The best laid schemes of mice and men......

As the title suggests, my animation schedule has not gone to plan. But this is not time for panic, I still have over a week to go and over half the animation complete my main hurdle has been technology; as I sat down to work on Saturday morning I opened up Photoshop only to be informed that my licence has expired or not working or something stupid, so I used this as an excuse to upgrade to CS6. Except CS6 is having some issue or another with my computer so onto CS4! With all this stupid running around to have working software I have lost two precious days of work.

All this pain aside the running comp has been updated with several new shots. Most of these shots still need a few minor tweaks.


I really wish computers could feel fear and pain, then I wouldn't have so many problems.

Week 10 is over, time for another Progress Report

Wow week 10 is over, now only 4 weeks to go. I told myself I would gauge how worried I should by the amount of work I have accomplished by week 10, so lets see:

The following shots have been finished save for the colouring and the odd frame or two added or taken where necessary. I also have the backgrounds completed for all of those shots, these are being added to the running comp as we speak.

• The messenger riding towards camera through the valley on horse
• The messenger entering the geisha house and being greeted by the host
• The ninja trying convince the messenger that he's a geisha
• The POV shot the ninja running into and trying to escape from the big guy
• The ninja being dragged off by the big guy

I am currently working on the shot of the messenger walking away with the geisha's. So far I'm happy with the walk cycle of the messenger but not so much with the geisha's but I've got the movement worked out so I know what I'm doing.

The other shots for the geisha house include some new stuff where the ninja will make one last attempt to kill the messenger with a blow pipe, this will be the next shot I work on as it will be the longest shot left in the geisha house.

As for my sound design; the current sound on the running comp will be tweaked but will remain as a placeholder for the sound design assessment. It's not perfect and not what it will sound like in the end but it is too early for completed sound design so my current sound will be used as reference for timing.

I've sat down with Matt and we've worked out what instruments are to be used and at what point and what the mood of each shot is. I'm feeling pretty confident that the music for this will rock.

So should I be worried? I don't think I should panic just yet, but there is no time to relax anything could happen. With the flood of unnecessary distractions that plagued this production a few weeks ago now gone it should be easier to focus on the animation that and this stage is far more enjoyable.

So the plan now is get the third scene finished by the end of next week and start work on the second scene.

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.