Narrative - Fish Scales

After receiving the file from mark, I implemented the scales onto the fish character I had skinned. Working with the scales as they grow/shrink for the animation will be somewhat slow as each scale will have to be altered individually . It is quite quick work to alter each scale though so it shouldn't be too bad. I think this fish is looking really good so far and I look forward to seeing it textured.

 

Narrative - Skinned Fish Character

After many issues and restarts, the fish character is now completely skinned and setup with the basic controls. If necessary, I may add more controls for the fins and tail. Overall, I am very happy with the outcome here.

 

Character Setup 

Character Setup (moved joints and mouth control)

Narrative - Fish Skinning Progress

The fish character is steadily progressing and the skinning is working out so far. The basic movement of the mouth and tail have been done but small tweaks and cleanups will likely need to be made.

 

Fish Mouth Movement

 



Fish Tail Movement

Narrative - Rigging the Fish Character

 Basic Rig Setup

 Applied to Model

 Adding more Joints for Flexibility

Final Rig Setup

Narrative - Render and Lighting Testing 3

After testing what lighting setup would be best in our current ravine scene, I am confident that what I have arrived at will work well as we begin to create our complete scene for the animation. After numerous attempts with different lights, I eventually used a weak area light covering the interior of the ravine and a volume light on our glowing plants. I also used a point light with the plant test (the orb). In the final scene it will likely sit inside of the plant and be disconnected from it, creating the illusion that the plant is glowing. 

 

 Render 1

 

 Render 2

 

 Render 3

 

Final Render

Narrative - Render and Lighting Testing 2

 Previous Lit Scene

 Changed the Spot Lights to a Lighter Blue

Added Volume Lights to Plant Life to Simulate a Glow

 

 

After adding a little more detail to the lighting testing I had worked with previously, I asked Simon what other techniques I could use to create a deep sea feel to our scene. He said it would mostly come from our work with light in the scene. He did also suggest some subtle particle effects in Aftereffects to move past the camera view. I feel that the bottom render image in this post is quite close to the basic lighting setup of our scene.

Narrative - Render and Lighting Testing



I have been trying to get a rough mockup of our ravine scene to appear underwater. So far I have tested different lighting techniques, including colour and fog effects. I intend to look into rendering techniques that could help me next as lighting certainly helps but will definitely not be enough on its own. The bottom image is what I have achieved using various lights.

 

Apologies as the images are quite dark as our scene is deep underwater, so a lot of the stronger lights will likely come from the plant life.

 

Basic Lighting setup.

Working with light fog. 

Final result with lighting.

Narrative - 'Ravine' Script Version 2

‘Ravine’ Script

Version 1

Fade in

Shot 1

Title ‘Ravine’ shown in centre of screen, in between two hills of sea plants.

Cut to

Shot 2

Fish 1 swims diagonally across camera view.

Cut to

Shot 3

Scene of sea plants swaying with the current.

Cut to

Shot 4

Fish 1 swims up across camera view.

Cut to

Shot 5

Fish 2 swims calmly across sea bed scene.

Cut to

Shot 6

Fish 2’s tail swims past plants, the plants noticeably sway in the direction of the tail as it moves, as if they are attracted to it.

Cut to

Shot 7

Group of plants stretch upwards as if in pursuit of something.

Cut to

Shot 8

Fish 1 swims in a panic, closely followed by plants from previous shot.

Cut to

Shot 9

Close-up of Fish 1’s face. Fish 1 noticeably bobs in shot.

Fade to

Shot 10

Extreme close-up of Fish 1’s face. Camera slowly zooms in during shot.

Cut to

Shot 11

Much larger mass of plants cover the camera. Camera pans left to reveal Fish 2 being chased by the plants.

Fade to

Shot 12

Fish 2 moves from open seabed into dense coral field. Still pursued by plants.

Cut to

Shot 13

Fish 2 swims frantically through coral to escape plants.

Fade to

Shot 14

Fish 2 swimming upwards, plants begin to close in and surround from below.

Cut to

Shot 15

Fish 1 is trapped by plants and is slowly covered as more and more plants close in. Camera noticeably shifts during shot.

Cut to

Shot 16

Fish 2 swims across from left, still pursued closely by plants. Fish 2 is almost trapped by plants but breaks free and gets away.

Cut to

Shot 17

Extreme close-up of Fish 1’s eye surrounded by plants. Camera slowly zooms in during shot.

Cut to

Shot 18

Far shot revealing Fish 2 on the left and Fish 1 on the right almost completely encompassed by plants. Both fish look at each other. A ravine is shown between them.

Cut to

Shot 19

Close-up of Fish 2’s face. Camera remains stationary as Fish 2 swims to the right and out of view. Fish 2’s tail disappears off screen.

Fade out

Narrative - 'Ravine' Script Version 1

‘Ravine’ Script

Version 1

Fade in

Shot 1

Title ‘Ravine’ shown in centre of screen, in between two hills of sea plants.

Cut to

Shot 2

Fish 1 swims diagonally across camera view.

Cut to

Shot 3

Scene of sea plants swaying with the current.

Cut to

Shot 4

Fish 1 swims up across camera view.

Cut to

Shot 5

Fish 2 swims calmly across sea bed scene.

Cut to

Shot 6

Group of plants stretch upwards as if in pursuit of something.

Cut to

Shot 7

Fish 1 swims in a panic, closely followed by plants from previous shot.

Cut to

Shot 8

Close-up of Fish 1’s face. Fish 1 noticeably bobs in shot.

Fade to

Shot 9

Extreme close-up of Fish 1’s face. Camera slowly zooms in during shot.

Cut to

Shot 10

Much larger mass of plants cover the camera. Camera pans left to reveal Fish 2 being chased by the plants.

Fade to

Shot 11

Fish 2 moves from open seabed into dense coral field. Still pursued by plants.

Cut to

Shot 12

Fish 2 swims frantically through coral to escape plants.

Fade to

Shot 13

Fish 2 swimming upwards, plants begin to close in and surround from below.

Cut to

Shot 14

Fish 1 is trapped by plants and is slowly covered as more and more plants close in. Camera noticeably shifts during shot.

Cut to

Shot 15

Fish 2 swims across from left, still pursued closely by plants. Fish 2 is almost trapped by plants but breaks free and gets away.

Cut to

Shot 16

Extreme close-up of Fish 1’s eye surrounded by plants. Camera slowly zooms in during shot.

Cut to

Shot 17

Far shot revealing Fish 2 on the left and Fish 1 on the right almost completely encompassed by plants. Both fish look at each other. A ravine is shown between them.

Cut to

Shot 18

Close-up of Fish 2’s face. Camera remains stationary as Fish 2 swims to the right and out of view. Fish 2’s tail disappears off screen.

Fade out

Narrative - Fish Character Development

After creating the bulk of ink thumbnails for our fish character, I took what I felt were the strongest silhouettes and altered them using the fin designs I had also created. After talking to the group, we all agreed that thumbnail 4 had a lot of potential. As such, after discussing what tweaks could be made to improve it, we have ended at something that can now serve as the core reference for our character concept and orthographic.

Set of Refined Thumbnails

Fish Thumbnail with Alterations

Final Tweaks

Narrative - A few more refined thumbnails

After talking to the group about my previous thumbnails, I created this smaller set. I started with simple brush strokes and shapes and expanded on them to make coherent fish designs. I feel like this is a step in the right direction and I think that my next step will be to take my existing thumbnails and combine them in Photoshop to create interesting designs.

 

Narrative - Fish character Thumbnails

I have created a series of thumbnails to try to find the definitive design for our fish character. I have used ink as I felt I could use some of its properties to my advantage. I used some of the ink thumbnails to create some interesting fin designs for our fish as well.

 

 

 

Thumbnails 1-10

Thumbnails 11-21

Thumbnails 22-33 (Fin Designs)

Thumbnails 34-50 (Fin Designs)

Thumbnails 51-61

Thumbnails 62-69

Thumbnails 70-86 (Rough Ink Shapes)

Thumbnails 87-98

Narrative - Small Sketches

Below are some more sketches to start to think about our environment and how the fish will change over the course of the animation.

 

 Sketch of the 'underwater ravine' environment.

Sketches of the fish getting covered in its environment.

Narrative - Fish Body Thumbnails

As our current story will be quite metaphorical overall, we have decided to create fish characters that would be read as a general fish, not as a specific kind of fish. Below I have created some thumbnails of early ideas for the overall shape of our fish. Many of these are quite rough and are just there for ideas for further concepts.

Revised Narrative Story Idea

BEGINNING
-Everything is colourful, lots of puffer fish are making patterns in the sand to attract females. Eventually we focus on a puffer fish who is struggling to make any kind of pattern.

- He looks at the other puffer fish and then at his own, he is frustrated and gives up and swims away.

- As he swims his surroundings become duller around him (reflection of how he feels).

- Dwelling on his failure to attract a mate, he becomes stressed and inflates.

- He (and maybe other puffer fish) notice that he has beautiful patterns on him when he inflates, normal puffer fish don't have this.

- He discovers that he can attract females with the patterns on his body instead of making patterns on the sea floor.

- The puffer fish is comfortable with the other fish and his surroundings, he is happy and content about being different. The surroundings change from dull to bright and colourful (a reflection of how he feels). END

This plot still seems quite rough around the edges. As a whole though, this seems to be how the story should flow.

Initial Narrative Story Ideas

Below I have listed the ideas I have worked on so far for the story for our group project.

The 2 themes and camera type we got were:

Under the Sea
Freedom
Parallel Narrative

I have not yet worked on ideas thinking of the parallel narrative, that will most likely be my next course of action.

Main Ideas:

These 3 are the ones I found to be the most interesting and unique.

-A storm/shark (or other) traps a diver inside a WW2 submarine.

-An old or modern diving suit, a fish gets trapped inside it (or a school of fish) and it/they have to maneuver the diving suit somewhere to escape it.

-Non-aquatic animal (insect, snail, cricket) is lured into a food jar discarded on a beach (or cliff) and the jar closes and is washed out to sea.

Simpler/ Less worked on ideas:

These are very basic ideas and may or may not have potential, I feel they are worth noting down at least.

-Crab trapped in a crab fishing cage.

-Storm traps a diver at the bottom of a seabed.

-Ship sinks, trapped passenger or crew member.

-Fish and a submarine.

-Escape from an aquarium.

-Fish caught by a boy on a fishing boat.

-Diver in old weighted diving suit, catches a fish.

-Modern exploration sub, octopus trapped inside, has to find a way out of the sub.