Background for shot 35

Big Frog

-Erik

Small Frog with texture

~Nic Meier

Bark Texture

--Erik

This is a tricky shot..a lot of geo went into filling up the space and it could still use some more probably. The idea is to get it to look like the boat is entering a denser part of the swamp, so the distant background will be shadowy here.

--Erik

This background will be mostly sky with a few distant trees on the left. I figured once we get the textures and lighting down we can work on a matte painting that will match the tones of the geo.

That foreground grass is probably just temporary, but it looked nice for the composition. (It would be obtrusive in future shots.) Once we have lighting we can use shadows from the overhead trees to balance out the composition.

--Erik

Shot 1

Can't wait to see it textured and lit. That foreground branch hanging down is indistinguishable from the background leaves at this point, but once we have lighting it will pop.

--Erik

Working Hard, Erin Burke Above. Below Alston Jones

Gator modeled by Amanda Kieffer

colors for characters

Water treatment by John Moncrief

Dragon Fly model by Naphason Lertyaovarit

Fat man on Airboat. Modeled by Greg D Perez

Airboat modeled by Greg D Perez

Airboat concept by Amanda Kieffer

Big frog model by Erik Minkin

Bird rig by Virginia Duke

Aloha!

What have I experienced so far working on "Drag 'n' Fly"....

For many of us embarking on this group project, it is our first experience working in this manner. For me, it's been exciting, overwhelming, and a little scary to step into a real animation pipeline. It's as all of our professors have explained from all of their professional experience that there are modelers, riggers, animators, texture artists, lighters, etc all working together like a clock. Ours is a tiny group in comparison to some of the large studios out there like Dreamworks or Sony but large in contrast to past SCAD Atlanta group projects. We've got quite a variety of talent covering all bases. I can only hope to hold up my end as rigging supervisor (although I am supervisor I will continually go to Keyur for help!). Rigging can be named a "thankless job", unglamorous, boring, tedious. Those in the animation industry would agree it is extremely important and can be awfully technical. Somehow I find happiness in it (well I'm happy when my outliner is pretty and organized). Maybe it's just the extreme relief after struggling with one stubborn joint that won't skin properly. For those of you who aren't in the industry or studying to be, rigging is basically putting the bones and joints in a character and giving it controllers to afford the animator the capability to actually move it. For those familiar with rigging, it has been...challenging. I've rigged boucing balls, little clown, a penguin, an octopus, a biped. NEVER A BIRD! I am armed with some good reading and a plethera of online tutorials. Bring it on. Go team.

-Virginia Duke

Bird model done by Alston

Water simulation test by Joshua Harshbarger

Final fish model done by Stefan A Lepera

Proxy fish with rig done by Stefan A Lepera

Our logo made by Naphason Lertyaovarit

April 22nd, we took a trip to the Red Light cafe to listen to some bluegrass for the film. http://www.ducktownstation.com/ At the moment we are going to add one of the songs to our new 3d animatic. Then we will email it to them in hopes they will score us the song for the film.

Modeling is well on its way. With the art assets behind us, the playground and the main characters are near completion. We will soon move on to textures and lighting the scene while animating the proxy models at the same time. Go Team!!

Small frog modeled by Nic Meier.

Fly modeled by Jessica Huang.

Latest character design of the air-boat driver. Too awesome I know! A re-engineered version of my original design by John Hurst :)

Approved Character Designs for production by John Hurst

Ribbit

'Gator Lair' (shot 33)

'The Ramp' (shot 15)

sayonara froggie (shot 12)

Intro shot

Frog Animation Animatic