Fairies and Friends, the DS Origins Trailer. Approved for small children.

Despite the humungous mess this year has turned out to be, I somehow managed to pull out an animation for the Flicks, and thus something I was able to hand in.For all the things that have gone wrong this year, I at least have that, even if it amounted to nothing more than a trailer for Dreamspace Origins, rather than a short animation of the story itself.
I suppose that is an achievement, however. And while most of the trailer followed the storyboard, some scenes were changed - probably most notably the scene where the fairyfly flies right up to the fairyfox, Tarri. In the storyboard, the fairyfly files into the den, where it wakes him up, before he follows... although in the time period I had, I did not have the time to create a new setting, and since it was already going to be a trailer, I thought I could do it a bit differently, using a set I had already put together, which saved on time.


Dreamspace / Origins: Trailer

Alright, so the animation is now more of a trailer representing characters and elements which take place later in the Dreamspace series. Dreamspace itself is made up of a number of segments, the first being Dreamspace / Splash.
From there, following those events (or to be more precise, continues after the events of Splash never happened, where the story continues four years prior in a changed timeline), with the title Dreamspace / Realms, or Dreamspace / Worlds... I have yet to decide on a name. After, it follows directly with the working title Dreamspace / Timelock, and then Dreamspace / Requiem.
Dreamspace / Origins follows after that, which explains the beginning of the entire series, before leading on to the titles mentioned above, ultimately coming home and ending where it started, hence the caption in the trailer "Where the story begins is where it all ends."

So. The trailer advertises the world of fairies - every creature living here is a fairy, in many different shapes and sizes, from firefly-like fairies, to bird fairies, deer fairies, fox fairies, pretty much any creature is a fairy.
What makes them fairies is locked in the fact, besides that they live in a world inhabited by fairies where everyone is a fairy, but the aspect of life which I have attributed to fairies - that glowing ball of light which can appear above the creatures head, or around any other part of their body from a focal point, is life energy in it's purest form.
It is a peaceful world.
And then comes the introduction of the Anticre, short for anti creature, which is the reverse of any living creature, basically. They feed off life energy, and like vampires in a sense, their victims become one of them, their dead husks reanimate, and they too prey on the living for their life forces.


Layout of said Trailer

For the trailer, I had to take what I felt was the best representative parts of my storyboard and have them animated and rendered. How much I planned to animate and render depending heavily on how much time it took, and how much time was remaining, so I had to make a bit of a list.
The opening scene was important. A camera fly-through following the fairyfly, I felt, was integral to begin with, as was the "Fairy Dance" scene - the scene where multiple fairyflies "danced" skywards, displaying a beautiful and peaceful world full of wonder.
The inclusion of Tarri, the main protagonist, was unavoidable. Time had to be put aside to have at least a couple scenes with him, since having a trailer without the main character is very poor, in my view - the story revolves around him, after all. And the one scene with the fairydeer was to show interaction within this world.
With the introduction of the anticre within the trailer, having Tarri suddenly turn his head around in startling fashion was also important, it was to give the feeling that something was amiss, and that there was danger afoot.
I then had a group of anticre standing there, a group of creatures so very out of place in this world. While in the original storyboard, several anticre do show up after the initial attack, this scene was created solely for the trailer - to increase the stakes, while at the same time being a simple animation to put together and fast enough to render.
The scene showing two anticre in attack stance, opening their gaping mouths, is from the storyboard, however the last scene after the title was also created especially for the trailer, with the intent on creating a reaction with the audience itself.
The scream it utters is part of the anticre's attack, freezing it's target with fear, so that it might feast upon it's life.

The music at the start felt very fitting for the world it was helping to set up.
The fading to a heartbeat was to introduce the dire situation that was growing.
The credits did not have any music or sound. This was fully intentional, since within my credits I give special thanks to my grandmother, who recently passed away, and it would not have felt right having anything but silence for the rolling credits.

Anyway, enough about that. How about some screenshots?

Why this animation was set for the last animation of the night and not in the first half, I will never know.
Rated E for Everyone.

Round Things and The Stupendously Fabulicious Adventures of Flying T. Theseus

Since we could not get Massive to work, which was a Massive disappointment, this means this blog about Massive will not be Massive in both the fact I did not use Massive and the fact it won't be massive.

So we shall instead adMaya some Maya which I screenshot and playblasted in Maya spare time.

Space. The final frontier. Then you have exouniverses, so it's not quite the final frontier in theory.
Have some orbits.

Now to bring in Theseus. Turn off the gravity...

So yaaaay~

Rerterscerperin and Movin teh Skies~

First task: Fix masks that need fixing and cover any tracking markers.
Can you find the tracking marker?

Also, did I happen to mention that in my sleep-deprived state, I can't remember how to use Nuke?
Oh who am I kidding. I can't remember how to use Nuke regardless. :P

I also need to key the skies so that it moves with the scene...
I AM A GOD.
I need something to keep me awake. Wow... I'm about to doze off... either I have it really bad, or going frame by frame is just so damn boring!
I wonder if Essimir has an international airport...

ALRIGHT. Ate an apple, feeling a bit of a boost in awakeness. And Callum wanted to know why I wasn't working on the scenes. Well, I can't very much eat my apple in the lab, can I? Besides I had just finished eating and was on my way back to working on this scene, so he questions why I'm still out there.
Um. Because maybe you stopped me and asked why I wasn't back in 210 while I was on my way back to 210?
Seriously, you created that situation yourself. Wait... well yes he did, but I need to focus, I have so little focus right now so I need to focus what focus I can.
...sounds something.

I also worked to make it so the sky moved with the camera, which in itself was quite the tedious task given that the camera was spazzing around like there was no tomorrow.
But I did it, and I have to say I did an awesome job for a first time. :3
Afterwards, it came to inserting a background collection of buildings that Tyler had put together, which for the most part behaved, although some keyframing was required to prevent the houses from jumping with enthusiasm in some cases.
No.
Bad houses.
Stay.

But it looks pretty cool, huh? And given my serious state of exhaustion, which must be remedied tonight by not staying up to 3:30am, or 5am, or the wonderfully additional time known only as Mystery Time (which is mysterious in it's temporalness), bedtime at 3:45am and alarm time at 5:45am results in I want some cake.
Cupcakes were available though, along with donuts, and free coke, the fizzy drink kind.
At least I got to school on time but later. Given everything that has happened and with me finally having an emotional breakdown this morning, I'm surprised I can still function.

Oh wait. I am not functioning.
Haha, made you think I was functioning! Have a robot biscuit.

Ps. I rendered dat shit. I mean shot 14.
I was awesome at it.
Even though I suck at Nuke.
You try using Nuke and it blows up in your face generally.
And then your spawn will become radioactive superheroes and fly all the time, or turn into green friendly fairy-like The Hulk people in which some of that description may or may not be accurate. Mostly may, not April.

...boogers.

Journey of the Fairyfly

The first fairyfly was intended to be more of a simple design to test ideas, as well as part of a 3D Animatic.
The tests, which were mostly with lighting and glow, were to find the best glow result for the final form.
The following images show progression of the Fairyfly.

The above showed a progression, but I also used the basic form for the playblasts.
As I began to develop the first scene, I used the first fairyfly as a light interaction with the environment.

The glow really had the effect I wanted - it cast it's light onto surfaces, such as the water.
At this point, I had already designed the final fairfly, and it was all rigged and ready to go. The final design followed my initial concepts of my fairyfly art:

As the concept shows, the wings seem to have outlines that don't quite connect. This was intentional, as the wings are somewhat like tendrils.
The fairyfly for the animation, likewise, will have these tendrils, which will move somewhat like wings, yet at the same time seem to have their own way of moving.

The complete Fairyfly rig

The final Fairyfly used spline IKs for it's tendrils, and each tendril (eight in total), had three controllers. Those controllers themselves are parented to a wing master controller, so that the "wings" can be made to move in totality from a single controller, rather than manipulating six per "wing". I guessed this would save a potential mess while animating in the future, if I so decided I wanted some tendrils to move independent of their overruling controllers.

The following pictures show the glow of the Fairyfly, then followed by rendered out animation experiments, in order to get the basic movement of these little guys down.

This shows the glow turned on with the geometry still visible.

By turning the glow source off from being visible, it gave the more ghostly imagery I was after.

I doubled the glow, however I felt the first setting for the glow intensity was better.

I then animated the Fairyfly. First, we have a playblast.

Then, a higher quality render.

The playblast

The first test render

I decided the movement of the wings needed work. Experimentation ensues, as of this moment I am currently waiting for the second test render to see if the alterations look better than the first.

The second playblast

The second test render

At this point, it looks more like an eerie supernatural light... however it depends on the angle in which the fairyfly is viewed. I put this down to the fact that the main body's glow outshines the tendrils, which is quite understandable.
So this is the journey of the fairyfly, up to this point.
The basic animation will be used in each scene, where I can adjust the movement of the "wings" according to whether or not the fairyfly is climbing or descending.
And that is the end of my blog for today.

...hmm. This blog was actually quite serious... no shenanigans at all...
Must be tired.

Essimir Architects. For the shack you deserve, you filthy peasants.

With the onset of new roofing, made of high-quality virtual wood, it was time to give the people of Essimir a stunning design in the world of glamour housing.

Well, glamour housing in the sense that the world it is set in has no glamour.

Unless you have sparkly things, like glass shards.
Or shiny pointy weapons.

Or moist eyeballs in the hobbles of old scaly witches. I bet there are witches in Essimir, with their big, black cauldron, eyes of newt, flying around on their broomsticks which they stole in the Armageddon Riot when those damn muggles ransacked local pubs and found the entrance to Diagon Alley.

Then moved to Essimir in their flying tornado houses.

Bring a water-type pokemon.

Exclusive Insight to Essimir Architects Designs

Wooden Roof

Based on the iron roofing.

Another Wooden Roof

Also based on the iron roofing, only this one is wearing a roof hat.

An Essimir Dream Home

I designed and built a house using the finest in Mayan building techniques.
And by Mayan, I meant I used Maya, because computers back in the Mayan times sucked and had dial-up and were powered by child sacrifices.

I began with a simple polygon cube, as I usually tend to. I made some extrusions to get the shape, removed sections for the door and windows, and used a concrete texture for the walls.

For the door, I just imported a door in which I had constructed earlier, there were some surviving doors in the last Great Door Cultist Invasion.

For the side part of the home, I used parts of either door (there were two) to build wooden walls around said section, and used the roofing I had put together as well as iron sections so that the people would stay dry in the rainy season.

...somewhat dry.

...mostly wet. The roof will blow away.

Then the lightning cometh.

With a shack like this, you will be the envy of all those box owners out there.

For some reason, I also created a simple interior, just in case the floor might be seen from the outside through a window.

Or maybe I just wanted to do the floor to give a bit more of a feel to the place.

Feels, people.

The entrance has loose dirt and stone chips, while a fancy stone floor for the main part of the interior beckons for your filthy feet.

A Tower

This tower, designed by Jade and UV unwrapped, textured, etc. by yours truly, is the ultimate design in towerness.
It serves a duality of purposes - they are very good at both keeping watch and giving the higher ground for assaults, protecting your shanty town of dirty peons, while at the same time, keeping your dirty peons from leaving.

Comes with the latest in communications technology, a wireless tin telephone.

Comes with semi-speed dial-up connections and a free subscription to SKY for your television, or as they used to call them in the old days, windows.

Chronologically Kiwi Capers

Tick, tock.
Here's a clock.
This kiwi pair don't wear no frock~
(Because kiwis aren't weird like people)

We had to make a clock. That was just friggin' awesome in my humble opinion, it was time to show what I could do.
Haha... time...
Well enough of puns, before I begin to... tick you off...

OKAY. That is enough puns. Let's... tock about the assignment.
Okay, sorry, I can't help it. Just don't tell anyone... it will be... hour little secret.
...gotta... hand it to me... I bring out bad jokes, so you will just have to... face... the facts.

OKAY.

I decided upon an image-based clock, rather than some fancy design. But there were so many ideas to choose from... and I sketched up four differing designs, one of which I would choose for the final design.

The first sketch depicts Splash and Cascade from my graphic novel Dreamspace, from the Splash saga.

The second sketch depicts Tarri and Ruby from the same graphic novel series, Dreamspace, from the Timelock saga.

The third sketch, again from Dreamspace, shows Tarri in his actual fairy form.

The fourth sketch is completely unrelated to Dreamspace, but is based on another concept I had with kiwis.
This is the idea I went with, since I already chose Dreamspace/Splash for my Snakes and Ladders game, used Tarri (dragon) and Ruby in my 2nd Year Animation, and am using Tarri (fairy) in my 3rd Year Animation.

I set out the clock using simple font numerals. Since the cheerful image is colourful and cartoonish, I thought these would suit the style best.
And below we have the final design~

....TIME TO GO~

Dolphin Time - Can't Touch Fish *breaks it down now*

Time Currents and Infinite Arms

One of the projects we had to do for our first assignment was to create a board game based on either Snakes and Ladders, or Chinese Checkers.

I went with Snakes and Ladders, mostly because I felt I could have more fun with it.

So behold, planning and such!

For starters, a theme. In all the awesomeness of creating my own Snakes and Ladders, I used my graphic novel, Dreamspace/Splash, as a theme. As you can see, the above reference to one of the pages in the first chapter, the protagonist, an as yet unnamed dolphin in terms of having a dolphin name, is influenced (unbeknown to him) by the Ocean Star. This causes the character (who introduces himself with the alias Splash), is somewhat "outside of time", and from the outside observer, his movements are either insanely fast, or undetectable. I used this effect and referenced them as "Time Currents" in the game, which takes the place of the traditional ladders.

Towards the end of the Splash series of Dreamspace, the main plot will introduce what is only known as "Infinite Arms," which takes on what appears to be dark tenticle-like tendrils reaching from outside of space and time. These have taken the role of the snakes.

I also had to make sure I had a base for the game. I was dead set on a full 100 square game, much like the version I enjoyed as a child:

The trick of course then is to place the positive and negative squares in place, and while I wanted them to be spread out somewhat evenly (with a few exceptions to psychologically challenge the player), and then add the additional apparent difficulty by mounting more of the Infinite Arms squares as you get closer to the end, and having less of the Time Currents.

These are the Time Current squares. Upon landing on one of these squares, the player moves up the Time Current to the destination square, each tile above in order from the first to last of this line.

In order from left to right:

"Make a Friend" - An image of Orcy.

"Ranha Screws Up" - Mako's lacky, Ranha, messes up once again.

"Mako's Plans are Foiled" - Image depicts Mako stopped by Coral, Anteia and Swift.

"Super Rainbow Quacker Duck Musical Accompaniment" - Depicts the Super Rainbow Quacker Ducks breaking out in song.

"Treasure Ship" - Depicts a sunken treasure ship full of treasure.

"Splash Saves the Day" - Image depicted by the protagonist, Splash.

"Help from a Dolphin Pirate" - One of the Dolphin Pirates, Sapphire, assists.

The above tiles depict the Infinite Arms squares. The reverse of the Time Currents, landing on these squares will require you to follow the tendril down to the destination square.

In order from left to right, from earliest to last:

"Moray Ambush!" - Depicts the villain siblings Mor and Ray.

"Mako Takes the Ocean Star" - Depicts a grinning Mako.

"Dolphin Pirates Arrive" - The Dolphin Pirates enter the story and cause trouble.

"The Ocean Star Disappears" - The Ocean Star mysteriously vanishes.

"Spritz is Kidnapped" - Depicts a crying Spritz.

"Ghost Ship" - Depicts the evil Ghost Ship.

"Dark Tide" - Shows an unprecedented ocean swell, drowning entire lands, towns, people, etc., with the Ghost Ship riding on top of the surge.

The final board looks as such:

I made it so the destination squares either had a white-blue spot, or red-black spot (depending on Time Currents or Infinite Arms), so it would be easier to know where to land.

In addition, it would be quite ideal that any playing tokens created especially for this game be of various characters from the story.
Ideas for this included:

Splash, Cascade, Caley, Spritz, Mako, Ranha, Sapphire, Ocry.

NUDES NUDES NUDES!!!

...as in, incompletely UV unwrapped and unfurred characters. Get your damn mind out of the gutter!

But (lol, butt) up to this point, between that cursed and forsaken Bones of Essimir and Digital Illustration jack-in-the-boxes (aka homework due the following week which I am never really able to account into trying to plan all these tasks, scheduling this stuff is nearly void), I have been focusing on building the characters up, and a couple have been UV unwrapped and have basic textures applied to them.
The rest are either half-unwrapped or I neglect the hell out of it (mostly because it will suck my life out of me anyway, much like multiple assignments.
...I wonder if the life-sucking monsters are a subconscious metaphor for the multiple assignments and tasks draining my energy...)

Anyhoo, I will do a picture thing.
With pictures.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, in my case it's worth a thousand dollars.
And I have a bunch of pictures to show.


Tarri - Fairyfox

First we have the protagonist of the Dreamspace series, Tarri, as his true form.

The head has always been a starting point for me, and this is no exception. While building the head, I always build using half-a-head, and a mirroring duplicate for the other side.

At first, as I designed Tarri's head, it became clearer and clearer he was becoming less of a fox and more of a piggy-pig-snoggleton.

I decided to restart, following a similar process as before, only this time round the shape actually began to form the way I wanted it to.

And in the end, we have Tarri's head, which I gave two spheres for eyes, which make him look of the undead. Quite ironic since he is a being of pure life.

Next I needed to begin work on the body. To do this, I start with a new piece of geometry. Like the head, I create a special duplicate to create both side simultaneously.

The first basic body set-up.

I quickly realised with this render that merchandising was feasible, and that

Fairyfox Coffee Tables were the in thing.

 

The body came together, as I built upon the basics. Once the body shape had come together, I extruded a simple neck from the body to the head, and then I combined the geometries of the body and it's mirroring duplicate.
I then UV unwrapped him, of which was only really necessary to facilitate the features of the body of which had different colours, and no fur (which would be added later).

Andler - Fairydeer

The same process was followed for my fairydeer character. Head first, then body, join by neck, then combined both sides together to form a super-deer.
Oh, and the name Andler is just a name, it won't really be referred to in the animation. I just couldn't think of a name at the time, so... antler... Andler...
When it comes time to actually work on the story in later times, chances are I may find a much more awesome name.
Like Auron.
Auron is badass.

Auron from FFX

Anyway, back to the stag that is Andler.

Fairydeer Coffee Tables are just as popular.

Of course, these are just basic colours. The fur for these characters should, in theory, make them epic.
The form of this male deer is staggering.


Fairytails

Cannot forget the fairytails, the fantail-like fairies. These were obviously different from the previous two characters in terms of building and shape.

Like the previous two, I started with the head, and then build the body. The body was a different shape, more like a squashed, really fat banana.

The problem I did find with this one is obvious. When I attempted the feet, I accidentally imagined the "knees" as being forward-facing, instead of the reverse.
So reverse feet became a thing, and Creepy Feet was born.

Of course, I corrected this error quickly, and worked with the geometry until it looked right. In terms of wings, I was advised to forego the idea of using paint feathers and just using geometry. I worked out the feathers before I even began - after all, given the patterns and colours the wings for every feather will be separate from the whole wing, I had to know where the edges of the feathers would be in order to cut them when it came to UV unwrapping.

Airy Fairy Air is now go for take-off.

To get the desired effect of all of the feathers (wing-bound and tail), I realised that I would ultimately have to overlap the edges of the feathers with others in order to prevent them from looking like spikes or something.
Because they would totally be the fairytail's weapon of choice, since a being of life would totally take yours (sarcasm).
The fairytail thus now looks like this, and is currently in the process of UV unwrapping.

The Anticre

Then you have these badasses. They don't give a fridge magnet about whether or not you want to stay alive, they actually don't give a thought or anything. You could say they have no real purpose other than to feed off your life force.
They don't think, or feel, they have no remorse, therefore you cannot bargain with them, they will just feed off you without any real thought, since thinking is not something they do.
They do, however, have an impeccable singing voice.
And by singing voice, I mean otherworldly screech which will paralyse you with fear where you cannot move while they will slowly move in to feast while all you can do is just stand there, watching them draw in closer... and closer...

Same story with before, start with the head, then build the body, join by neck, combined both sides.
These sexy babes used to be human, then they died. Then their corpses were overtaken and tainted by some anti-living force.
The last image depicts that it wants a hug. (It's not after a hug, it will suck your life out, but hey, it could be your grandmother! Who will kill you. And then you will become one of THEM. Cheery food for thought. I don't like cherries).

Another thing with the head I need to keep in mind is that the lower section of the mouth needs to extend drastically.
Also, this one has no texture, since they are purely black.
Whether or not I decide to give it a texture is to be decided, but at this point there isn't any point in it.



Fairyflies

The fairyflies are basically the fairy version of fireflies.
I have created a basic form for them, although whether or not this will be ultimately the last form is yet to be determined.
For the meantime, they have wings much like the fairies of The Legend of Zelda (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, etc), however these are just basic wings and are supposed to look a bit more like steams in the near shape of wings.
The main focus for the time, however, was the lighting.

The initial tests looked okay once I had some good lighting, and the wings were very faint.

These shots I had encased the fairyfly body in a glass-material sphere. This gave the effect you see above.

The above image shows the wings clearer than the last, the last having a bit more glow on the wings.
While the top one may seem to display the detail more of the wings, the bottom one would give them less of a generic wing-like appearance, which is kind of what I am after.


And that is what I have to show the class today.
I have run out of tea, I need to brew some more.
Oh, and the whole thing about "a picture's worth a thousand dollars," you owe me $26,000.
I will send my thugs to collect the money at some undetermined time.