THE TEAM AND OVERVIEW

THE TEAM

Carlos Garcia : Team Lead / Character Lead

Dominique Duff : Environment Artist / Look Development Lead

Erick Villarreal : Lead Environment Artist


OVERVIEW

Max's House of Horror is a short film being created by three students at the University of the Incarnate Word.

We wanted to document our progress as much as we could throughout the production so that we can look back at our past work and see where we have come. A blog is a great way to do so.

We will continue to update this with three main categories in mind:

Story : From animatics, to storyboards or just overall story changes.

Characters : From concepts, modeled, textured, rigged and animated.

Environment : From white box models, to props, to fully lit/textured sets.


"In  a world where aliens co-exist with man.
 The struggle continues as the two species learn to live among each other. "

This was the initial log line for our short film pitch in class. Throughout the production and process of making the short film, as in nature, we will let the short film take it's shape in a very organic yet structured progression.

We plan on having this project completed within a year's time.
I hope you guys enjoy the work and if you have any questions feel free to let us know!

THE STORY

Story Work Here-------------------------------

THE ENVIRONMENT

The story initially called for the team to build an suburban neighborhood set in the 90's. So early on we started planning our layout to fit our stories needs.

The first step in that process was the construction of a white box.
This included having a visual representation for every or most objects that would be in the scene in one form or another.
The white box would assist in understanding the world in which the animatic would be built from.

This was the first pass of the set where the story would take place.

A main focus in the cinematography was taking place in the shed out back.
This scene included our main character Danny taking refuge in the shed. Which then he gets captured.

Here is a quick look at progress we made for the shed.




We ended up having a pretty big story change which called for the team to leave behind the work being put in for the houses.

The story had moved from a chase happening outside, to a chase/hide and go seek happening inside the house.
Overall the change in story was a good thing  and we moved forward to what was needed.
The construction of the interior had begun.

Again we started with a simple white box to get the overall proportions/scale/layout for the house.




From there we decided to separate the modeling of the house into designated sections so that we can slowly show the progression of each room being built.

The sections included:
The Kitchen: Erick Villarreal
The Living Room: Dominique Duff
The Boy's Room: Carlos Garcia
The Structure/Dining Room: Mutual Contribution

We will go ahead and show the progress for each section as we continue to finalize the models.

THE KITCHEN

In the early stage we decided instead modeling a complete asset one at a time and that asset being done. We chose to have an overall progression of definition in the models.
Meaning we can spend time where needed and still have the option to go back/refine models accordingly.

This was the first pass at figuring out the layout for the kitchen.



We new pretty early on what direction we wanted to go in terms of look/layout for the kitchen.
Pulling inspiration form Coraline, Paranorman, and Jurassic Park.

As for the style of the world we wanted the characters and environment to feel as they both belong together. So we made the decision to have an angular/skewed feeling to everything.
Meaning we would try to stray away from continued straight lines/curves. Adding a stylized feeling to world needed to tell our story.

The idea was that we would model everything properly first and then skew everything after.

Here is a quick updated image as we progress and refine the assets.



We plan on taking snapshots of our progression as we move forward.
We put a camera in the scene for each room. We locked and hid it so that when we need it we can easily access the same view.

We won't post every image but we will show gradual progress as we continue.

At the end of the production the team will put together a video showing all of the images put together. Showcasing our work in a time lapse form.

So for now here is the current state of the kitchen.



THE BOY'S ROOM

The boy's room is currently white boxed and will remain so. We will slowly start to fill the room and refine asset as we go. We wanted to finish the downstairs before moving on upstairs. 

So for now here is the current state of the room.




THE LIVING ROOM

The living room was hugely inspired by Laika's Studios film Paranorman. From the look development done on the couches to the 


THE DINING ROOM

THE CHARACTERS

MAX 

These were some of the first designs to get a quick feel for the direction of our human character Max.




Along the way we started making style choices and figuring out the exact look that we wanted for our film. We found the main inspiration from the Laika studios films, Paranorman, Coraline, and Boxtrolls.

We felt that the way their characters and world were brought to life was a great example on how we wanted to bring our world to life. When you watch their films it feels as if everything in the movie has its own unique personality. It is almost as if you could see yourself actually in that world.

We used 3d software to achieve the specific look for both the characters and the world we were building. Specifically we utilized the Quixel Suite and Vray to acquire our desired look.

We did a quick render test to see if we had achieved the look we were going for.



We ended up pushing the characters shapes a bit more to help this process out.
Here was the finalized concept for Max that we will continue to nail down as we start the 3d process.





From here we started to venture into 3d to see if we could accomplish this look there and improve on the forms as we go.

I did a really rough sculpt in zbrush (which I would never show anyone but for the nature of this blog why not ) to get the overall proportions and shape. Sort of like a gesture drawing before a finished illustration. Really rough but a good starting point to retopologize in your home software: Maya for myself.



This is mainly because I would rather have some blocked out form for a starting point rather than starting from a turnaround. I knew what the design of the character was but I wanted some freedom in it's 3d representation.

Here was the finished retopologized/cleaned up model. Unfortunately I didn't take any wireframe snapshots at this point. But for the most part I would get it to this point for critiques.



My professor noticed that I was losing the character and shapes that I had in the initial design. Which I couldn't agree more. So he had me experiment with the proportions and try to capture the initial character.

Here was the next iteration. I took his notes and tried to stay true to the design I had made.
Overall I think it was a good stride forward in understanding the look/feel we were going for in the short.
I also at his point started sculpting the face to really nail down the character I was trying to create.



There were still a few tweaks that were need to be made but I wanted to get all of the base retopology phases out of the way. So at this point his body, clothes, and face were all retopologized. I still am not sure where we plan of going for the hair. But as we do more test we will figure it all out.
I also went ahead and did a quick poly paint in zbrush to get a feel for the look we were going for.



One of the bigger decisions we made regarding the look of the character was the eyes/eyelids.
Laika has this really neat way of tackling the eyes due to the nature of stop motion. The characters they create have to be used practically with real metal rigs inside. So they separate the eyelids from the head. Letting it be a separate mesh.

We liked looked it achieved and thought it was would be a great style choice for our film.
This also allows for easier 3d printing if we decide to take that route for fun later on.

This is the final model/topology as of right now for Max. Once we begin the rigging portion of the project there may be slight adjustments if necessary.

We also decided to try nHair this time around. So I modeled hair planes to utilize GMH2, a geometry to maya hair tool.





BABY

I'll go ahead and show the few pieces we had done for the baby that never was. We found early on that the baby wasn't necessarily needed to convey the story we wanted to tell.

Here were the initial designs for him. We used inspiration from Laika's film The Boxtrolls.



A quick sculpt was done as well to get a feel for him. Although he will never see the light of day we thought it would be neat to show some of the work put in on him.




DANNY

Starting out we had a pretty strong idea for what we wanted Danny our Alien to look like. Although there was a story change the characters still looked the same.
Here is some of the finalized designs for our alien character Danny.



Here is a quick expression sheet we made to try and find a range of motion for him.



We were also struggling to figure out whether or not he should be wearing clothes. In our initial story we had a baby character and Danny was also going to be a baby.
But with the change in story we are stilling in the works on whether or not he should be wearing clothes.




Regardless of whether of not he will be wearing clothes we began some rough sculpts in zbrush to figure out if we could capture his form in a 3d space.



From here we figured it was working alright and we continued to the retoplogy phase.
Although in this process we found out that there would be some issues regarding the eye area.

In the first test sculpt his eyes are bulging out. Bigger than his body. But in the designs/expression test his eyes are drawn inside his body. I drew this unconsciously.

As of right now with the decision to have the characters eye follow Laika's characters I will do another test sculpt to figure out what his eyes will look like.




We ended up finding a solution for the eyes. We made them smaller and kept them pretty far apart. Giving Danny a shirt was also the decision we ended up making for the clothes. As of right now he will continue to have the shirt on. But late down the line we may end up taking it off.

Here is the final topology for our alien character Danny.