timartman
10-08-2006, 03:06 PM
First there were only pencil and paper (and sorry for my rusty english)
Because i started this project few weeks ago, i'll give a little brief about it. I'm developing animation seriers for TV called Boogie & Woogie. The time is Stone age, witch makes jokes about big historical events. The pilot episode deals the big argue about earth flatness. One episode lenght will be approx. 3-5 minutes, including credits and titles.
I'll started with some concept drawings and developing the pre-historic environment. After drawing different looking characters, i managed to do few funny looking characters. Like so:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6755/3948/400/boogie_%26_woogie_concept_500.jpghttp://www.freewebs.com/timartman/boogie%5F%26%5Fwoogie%5Fconcept%5F500.jpg
Other is complete idiot and the other is complete patriot warrior.
Choosing software
Because the 3D software are more and more identical to each other, the selection can be sometimes little hard. So i had to make lots of little tests.
I started the modeling in Max, and got quite quickly the basic charater finished (to get in the right mood).
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6755/3948/320/body_build_001.jpghttp://www.freewebs.com/timartman/body%5Fbuild%5F001.jpg
Character building in Max.
http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/body_build_002.jpg
Another draft from Max (with hair).
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6755/3948/400/B%26W_Preview_003_softimage.0.jpghttp://www.freewebs.com/timartman/B%26W%5FPreview%5F003%5Fsoftimage.jpg
And a draft from Softimage.
I just love the Softimages hair and fur style. It is very furry and "animal". However, when i started this project and askes people around me, if they had any interest to come animate this, they said 'yes' but only with MAX. So the people around me have spoken, this will be made with Max.
The Script
The first drafts helped me to get in the right writing mood. I had this idea in my head of a theory, when people actually believed and fight for, that the earth was flat. And because we are talkin about the stoneage, it would be funny thought, to put this theory in there. But it has its limitations. In stoneage the is no iron, plastic or glass, so i have deal with stone, leather, bone, wood, water and fire. Thats all!
Another difficulty for writing this script, was the spoken language. It must be universal mumbo-jumbo so no one can't understand it, and make the mimic to be the only way to tell the story. Wabu-wabu!
So i started to write, and managed to do 2-3 minute long story. You can read it in english here (http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/bw.part.1.battle_for_the_earth.pdf) (pdf) or http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/bw.part.1.battle_for_the_earth.pdf
To get even more to the right mood, i searched my AKG mic from some drawer and recorded the script. Because i gave my voice to both characters, they came out too similar. I have to find another voice from somewhere. You can listen the audio from here (http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/bw.osa.1.taistelu_maapallosta.mp3) (it is in bad mp3-format) or http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/bw.osa.1.taistelu_maapallosta.mp3
Riggin' it up!
After all this fumble, i started to make rigs for the characters. And now that "we" desided to use Max, i have the character studios biped also in use. So i made two separated rigs.
So why both rigs?
Well, the explanation is very simple. I love to animate with basic bone systems, but Biped comes very handy when you use things like motion capture. So i took few days more to do the skinning for biped also. And anyway, if this ever goes to production, everything is made again and even better.
Whats next?
Next things to do are storyboard and animation. I'm going to need some help in animations, because mimic and comedy timing is not my strongest values (although i can animate characters). I think i'm going to make a few phonecalls and ask some consultating help with these problems.
I'll be back ...
Because i started this project few weeks ago, i'll give a little brief about it. I'm developing animation seriers for TV called Boogie & Woogie. The time is Stone age, witch makes jokes about big historical events. The pilot episode deals the big argue about earth flatness. One episode lenght will be approx. 3-5 minutes, including credits and titles.
I'll started with some concept drawings and developing the pre-historic environment. After drawing different looking characters, i managed to do few funny looking characters. Like so:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6755/3948/400/boogie_%26_woogie_concept_500.jpghttp://www.freewebs.com/timartman/boogie%5F%26%5Fwoogie%5Fconcept%5F500.jpg
Other is complete idiot and the other is complete patriot warrior.
Choosing software
Because the 3D software are more and more identical to each other, the selection can be sometimes little hard. So i had to make lots of little tests.
I started the modeling in Max, and got quite quickly the basic charater finished (to get in the right mood).
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6755/3948/320/body_build_001.jpghttp://www.freewebs.com/timartman/body%5Fbuild%5F001.jpg
Character building in Max.
http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/body_build_002.jpg
Another draft from Max (with hair).
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6755/3948/400/B%26W_Preview_003_softimage.0.jpghttp://www.freewebs.com/timartman/B%26W%5FPreview%5F003%5Fsoftimage.jpg
And a draft from Softimage.
I just love the Softimages hair and fur style. It is very furry and "animal". However, when i started this project and askes people around me, if they had any interest to come animate this, they said 'yes' but only with MAX. So the people around me have spoken, this will be made with Max.
The Script
The first drafts helped me to get in the right writing mood. I had this idea in my head of a theory, when people actually believed and fight for, that the earth was flat. And because we are talkin about the stoneage, it would be funny thought, to put this theory in there. But it has its limitations. In stoneage the is no iron, plastic or glass, so i have deal with stone, leather, bone, wood, water and fire. Thats all!
Another difficulty for writing this script, was the spoken language. It must be universal mumbo-jumbo so no one can't understand it, and make the mimic to be the only way to tell the story. Wabu-wabu!
So i started to write, and managed to do 2-3 minute long story. You can read it in english here (http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/bw.part.1.battle_for_the_earth.pdf) (pdf) or http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/bw.part.1.battle_for_the_earth.pdf
To get even more to the right mood, i searched my AKG mic from some drawer and recorded the script. Because i gave my voice to both characters, they came out too similar. I have to find another voice from somewhere. You can listen the audio from here (http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/bw.osa.1.taistelu_maapallosta.mp3) (it is in bad mp3-format) or http://www.freewebs.com/timartman/bw.osa.1.taistelu_maapallosta.mp3
Riggin' it up!
After all this fumble, i started to make rigs for the characters. And now that "we" desided to use Max, i have the character studios biped also in use. So i made two separated rigs.
So why both rigs?
Well, the explanation is very simple. I love to animate with basic bone systems, but Biped comes very handy when you use things like motion capture. So i took few days more to do the skinning for biped also. And anyway, if this ever goes to production, everything is made again and even better.
Whats next?
Next things to do are storyboard and animation. I'm going to need some help in animations, because mimic and comedy timing is not my strongest values (although i can animate characters). I think i'm going to make a few phonecalls and ask some consultating help with these problems.
I'll be back ...