CT4APP - Legs animation: storyboard

University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Animation Production Process

During the making of the storyboard I had difficulties with positioning the camera. As a solution to that problem I constructed two very basic versions of the backgrounds in Maya. After placing the camera in the right position I took screenshots and worked on top of them in Photoshop.

The sequence of the transition between the two backgrounds also seemed to  be difficult because initially I couldn't find a good solution for morphing. I found a good workaround by choosing what to show, or rather what not to show. By using close-ups and camera angles that didn't reveal the whole background I managed to convey the feeling of transition. 

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CT4APP - Legs animation: background concept

University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Animation Production Process

Because I wanted to depict a boring and bleak, the first part of the movie depicts a city made out of carton. The colors emphasize the feeling of depression, because they are desaturated.

The second part happens inside the character's imagination. The background becomes very colorful and dramatic, and to fit his character it becomes Chinese themed, and features a temple in the background. 

The cracks cause the sidewalk and buildings to fall, revealing the new scenery.

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CT4APP - Legs animation: legs and story concept

University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Animation Production Process

For this animation I came up with the story of a normal, mature adult man that is probably going to work. Because of his imagination, the whole situation becomes a game of 'floor is lava' and so he tries to avoid every crack in the sidewalk. For a moment he becomes a Shaolin (in his imagination) and beats the obstacle course, only to find out in the end that he was acting like a kid and he was standing out too much.

And so, even from the beginning I had to come up with two models for the legs.

Before I started to make the concept drawings I tried to get a more in depth look at how the legs work so I studied the anatomy:

The following concept drawings for the Shaolin outfit were featuring a loose part for the pants, which created problems while bending the legs and I wanted to animate by using nCloth in Maya, to get a more realistic feeling. I ran into many problems, like the fact that nCloth has to let the material 'rest' in order to get in a neutral position, and the surfaces were poking trough each other. The whole process proved to be too difficult and too demanding to get good results, so in the end I decided to modify the legs.

The new version allowed the legs to bend without creating too many problems.

During the research part I also drew some poses that could be used in the animation. The fact that this animation was about a Shaolin helped me in finding a lot of research material. I found many step-by-step tutorials on Youtube on how to do many of the moves that will appear in the animation and also I could get a lot of references from movies and even the animated show Avatar: The Last Airbender.

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