Major Project: Blog Submission

Post-Viz Mr Plimsolls from Katie Lima on Vimeo.

Major Project: Bathroom Animation Scenes

Some of the scenes for the Bathroom part of my film describing the fate of Mr Plimsoll's wife. There is some issues with the textures and the lighting in the bathroom set that need a go over to make sharper and less noticeable, to achieve a watercolour aesthetic showed in the backgrounds in 1930s cartoons. I also need to add a spotlight effect to the axe and fridge scenes so that it reflects what is shown in the animatic more faithfully.

Major Project: Mr Plimsoll- Facial Rigging

Fig 1: Mr Plimsoll's Facial Controls

Fig 2: Side Profile of Mr Plimsoll and his Facial Controls

Fig 3: Mr Plimsoll's Eye Blink 

Fig 4: Mr Plimsoll's Mouth Open and Tongue Out

 The facial rigging on Mr Plimsoll's is at a good stage, his mouth is able to open and close and there is quite a good range of expression there. the only thing that I would say is an issue would be the a modelling issue where I think that his mouth is a little bit too large, in a way that when pulling the controls in the corners of his mouth, they do distort a little bit and pulling the mouth controls into a tight expression like a 'shh' is a little hard to do because of the larger mouth.
I added an extra control in the nose to allow for additional movement in that area for when he walks and the blink, while taking me three tries due to simple mistakes I did with the blend shapes, works just fine.
Overall I am quite happy with how the facial rig has turned out, I might have to do some finessing in the mouth area to make sure that the skinning on the joints in the blend shapes are blended smoothly, but in general Mr Plimsoll is able to do what I want him to do now.

Major Project: Concept Art for Props and House Variations for Road Set

Fig 1: Variations of Houses for the Road set

Fig 2: Designs for Mr Plimsoll's Bag

Fig 3: Concepts for the Photo above the Fireplace in Mr Plimsoll's Living room

Here are some concepts for the bag Mr Plimsolls carries around in the first act of the film, variations of the houses that will be seen in the background of the road set for the same scenes and thumbnail ideas for the picture of Mr Plimsolls' wife that will be in a picture frame above the fireplace in Mr Plimsolls' living room.

The House variations are just to give the background of the road set a bit of character as Mr Plimsolls walks by. The houses are similar but the differences are in the features of them, and my plan is to take 3-4 of the designs to use for that set.

For Mr Plimsolls' wife I wanted to go for a character design that was quite hidden in terms of who she is, but for her to be portrayed as a positive person in Mr Plimsolls' life so having her also smile but be smiling in a way that is opposite to Mr Plimsolls, instead of being creepy, her smile is more genuine.

Major Project: Mr Plimsolls- Finessing the Skinning on Limbs and Pose Space Deformers

Fig 1: Example of Pose Space Deformer working in Shoulder and Knee of Mr Plimsolls

Fig 2: Skinning in arm following Ribbon Spines used for the Rubber Hose Rig Example 1 

Fig 3: Skinning in arm following Ribbon Spines used for the Rubber Hose Rig Example 2

Fig 4: Elbow is still able to bend naturally despite the influence from the Rubber Hose Rig

Sorting out the Pose Space Deformers onto Mr Plimsolls, I was able to give him natural movement in his shoulders, elbows, knees and hips without the geometry buckling. While I'm pleased with the final results it did take me a while and multiple back up saves to sort out parts like the knee to make sure that the other parts of the model like the shorts weren't doing anything weird like suddenly pop out when other poses in the legs happen, like raising the leg in a forward rotation.

After I was at a point where I was happy with how the model bent, I put Mr Plimsolls into a couple of poses only to see that the arms weren't flowing correctly in an arc when the elbow control and the flex controls are pull out together. So I went back into the Paint Skin Weights Tool to update the weights in the arm to allow fluid motion both when the controls are pulled separately and when they are moved together as well.

Major Project: 3D Environment- Mr Plimsoll's Bungalow Progress so far

Fig 1: Mr Plimsolls Bungalow

Fig 2: Close up on Roof

Fig 3: Close up on Fence and Gate

Fig 4: Model of Tree used in the Foreground

Here is the process of Mr Plimsoll's Bungalow at the moment, I still need to add the overgrown nature of the house, ivy on the roof and on the house, and the overgrown bushes that cover the front of the house. There is still some modifications that need doing on the gate panels and the windows still need developing.
Despite this I'm pretty happy with the progress so far with this scene, even if its still in the developing phase and in need of some refining.

Major Project: Environment Concept Art 02

Fig 1: The Road Mr Plimsoll's lives on

Fig 2: Mr Plimsoll's Living Room

These two concept arts depict the road Mr Plimsoll lived on and his living room for the ending scene. The idea for the road was that it would rotate as Mr Plimsoll's walks down the road, so to emphasise that idea the scene was drawn using curves and perspective was taken into account.

Mr Plimsoll's living room was design with the idea that Mr Plimsoll's was just a man who went through the trauma of losing his wife. To show that he reminisces the time he spent with his wife, I had the idea of the room having many picture frames with pictures of them as a couple. The run down aspect is more due to the fact that because of his old age he wasn't able to keep up with the house keeping. As well as preferring to spend the majority of his time outside of his house, wandering around the town instead of staying indoors wallowing in loneliness.

Major Project: Mr Plimsolls Model Progress- Rigging and Skinning

Fig 1: Mr Plimsolls' Rig

Fig 2: Mr Plimsolls' Skinning

Fig 3: Example of the "Rubberhose" Rig working on skinned Mr Plimsolls 01

Fig 4: Example of the "Rubberhose" Rig working on Skinned Mr Plimsolls 02

After the Submission for the Minor Project, I went back to refine the rig on Mr Plimsolls as Alan informed me that there was some rotations in the Shoulder and Elbow joints which lead to me redoing the entire rig. While attempting to fix this issue I realised that there was an issue with the pole vector constraint when adding a pole vector to the IK Handle.

I came to the conclusion that it was due to the way that the arms were originally positioned, they were slightly sloping downwards instead of being in a strict T-pose. Just to experiment I made some standard three joint arm rigs and applied IK handles to them to find out that the reason why rotations would jump on the joints happened due to the joint placement being incorrect.

To combat this I made some slight changes to the model's geometry by straightening out the arms and placing the joints in a straighter position making sure to make the only rotations made were in the joint rotations and not the world rotation. While this helped with the IK Handle issue I had slight complications with the Pole Vectors still, However after carefully following one of Alan's rigging tutorials for Jetpack Jones I was able to get it working properly.

I had a few issues with setting up the "Rubberhose" rig too, the issues mainly involving the connections and the constraints with the ribbon spines and another issue of them causing weird rotations to happen to the joints. However after fiddling with the rig, and redo the ribbon spines more times then I can count, I was able to fix the rig so that there are no sudden rotations in the joints and the controls work with the ribbon spine without that much of an issue

Overall while rigging Mr Plimsolls as been a somewhat difficult and way more convoluted then I originally thought, I'm quite happy with the progress if made with him so far, even if the issues I've had with him as pushed me back time-wise then what I would of liked.

Major Project: Environment Concept Art 01

Fig 1: The Front of Mr Plimsoll's House

Fig 2: View of the Churchyard from Mr Plimsoll

Fig 3: Mr Plimsoll's Bathroom

For these environments I looked at background art of cartoons in the 1920's-1930's, with the exception of the Bathroom. I wanted the environments to fit with the character of Mr Plimsoll's, his house looked over grown and spooky to the children of Park Avenue. The bathroom on the other hand I wanted it to look like it is in the perspective of Mr Plimsoll's and his discovery of his wife in the bathroom, so I played with distortion to the furniture and walls, the perspective isn't correct at all to add to the off putting feeling that I want this scene to have in the final film.
Overall while I like the process I'm making with these environment designs and they are able to convey the scenes clearly, I feel as though I can push the creepy, overgrown nature of Mr Plimsoll's house further.

Minor Project- Mr Plimsolls: Animatic

Mr Plimsolls- Animatic from Katie Lima on Vimeo.

Here is the Animatic for my film about Mr Plimsolls. After looking at the feedback I got for the storyboards I made slight changes to them before sorting them out into the animatic. I realised that I would need some additional scenes as I was applying the frames to the audio as the timings between the two weren't matching up to my liking. I tried to keep the sets and backgrounds limited for the film and I also wanted to try out so effects in 2D in some of the scenes, like with the churchyard scene. Overall, doing the animatic as now given me a stronger idea of how the film will turn out, now that there is visuals to go with the audio. 

Minor Project: Mr Plimsolls- Storyboard

Fig 1: Storyboard Page 1

Fig 2: Storyboard Page 2 

Fig 3: Storyboard Page 3

Fig 3: Storyboard Page 4

Fig 4: Storyboard Page 5 - Final-

Mr Plimsolls Updated Audio after Feedback from Katie Lima on Vimeo.


Here is the Storyboard for my film about Mr Plimsolls, I wanted to go from black and white in the beginning parts and then moved to colour after the reveal of Mr Plimsolls just being a regular man. I didn't want to make the road he lived on too flat so I tried to make it look childish and that led to the circular nature of the road in some shots. A part of the storyboard that I found difficult was in the description from my Uncle about the house, I didn't want to change the perspective to my uncle as he talks about trying to avoid the house, having it instead stay on Mr Plimsoll's and his bungalow for the duration, so that part in the storyboard in my opinion is quite a weak part but it does help in the lead up to the Knock Down Ginger segment.

Minor Project: Further Update on Mr Plimsolls Audio

Mr Plimsolls Updated Audio after Feedback from Katie Lima on Vimeo.



After receiving the feedback in the last post, I updated the audio to help in stream lining the structure of it, such as deleted dialogue describing Mr Plimsolls that appeared twice and also changing the ending by swapping the two accounts over so that the ending works better.

Minor Project: Updated Audio for Mr Plimsolls

Mr Plimsolls Audio Version 2 from Katie Lima on Vimeo.


After receiving feedback from Phil for the previous post, I went back to the audio and made some adjustments, mainly getting rid of any dialogue that changes the focus from Mr Plimsolls to the person speaking as well as tweaking other dialogue, making it shorter and flow a bit faster to help in reducing the overall time of the audio.
The overall goal this time round was to have a build up of Mr Plimsolls being this scary character up until the reveal that he was just an old man and it was the children making up stories and being frighten of him solely based on his appearance, as the last version I posted didn't have that flow to it.

@Phil Minor Project: Audio For Mr Plimsolls

Mr Plimsoll Audio from Katie Lima on Vimeo.



Here is the compiled audio track that I made using the accounts I received from the people I had interviewed with about Mr Plimsolls. I initially went into forming an audio track with the a clear idea of what I wanted to include in the final track however it turned out harder than I thought it would do. What I want to convey in my final animation overall is to show what a childhood bogeyman was in the mind of a child compared to how they actually were in reality so hopefully that can show through in this audio I have here. There are some bits here and there that need some tweaking and I'd really love to have some feedback to help improve the audio further.

Minor Project: Mr Plimsolls' Modelling Progess

Fig 1: Overall view of Mr Plimsolls' Head Model

Fig 2: Mr Plimsolls' Throat has now been modelled

Fig 3: Unsmoothed overview of Mr Plimsolls' Body Model

Fig 4: Close up of Torso, his belt has now been modelled

Fig 5: Smooth Preview of Mr Plimsolls Body

Progress with Mr Plimsolls is going along pretty well, I was stuck with an issue with the back of his head and with his neck earlier in the week but thanks to Alan I was able to get the flow of the back of his head right, while also leading more geometry to the ear, as well as finding out that the hole for the neck should of been bigger. This lead to cutting away at the underside of the jaw to allow for the neck to flow much better. This has lead me with some issues with cutting down in the amount of vertices on the neck for when I connect the head to the body but it isn't so much of a difficulty issue but more of a finding a efficient way of cutting down the vertices around the neck without damaging the flow of the model's head.
Mr Plimsolls' body is pretty much all there now, I had to clean up some of the vertices on his hand because I guess that when I changed the version of Maya I was using, it moved around the geometry leading to some of the fingers in the hand to alter and look weird. After clearing that up, I finalised his belt and added some additional edge loops to the chest so that I didn't have as much work cut out for me for when I connect the head to the body, with sorting out the vertices in the neck in the head model.

Minor Project: Audio of Rachel and Sharon's Account about Mr Plimsolls

[Video is temporarily on Youtube due to uploading issues on Vimeo]

Transcript

Mr Plimsolls, what do you remember of him?
Sharon: Well I’m older then Rachel, I’m five years older so I think my memory would perhaps be clearer? Um I remember him being very short, I don’t know if that’s because as a child I was very tall and he did look quite small with his white dirty rain mac on, that had a very thick rope like tie around the middle and he had a very very pointy fierce looking face, obviously wore plimsolls. Only came out in the dark, walked exceptionally quickly for somebody who looked so old and frail, he had great speed about him didn’t he [Rachel: He did yeh…yeh] he really flew along, and he always had a bag but the bag always looked empty so it was similar to a roy cropper sort of shopping bag with short handles on it that were always in the hook of his arm, but then there never appeared to be anything in that bag did there? [Rachel: No] but he never left the house without it

Rachel: That’s right, and he never spoke [Sharon: never no] I never heard him speak I don’t, yeah I never heard him talking at all. But yeah, my memory is the same as Sharon’s that um, yeah he just scuttered around, he just scuttered around and he never wore anything other than his dirty rain coat

Sharon: And never made eye contact with anybody [Rachel: No, head down] and a stoop on his back [Rachel: Yeah] I don’t think that he probably could lift his head up actually [Rachel: No]

Rachel: And his house, um, was just so overgrown wasn’t it? All these trees in front of it and it just looked really eerie

Did he scare you at all?
Rachel: No he didn’t scare us because he never said anything, it’s just because he didn’t look right, because he, he, because of his appearance you would be scared and because of what his house looked like, it was so run down this bungalow, and then of course we’d heard stories, his wife had drowned um, way before we had moved there

Sharon: I think it was shortly after he got married wasn’t it, the story goes

Rachel: And yeah, she drowned herself in the bath, and as the story goes – her clothes were left on a chair in the bathroom and apparently he never ever moved them. Now how we know about that story I don’t know, but it was obviously just from [Sharon: from here say] yeah from here say yeah   

Mum said that you guys used to play Knockdown Ginger on his door, want to talk about any occurrences with that?

Rachel: -We probably did I would imagine yeah definitely we did do that because we probably egged each other on who was gonna be the bravest to knock on his door

Sharon: Yeah I think that the dare was to approach the door and knock it but I don’t recall anyone being brave enough to go up that footpath, because that footpath was bleak wasn’t it [Rachel: Yeah] the gate went “rrrrrgh” cos it sort of hung of the hinges didn’t it? [Rachel:Yeah yeah] the windows where all covered in ivy [Rachel: Yeah yeah, you couldn’t see it really] and the footpath was all overgrown with trees

Rachel: You know what the more I think about it the more clearer I can see it in my head, I can really picture it

Sharon: But it was like a film, you would imagine if you went up to that door you’d never be seen again because he would put his hand out, grab you, pull you in, shut the door and that would be it, so I never knocked the door

Rachel: No no and I definitely wouldn’t of been brave enough, your mother was definitely brave and probably your uncles

Did you want to describe his house in a little more detail?

Rachel: As I say it was just from the outside, it was just completely overgrown and as Sharon said like, [Sharon and Rachel: tiny little windows]

Sharon: The way you would draw a house

Rachel: Yeah, and well it was a bungalow, um the garden was so overgrown just loads and loads of trees in front of it … really run down… did the roof have some holes in it?

Sharon: It’s like a corrugated roof wasn’t it?

Rachel: Yeah…

Rachel: But yeh that’s just how I pictured it yeah its just its, just ivy, you couldn’t see what colour it was could you?

Sharon: Wasn’t there a car parked on the drive?

Rachel: There was! Yes, a really old like triumph sort of thing

Sharon: A green triumph, [Rachel: That’s right yeah] that was camouflage with all the trees

Rachel: Yeah but again, well he obviously never drove it unless he did drive it maybe?

Sharon: No, because it was all blocked in and there wasn’t a gate, the car must of been driven in and then the wall was built

Rachel: Maybe yeah

Sharon: Remember there was nowhere for that car to come out

Rachel: Yeah Maybe…

Sharon: Remember that?

What about in the Summer, What did he wear then?

Both: The same

Rachel: It definitely wasn’t seasonal! He had the same coat and the same… [Sharons: Shoes, the same plimsolls] shoes and the same flat cap! Yeah the same.
Mum said that he wore a white vest top and shorts and that

Rachel: Really?

Sharon: Yeah that does ring a bell actually, a white vest…

Rachel: I don’t know I don’t remember that, don’t forget that I’m a baby compared to these two, I don’t remember that, I definitely don’t remember that

Sharon: When was the heatwave, what year was you born in?

Rachel: 73

Sharon: 73, I think maybe the heatwave was 75? Yes that is fact, there was vests and shorts yes

Rachel: I don’t remember that at all no, I obviously blocked that one out of my memory

Sharon: Like erm, like a little Dad’s Army character, that’s what he looked like [Rachel: Oh really?] yeah, when there were back in the mess yeah, little shorts and vests yeah

Rachel: Crikey, yeah no I don’t remember that at all no

Did he give you nightmares at all?
Rachel: No it’s just someone that you’d wouldn’t…

Sharon: We didn’t run away from him did we? But we also didn’t run to him either

Rachel: No no, I’d suppose would’ve been scared if you met him on your own, but I never had any nightmares, not that I can remember that I wouldn’t, no I didn’t have any nightmares… Yeah but no he didn’t, he he- I’d say that he didn’t scare me, as in but you would be scared as in you wouldn’t want to approach the house for the Knock Down Ginger but he wouldn’t be giving me nightmares no. I wouldn’t of had any bad experiences with him

What about his behaviour? Anything odd?

Rachel: Well because he never spoke, it would have been different if he sort of shouted things at you, did he shout?  

Sharon: No he never spoke, but on reflection now, you know when you look back on it, and I never given him a moment’s thought in adult life, we never laughed at him, so we obviously thought that he deserved some sort of respect

Rachel: Yeah, we didn’t jeer at him, did we? [Sharon: no no] there was no jeering

Sharon: and there was a lot of kids in Park Avenue, there was [Rachel: and there could have been a lot of jeering going on] probably twelve playing out the front wasn’t there, but nobody every laughed, they just sort of cleared the way as he scuttled along, we just sort of stood to one side

Rachel: And I think because he was really out at night time anyway ya know sort of… maybe we just gave him respect, and maybe it was because maybe because mum maybe told us that his wife drowned maybe

Sharon: Thankfully he never invited us swimming because we’d knew then that we would never be alive after the outing

Rachel: Yeah no, I think that if he spoke…I think that if someone speaks to you you get a clearer picture wouldn’t you?


Rumour of being chopped up and put in the fridge/freezer

Rachel: But that’s why because that was obviously the story about his wife according- he didn’t drown her, apparently, she’d committed suicide

Sharon: He kept his wife in the fridge? I don’t know about that, I think, I think Ricky Dillon, was trying to give Catharine Dillon nightmares

Rachel: Yeah no I wouldn’t know again, and I normally got a really good memory for things as well haven’t I? But maybe it was because he was weird

Sharon: She was killed years before we came on the scene though

Rachel: Yeah, but whether mum heard that story from Mrs Lana

Sharon: And I wonder how old he was, he looked 90, but he may well of only been 60

Rachel: He may well of been our age

Sharon: Oh no

Rachel: He might be

Sharon: What our age now?

Rachel: Yeah

Sharon: No no he was older then that, but he did look like a really withered old man, but I would guess maybe he wasn’t, he probably was only about 60

Rachel: Yeah possibly yeah, but that was only because mum had said it wasn’t it? About the um drowning and then it was like ‘oh I remember that now’

Sharon: And everyone puts such emphasis on the clothes were still on the chair where she removed them, if your gonna drown yourself, you might as well keep your clothes on really mighten you

Rachel: Probably easier to put her in the fridge or the freezer

Sharon: I’m surprised that he had such white goods, like a fridge freezer

Rachel: Back in the day yeh   

Last Words
Rachel: Mr Plimsolls didn’t have any children, I think we’ve kind of-

Sharon: Oh definitely not, didn’t have any animals, didn’t have anything

Rachel: I wonder what year he died in then… he died in that house…do you remember that?

Sharon: did he die, when I still lived at home?

Rachel: Yeah I’d say so..

Sharon: What he was still alive or he had died?

Rachel: No, he would have been dead by then wouldn’t he?

Sharon: I have no idea Rach, I’ve got no idea when that house was renovated, I looked at that house to buy it at some stage in my life. That freaked me out though, when Craig said that the house was going up for sale did I want to go look at it, I just couldn’t get his little face out of my mind when I was looking round it. I didn’t even mention the drowning in the bath room.