Dev 3 Meet the Cast of Project BR

       Elder Brother

 

Name: Un Know

Age:17

Clan: Cyan

Bio: He is an out Going adventures boy who will always put his brother and tries safety before his own, his tribe has rewarded him for his bravery with three pieces of armour. The armour place around his forearm bares his Clans logo.  Only them who are worth can carry the Clans logo with them.

One day he was part way though his “coming of age” ceremony until his little brother found himself in danger after watching his elder brother preform a task. He abandoned his task to save his brother from certain death. This act of selfless bravery leads him to receive a permanent scar across his left eye. And respect from his pears.

Quote: if I can’t protect the people I hold ear, then my life is worthless. I must become better

Younger Brother

Name: Un Know

Age:15

Clan: Cyan

Bio: he is a shy timed boy who is forever under his elder brother’s shadow unable to show his potential. He dreams of a day when he will have the honour to carry the mark of his clan. With his brother always interfering with his attempts, this will never come to pass.

One day he was watching his elder brother preform a service of tasks for his “coming of age ceremony” when noticed a beast like animal approaching his brother’s blind spit. This was his chance to prove he’s not just an inconvenience. He failed to kill the animal and almost lost his own life in the careless act.

Quote: I will surpass me older brother and receive the honour I deserve

Butcher

 

Name: UN Know

Age: Elder

Clan: Crimson

Bio:  This Hot Tempered Butcher works at the Cyan-inn despite belonging to the Crimson Clan, the reason of this is because he lost his respected tittle as Master Hunter & Butcher- this tittle was given due he has outstanding hearing meaning he’s the best at hunting, and he only cooks what he kills.

He was banned from his clan for unlawfully killing live-stock and charging the needed more then what was needed for his services. And even hilling some of his own people.

Quote: if it breaths, it can be killed, if it can be killed it can be eaten

The Phantom

Name: UnKnow

Date of Death: unknown 

Age of Death: 17

Former Clan: Cyan

Bio: The Phantom was one the human form of The elder Brother, untill one tragic day that cost his life.

After hsi death, he spent 6 months earching for his little brother, in hopes he didnt mean the same fate. till one day he finds his killer and takes his revenge

Quote: Unknown

Dev 2 Background

The story details that the younger child runs off into the woods. So for the background of the animation I will be making a forest. To reduce the rendering time I will fake it by making image plans. Since I don’t intend on having the woods in full focuses this will be idea.

To make this forest I will be using a two plugins the first will be “ANT landscape, this will generate a landscape I can use, its presents are set to mountains but by changing some of its values I can make it suit my needs.

The seconds plug-in to be used will be “Sapling” this will generate random a random low-poly tree. After making three different trees I would copy them several times and places them along a smaller land.

Now with the planes done, I can arrange them in verses sizes and angles to give the appearance of woodlands.

Dev 1 Character designs

With the story set, and the list of characters that needed to me made, it was time to first text different body forms, shapes and styles. Here are the early development ideas

In the end I decided to combine (place numbers here) together, and stay away from making them too realistic and go for an almost cartoon feel.

The brothers would be designed to look almost the same, and wearing similar clothing. Only real difference that will separate them apart is hair style/colour, the sash they are wearing (for warmth), eye colour, the Elder Brother would have blue hazel eyes and the Younger Brother would have deep blue eye. And finally shape and size, the Younger Brother would be smaller (approx. 4foot 7) and would b a little chubbier in the face, the Elder Brother would be a bi taller (approx 5foot1) and would be thinner in the face. the brother.

Since the story sets the Butcher to be a bearded red headed tall man that what he stays as. His hair would be red and rather then being “ a mop” it would be combed back,

The Phantom would basically be a re textured version of the Elder Brother, but he would be emitting a red flow, . his new texture would have combinations of blue and purple lines and a brown tint to the clothing. this and his clothing would be a little tattered around the edges

And the dog,, it will have black fure, and will have the exact same eyes as the Younger Brother, (same size and distance)… I will try to keep the dogs face as close to the Younger Brothers as possible. But the Dog would come to around 4Foot2).

Research 3, walk/run Cycles

 

For an animation I needed to refresh myself on walk and run cycles. But I also needed to found out how a dog would walk, since this is the first time animating a animal.

The humans walk/run cycles were easy, nothing too complicated. However I had problems with the dog, the rig I had made for the dog was rushed it didn't have any IK chains or a control bone. This meant each bone needed to be move separately, and some just didn't want to move in the direction I wanted. 

Research 2 Depth of Field and Snow

The story is set in the winter; this is evidenced by the following details

“The blizzard was raging fiercely around them as the brothers stumbled down the long road. They were miles from any farm, and knew they had to seek shelter or freeze to death”

so I needed to find out who to make it snow, without crashing the program with un needed geometry. This meant I would need to play around with a partial simulator. By default the simulator is set to hair. By following a somewhat simple tutorial from BlenderGuru.com (Andrew .P. Price) I was able to add snow. As well as making it behave like snow (rather then falling straight down like rain..

However they was a problem I was unable to resolve, and that was the size. Some of the flakes were too large and when they floated passed the camera you could clearly see they were simple hexagons.

The Story details a blizzard, but all I managed to sum up was light snow (even though the emitter count was over 60000, and yet it’s still was not enough)

Also as I said in Post 12, the background will be out of focuses, of I needed to found out how to add Depth of Field. Again following a tutorial from Blender Guru I was able to achieve by applying the following settings

Research 01 Characters

This animation would require me to model the following characters and their counterparts as described in the story

The Butcher is described as a “massive butcher with a mop of red hair and a long red beard who was the worse for drink”

Both the Elder Brother Younger Brother have no details in the story, high, size, personality. All blink. All for one small detail given later on…

The Phantom, in this story its described as a “tall figure covered from head to toe in flames”

And finally The Beast is described as being a black dog “large as an ox with blazing blue eyes and sharp teeth.”. the same blue eyes that the Younger Brother once had.. (a detail missed until now..)

Other then the main characters, the story also mentions some people in the inn, however to save time, and rendering I decided not to have them,, or at least not in view

condensing the story of the Brothers Revenge

The Brothers Revenge is a long story (total of about 2-3 minutes to read…) and it went into some great detail into one of the brother’s demise. Something I didn’t want to show in the animation,, onscreen deaths.. Granted the story itself is not exactly child friendly. But I intend to keep my version to around pg-13(maybe)…meaning no one screen blood/gore, or onscreen deaths, no this will be done though the mind, via sounds and music. To give the impression that something “bad” happened.

http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2009/08/the_brothers_revenge_1.html The Brothers’ Revenge, A Wisconsin Ghost Story, Retold by S.E Schlosser

So for my version I will only focuses on them main key details, and skip others. Mainly cutting out the dialog.

Start (arrival)

Winter was fast approaching…

Two brothers were walking down a road looking for a place to rest when they find a tavern. As they push their way through the doors of the Tavern every person in the room turns to look at them. Shortly after, they all went back to their conversations all but one person, a rather large butcher with red hair and a long red beard. The Butcher continued to watch them as they moved towards the fire, towards him

Middle (brothers death)

The elder boy accidentally strikes the Butcher on the arm as the pass by There was a moment of stunned silence in the saloon as the Butcher grabbed the elder boy by the collar as the Butcher moves towards the fireplace the yonder brother tries to grab his brother. But he’s pushed back s the butcher threw the elder boy headfirst into the huge fire, as the flames engulfed him from head to toe the Butcher turned his attention to the terrified younger brother.

The Butcher grins sadistically as the younger brother tries to beat out the fire with his small hands. The Butcher loomed above them as he throws the younger brother through the doors. As the flaming boy lost consciousness the younger boy gasped in fear and flees for his life into the woods.

End (brothers revenge)

Some time passed after the event, the Bucher was walking down a road that the brothers once walked. As he walks down the path he becomes aware of a sudden silence no wind no bird songs, nothing but his footsteps and a 2^nd set of footsteps of a large animal following him, and stopping as he stops.

As he turns around the gaze of a large black dog as large as an ox with blazing blue eyes greets him. The Butcher recognizes the eyes. The eyes once belonged to the small boy on that day.

A the Animal takes a step towards him, he turns to flee he finds himself face to face with a wall (glowing) figure covered top to toe in flames.. as the flaming  figure reaches out to the Butcher with hands withered and blackened by the flames. Before the Butcher can make a sound the boys hands are upon him..

The Butcher is dead before he hits the floor, with blood coming from his mouth, nose eyes and ears. 

(believe it or not. this IS condensed)

Blender Over Maya (again)

I say again because I talked about both programs last year.  For this project I will be using blender. For the pure reason of I’ve used it longer, and know its layout and processes better. Meaning a faster workflow. Since this brief is kind of short since we have others that lap over with it.  And like I said I’ve more accustomed to blender then Maya, meaning I can make, rig, texture and animate multiple “things” faster. then to try and do a crash cause on Maya just to get irritated.

Even though I am capable of modelling and rigging a character in Maya, I’m not a fan of its UV Editor. Or the slightly lack of freedom with animating the rig…

Example being, you can set up an IK chain in the characters legs AND arm, so you only need to move the foot for the leg to move, and hand for the arm to move. Where as Maya its best NOT to have an IK chain in the arm (because IK chains are normally used for interactions with other objects like floors or walls).

But other then the butcher throwing the elder brother, they is no real interaction between the characters.

Re: The proposal

For my self-directed response to an animation live brief/ Competition

I will make a short animation that will use an existing “Ghost Story” as inspiration and I would Re-tell it. Since I’m not too good at making original stories without it ending up being improvised, so I plan on using the Ghost Story “The Brothers’ Revenge: where two. Though I will be giving it an “update” feel closer to the 20^th century but also giving it a fantasy feel. Reason of this is because of the key words “saloon” would suggest the story is set in Old Western Times.

I intend to produce a one-minute animation that will tell a story of the Brothers’ Revenge. Rather than relying on a voice over or the speech from the brothers to portray the emotion and story, I will focus more on using character emotion, emphasized action/ movements, expressions and the surroundings to tell this “dramatic” story in a minute.

As said since I’m not good at story writing I will be using a Ghost Story, I find Ghost Stories, Urban Leganes or folk Tales to be a great place to find “inspiration” and ideas for my own adaptation.

Basic Story of “the Brothers’ Revenge (Key points)

The story itself is about two brothers who meet their demise on a cold winter’s night by the hands of a hot-tempered butcher. The older brother is killed when the butcher throws him in the fire; where as the yonder brother tries to run away but freezes to death.

Later in summer a large black dog with the bright blue eyes of the younger brother follows the butcher, as the butcher turns around he’s greeted by a “tall figure covered from head to toe in flames” as the burning figure” as he goes to grab the butcher he halls back with blood coming from his mouth and eyes before he hits the grown.

The area of study this will involve will be both Animation and editing. I will be modelling and animating a minimum of five characters as follows.

[1]The older brother

[2] Flaming apparition figure (older brother). I will use a modified version of the brother’s base mesh and re texturing.

[3] Younger brother

[4] Black wolf/dog creature (younger brother)

[5] The Butcher

If I have time I would like to make a winter and summer version of the butcher, as well as making some (low detailed) background characters (Ie bartender,) as well additional props.

            To accomplish this task I will need to research into Mythical creatures (for the black wolf/dog) as well as time setting so the characters looks and clothing will match their surroundings.

Once the research is done, I will begin the concept art and develop the Ghost Story into my own condensed motion version that again will NOT need a voice over telling the story, or monolog as it will only be a one minute animation.

 In this project I will be using a program I’m more compatible with, mainly Blender 2.69 (now 2.70) and GIMP 2.8