Latest on Sprite Fright

I came back from holidays this week and was greeted by the finished retopology for Rex. So I took this opportunity to do a full UV unwrapping pass on the new topology so we have grounds to do the actual shading on.

For this first week since I am back from the holidays I wrapped all the main character with only minor tasks left to do. All the teenagers and the sprites are signed off and the files cleaned up so that they are ready for retopology. This also means that more sculpting files will be uploaded to the Cloud for people to download.

Last week I spent my time exploring several sprite activities. When Ellie encounters the sprite village, what does she actually see? This is an ongoing conversation with Matthew (director) to explore habits, games and chores for the sprites to be busy with. Here you see a few of these explorations listed. Do you have an idea what sprites might be up to in their natural habitat?

This week I mostly focused on designing the environment of the mushroom grove and sprite village. What are the sprites actually up to all day? I also started a new piece of concept art that further defines what we established in the colorscript. And a snail got to express itself!

Updated Rex's rig helper face mesh. Completed retopology on Ellie's head with inner mouth, teeth, rig helper face mesh, and shape key tests; Ellie's head is ready for rigging. Retopologized the hands of time.

The first week of the year was spent on getting Rex closer to a "final" state, with grinding down the TODO list for him and addressing the final bits of animator feedback (until more comes up, of course).

This week I did more environment asset work to prepare the first sets. Simultaneously, the development on Blender's Geometry Nodes system is ramping up, so I really wanted to give this a go and see how we can utilize it for the forest!

I tested the latest Rex facial rig setup by posing and transitioning to different emotions. Simply to check if we can hit the desired poses, addressing appearing issues to the rigging department and explore personality of Rex in these poses.

Recreated the alternate 'square' teeth shape key on Rex's retopologized teeth following the sculpt. Recreated 'mouth_uu' shape key as test on Rex's retopologized head mesh following the sculpt. Started on Ellie and completed retopology on head, eyebrows, and eyelashes.

Minor tweaks to the eye rig, improvements and documentation for CloudRig's Troubleshooting module and bug reporting, update the Sprite mesh to the latest one and improve the behaviour of the hat, and a happy Christmas!

I got involved a lot in software feedback and design as well as personal matters so I couldn't work a lot on the film. I did make some progress on wrapping up the Victoria, Ellie & Rex sculpts and prepare them for handover to retopology but mostly I also spent some time tweaking the Sprites design a bit.

Last week I dived into the world of the sprites, little creatures that happily live together while maintaining the order and beauty of the forest. In order to get to explore their behavior, mood and characteristics for the movie, I made a bunch of walkcycles to start this conversation with Matthew (director). How would you imagine the sprites if you spotted them in the forest?

Addressed requests from animation on Rex's facial and eyebrows performance. Rex is now ready for the next steps; rigging and surfacing. Assessed Ellie sculpt file for retopology readiness. Developed a sculpt-to-retopology handover checklist to be implemented as standard for upcoming characters.

The work on the environment continues. Paired with some lookdev using the popular Phil scene I also worked on a composite of the Rex forest run animation test.

I painted over the mushroom grove layout and tried to establish the light and mood for that moment in the movie. Also some final tweaks on our animal cast!

This week I mostly worked on more Rex lip controls! And more importantly, moved back to the office to watch Hjalti's cat while he is away ;)

Now that the Expression tests are being wrapped up & the sculpts are signed off for Retopology my work was focused on the last expression sheets to compare the main lineup of characters in expression style & range. Additionally I was also cleaning up any approved sculpting files so that I can share them here on the Cloud. More files will follow soon!

This week my time was spent alternating between lighting a testing scenario and doing more work on bushes. I also ended starting another oak tree model.

This week I spent time to compare the walk and runcycles together. Simply to check if these characters can fit in the same world in terms of motion. Next to that I updated the walk of Jay to give him some attitude.

Finalized retopology of Rex. Retopology is very much like solving a puzzle, relying entirely on topology alone to achieve an end result that follows the sculpt. Each piece needs to deform properly with all connecting pieces so that the entire character can withstand the demands of a very cartoony styled production.

This week I finalized the lighting of the forest run test shot and rendered out multiple version that we wanted to try, to figure out the exact animation style we want to go for.

During this week I added the sprites' rigs and I fixed some of the trajectories. Also I added some grease pencil strokes on Ellie to simulate some motion blur

I mostly spend the week finalizing some of the animal characters and providing paintovers and drawovers. There were minor adjustments made to the short so the Colorscript needed to be updated also.

Implementing round 1 of Rex face rig feedback!