Group Project 2 Meeting 1 6/1/14 Everyone was assigned the task of creating an idea for a web series and

d have an idea for a potential episode/trailer and a character design. After all of the presentations had been conducted, six ideas were chosen but due to the fact that all of the chosen ideas were 2D based, a sixth idea was chosen - Angelinas idea of mafia animals. She then formed a group with Sophia and Simon, planning to create the whole animation in 3D. Meeting 9/1/14 Attendants: Angelina, Sophia Angelina and Sophia met up and began discussing plans for the project. They chose to create a short trailer and came up with this idea: -Dogfather schemes on a large drug dealing -Dog lawyer supports him -Fox lady is Dogfathers mistress but is secretly working for another mafia -Dogfather discusses the drug dealing to the two. After the discussion, fox lady leaves the office and is seen to speak on the phone, releasing the information Angelina and Sophia then meet Mat, where they discuss the possible methods of creating this trailer. This is the advice they were given: -Produced more character designs, finalising them and giving them character and personalities, which will help when modelling them. -Produced more character poses from different angles as reference -Create models that are quite low poly, perhaps keeping them very stylised -When modelling, keep the mouth open and body in a T-shape, which will make rigging easier -Use bones to animated facial expression Meeting 3 13/1/14 Attendants: Angelina, Sophia, Simon Sophia began designing the environment of the trailer, which was agreed to be set in an office, whilst Angelina produced more sketches for the characters. The three decided to try and come up with a finalised idea for the trailer. After a lot of discussion, they decided with: -Dogfather is the leader of a mafia for 10 years, which was handed down to him by the exboss, who is currently in jail serving his sentence for a mass drug dealing scheme -Ex-boss will be released soon and Dogfather will be forced to give up his positions as the mafias leader -Dogfather schemes to assassinate ex-boss on the day of his release -Dogfather consults with dog-lawyer (a passive character and the narrator for the web series) and fox lady (who plays as the traitor) -Fox lady leaves the room and contacts ex-boss associates, exposing the plan

The group had a meeting with Tony and Meg, sharing their ideas and presented the sketches. Tony and Meg thought it was good but advised that the trailer could be changed slightly to have fox lady show up at a jail cell, exposing Dogfathers plan to the ex-boss himself. Meeting 4 16/1/14 Attendants: Angelina, Sophia, Simon It was agreed that the roles will be split according to the following: -Angelina: Produce initial character designs, create the script, produce a quick thumbnail storyboard and create a detailed animatic -Sophia: Produce environment design and sketches, model environment -Simon: Assist with character designs and be texture artist -Each person is also responsible for modelling a character and animating them -Sophia began modelling assets for the office environment, where the animation will take place in -Simon produced sketches for the characters, thinking of possible ways of designing to simplify them -Angelina created a character profile for each character to give them more definition

Meeting 3 28/01/14 The group had a small discussion about the script that Angelina produced and decided that it was a little longer than the time limit that we have been given 30 seconds to 1 minute. After a while, they decided to seek professional advice to deal with this problem. Angelina had a meeting with Tony, trying to find a way to cut down the script because it was a little too long. After a long discussion, Tony suggested a few changed that could be made to shorten the script without changing the story too much. Using the suggested advice, Angelina began re-writing the script. Sophia continued modelling the 3D assets for the office environment within 3DS Max and then importing it into Maya to be textured. Simon produced more sketches for the Dogfather character as reference for modelling. Meeting 4 04/02/14 Angelina continued readjusting the script and produced a new storyboard so that it will be ready to be presented. Sophia resumed on modelling assets and exporting them from 3DS Max to Maya, then giving it to Simon who began texturing them. Meeting 06/02/14 Angelina made more stills for the animatic and began to slowly put them together. Sophia made more models for the scene, whilst Simon created a few sketches for the Dogfather.

Meeting 11/02/14 The group had a meeting with Meg and Tony, going through their initial ideas and sketches of the characters and environment. They both concluded that both the Fox lady and Bruno the lawyer were very well developed characters with their own personal characteristics but the Dogfather needed improvement. They did not feel like Dogfathers appearance matched his identity as the Mafia boss and recommended that his character design should be changed according to the breed of dog to hopefully portray his character better e.g. using a pit bull to show power or possibly use a Chihuahua with small dog syndrome. Meeting 5 13/02/14 Angelina, Simon and name booked an hours session at one of the recording studio rooms for the speech in the animation. Name voiced over the Dogfather, Simon voiced over Bruno the lawyer, whilst Angelina voiced over the fox. During the beginning of this activity, everyone was very shy and embarrassed because they were uncomfortable with performing in front one another. After a few tries of practising and getting used to each others company, the recording process began and was very successful. Meeting 5 17/02/14 All of the group members attended and continued with their respective parts for the animation. Angelina started to create the animatic, making sure that the images were timed correctly according to the recording of the speech that they did a few days before. Due to a few problems Simon had with other subject areas, Sophia took up part of the texturing role and textured some of the models for the environment. Simon also did the same and textured other models within the scene. To prepare for the presentation, Sophia submitted her environment sketches to Angelina, who took pictures and added it into the portfolio of work. After the animatic was finished being put together by Angelina, Sophia reviewed the work, suggesting changes to make the animatic better. The two also discussed a possible theme to use for this animation series. Angelina produced a tango music, which sounded great but didnt suit series because it was very upbeat, compared to the series which is quite serious. Instead, they replaced it with a track they Sophia found on YouTube, which was a lot calmer. Meeting 20/02/14 Angelina began modelling the body for her fox character, whilst Sophia started modelling the head of the lawyer. Both used reference from the character designs that were drawn during the preproduction. Meeting - 24/02/14 Sophia and Angelina attended a meeting with Mat, showing him their work progression and gaining advice on how to create blend shapes for their lip syncing animation. Angelina also received feedback on her she could improve her fox body model, making the polygons neater so that when paint weights are applied onto it, the model would not distort whilst animating.

Meeting 25/02/14 Sophia worked on creating the rest of the assets for the environment and applying textures onto them. Angelina kept on with the modelling the body of her fox, whilst Simon continued with his head model of the Dog father. The group reviewed all of their work to Tony and Meg. Sophia showed them all of the assets for the scene and the model for the character Bruno, which was still awaiting feedback from Mat. Simon also showed his current progress on the Dog father model. Angelina displayed the model of the body that she made and the room, demonstrating the experimentation with lighting. So far, they liked the work produced but warned the group to be wary of time. Meeting - 26/02/14 Sophia had a meeting with Mat to check the head model for Bruno, who made some alterations to the model, making it easier to animate. Meeting 27/02/14 On the usual Thursday group meeting all three members continued with working on their models. Simon chose to import his final sketches straight to Maya and use them as reference while building the model. Sophia, after having finished the model of the head, continued with the creation of some blendshapes for it. Angelina, using Mats feedback simplified the problem zones in her model. Meeting- 4/03/14 Meg and Tony checked the groups project. Angelina had tried different ways to start with the model of the head during the weekend. The first try looked too blocky so she started over again, this time separating the hard and the soft edges of the foxs head neatly so that the final outcome will be closer to the initial idea. Sophia kept on working on the lawyers blendshapes bringing them close to finish. Simon continued with his model as well. Meeting - 5/03/14 Angelina, Sophia and Joe met at the previously booked recording room in Eldon, where Joe recorded a new version of the lines of the lawyer Meeting 6/03/14 Since the last meeting each member had continued working on their assigned task. The result is that now Angelinas model was almost finished so she added final touch-ups required for the head and proceeded to texturing. Sophias model had all the blendshapes she needed so she progressed to the creation of the body. Simon also had made significant progress with his model.

Meeting- 11/03/14 Angelina had finished texturing at home. Simon had the general shape of his entire model and was now adding final touch-ups. Sophia worked on the body of her character.

Meeting- 18/03/14 During the weekend Angelina had finished her blendshapes and was now creating the controllers for them and assigning them to the model. Sophia had finished the body for her character and was now searching for the best way to merge it with the head without breaking apart the connection with the blendshapes. She and Angelina discussed various ways that could be achieved. Meeting 20/03/14 Simon has finished texturing his character in Photoshop. He left his character until he finishes texturing the environment as well. As Angelina and Sophia were at the same stage of their character rigs, they worked together on the bone structures of their characters and started with the paintweights. Meeting 21/03/14 The group had an extra meeting because of their upcoming presentation on Tuesday. Angelinas plan was to present renders of the environment as well as some test animations which will demonstrate the characters rig. For the purpose she and Sophia finished their rigs while Simon was finishing the textures for the whole environment and the lawyer character. They scheduled how to carry on working during the weekend until their next meeting on Monday. Meeting 24/03/14 During the weekend Simon finished the environment, Sophia finalized her rig and Angelina produced a short animation test of her fox talking. The idea was to render out the environment properly and animate the first shot. Two problems occurred while the group tried to carry out this plan. There was a problem with the lighting of the scene, something has gone wrong while texturing and everything appeared very light and bleached. The second problem was after importing Sophias character into the scene and trying to move him within it, there was a vertex on his face which acted abnormally and did not move with the rest of the body. Those two issues combined together made it impossible for the group to produce the first shot of their animation and present it on Tuesday. Instead of that Sophia also created a quick animation test of the lawyer speaking. Angelina had the new voiceover cut in the correct places and edited the animatic. Meeting 25/03/14 In the morning before the presentation the group met to put everything together and create the power point document. Meeting 27/03/14 Sophia has managed to resolve the problem with the vertex after consulting with Mat. Angelina managed to find out what the problem with the environment was- there were multiple physical suns interrupting each other. Now that Simon now longer needed to do

textures he kept on working on his model finishing the blendshapes. The group agreed starting from next week to meet every day at 10 oclock to finish the animation. Meeting - 31/03/14 Angelina finished the lighting of the environment. She used light profiles (IES files) for the corridor, artificial sun and sky for the outdoor part and set up lights with suitable temperature and decay rate for the room. Sophia carried on with the lip-sync animation of different shots. Simon put the final touches on his model. Meeting- 1/04/14 Sophia had started animating and had finished the few first shots. The group tried to start rendering a few shots; however at the end of the day they found out that the lighting of the scene was not the way they expected it to be. They decided to work on lighting the next day and rerender everything. Meeting- 2/04/14 All three members of the group worked individually on fixing the problems with the lighting. At the end of the day they have resolved the issues and used different lights for the different scenes. Angelina produced an area light which creates an illusion of illumination around the desk and Sophia created a subtle light which could be moved along with The Lawyer when animating him. They set the first eight scenes to render during the night. Meeting -3/04/14 The group kept on with the animating and the rendering, keeping clearly track of their work. By the end of the day they had five more shots which were ready to be rendered. Angelina organised the render process shot by shot to minimize the possibility of confusion. Sophia and Simon worked on their respective parts and Angelina checked each animation before setting up the renders. Meeting 4/04/14 Sophia finished her shots and left them to render during the weekend. Simon and Angelina had 7 more shots in total. Meeting- 7/04/14 Angelina collected all the shots they had so far. She and Simon met and managed to finish three more shots and left them to render. Meeting 8/04/14 Angelina and Simon kept on working on the final shots, finishing two more of them. Meeting 9/04/14 Simon and Angelina collected the ready renders and finished the last two shots. Meeting 10/04/14

Angelina collected the final shots and put the animation together. She tried to experiment with dust particles in After Effects but after not reaching the desired effect she decided to keep the animation without it. Meeting 22/04/14 The group had another meeting because they have noticed that there were three shots of Simons part that needed rerendering due to minor mistakes in the final animation. They fixed the animations, left them to rerender and worked on putting together their final portfolio. Meeting 23/04/2014 Angelina came to university to collect Simons renders and finalise the animation.