Proposal

Context and Concept

For this project my plan is to design, model, texture, pose and render a 3D model ready for rigging and animating. The aim is to make a unique, realistic character that is highly detailed and to a similar technical specification as you would find in high quality films.

Studying anatomy and forms from real life I aim to create a character that although imaginary in concept is believable, having firm groundings in animal/human structure. Researching these techniques/methods and creating the character will lead to a final model that I will use in a character design and modeling show reel upon graduation.

Theory for Research

The research I plan to undertake will be technical as well as artistic.

Artistically I will research anatomy, character design and traditional art skills. Technically I will look into workflow and pipelines for designing characters for industry standard work, all done using the latest techniques and software.

The practical research I gather will be from several sources; I will study books on anatomical reference, art and character design. I will also look at examples of successful and not so successful characters. There are a vast range of DVD titles to study from; ‘Gnomon Workshop’ has many available on several aspects of character building, from 2D concept to 3D modeling and rendering. The internet will also be an area for research as most of the latest techniques are published online before being put to print.

During the whole process I will also be running a public web log that will enable me to obtain feedback from peers and professionals. The address is below:

http://filmcharacter.blogspot.com/

The written research I will undertake will look into the role of realism in art throughout the centuries, focusing on the French School movement in the mid-19^th century up to the current day. I will begin by analyzing major realists such as Gustave Courbet and then progressing through time into the current search for realism through 3D graphics. This will not only let me learn from the past but allow me to take those lessons and apply them to my character.

Thumbnails

Watched a DVD on coming up with creature concepts today, it was a great DVD by a guy named Nick Pugh. One of his methods is to churn out loads of thumbnail drawings with different silhoettes. That way you can come up with ideas pretty quick before commiting to a rendered pencil drawing. Well this is my first attempt inspired by the zoo, most of them are a bit crap but there are a few that I would like to pursue. I'll probably do some more first.

Originally my idea was to do a bipedal character, I'm not so sure now. I've left the next couple of weeks for purely doing concept work, so I'll see what I come up with.

Demo Reels

Copyright Alex Huget

My main ambition with this project is to get something worthy of a demo reel by the time I finish this degree. In an effort to gain inspiration and see what standard I should be getting too I've spent a long time scouring my harddrive and the internet for modeling showreels. The good, the bad and the Ugly ;) Its pretty useful stuff and really puts you in the spirits to get on and work on something! The above image is off one of the better ones, a guy called Alex Huget who works at the Moving Picture Company. He does some great work and has an amazing reel!

Timetable

Just finished my timetable for the module, If I keep up with it I shouldn't have to stress out too much and hopefully get everything done well and in time. (Click the Image to expand)

Planning

There are so many stages in a charcter design pipeline that I need to take into account I decided to get my ideas on my paper of everything that I may come across. As I come from a design background I'm quite used to creating spider diagrams to get my ideas down. Knowing what areas I'm going to delve into is useful when I start to create a timetable for the next 14 weeks. This is what I came up with:-


With that roughed out the next step is to timetable my next 14wks so I can keep track of my progress.

Introduction

Copyright Julius Noel

The following blog is in place to document my work and methods towards the 'Single Project' module at Thames Valley University.

For this project my plan is to design concept, model, texture ,pose and render a model to film specifications. My aim is to make the character unique realistic and highly detailed.

I plan to update this blog on a regular basis. A brief explanation of the assignments are as follows:-

proposal - 10%

Email submission: (wk2)

selling presentation (compulsory)

presentation: (wk4)

working practices demonstration 20%

presentation: (wk10)

written review of relevant research 20%

submission: (wk14)

digital artefact 50%

submission: (wk14)