Soundtrack is a mix of Ludovico’s Einadi Una Matina album, metallic foodsteps and a beep. All downloaded from youtube.
Edited in Audacity.
I also have a rough animatic with edited story board.
To make it happen I created a rough time chart to get a bettter understanding of how my story will progress.
As for 2D parts, I figured a way to animate faster by creating images in photoshop with background layer empty and then do the animation in After Effects.
So during the modelling process I realised that my turn around sheets were REALLY innacurate. So some pieces had to be a compromise between front and back.
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In the end I am pretty glad the way it turned out (rendered image). Although I am not sure how to preview through renderer with preview mode on.
Ship model
For ship model I used a reference picture which I found during my research.
At first I thought texturing everything by hand as in cutting UV maps, transporting them to photoshop and back to maya, but texturing ship didn’t turn out so well.
UV maps
I did manage to texture character.
But somewhere in the middle of texturing process I decided that maybe it would be faster if I would just make a texture and apply it. Here are the textures which I had in mind.
But it turned out awful. So then I thought that maybe I should download a texture file from internet.
It turned out even worse.
In the end I chose to use blin texture with green shade. As in lighting setting you can’t really determine what colour the ship is.
Before drawing anything first I did a reseach of what kind of environement I would like it to have.
Ideally I would want it to be something like this
And here is my try of fox’s house
But then again, maybe it’s too big for a fox. Maybe I should try to get something like this:
As for the kitchen, here are more ideas:
So for me the place is more like has a feeling that it’s been abandoned after calamity and then the fox moved in.
But here is my sketch of kitchen layout:
It has to be very tiny and limited. Also the table has to face the window which is facing chicken’s yard, because when fox throws his tooth I imagine him throwing it behind him as it’s like an annoying object.
Now that I think further I also am thinking of taking references from a movie called Lilya 4 ever. It’s about sex traffic in mostly Russia or Eastern European countries. But besides that I remember it had some really depressing accomodation.
City mapping
With Maya I have created a basic setup for kitchen from architectural layout I made before to ease my days for story boarding.
I like the creepiness of the fox, but I am not very pleased with the way a chicken turned out. Also, as a combination it doesn’t really work. The fox is too tall and chicken is too tiny. In addition, they just don’t give the feeling of Mooch and Maurice. So I decided to redraw both of them.
For chicken I had to use totally different shape of body. As well I got rid of the neck, since chickens don’t really have a visible mammal neck.
I liked the idea of diamond shape dominating in overall piece.
My second try was a success.
You can see how diamonds are the base of almost everything.
While composing sounds I realised that my story idea was once again too long. So I had to shorten it. Instead of grandmother’s slippers in fact it’s going to be the main character.
At the end there still has to be a creaking sound of opening a window and vocals enhancing the nature experience.
More sound production.
Main features:
Full soundtrack
Cleaner sounds
Vocals
Effects on vocals and birds
Keyboard designed to play bird sounds
Colour pallet for nature
Main character design and gray colour scheme concept:
and a cat design ideas:
After rethinking my idea, I decided to remodel my cat design.
it had to be more simplistic and round as it’s fluffy. After choosing favourite one I did a turn around.
I think that this style fits better with girl’s character.
Also a rough layout of the room.
Boiling water reference:
Steam test:
This test made me have a better understanding of how steam works
Background for boiling and steam sequence.
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A tiny piece of water boiling and pouring sequence completely done. Unfortunately, I didn’t save tv paint project, so it’s gone and I won’t be able to edit it in better quality than what it is. So I guess I will just piece this together to following animation.
Background for walking sequence. Done in photoshop.
Draft of walking sequence. Panelling down the foot movement was quite hard as character also has kind of twist in order to be able to sit.
Animation progress: majority of backgrounds:
Somehow it seems that background’s quality in some places seems to become really bad. I will try to fix that maybe by putting it up in an editing program.
DMU Animation studies 