Animatic Update

Girl Walk Cycle

This is an image that I created just for reference in creating the girl's walk cycle. I'm looking for fairly subtle movement in everything, with the arms not swinging too much as well as the legs and feet making small strides.

Old Man - Finalized Image

Old Man Texturing (In Progress...)

Test Renders

These are just test renders with the finished textured girl placed into the scenes as they are currently lit. I just wanted to get a sense of what she currently looks like in the environment.

Woman - Finalized Image

Girl - Finalized Images

These are updated images of the girl character model in its current state. They both have Subsurface Scattering, and the definition on the arms, legs, and hands (pretty much everywhere, for that matter) is much more evident. The first image has darker shadows and is less saturated while the second image is more evenly lit. I'm probably going to go with the second image as it is closer to the saturated look that I wanted.

Here is a comparison image of the first pass over the final version:

Girl texturing (In Progress...@30% complete)

This image is an update on the progress of the girl model's texturing. Currently, it is at around 30% complete. Many thanks to Aiman Akhtar for modeling, rigging, and texturing my characters. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

I wanted the character to have vibrant colors, from the hair and eyes down to the dress. The main reason for that is because I want her to stick out from the environment as much as possible. Since the lighting is fairly dark throughout the film, except for the exterior shot, I want to make sure that she is the focal point throughout.

Hotel Lobby Scene (updated images)

I'm finished adding the massive amount of lights that this scene needs. Now, I can begin focusing on making certain tweaks to the lighting. The area around the clerk counter (between the 2 table lamps) is too dark, as is the bottom of the columns leading to the stairs. If the floor is as bright as it is, then the bottom of those columns should be brighter as well.

Speaking of the lamps, they also need to be tweaked a bit as well. The shader on them is absorbing the light way too much right now. The areas under the stairs definitely need to be brightened up. They are too dark at the moment.

The good thing is that now that I have all of the lights that I need in the scene, I can play with the scenes and make minor changes to them.

Hotel Lobby - Lighting (work in progress...)

Lighting Test - Bedroom

For the moonlight coming through the window, I primarily used a spotlight with a light fog effect. I raised the density to 2.5 and on the color of the light fog, I added a 3D volume texture. I tweaked the noise type to 'perlin noise' and played with the threshold, amplitude, and frequency to get the look that I was going for. The shadows cast from the window frame are ray trace shadows with a 'light radius' of 1.0 and 'shadow rays' set to 80. The shadows start off sharp and increasingly become softer the longer the shadow is cast.

As for the ambient light of the room, I added several volume lights to allow the rest of the room to be seen in a subtle manner.





The 2 other images above are from the same angle, the only difference being that the lamp on the second image has a shader that creates a glow coming from inside and a more subtle glow on the outside of the geometry. This helps give the illusion of the lamp shade being a translucent material and the glow of a bulb. The light itself is a point light, done in a similar fashion to those used in the hallway scene. A volume light is used to add ambient lighting to the bedside table and the bed near the lamp.

I still need to fix the shader on the base of the lamp since it is absorbing way too much light. The floor should be brighter and more visible than it is right now.

Lighting Test - Hallway (update)

I made a few changes to the spot lights used to light the hall. I changed the decay rate to 'quadratic' and increased the intensity, especially since it is recommended to use a quadratic decay rate on immediate light sources (such as a lightbulb). I think it looks better and now and not as even as it did with standard spot lights

Lighting Test Renders - Hallway

Texturing process begins

Finally, the process of texturing my scene begins. I've decided to start with the bedroom scene. I'll probably do the hotel lobby scene once this one is finished since it will probably be the most intensive area to texture out of all of my scenes. I simply didn't want to start with the most complicated scene right off the bat.

I've run into some problems already, particularly with the bed sheet and the more organic shapes and creases in it. I had to create a tri-planar projection on it to be able to cover all of the faces without causing the textures to stretch. It seems to be working pretty well so far, minus a bit of tweaking of the UV's so far.

Minor rigging issues and tweaks

I've been playing with the rigs for the past few days and I've only found a few little things to fix. The first two images are of the girl (young version). Moving and/or rotating the handles for the right hand and wrist affect the dress for some reason where it starts to go into the girl's leg. The older version of the girl doesn't seem to have that problem. The only other thing I could find is a problem with the old man rig. When I start bending him backwards and forwards, the eyes begin to slide out of place. These issues have all since been fixed.

Post-Production Schedule (Revised)

Here is my projected schedule from the middle of March 2011 until August 2011, revised due to major delays during production..

March (Late):

- Finalize Rigged Models
- Begin texturing process

April:

- Continue texturing process
- Block out camera animation
- Rough edit (playblast)

May:

- Continue adding shaders/textures
- Begin lighting process
- Begin character animation

June:

- Begin rendering process
- Continue making tweaks to shaders/lighting/texturing
- Continue character animation
- 2nd edit

July:

- Continue rendering process
- Finish character animation
- Recording sessions with composer
- Sound Mix

August:

- Finish rendering
- Final edit
- Film completed (rendering/music/sound)

Jordan Prieto Demo Reel: Spring 2011

Jordan Prieto Demo Reel: Spring 2011 from Jordan Prieto on Vimeo.