\X My Pillow: : ; Y - THE MAKING OF uf 4h - « — . - 4 2 (- ane ~< a ~ gillind ay eran - acum 22) i ‘Contents Pre Production “The Sory 2 Creating Memorable Character the Bese 3 ‘The trybaoeding Phase 6 Production Modeling the Bese un Adding the Fur 2 “The Rigging Process u “The Slang Process uM Animation 5 “Making Look Good - Rendering 6 st Production Composting ” Editing v [My Pillow isa short animation about a bear who loves hispillow The ‘concept came to mi whilelistening othe song Must Be Lave, by Madness.Pre Production - The story The story was not always about a pillow The original concept was ofa bear who loved his slippers! Somehow though, the slippers ended up ‘nthe animation ase character Coming up withthe final story took ot of tal and error. At one point the bear was pared witha car, but this idea was promptly forgotten. One thing that always remained however was the Dea ear aa armies hee epi anim a an Ah rhe oe a SS pe Sea — le ping ea plo Bete apn ne! herr eget pe ene oe poe “More combinations were swapped around, mixed and matched, until finally the Bear and pillow were united. Somehow they just ited beter than any of the other ideas. With tha in mind, a coneet story had tobe formed, Arable was constructed, dsplaying the lees long side a storyline “There were several necessary revisions, before it was ready for storyboanding, a Soh ‘Soa vtyCreating a Memorable Character - The Bear eating the bear was not s dificult as thought it would be IS rue thar there were many design, but it drt tak long to see which was the right design.‘While drawing, lexperimented with two main types of bear. small cute cuddly beat anda taller shaped bear. [originally opted for taller bear (sil fiendy looking), but while storyboarding the way Trew the bear gradually changed intoa shorter bea. Inte end, my characters asl el bear, with teddy bear proportions | S73 8gThe Storyboarding phase ‘Allie previous steps have been building up the next and probably the most important phase of an animated shor the Storyboard Storyboarding involved working ou shot structure which would bes tell the stor. isto, went hough several eins. ‘The storyboards were actually constructed along sdean animate, this way, each scene could be played with the muse playing in the background. 1 would then know whether the shot was working o not.=" nb) ee ee ee nt tp fp ll mn‘With Pre Production over the next stage be rhe nent tage Began 120Production -Modelling the Bear Modeling the bear was the fst important task ofthe production phase [was important o get this dane ist ass the only eal character inthe whole snimaton, This was something that deitely needed to be done right. Orthographic drawings of the bear were used to build the frame around ‘Wireframes show ow the bear is constructed. And when smoothed the final bear canbe seen. ‘One ofthe main things to notes how the bear maintains its simplisti look. ve kept the use of citles/ spheres consistent with the drawing. ‘The only alteration with the CG bear compared to the storyboard and concept designs ate the length ofthe leg. They have purposely been made slighty longer to make everyday animation asks like walking easier The overall shape was ‘maintained though.Adding the Fur 1 justhad to ave furry bear, amongst other challenges (ike rigging) creating fur was going tobe the main learning curve for this projet. think tS important to try something new (technically with every project Creating fur, basically involved layering fur onto the bear, and tweaking various atibutes to gt the right Took ofthe fu. It also involved ‘painting some of those ateibuts, ike the far length and colour. “This way the effect ofthe fur could be varled depending on hove lang the fur was needed to be in certain areas or what colour the far would be. The fur also had tobe combed too and all ofthis was no easy ta, ssotware imitations, hindered the whole paces. Please sce more detailon the fur creation in the Technical Document.The Rigging Process Rigging the bear was perhaps the oer main echnical hurdle to overcome. I wanted to make the animation process a6 Intuitiveas posible. This meansa good rig forthe beat. This “volves resting custom controls that wll contol ll parts of the bea, from his et and amis, ois nose ears and eyes! Contes are only useful they havea hone structure to control, Her what the bone struct of the CG bea looked ie ‘Then withthe control ontop. “This gives mes puppet in CG to pose and animate ‘The Skinning Process Notanimatng yet. one as thing to go over. Iiould be nice if you could jus build the bones and the best ‘would move with them, egetably this the case. This part, Involves panting the parts ofthe body that are meant to be affected by each join. Isa long but necessary proces.Animation ial this is what the project ial aout, s wells teanseribing something! Plenty of time needs tobe allowed for this stage sit only 38 good athe time penton 1 probably started with one ofthe mos dificult scenes inthe whole animation, Not just because of what tiavolve, but also because is the firs scene This fst impression is pretty important, so ithas to be done sight 1 say this shot in particular ia dificult one because the bear, while being a heaty character, seen here lating inthe ae. Weight ia tecky thing ‘animate and in my opinion, especialy so when it comes to making things float! “The following thumbnallilutrate some ofthe key poses from the fist scene. ound it important o spend time on the ats tha the body moves in. Animating the ile tings ike the ears and nose to add more fet tL found especialy important, a the character has no mouth and limite facial cexpresions,Making it look good - Rendering At the hear ofthis project was ransrbing song through story telling an animation, so the lok s only ax detailed as needed to be, The ie ‘was a must have, the environment ls o. As such, oly the things neoded totell the story were created. Furthermore the rendering of the animation required a simplistic touch. Simpl textures and in some cases ony solid ‘colour were used to get the story across Together with the fu, the rendeving, ‘ras done in time for the deadline ofthe project. ‘Atealy simple ight setup was used repented in each scene, Then it was only a mate of tweaking a fev things depending onthe time of dy.Post Production - Compositing "This stage involved taking the rendered images and giving them one inal makeover Lite was needed tofinish the shots, as backgrounds were al that was added swell as afew other sight adjustments to Editing 1 saved myself some time deciding ll the iaportant edit points i the animtic, All that was eft to do ‘was replace the storyboards withthe inal scenes This process was ket simple and clean, ‘You can view the final animations -flockoixelsMogspot.com, ‘hope yu have enjoyed this ite insight into the making of the animated shor, My Pillow ie ial Pre MC ee eT ee —ya flock off of pix Is. Ethanshiingethanosfocke