I try to tell a story with this animation. Even with the short time to animate (20seconds) I try to tell a whole story. I start with the storyboard, when I plan all the camera shots, and see if the history will or will not works.
Animatic... After the story complete, comes the animatic. In this stage I start modeling and some rig process, cause I choice to make a 3d animatic that will lead the final animation fastest. Time was not a big problem, cause I start the project right in the beginning of challenge. But the problems are the real job I have, so I worked in the spare time. It makes me find some quick solutions. So I decided to build a simple character with a simples rig, that can work in a simple scene and where special FX or big renders could not be a problem...
Modeling/Rig and Texturing...
The modeling and textures of character was very simple. The cartoon style was the first choice since the begining. This is my style, and I always try to fit the style in my projects. For modeling I use Poly Modeling and turbosmooth from 3dsmax7. This was very fast in viewport and help me a lot in animation process. I modeled just half character. No legs are needed, just torax and arms, cause it was defined in storyboard and animatic. For textures, I paint it myself. The pilots´s, and the maps for the plane are build from scratch. My worries was focused on atmosphere and show whats going on in the situation, not really in the quality of textures and modeling, but they need to be done, and help in the main objective, tells the story, and help to show where that is happenning.
Animation... The animation process was the main point of my movie. Not because this is an animation, but cause I need it to be very clear and show the things I like to show. I choice to show the bad side of the war. I think in both sides there´s lost. Fathers, sons, daugthers and inocent lives... no mather what side they are... a lost is a lost. So I need to show this in a melancholic way, thats why i choose to show a pilot(no side was defined) and the climax is to show that theres hummanity there. He is a pilot, he have a mission, but he is father, a commom person with a life and a family that was destroied by war. well thats where all animation needs do come. Tell this story. some people came to tell me how sad it is... well I know, then I think..."great, that´s working!".
FX and Post Production... The particles was the more complicatec fx in this animation. The hard part was to control the wind influences and build a good smoke shader to work with particles... is basically all procedural. Other images adjusting like DOF, color correction, noise filters are all made in after fx. All BG clous are made in photoshop and composed in after FX. The final movie was mounted in Adobe Premiere, where the sound fx and music was added.
I´m Very happy with this result in the end. I could learn a lot during this project, and is great when we could complete a personal work. And if you can share with others what you learn... its very very very good.
Best Regards,
Juliano Castro
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