Enlighten Festival - Blooming Jungle

ENLIGHTEN 2014 from Eye Candy Animation on Vimeo.

Here is a short clip created by Eye Candy Animation just to give you a little bit of an idea as to what the Enlighten Festival is all about. 

For those of you who don't know anything about the Enlighten Festival; it's this really amazing festival held in Canberra every year where huge projectors light up the buildings with amazing artworks, and this year they decided to try some animation as well.

This footage was taken by Mark Jekabsons

I was involved with a community project where I created Blooming Jungle with the help of Sarah Robertson, Tom Magill and Jack Hampton.

This footage was taken by the AIE

The video above is footage taken of the other animations also created by people from the AIE; together with the Blooming Jungle animation which I was a part of creating. 

Blooming jungle is a short little animation that transforms the National Portrait Gallery into an artwork, as the ancient ruins becomes consumed by wild plants, deep in the heart of the jungle. 

White Wednesday - Short Film (Animation)

This post is about the animation of the pigeon and the chip that I have created for the short film White Wednesday.

This clip is taken out of the short film White Wednesday created by the second year students of the Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media in 2013. White Wednesday was our short film assignment where I did some animation. 

The first shot is where I animated the pigeon throwing the chip into the air, then catching the it for a better grip. He then walks up the arm of the statue towards bird statue with a chip in his mouth. He then pokes the statue in the mouth trying to get her to accept the chip as he thinks that she is a real bird. 

In the next shot I animated the chip poking the statue repeatedly. 

Watch the full film at http://zellyzell.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/white-wednesday-short-film.html

White Wednesday - Short Film (Matte Painting)

This post is about the matte painting that I have created for the opening shot of the short film White Wednesday. The hills, trees and mountain has each been created on a separate layer using Adobe Photoshop whereas the buildings in the foreground is a rendered sequence from the 3D scene that has been created in Autodesk Maya. The sky in the background is a HDRI image created by Tom Magill.

White Wednesday - opening shot matte painting from Anzel Rossouw on Vimeo.

Creating the matte painting for the opening shot was quite a challenge as this was the first time that I have had the opportunity to create a matte painting. It was interesting to go through the process of creating the different layers of the background.

Opening shot, Final render

The opening shot for the short film White Wednesday, was created using Nuke's 3D scene through projecting each layer on a separate sphere with a camera which I have created within the scene. Each layer for the background was created using Adobe Photoshop by a series of images and painting.

Matte painting breakdown

On the left of I have included an image showing the breakdown of the opening shot. On the top left corner of the image I have included a screen shot of the 3D scene work space within Nuke to illustrate the composite of the five different layers, to create the final render that is used within the short film. The spheres that have the separate layers projected on, has been hidden so that I am able to show how each layer fits behind each other as the spheres are also hidden for render purposes. On the right side of the image is the four layers that make up the finished render excluding the sky. The very bottom layer is the 3D buildings; a sequence that has been rendered out of Maya from our 3D scene. This sequence was then projected onto a sphere in Nuke using an imported camera that is used within the Maya opening scene to achieve the downwards motion of the 3D camera. This was then projected onto the smallest sphere located at the centre of the other spheres so that was placed in front of the other layers.

Even though I restarted this matte painting quite a few times I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt. Each time that I restarted, it just became better and better. Sometimes all it takes is a new perspective and to learn from your mistakes. I know I have definitely learned a thing or two.

White Wednesday - Short Film (Environment and Lighting)

This post is about the concept sketches of the environment as well as the CG lighting for the sunset setting for the courtyard scene that I have created for the short film White Wednesday.

Assets Concept Sheet, Anzel Rossouw, 2013

The Assets Concept Sheet on the left are a few silhouettes that I created to get an idea of how some of the environmental assets would potentially look like. I kind of focused on the street lamps as they would help to bring across the look and feel of an European town.

Environment Concept Sheet 01, Anzel Rossouw, 2013

The image on the left, illustrates the determining visual setting for the environment as a guide for the look of the film. The environment setting of White Wednesday, takes place within a European city on a hill; so the buildings would be very compact and would not be on the same level.

Environment Concept Sheet 02, Anzel Rossouw, 2013

I looked at cities all across Europe but particularly Salzburg, Tallinn and Venice. I mostly focused on the shape of the buildings so that it would have a good silhouette especially when it is placed within the background. I then focused on the windows, roof tops, as well as other assets that would be found on these types of buildings.

The style of the buildings were meant to be very simple such as blocks with sharp edges. These buildings were deigned to be created at a very low poly count to maximize the processing power of the Maya scene. By minimising the poly count, there would be less chugging in the scene and animation becomes easier and faster to create. Imagine having a hi poly object such as a house but then duplicating and placing it all around the scene to create the town; now that would make your scene slow to move around in. So these concept sketches are simple to create very low detailed houses.

Courtyard Sunset Camera 01, White Wednesday, 2013

Courtyard Sunset Camera 02, White Wednesday, 2013

The two images above illustrates the CG lighting that I have created for the Courtyard scene within the short film White Wednesday. The images above are renders taken within the Courtyard scene of the film with same lighting but taken different cameras to show different perspectives. The lighting in this shot is created for a late afternoon setting; at sunset. This lighting was created by using Autodesk Maya through using directional, area and spot lights.

In the end we decided to go with someone else's sunset lighting that they had created for this same shot for the film. Even though the lighting that I created in the shots above are not used within the film, is still think the lighting turned out really great.

White Wednesday - Short Film (The Pigeon)

This post is about the concept sketches as well as the 3D model of the pigeon character that I have created for the short film White Wednesday.

The director of the short film White Wednesday, Rebecca Lyons Wright, wanted the pigeon to look like a clay pigeon as opposed to it being a real pigeon. She wanted the style of the character to be quite cartoon like to fit with the rest of the short film's style. She wanted the character to look unrealistic and she wanted the character to look like he would belong in children's television program.

Pigeon Concept Sheet 01

The first concept sketch to the right was created to illustrate what the pigeon might look like in the short film. The aim was to create at a very cartoon like style to fit the style direction that the film. I looked at movies such as Disney's animation, Bolt and Pixar's short film, Bird on a wire.

Pigeon Concept Sheet 02

The second concept sheet on the right was created to illustrate how the the pigeon might look like in a more realistic approach. I mostly looked at real images of birds as well as the movie Valiant for other reference as I didn't want the pigeon to look too realistic.



The concept sketches that I created for the short film White Wednesday, was really interesting and fun to work on. One of the mistakes that I have done with regrades to the concept sketches was that I focused too much on creating the head that I did not spend time on creating a body but the heads do look pretty awesome.

Rebecca Lyons Wright

The image above is illustrating the concept sheet that we ended up using which was created by Rebecca Lyons Wright; to create the the Pigeon character.

When I started modelling the character I looked at different images as well as video clips of birds as reference but mostly pigeons in particular. I looked at each part of their body, to see how they move around and what they look like; even images of their anatomy really helped me to understand how I should approach the model. I had to think about how everything would work once it came to animating him to avoid things like stretching. I created the hi poly 3D model within Pixologic's 3D sculpting program ZBrush, through using the reference together with the concept art. Getting the basic form of the body was fairly easy but getting down to the very detail was the fun part. ZBrush makes it so much easier, faster and much more fun to sculpt. The only draw back was that I needed to go through the process of retopologizing, but you create a much better and effective model in the end. I created the textures through using the polypaint function within ZBrush which makes texturing more accurate and you are not creating many obvious seams in your textures. Polypaint makes texturing faster, especially with the unwrapping tools in ZBrush.

Pigeon Breakdown Shots

The image on the right, Pigeon Breakdown Shots, illustrates the three steps that I went through to create the hi poly pigeon model. The first render is showing the block out of the model that was created using ZSpheres in Pixologic's 3D sculpting program ZBrush. The second image is the finished model with a basic MatCap Red Wax material. The last render has been fully textured.

Hi-Poly Pigeon

The image on the right, Hi-Poly Pigeon, illustrates three render taken to show different angles of the pigeon character once the character has been fully modelled and textured. At this stage the character looks great but because he is hi poly we wouldn't have been able to use him for animation purposes. He has too many polygons this would cause problems; so therefore we needed to reduce to poly count by making him a low poly character. through the process of retopologizing. Below are images that shows what the low poly model looks like compared to the hi poly model.

Low-Poly Pigeon

I then imported each section of the pigeon into Maya to retopologise the hi-poly sections of the character in order to create the low-poly character. The image on the left Low-Poly Pigeon, illustrates the pigeon character after he has gone through the retopologise process.

Low-Poly Pigeon Wire frame

The image on the left Low-Poly Pigeon Wire frame, is an image that shows three different renders that I have created of the pigeon in order to illustrates the pigeon character's polygons that he has been made out of in his low-poly form.

Low-Poly Pigeon, Blend Shapes

I then created the blend shapes which allows the character to blink, smile and create different facial expressions. This adds life to his face and brings across his emotions during animation. I used Pixologic's 3D sculpting program ZBrush to create these. Creating them was fun and I would have loved to create more; you can never have enough and they create a better animation.

3D Character Rig - Pidgeon from AIE on Vimeo.

The pigeon character was rigged by Matthew Tolcher. The rig allows the 3D model of the character to be animated. The video above is a short animation of the pigeon flying. The video is showing a breakdown of the rig as well as steps that he has gone through to achieve the final shot that is used within the short film.

White Wednesday - Short Film

White Wednesday from AIE on Vimeo.

In my second year at the AIE of the Advanced Diploma of the Screen and  Media, our last project was a short film assignment where we had to create a short film through using the skills that we have learned through our time at the AIE where we were specialising in 3D Animation and VFX and much more.

I worked with the 6 other students in my class to create White Wednesday. In the beginning of the project we all had to come up with ideas for the short film. The script used for White Wednesday was created by one of our group members, Rebecca Lyons Wright. Seeing as this was her script, she became our director for the film.

White Wednesday is about a pigeon pooping on several statues until he reaches a statue of a woman holding a dove. The pigeon falls in love with the dove not knowing that this is a statue and not a real bird. He flies down to her where he tries everything to impress her, to win her love and affection. When everything else fails, he figures out that she is in fact a statue. He's whole world comes crashing down and he falls asleep on the statues hand next to the dove statue. In the late afternoon a real female pigeon flies in and captures his attention where he immediately falls in love with her.

The style of the short film was set out to be cartoon like and unrealistic; something that would appear within a children's television program. The style for the environment, was initially meant to be very simple, such as blocks with sharp edges for the buildings and the textures were meant to look slightly grungy. Where the pigeon was initially going to look as if has been made out of clay.

The film turned out to look a little different to what we thought it would be at the start of the production, but it has turned out to be quite a production piece. We've all had a great deal of fun creating this film; I know I have. I worked with an amazing team as we created something extraordinary, especially when you consider the time frame that we were working within. I've learned a lot through this short film and had great fun working with the team.  I just want to thank the team and everyone involved in creating this film for all their efforts. This film just wouldn't have been the same without all of you.

Robo_Crane

Robo_Crane, Anzel Rossouw, 2013

Robo_Crane is a 2D artwork consisting of a crane bird that has been integrated with mechanical pieces, that lives within the tree tops where the sunlight breaks through the leaves. This artwork was created using Adobe Photoshop. Robo_Crane was meant to be just an inspirational wallpaper for my desktop computer. So that every time I would look at it, it would give me inspiration and hope. I wanted to create a artwork that would bring across my personality, something that would be me in a sense; my style. This artwork turned out to be exactly what I was looking for; it is creating the exact effect that I wanted to create; inspiration.

Robo_Crane, Initial sketch

The image, Robo_Crane, Initial sketch, on the left is the base for the artwork; so the concept sketch for the idea that I had. The sketch was originally done on a plain grey background, but I decided to add a frame and some shading to the background to make it look more interesting.

This one just started off with this line that I drew out of frustration and so my imagination ran off with this idea of creating a mechanical bird; it kind of just started flowing into something amazing.
Once I had a really good solid base I needed to get some details right, such as how the mechanical parts would look like or whether the bird's proportions were correct.

So I started looking at reference images of the different types of cranes that you get as well as their anatomy, in order to gain a really good perspective on how they work and how sections fit together. I looked at how their beaks looked in particular, how it would fit together with his head and I had to consider how I would incorporate those mechanical pieces. For that I looked at machinery with similar capabilities and functionality. Getting ideas about what kind of hinges and other metal pieces would work as well as how wires would fit in. On the neck of the bird I have incorporated some sort of armoury and the feathers on the head turned out to be more metal like than organic.

Robo_Crane, Colour block out 

So once I've fully created the base of the image and I was sure that I was happy with it, I had to start looking at the colour scheme that I would be using. So far through my artworks I haven't really been very versatile when it came to the use of colour. Choosing the colour was quite difficult. The first colour scheme that I considered using was one where I would use very vibrant colours that would be bright and colourful and this meant the use of colours such as reds, yellows, greens, blues; the usual tropical bird colours. The other colour scheme that I had in mind was the one shown in the image, Robo_Crane, Colour block out; the one I eventually used. Pinks, peach colours, purples, a orangey reddish colour that would work quite well with the peachy colours as well as blues to fit into those purples. I had to be careful as to where I would use the colours so that the image would have a good flow throughout the whole canvas. Through using the orange colour next to the blues; I was creating some contrast where I added this warm and cold colour together.

The next step was to add shading to the very flat block out colours that I have used in, Robo_Crane, Colour block out; where it illustrates the colour scheme. On the left I have included an image to illustrate the artwork once I have finished all the shading.

Robo_Crane, Shading

When it comes to shading, you have to know where the source of your light is in order to determine where you would make use of lighter shading as well as the darker shading. Consider what the fall off of the light would look like on your image. You also have to think about what shape you are using. The light would look very different on a flat surface as opposed to a rounded shape. These are the types of things I never use to consider. Once you think about these things shading becomes  so much easier and you have a much better result, this could also help with creating a more realistic artwork or you are just simply able to create the effect that you are aiming at.

For most shading work that I did, I just took a lighter shade of the colour that I was using, for where the light was shining on the section that I was shading, and the darker shade of my colour for the places where I would find shadows; where the light is does not really shine as bright as well as the places where there was a fall off of the light. I also had to consider the colour of my light as well and how that would affect the colour of my lighter shading. The colour of my environment also effected my shading as well as how the base colour would appear as the leaves around the bird would also contribute some light and would therefore effect the colour.

Robo_Crane, Effects

Looking at Robo_Crane, Shading, I decided that the colours looked way too washed out, so I then added some effects that would make the colour brighter and stand out more. I added some levels in Photoshop to bring those colours out more so that the colours wouldn't look as washed out and almost pale in a sense. Looking at the image on the left, Robo_Crane, Effects, you can see how this have made a huge impact. Especially when I considered on what effect that the bright sun light would have on the whole image. How the leaves around the bird would be more illuminated and how everything should be brighter. The image just looks so much more beautiful and way more vibrant. It feels so much more inspiring and uplifting than what it looked like before in the image Robo_Crane, Shading.

I wanted the background to reflect on the bird itself; a place where he would belong. Above in the tree tops of the forest just seemed so fitting. Even though the bird is integrated with mechanical parts, he is more organic than mechanical. The tree tops is a place where he belongs and where he feels inspired. This is his home.

So far this is my absolute favourite piece of 2D digital art. This artwork reminds me that I am capable of so much more; looking at previous art works and comparing it to this artwork shows me progress. To me this artwork symbolizes strength, peace and beauty. Every time I look at this image, I feel inspired and that is what I wanted to create; that feeling of inspiration. When I look at this artwork I want it to reflect my style of painting. It needed to be something that is truly mine.