On to the animatic

Worked on animatic, but got distracted along the way with issues when splitting the models and rigs into different files. Tried blenderaid, but I was on a different version of python when I last used it and the binaries don't install on 3.2. I could install from source, or maybe try and use one of the different versions of python I have lying around, but decided to go ahead without blenderaid and come back to it later, if necessary. I have been taking daily backups of the files and I have been using fossil for version control. There isn't that much to use it for at the moment, but I have a habit of not naming things and letting them take the defaults. Naming as I go would be neater and probably the larger the project, the more this would be an issue.

Other than that, did a bit of compositor twiddling - that was fun and didn't spend too much time on it, but I really need to focus on getting that animatic done.

Questions answered

 
I'm now on to my second (and final) character, both are rigged to some extent using riggify. This was the first time using riggify and I was quite pleasantly surprised. It's simple and straightforward (to use anyway) and I think I could complete further rigs in much faster time.  In fact it's so straightforward, I'm wondering whether to add another character. There's still facial rigging to do, but I think I'll concentrate on getting the first animatic done, because that will tell me so much about what still needs doing.

I think I've reached an important milestone though. With the characters in their current states, I think I could at least do a series of static dioramas with characters in posed positions, like statues, and use these to tell the story. That's great to know because even if this is the minimum I should aim for in the real 10x10 project, I think that's still enough to be able to tell an interesting story with arresting visuals (it just puts more pressure on the story to be interesting and the visuals to be arresting). And after all, that was the question I was trying to answer in doing this project, so I think that's an Epic Win.

I'm a bit worried about facial rigging at this point. I'm thinking that with the animatic, I might forego facial rigging and just use shape keys.

To the batcave ....

First day over and not that much to show for it. I had some logistical problems: since I'm hogging the main computer, the idea was to get the old computer running to allow everyone else some internet time, but alas the old computer is more severely injured than I'd first thought. So I didn't get started until late, and then spent a lot of time futzing with rigging and not really making much progress. The theory was sound: I was using blenrig, which means that there's a cage already rigged and you just tailor it to your character. In practice, I was finding I needed to move the cage around a lot (my fault: my characters body dimensions weren't so good).

I decided that I was getting mired, so I switched from rigging a base character to try and get the basic animatic down, to modelling the base character before the rigging. If rigging is going to be a huge amount of time, I might as well do it once, on the final character. That seemed to go a lot better, both in terms of progress and lifting my enthusiasm and resulted in the picture I'm posting.

The evening we went out for my "Birthday Tea" and though I tried working after, I was so tired I just flopped to bed at 9. So a mixed day, which is probably ok for a first day.

The timing of the days doesn't really work out that great - in order to squeeze two weekends into the ten days, they have to be at either end. Ideally, I'd have these days in the middle, so I'd have a chance to work out where the big time sinks are first, then have the huge time chunk, then have less time doing things and just leaving the computer rendering. But it is what it is and that's why I'm doing the dummy run: to work out how to adapt to the conditions.

It has a working title now: "Kangaroo Court" and I've got most of the plot worked out and I'm still happy with the idea.

To infinity and beyond ...

The game's afoot

I was going to start tomorrow, but I just couldn't wait. So 11 pm today, I learned the constraints:
Genre: Courtroom Drama
Props: A bouncy castle, an anchor
Line: I could've been a contender (Adele says from Raging Bull, but I say from On the Waterfront)

I think I already have the plot and a way to make it with only two characters and a narrator. The hard parts will be that what I'm thinking of now involves a lot of talk from the narrator and a lot of movement. I chose narration so that I'd avoid problems with lip synch. Having no speech would have solved the same problem, but then that would have put a lot of stress on the visuals. This way, I get to move the story along and I get to add the narration after the visuals have been defined. Next step: some basic modelling and working out the details for the first animatic, hopefully by tomorrow, but Sunday at the latest.

The plot I have in mind is inspired by Resevoir Dogs, Death and the Maiden, and a Play For Today about WW II bomber crews.

Day -1

The day before I start the 10x10 movie (10 minute short in 10 days). I'd set aside this day for setup and getting things organized, but now it's here, I don't think there's really a lot of setup to do.

I was going to publicize this a bit more, but I'm not so sure now - there isn't much to see; I don't have any pictures. I did look into doing some more formal planning, Gantt charts, critical paths, estimating times, but the more I think about it, the more I think maintaining these plans would add overhead. I have a loose idea in my head of how the time is going to go and I think things may change as I start work on the project, so I'd end up with a choice of junking the original plans or adding even more overhead trying to make new plans.

That's not to say I'm going to lack discipline, or constantly be aware of the deadline. I think one of the dangers when I start work is that I'll spend too much time on stuff that doesn't contribute a great deal to the final movie. For this reason, I'll probably forgo concept art, storyboards, a formal script. Instead what I plan to do is to go as quickly as possible to an animatic - a short animated "thumbnail" movie. It will look like crap, but it will give a sense of what works and what doesn't, together with timings.

I hope to have that mostly with a settled story, script, models, and rigging by the end of this weekend, then use the following week to polish it into the movie itself. The final weekend will be for final renders and fixes.

Almost time

Through one of the art events I attend (either Drink-and-Draw or Sketchbomb, I forget which) I met Ryan Cicak, who introduced me to the 10x10 event at the Sacramento International Film Festival. That's a category for 10 minute shorts, produced in 10 days. I loved the idea and resolved to enter the competition this year. Having never made a short film before, I decided to do a dummy run as soon as my exams were over, to see if I really could complete something that didn't burn your eyeballs down to the optic nerve, in just 10 days.

Well, yesterday was the last exam. My plan is that this weekend I will ask my wife for the same initial conditions they pick from a hat in the festival:
* a genre
* a famous line from a movie (like "we're going to need a bigger boat")
* two props
My movie must include all these.

My plan is to do a computer animation. The big hurdles I face are:
* I've never anything more than render tests
* I have $0 budget and only my home computer
* I still have a day job, so it's evenings and weekends only
* It's just me doing everything
* On top of the animation, I will post 1 blog entry for every day of the project

While this might sound a little crazy, I have been thinking it through and I do think it's achievable. Things I have working for me:
* I have blender (the open source 3d animation, compositing, and kitchen-sinkinator) and have been studying it for a while.
* I plan to use either monochrome or very limited palette
* I plan to use a lot of digital paintings for backgrounds/mattes and heavy use of compositing small parts rather than large renders
* The render size will be small (I'm thinking 640x480, possibly with matte's to give 16x9 aspect ratio) and if I can't make the full 10 minutes, I'll settle for anything over 4 minutes
* I have FL Studio for sound effects, vocal track and music
* I intend there to be no character dialog, but a narration track
* I have Gimp and a tablet, which I shall use for cut-outs and texturing

Though I plan to spend 10 days making the film, I'm allowing an extra day of setup and also a day of release/publicity. If I don't complete it within the 10 days, I'm going to allow myself up to another 10 day extension, with the theory that if I do it the second time around, I can be up to twice as efficient with the experience gained.

I think the hardest part though, will be the writing. Neither writing nor storytelling come naturally to me, yet writing is the one component that can trump all the others. But I'm hoping with the nervous energy and pressure of the 10 day deadline, I can come up with something.

So it all starts on Saturday. Wish me luck!