No time for a break

I am now well into a period of the semester comically referred to as a break, but in actuality it's two weeks to do school work without the distraction of school. Unfortunately I'm off to a slow start.

I figured that I needed to have a clear plan otherwise I will waste more precious time, so I need to work out what needs the most attention now because it's unlikely that I would have all the animation complete at the end of next week. So onto my to do list:

• The geisha house scene.
  The geisha house has the most complex animations, there are walk cycles, odd camera angles and lots of acting from a character that has no mouth or pupils. I have already started on this by reworking a shot I wasn't happy with and I think it works better now.

• Sound design.
  With more 'free time' on my hands this gives me an opportunity to have a meeting with Matt to go over my sound design and let him know what I'm after and see what he thinks.
   
• Everything else.
  I figured I would tackle scene two next as most of the animation is there and the background is complete so this should be a relatively quick process. Scene one should be the simplest, the shots are simple and I'm pretty happy with the pencil tests so far, the only tricky bit could be the messenger's armour.

I've also added a rough soundtrack to the running comp with sound effects and music. I combined the music Nathan did with some additional music I found. This is far from the finished product and it's not even what I want it to sound like but it gives me a better idea of how it will sound with music and sound effects. Check it out.

Week 8 ends, week 9 begins

Week eight has ended, time to look back at my recent progress and take a look to the future.

First what has been achieved by week 8:

• The geisha house interior backgrounds are nearing completion.

• The scene two background has been updated, so now it's at the full 1080 pixels and I have included the exterior of the geisha house allowing a more seamless transition into scene three.

Now we look to the future:

• ANIMATION!!! I know your as excited as I am, this is when we finally see whether this production can be achieved or not.
• With the majority of the animation under my belt I'll be able to get my sound designer to work, so I better get this happening pretty quick.

Geisha House Interior Backgrounds so far

The interiors are starting to look pretty good not much left to do on them except there will be a large mural on the wall. The first shot is where the messenger and two geishas head head off to the other room.

The second shot is of the other side of the room where the ninja gets dragged off to. I wanted this to be little darker and dirtier to contrast the cleaner, warmer tones of the other side. This background still needs a little work to make it seem like the bad side.

First Draft Soundtrack

Nathan has done his first draft of the soundtrack for my animation, it still needs work but it gives me something to think about.

Collaboration Updates

Nathan has begun work on the soundtrack for my animation but with the animation in it's early stages and without me being there to run him through the animation he has had some difficulty in doing this though I'm sure he'll come up with something pretty sweet.

I have also been in contact with Matt Serpel about doing some sound design, though I'm not sure whether to combine his work with the work from Nathan or to have him as my sole sound designer or as a backup. Matt has also offered to help with sound effects which makes using him as my sole sound designer a good idea. I'll wait to see what Nathan has comes up with before I make any final decisions. I will have to sit down with Matt and look over the animation with him and work out the sound design, something I should have done with Nathan because that would be of great benefit to both of us.

It seems I will have to have the animation sorted out pretty soon, sound design is supposed to be finished in week 10 and my sound designers need to have a near completed animation to work with.

I've yet to start on Nathan's backgrounds but I have been playing colour ideas and we had a meeting about what each shot looks like, any small details of the room and anything else that was not made clear in the running comp.

Finally I have some test animation for reference of shadow rabbits and the monster for Nathan's project. I kind of like the wallpaper, I might use it for the Nathan's backgrounds.

Here it is the latest edition of the Running Comp, I meant to add it in week 5 but I was working on a whole bunch of new stuff at the time and decided to hold off on updating it till I'd finished what I was working on.

Geisha Posters

Here are posters I designed to help decorate the geisha house.

This has served as inspiration for my animation, so I thought I might as well post it here.