EXR files using EXRTrader and comping in Shake where I'm adjusting the final coloring and lighting exposure. I'll be playing with that more in the next few passes.

[Scazzino]

Absolutely love'n it. Might I suggest adding in a little more play between the defect and the non-defect guys in addition to the butterfly? I'm thinking it would help push his unique and self aware personality.

Thanks Tim!

I'll see if I can play that up a bit more as I actually animate 0090's shots. Future webisodes will also further elaborate on how 0090's different than the other Autitons.

[tobian]

Ahh ok makes sense, I thought it might be something like that.. cool! You can start dealing with the wonderful world of HDR colour space and linear gamma - just experimenting myself with it - and it hurts my head!

[RObert_Lavigne]

Really great stuff. Excellent story idea, and so far it's being pulled off brilliantly. Sure there's lot of work to go but it gives a great view of what it's going to be. Can't really say anything negative about it at this time. Keep the updates coming.

[Scazzino]

Ahh ok makes sense, I thought it might be something like that.. cool! You can start dealing with the wonderful world of HDR colour space and linear gamma - just experimenting myself with it - and it hurts my head!

I've been using HDR renders for a while actually, when needed. All it really means is the render is using floating point numbers for each pixel value rather than only integers with 256 specific values. That way you can drastically push the values around in post processing using something like Shake. So you can get your lighting close, without trying to totally nail it in the actual render because you can make very substantial adjustments later in post. The rough cut went through a quick post-process in Shake where I boosted the contrast and adjusted exposure for different areas of the scene.

I think of it like taking a photograph. If you take a photo in bright sunlight you need a certain fstop value, but if you take one in shadow you need a different fstop. With an HDR render it retains all the data for both the bright and low areas in the scene. Then I can adjust the fstop later in post depending upon which area of the scene I'm interested in, or even adjust both the bright and low areas. It's just much more flexible.

HDR can also be used for multiple layered passes or buffers that are comped in post. That's most useful if you really need to tweak the death out of something, such as working with an art director or client that will want lots of changes. I don't really need that level of flexibility on this short so I'm not using multi-pass layers. I'm just using an alpha and depth buffer along with the color. I use the depth buffer to push the DOF further than the in-camera DOF and also to smooth out the in-camera DOF. That way I don't need to render to massive AA or MB passes and can let it be grainy since the post DOF will smooth it out.

[Scazzino]

Really great stuff. Excellent story idea, and so far it's being pulled off brilliantly. Sure there's lot of work to go but it gives a great view of what it's going to be. Can't really say anything negative about it at this time. Keep the updates coming.

Thanks Robert!

Will do!

[Browncoat]

Fantastic work, very good story idea

[Scazzino]

Fantastic work, very good story idea

Thanks Browncoat!

As an animator coming from illustration I strive to develop stories that can be told mostly visually without needing much dialog.

[Scazzino]

Here are a couple of rough animation motion tests for shot S19 which is the first time that the main character 0090 comes stumbling out of the instance generator, quite dizzy. The first is a motion test of the low-poly proxy character I'm using to work on the basic movement. The second is an OpenGL animation preview of the same motions loaded onto the real character hierarchy. I'm using a hybrid IK Booster / standard IK rig with IK Booster controlling everything except the feet, which are using standard goal based IK. I'm also using Morph Mixer for the facial animation. I've tossed the shot on the farm for a full render test as I move on to rough out shot S20, 0090's first closeup shot.