FURRRRRR BRRRRRR!!!!

As we decided to use fur on two characters- the bee and fly- I needed to study fur in Maya a bit. Its really complicated to match it perfectly with the mesh! UV mapping of the model needs to be perfect in order for fur to work.

BEE FUR

Iris the Bee has 3 different colours of fur. I spent ages doing proper UV mapping her,because apparently fur is connected with the texture even after deleting the texture and mesh history.

To get 3 color fur you need to extract the mesh, otherwise it doesn't work as as soon as you move something on the mesh (combining, moving vertices,...) the fur disappears.

Here are some very nice Maya Fur Tutorials:

http://www-viz.tamu.edu/courses/tutorials/rlogan/present/fur_pres.html

http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/product.php?productid=20

there is a possibility of achieving very nice fur looks with BUMP MAPPING in Z Brush:



But this is very time consuming, thats why we decided to go for Maya preset fur and adjust it the way we want.

I found this absolutely dreadful example of Maya fur fun, but different options of fur adjustments on one same model can be seen. This wolf is an example of bad UV mapping(squares on the back part).

Texturing

I thought this part would be easier. I had an idea of texturing those insects as they are hand drawn. I was trying to use some parts of drawings I made for character desing and to recreate some of them with help of graphic tablet- in Photoshop. It didnt really work when I attached them, because the resolution of thextures have to be quite high - 1024 x 1024 to get soe nice renders. In praxis that means that I had to do very precise UV mapping, do UV SNAPSHOTS, print them out and draw very huge textures:

NICKELODEON FEEDBACK

I was surprised

MODELING

We decided to do only (ONLY!!!) 7 of them, because according to our timetable even this is too much if we think of all the after processes of animation! We might duplicate them if we needed more of crazy insects to develop a story.



Modeling here might look very easy, but actually it took me quite some time to achieve these assimetrical organic shapes. This time I modeled all a bit differently: not extruding and building so much as taking pure shapes like sphere and re-sculpt them with lattice tool or extruding polygons over curves ( Fly's hair)

STORYBOARD

Huhhhh, we rushed this thing...it was very hard to think of all the dancing moves these creatures could be capable of considering their anatomy.

STORY SYNOPSIS

NICKELODEON

“BENEATH YOUR FEET”

Beneath Your Feet is a story about a bunch of crazy insect characters, trapped in the contemporary urban landscape of London. Us – humans - are just too busy, egotistic, huge and blind to notice these little creatures that exist all around us, but they don’t care too much, just as long as the party continues!

THE STORY

We decided to mix live action with 3D CGI animation.

Camera’s eye notices a shaking can in the bag full of rubbish. We cut to what is happening inside: the Old Fly Teacher Matilda is having a dancing lesson! As party progresses, she goes a bit mad, forgetting her age. Mosquito Fred is clumsily trying to dance nearby her. As she is completely on fire, not even realising what is happening to her, she grabs his trunk, swings him around and then…he disappears from the scene! A moment of silence…The whole dancing floor freezes in the position, then they turn into the direction of the “flight”, except Matilda, she is just slowly realising what happened, still in the frozen position. Then they look at each other…suddenly…start to laugh (each one with their own crazy sound), the music comes back again- and The Party goes on!!! The sequence finishes with the life action sequence of the same Coke can. The insects fly out, looking forward to another crazy adventure.

Although the story has a potential of several sequels; for example- they could have swimming lessons in a local puddle, Photo session on London Bridge, … We chose to do the Crazy dance lesson in an empty can of Coke in the middle of the busiest street in London.

CHANGE OF PLAN AGAIN!

After Luisa worked out in ANIMATIC how the thing with super stupid Mosquito banging into the glass for million times actually doesn't really work in 30 sec, we changed the plan again!

I went back to my drawing board and created the whole bunch of "SPECIAL INSECTS"! Im not exactly sure where I gt idea from, I usually just doodle for a while and here we go until ...I find the shape pleasant enough for aesthetic eye to develop it further into something more defined and well structured. I have the whole production process in mind when Im creating them... "How could I model that...what about texturing...is it simple enough to animate this...what kind of environment this could function in..." I take all of these in consideration when creating character design.

Fred is a clumsy mosquito, born with a bit of a dodgy wing, which prevents him flying with the same “rhythm” as all the rest of his kind. His trunk is too huge to drink and he needs constant help to unfold it.

Matilda is a very old fly, an elderly teacher, but still too active to take her much deserved pension and leave her beloved students on their own.

Alireza is a spider with uncertain amount of eyes which does not obey the brain too well.

Hendrick is a grumpy tick, he is just moaning and complaining about everything, but it still wouldn’t be much fun without him!

Iris is a nearly blind bee, she is always there, but never knows exactly what is going on. She also helps Fred with feeding- but only- if she finds him!

Bob is a dragonfly, he is just simply- dumb.

Ed is a grasshopper with a way too complicated pair of legs to control them properly.