Crunch time, part 1

This is the first really stressful period, because I have to present my progress to my entire department in 5 days. So what's going on? I'd say the film's going quite well actually. all in all.

The first dream sequence is 95% done. Still have to figure out the camera movement, and add another layer of animation to homie, cause he looks kinda stiff now. Cloth and hair work fine for both characters. By the way, I decided to ditch cloth simulation altogether. If it was just simulating time, I'd still to keep it, but to have it not look good on top of that was too much. Realistic cloth DOES NOT LOOK GOOD ON SIMPLIFIED CHARACTERS AND CARTOONY ANIMATION. PERIOD. It has wrinkles, which take away attention off the characters' faces, and makes the audience wonder, 'what the heck is that wrapped around his body?". The aesthetics are slick and slimple, so slick and simple cloth is required. So I took a week to rig all the characters' clothes. And it looks great. Rob wants me to write a paper on how I created the rig for lucy dress, so I'll post it here in a week, including illustrations and all.

Right now I'm working on the second dream sequence, which proves to be an even bigger scene than the first, because it has both characters moving and acting, not just Lucy. I'm currently about 50% into stepping the entire scene, but splining it is going to take longer than before, becasue I feel I really improved, and I know how to put more into it. In the next 4 days I'm going to max out - work 3 hours, rest one, again 3 hours, again break, until I can't take it and go to sleep. For 4 days. I want to finish stepping out this entire scene, rerecord the dialogue, touch up the first dream sequence, and put it all together in the animatic for the presentation...

Ok.. time for work!!