Mary Mary....

Mary Mary THEFINAL from Brandi Parish on Vimeo.

What I'm up to...

Friday....
--have pretty background for final scene--may need tweaking once I see it with everything
--figured out how to subdivide everything...that took forever....
--Textured tree
--have flowers glow a little--i want daff to be more blue--fix that
--bells pop more--need to do slight texture on base
--finalized first 100 frames worth of animation...right...



Tomorrow's goal
--get over half of animation finalized
--fix shree
--fix flower textures and Mary textures.
--get lighting for first opening shot (further away, need dif lighting)
--get lighting for ending shot (at least rough)
--specular eyes..

My List of Doom

My to do List!!!


LIGHT and TEXTURES
--Darken second step edge
--Put ramp color for background--may change to painted scene if time
--Glowy flowers to make them pop
--fix edge of path to grass--too dark!
--finish making certain lights only for certain objects...still need to make a light for just Mary!
--specular mary's eyes
--make freckles on mary's face more apparent--still too light!
--check grass bump--giving weird line(not too vital--I think it might show for only a second in one shot)
--still need to add a bit of texture to tree (only briefly in two scenes--and from far away, so doesn't need to be super detailed)


--Still need to do lighting for last scene...mainly it deals with silhouettes and rims, so shouldn't be as difficult as dealing with shadow placement
--Paint last scene--shouldn't take too long =)
--make shree's glow to make em pop from background



Animation
--I still want to go back and fix Mary picking up the shree---DO THIS EXTREMELY SOON! LIKE NEXT! Then I can go ahead and render out ambient occlusion pass if animation isn't going to change
--also--its better, but still need to tweak Shree's blendshape where he grabs flower--still intercepting geometry--again, if gonna do it, do it soon!


Music
....yah...listen to the game "The Path" music--I like the cheerful, yet sometimes creepy quality--interjecting words and music--thinking of recording myself saying the rhyme, then messing with it a whole lot and finding some simple tune and overlaying the two--maybe even combining my made up rhyme...
--I want shree's screech to be musical in quality--like the violin screaming sounding.

Lighting and Textures!

ROUGH lighting

---shree to have a little longer shadow.
--Figure out how to exclude objects from behing lit! then I'll do ambient light to mimic bounced color
--Need to add rim lights!
--mary's arm needs more shadow cast on the throne.
--start experimenting with changing shadow colors



Not lighting stuff:
--finish adding textures...I have them ready, just not added ^^;;
--fix ground--not showing as much color as I want.
--make steps a slightly diff color then throne--to make throne pop more.

2nd attempt at daylight..and not some snow looking scene....

Garden References

"Balloon Farm"

This is actually the favorite of the two images--with the warm colors really accentuated. There are better examples in the book itself >< but I could only find this image online, and don't actually own the book myself...

Lighting Key

For the first several scenes I want a bright and cheery outdoorsy lighting, making it seem like midday




Once Mary starts noticing the shrees around her, and especially in that final close up to this shot, I want a very dramatic lighting change, with yellow and marry in silhouette.

color images test

Test color

Animation!

Mary mary from Brandi Parish on Vimeo.

***Things I need to change***
(based on class critic and personal observation =p)

--More secondary movement of hair.
--last shot....move particle emmitor up so Shrees aren't magically appearing...

--Fix Dress! The front and back parts collide sometimes.
--Fix Mary picking up the shree--still doesn't look quite right.
--Fix neck in second to last shot--i think the bottom part is slightly twisted
--Rework background--somethings are giving errors and causing it to take longer to render.

Animatic

Zombie Mary

I have most of Mary's emotions panned out now--she probably won't use this particular one, but its nice to know I can get a pretty wide range of emotions from what I have so far.

Environment...

Still needs refinement--The tree needs more "noise" in it, especially since I'm going with more detail with the flowers in the rest of the scene.

Balancing the scene looking "sparce" to "cluttered"...still working on that as well.

12 Principles of Animation

Monsters INC: Pigtails--changes of emotion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMc0on4kWI&feature=related

Alice and Wonderland: Flowers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0lbfEb8MMk&feature=PlayList&p=BF2687092EB80527&index=0&playnext=

Clone Wars: light sabers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJvd5ap2FR0

Howls Moving Castle: falling stars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTRe5AXTZx8&feature=related

Revised story

Because I am never quite clear--the new revised story is very similiar to the one planned out, minus the cat and the bell. Instead, the flower itself is this little creature which begins to eat a nearby flower, to show that he is garden eater pretty much. Mary in the end picks him up with a little half smile, showing she is more amused then scared by this little creature.

HOWEVER

Shadows begin to fall across Mary, as do other red flowers...her expression turns quickly to fear as she looks in the air to see hundreds and hundreds of these little buggers heading her way....oh the poor gal.

I am pretty sure this can fit all into 30 seconds--its just figuring out what sequence of cuts will work best to convey the story, as well as how to position that final moment of a swarm of red flowers heading her way. A silhouette shot of her and the flowers? A point of view shot? I figure I will have to try out both to figure out which one will work best to the dramatic and visually appealing factor.

"Mistress Mary best be wary

of how her garden fairs

with sticks on bells and plaster shells

and mad things in the air..."

Turn Tables Galore!

I am revising my storyboard...it will be posted soon! I think I might need to get rid of my cat to make it work *tear*, but its for the best.

Story Board!

Story board: Mary Mary....

I had a lot of fun trying to work out the details of this--now the trick is fitting it in 30 seconds...

First Impressions

Story thus far...

The story begins with a long shot of a garden, where a girl is sleeping on a throne like structure at the end of a long path. A flower (in a bright red or yellow--some color and shape differing it from the flowers in the actual garden) floats pass the camera, and we follow it to where it rests on the path.

There is a pause, just long enough to build a little tension, when suddenly a silver bell located above Mary's thrown begins to ring. Mary leaps to her feet in surprise, brandishing the watering can she was holding like a weapon and looking left to right. The cat on the other hand lazily stretches to his feet and rubs against her ankes.

The bells are still ringing and she looks from them with her hands over her ears in disgust (close up shot), and the camera zooms out to the flower on the path.

Close up of her rolling her eyes, then a mid lower shot of her jumping of the pedistal as the cat watches, flicking his tail.

She picks up the object and here, depending on my time constraints...either sticks it in her pocket/throws it over the fence/ or walkes it over to a hole in the wall labeled "Incinerator" which glows red from below when she drops it in.

Again, based on my time, I'd like to have the camera slowly zoom out, showing more flowers flying forward, and the bells begin to ring right as the credits appear.



The Characters:

Sam (short for Samantha) isn't too particularly fond of her job in watching over the garden, but the position was open and the only requirement was to either be named, or be willing to be called, Mary.

The cat (haven't thought of a name yet) is another guardian of the garden, and his job is to keep any small creatures with the munchies for vegetation away.

Mary Mary

I decided to do Mary Mary Quite Contrary as my nursery rhyme.

The last line has many different versions, but I've decided to retain its most common itteration :D This way I can have my character be not the actually "Mary" in the verse, but instead have Mary be this all power being that is over looking her garden from above, and have one of the "maidens" in charge of caring for the garden.....

Mary mary quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And little maidens all in a row

I liked this image of Mary that I found--I see it as a little loney, or aloof. I also like this idea of a path cutting through the center of the garden that Mary walks to and from.

from: http://www.rhymes.org.uk/
mary_mary_quite_contrary.htm

I also like the idea of stylizing the characters in some way--right now the idea is of angular joints and round faces, and doing something similiar with the plants.

by: Gris Grimly