Todays Animation...

Ok after he dusts himself off. The narrator AKA Grigsby bellows " Wow, What a beatutiful woodland... and your grizzly bear suit!" . This is the point when bare bear notices the change in outfit whilst dusting himself. It was hard to achieve the bare bears moment of realisation with his back to camera, as I had no expressions to play with. I had to make the point of discovery exaggerated and shocked, a step back, lean, and arm extend.

The next pose was THE CLASSIC BARE BEAR POSE. He swivels on the spot to face the audience and to examine his tail. I am really really happy with this part of the animation, as I achieved lots of follow through with ears, arms and head resulting in a very much toy doll resemblence.

After this initial shock and examination he soon begins to enjoy this new suit, and converts to a pose which was much more difficult. I have always had a vision of bare bear examining while bent over with his head between his legs, in an almost playful way. I have wanted this pose in my woodland animation since day 1. Well I can safely say, I pulled it off today. The rig desperately refused to let me to create the pose. Also with such a big head, and small body, its almost impossible to bend him right over without his legs taking off and wierd shit occuring. In the end I managed it, by resorting to extra body and spine handles dave gave me ages ago, which I had previosuly dismissed saying "Naahhhhh Baz I won't need them". I did. So yeah, I got him in position, and it worked out great. The arms need more work, and the head needs to be slightly lifted out of the ground.

I then attempted a tail waggle, and hip wiggle, but that part needs loads more work, as I did it at the end of the day quickly. Below is all the animation I did today....

Ok. After I attempted the quick tail waggle, I thought he could maybe do a little dance when Grigsby says "You look great!". Alec and Phil HATE the idea. But. I'm quite fond of it. I'm not sure really whether it suits his character but I tested it anyway. The arms and head have not been animated, its simply the body rotation lol. Let me know what you think guys, if enough people like it, I'll keep it! Watch at the end . . . . .

After about 50 different tumble endings - this is the one!

Attempt 1:

I don't have a video of my first attempt as I have recently saved over the Maya file, but essentially it ended up with bare bear landing upside down on his head. He then waved to and fro for a couple of seconds and then collapsed backwards. The problem was a) he would never in a million years just stop instantly on his head after taking the first to extravagant bounces. b) the rig was messed up and rotated and so glitches occured upside down. c) the collapse backwards left him in a nasty finsihing position, far away from camera and with his back to us and sideways on with the cupboard. I scrapped it.

Attempt 2:

Back Flip....

AWFUL! Alec is to blame for this insane idea. Totally out of character, and lame ass animation done in 2 mins.

Attempt 3:

An extra roll without momentum...

Definately getting there with an extra roll. However as my good friend Yaniv pointed out - it needed more momentum at the end. You would never stop rolling instantly. It lacked follow through, especially for a rag doll toy.

Attempt 4:

Previous action but with the added momentum. I also have animated the following actions after this final roll. The stand up, and dust off...

Animation finally begins...

Tumble entrance blocked out today....



Needs alot of refining and secondary animation but the key poses are down, and its roughly timed out. Had a few issues with the rig and closet doors which set me back the whole morning. I really wanted to capture the rag doll effect as he tumbled out. The idea is that he has just escaped the raging blizzard in the arctic and so all the wind and stuff force him to burst through into the woods scene.
Team moral was low today though, as we all forgot how to animate - coompletely! God I hope we improve over the next week or my dreams of how this thing will look are out the window. Cmon guys!

Updated scene & colour corrections

The original renders straight out of maya - and then the PS edited versions. The difference is incredible, and proves just how effective post production can be. I will alter the final woodland footage in after effects to achieve this look...

Textured Cupboard

Today Phil brought in the amazing cupboard model. It was someones job to texture the thing, so while Alec and Dave were busy with their scenes and rigging I made a start with the aid of phil. it was fairly simple to be honest. I planar mapped each side of the cupboard, aswell as the doors. I then applied a panelled wood texture found off the net. I had to make various adjustments to the brightness, colour and contrast of the texture as the physical sun and light messes everything up. I then added lighter brush marks and patches of moss in PS to add to get rid of the photographic effect and consistancy of the original photo. I also created a bump map for the planks to enhance the gaps between each. This was a simple case of creating a black and white version of the file. Below is a screen grab of the cupboard in the Arctic environment after we finished texturing it, and the relevent texture files....

Getting there slowlyyy....

Todays work - Mushrooms textured, trees textured (need to adjust planar slightly), rocks added and test textured, glow sorted, log textured, depth of field added (post), and everything sorted out a lil bit more. Sik.

So y'all can see the scene layout....

Texture I made for tree...

Forest Progress

Ahhhhh, nowhere near where I want it yet, but here's todays progress. Played about with lighting, backgrounds, and a few textures.... aswell as continuing to model of course.

Inspirational pics and research from todays sess....

Initial Woodland Designs

Note: Concept method is completely inspired by Philly B's PS style - simply because I tried my own and it was TERRIBLE!!! so "cred" given.

It's only my rough first design but hopefully it gives the guys an idea of the sort of scale and shot I am thinking... needs developing slightly. I plan on using Alecs 3 plane distance method with a log silhoutte central in mid plane. 2 foreground trunks either side give the shot a nice composition and as for the distant trees I am planning on using an image plane with mist etc.

Research

Below are images which helped me gain an idea of the type of things I'm after in my shot...

Guys please read....

Ok guys, i'm quitting. No I'm joking - sorry alec.

Ok I've been doing alot of thinking and with the way things are at the moment Dave has pretty much finished the dump 70%, all it needs are several objects. Phil you've got the arctic and the suited bear animation in your scene. Alec you have you have modelled your china scene and will have your animation in your scene. What I'm basically saying is as far as my showreel goes and for fairness I would like to model my own scene to animate in, as at the moment all I will have is the bear I modelled, animated naked in an environement which lets face it, is Daves. I dont really think thats enough for my showreel, as you guys can all put scenes up that are entirely yours. I think Dave can finish the dump by himself and claim it as his, whether it's after rigging or before hand. Any extra objects needed we can all chip in with, downlaod or borrow. So I now have nothing to do till animation as Alec will be texturing the bear.

So I have decided I would like to model a really simple but nice woodland floor scene. The cupboard can land at the end and he can come out in the brown suit - as a grizzly bear, and he will enjoy it smile etc. and that will tie up the whole film anyway, rather than leave it after the arctic. I know I'm capable of modelling and texturing the scene before the riggings finsished ( week max). I will keep it simple, like bottom of trunks, mushrooms, log, etc. All this leaves is someone to animate in the Dump scene, and I think Dave , you should give it a stab mate, as its your environment. Any early finishers can help out. So 4 scenes, split evenly - safe.

Your all probably screaming NAHHHHHHHH at the screen but I'm about to start concepts now for the woods, and start modelling monday. We have bare time! The character was finished way earlier than expected. Even if we dont get my scene finished by ROA we got the 2 weeks after anyway for bak up.

Unclothed bear progress

Not too good... needs alot of work