The most recent entries to the Production Journal are located at the top, descending down to the bottom where this project first began.

Channel Frederator! - Jul 12, 2006 The world's original cartoon podcast has featured Egghunt in Episode 38 along with "Float (My Electric Stargirl)" by Joel Trussell and "Satan Sucks" by Josh Rodgers. Be sure to check out the other Channel Frederator toons!

Walker Art Center - Jun 07, 2006 If you happen to be in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, Egghunt will be screening at the Walker Art Center August 5th for Free First Saturday. And yes, it's absolutely free!

Newport International - May 22, 2006 Egghunt has been selected to screen at the Newport International Film Festival (not to be confused with the Newport Beach Film Festival!)

MoMA - Mar 12, 2006 MoMA NY (The Museum of Modern Art New York), has invited Egghunt to be exhibited at the museum's Ford Family Programs and be permanently archived in the MoMA Education Department's collection. The program is designed to introduce young children and adults to the richly varied world of film. Admission is free and no preregistration is required. Egghunt will be screened as part of this year's fall series. Details TBA.

Newport Beach Film Festival - Mar 07, 2006 Egghunt has been selected to screen at the Newport Beach Film Festival 2006.

Swansea Film Festival - Jan 17, 2006 Egghunt has been selected to screen at the Swansea Bay Film Festival 2006

East Lansing Film Festival - Jan 06, 2006 Egghunt has been selected to screen at this year's East Lansing Children's International Film Festival. (February 24 - March 6) Update: Egghunt has been award winner of "Best of the Fest". What an honor!

China Visual Interview - Jan 05, 2006 China Visual, a computer graphics community in China, asked to interview me and host Egghunt on their website. If you can read Chinese, check it out!

CGSociety Feature - Dec 15, 2005 Paul Hellard from CGSociety.org was kind enough to do a frontpage feature story on Egghunt as well as host a copy of the film to coincide with the online debut of Egghunt on paul-yan.com. There's a lot of support out there for us short filmmakers and I just want to say a nice big "Thank You" to everyone who sent me a word of encouragement :)

Best of Cogswell Screening - Dec 06, 2005 My alma mater, Cogswell College, will be screening the "Best of Cogswell Motion Pictures" with the Film Arts Foundation at the Ninth Street Media Arts Center in San Francisco this Saturday (12/9) from 6:30 - 9:30pm. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend, but do meet the talent at Cogswell! On a side note, sometime this month, Egghunt will debut on the Internet both here and through cgsociety.org. Be on the lookout!

BAMKids Film Festival - Nov 25, 2005 Egghunt has been selected to screen at the 8th Annual BAMKids International Children's Film Festival

Dolores Park Screening - Sep 10, 2005 Egghunt screened for an audience of over 2,000 today at a free outdoor film venue at Dolores Park in San Francisco. The SF Film Arts Foundation contacted me days before to see if they could show Egghunt to open for another Bay Area made film called "Bullit." Free exposure? Duh!

Vote Vote Vote! - Aug 27, 2005 Egghunt made its cable TV debut today on Nicktoons. The Nextoons Film Festival is featuring all of its selected films online so everyone and anyone can vote their favorite for the Viewer's Choice Award. (You'll need flash to view the site) Egghunt can be found under Screening 7, Film 7. Be sure to give it a 10!! ..please?

Animwatch Profile - Aug 21, 2005 Animwatch (the online magazine showcasing indi animation) has done a spotlight feature on Egghunt.

Angelus Awards - Aug 15, 2005 The past few weeks have been great for Egghunt! Today, Egghunt has been recognized as an animation semi-finalist for the 2005 Angelus Awards Student Film Festival. It even came with a cool poster!

Chicago Children's Film Fest - Aug 12, 2005 Egghunt has been selected to screen at the Oscar recognized 2005 Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

Palm Springs Film Fest - Aug 11, 2005 Egghunt has been selected to screen at the Oscar recognized 11th Annual Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films. Funny story - I received an email from them a few weeks before, congratulating me on Egghunt's acceptance - and then immediately received an email apologizing that they mixed up my film with another film that had the same name. Well, apparently they didn't mix it up - and now it's accepted, again!

Stash Media Awards - Aug 09, 2005 Egghunt has been selected as one of the top five animation finalists in the Stash Media Global Student Animation Awards.

2005 Shorts Drawer DVD - Aug 02, 2005 3Dtotal has selected Egghunt to be featured on their annual Shorts DVD collection. It works out well for me since it'll be too much work to produce DVDs for sale and it would cost people too much to purchase a mere 4 minutes with not enough extras to make it worth it! Check it out!

Nextoons Film Fest - Aug 01, 2005 Egghunt has been selected to screen on cable TV (!) on Nicktoons 9/27 Midnight EST for the Nextoons Nicktoons Film Festival. The festival will be all weeklong so be sure to check out all the other great shorts!

LA Shorts Fest - Jul 30, 2005 Egghunt has been selected to screen at the Oscar recognized 9th Annual LA Shorts International Film Festival. I submitted thinking it'd be a longshot - international recognition - awesome!!

San Diego Asian Film Fest - Jun 21, 2005 Egghunt has been selected to screen at the 2005 San Diego Asian Film Festival by last year's SIGGRAPH best in show "Eternal Gaze" creator Sam Chen. What an honor!

Alice 3 Min Film Fest - Apr 30, 2005 Egghunt has been selected as one of the top five animation finalists in this year's Alice 3 Minute Film Festival. The awards ceremony was a lot of fun - fancy club, great bar, live music! Unfortunately it did not win the grand prize, but judges Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) and Donald Harrison (Film Arts Foundation) told me it deserved it. Nothing like a little ego boost from people who would normally humble you.

Fusion Awards - Apr 23, 2005 Egghunt scored two awards at this year's Cogswell Fusion Awards for best Animation and best Compositing piece!

Off to the Festivals! - Apr 20, 2005 I really should have taken a picture of the STACKS of red bubble packages before I mailed them off. Just doing ten festivals was a day and a half's worth of work. There's the promotional photos and stills, the biography, the reading of pages and pages of rules, and then theres the gigantic forms. I'm glad that's over with. Now it's just time to sit back and wait for the rejections to come flooding back! :)

Teaser Trailer - Apr 13, 2005 For the interested, I finally had some time to splice together a teaser trailer (Quicktime Sorenson3 13.95Mb).

New Wallpaper - Apr 09, 2005 I designed a movie poster and was all set to make a few 27" x 41" prints for presentation purposes, when I realized it would be way too expensive to pull off. (Kinko's charges a $100 a print!) Oh well, it wasn't really necessary - but I spent a good chunk of time hand-painting the egg, so I thought I'd rearrange the composition and make it into a wallpaper. 800x600 | 1280x960 | 1600x1200

Box Art - Apr 08, 2005 And here's the box art! I decided to keep the design simple and clear. I've reserved some space below the title for my contact label when I submit this thing into the festivals. It's kind of like Christmas gifts without wrapping paper, a DVD just isn't a DVD until it has its box!

DVD: DONE!! - Apr 07, 2005 This film is done done. The DVD and all its fancy menus are complete and I'm ready for semi-mass production. I have yet to design the box art, but here's how the disc looks! I purchased an Epson R200 because it can print directly onto CD/DVDs, and I am jaw-drop impressed with the quality! This thing actually looks legit!!

Website Make-Over - Apr 04, 2005 I gave the "Egghunt" section of this website a cosmetic touch-up to reflect the finished state of the film! I've also got a new section called "Media" where you can download images, and soon-to-be-posted movies. Enjoy! (If you are looking for the link to the cgtalk thread, it's right here)

DVD Menus - Apr 01, 2005 Authoring a DVD is like making a website. All the sections have to link together in an intuitive manner. It's quite fitting since I am also redesigning the "Egghunt" portion of this website. I'm jumping back and forth from the computer to the TV to see if everything works and looks great. I don't know what it is, but it's so refreshing to be able to see all this stuff on a TV! Ahhhhhh..

Ready, Set, Burn! - Mar 29, 2005 In the next month, I'll be busy authoring DVD content - but today I got a head start burning a few copies scrambling to meet a few film festival deadlines. One in particular - the Student Academy Awards! Not that I have a shot, but it would be good exposure none the less. I need to get into marketing mode!

Clouds! - Mar 25, 2005 Many of the shots in Egghunt do not show the horizon. Because of this, the sky appears very blank with no depth. The elements look very much like they are performing in front of a (gradient) blue screen! I spent some time to hand-paint some clouds to fix just that. Here you can see how the clouds function not only as an extra visual interest, but also as an aid in accentuating composition.

Color Correction - Mar 22, 2005 Each shot is a rendered result of one Maya file that has its own lighting setup unique for that particular composition. It's very time consuming to try and match lighting conditions exactly within Maya, so I am currently color correcting the rendered shots within Adobe After Effects as a post-process. I printed out a contact sheet of sample frames from each shot so I can see color inconsistencies from a glance.

Feature Interview - Mar 19, 2005 CGUnderground.com just posted an interview with me about Egghunt on their frontpage. Check it out! feature interview

Wham! Bang! Pow! - Mar 17, 2005 I've completed rendering!! Even though that's through with, there's still quite a bit of work left to do. There's still things like compositing, color correction, and post-effects, but I'm currently focusing on sound. I tend to take sound effects in film for granted, but after adding just a few footsteps here and there, things get nudged up a whole new level!

More Rendering.. - Mar 08, 2005 I've completed rendering and compositing for the first 35 shots of the film and I'm now moving into ACT II where the antagonist steps into frame. Shot 45 (Sorenson3 321Kb)

Render, Render, Render! - Mar 01, 2005 I am attempting to finish this film two weeks earlier than planned to qualify for a local film festival. I've been super busy lighting, rendering and compositing! Here is an example of one of the few camera moves in this film - made possible entirely in After Effects: Shot10 (Sorenson3 361Kb) ...and here's the opening title sequence: Opening Title (Sorenson3 793Kb)

More Composite Testing - Feb 20, 2005 I'm trying to refamiliarize myself with After Effects by making more test composites. Here is another test, this time a movie! (Sorenson3 609Kb)

Test Composite - Feb 17, 2005 I'm still in the process of finalizing textures, but I decided to go ahead and test the composite and see how the 3D objects would match up against the 2D matte paintings. There are about six layers in this example, but you can see the major breakdow: matte, shadows, char/objects. This is a quick and dirty composite - no color correction, no post effects (yet!)

Quest for Smooth! - Feb 16, 2005 To prevent unsightly, hard edges from appearing on the final render, I need to up the resolution of my models. Because I modeled in XSI and imported into Maya, a simple "smooth" operator does not give me the desired effect. I have to convert my poly to subD and then back to poly again to get the correct smooth. Sounds redundant, but here's a look why.

Mattes All Painted! - Feb 15, 2005 I have finished hand painting a total of fifty+ mattes for this film. A lot of the colors don't match exactly shot to shot, but the beauty of having separate passes is the ability to color correct each layer independently. Now on to texturing the characters!

More Music - Feb 12, 2005 "Egghunt"s composer, Yiannis Kranidiotis sends me new musical drafts every once in awhile and it always feels like Christmas opening up his emails! Here is his latest draft (WAV 4.6Mb). It's still very rough. We're working on simplifying it and integrating more drum elements, and of course - readjusting the timing to the final cut.

Free Plug! - Feb 08, 2005 I've joined the underground: CGUnderground that is! CGUnderground has been kind enough to create an entire forum for my film as well as promise a feature frontpage plug and eventual two interviews (coming soon!). In terms of what's been happening, I'm continuing to make more concise edits. It's now apparent to me why Director's Cuts are always so long and drawn out - they're so attached to each and every shot!! I'm trying to part with redundant frames but fighting it all the way!!

Facial Animation - Jan 30, 2005 In between painting mattes, I am revisiting animation by doing a detail pass to tighten up some of the shots - finger articulation & facial animation included. I'm only starting facial animation now because I'm treating it like frosting on a cake. If characters can clearly emote without facial features, then adding facial expressions will only add to the life that already exists through body language. Shot 05 (DIVX 627Kb)

Film Cuts - Jan 27, 2005 My committee is giving me incredible feedback on my film-in-progress. One aspect that needed immediate addressing was the editing. They noticed the film was following typical first-time filmmaking mistakes - unnecessarily drawn out shots. I made the appropriate changes and actually trimmed out about 40 seconds! It sounds like I scooped out a tremendous amount of footage, but in reality - the cut made things concise without taking anything away from story. This is definitely an example of when less is truly more.

More Painting! - Jan 25, 2005 For my final class at Cogswell College, I am taking CV495 - Senior Project. This class is a project class designed for thesis projects such as this. I've just assembled my Revision Committee, mapped my development process, written a feasibility analysis and charted a deliverable table. Phew. I'm glad I'm not a producer for anyone other than myself! Asides from the paperwork, I am painting away like a madman! Mattes are fun to do!

Matte Backgrounds - Jan 11, 2005 I picked up the book The Invisible Art, and was blown away to see how much of film is actually painted! Matte Artists deserve my deepest of respect. I decided instead of spending forever tweaking at materials for my mountains, why not just render them out, and use them for reference to paint over individually? 99% of my shots do not have camera moves so I decided to do just that. Take a look at a side by side comparison of render to matte.

Widescreen Nonsense - Jan 09, 2005 I am planning on distributing this film on both the Internet and on DVD. Perhaps I am making it more complicated than it really is, but there is an incredible amount of technical nonsense just to set things up correctly - especially in converting square pixel footage to NTSC Widescreen and having to decide how to approach letterboxing. Argh!!

KISS - Jan 08, 2005 (Keep It Simple, Stupid) The April deadline is beginning to loom over me. I only have three more full months?!? In any case, the deadline did help to reinforce my decision to simplify, simplify, simplify my textures. My materials are practically stock lamberts and blinns - I'm focusing more of my time on lighting and post-production work. It's coming along :)

Seventy Six Shots Complete! - Jan 06, 2005 I've (silouette) animated 76/76 shots! I'm currently refining the grunt track and getting ready to begin detail and facial animation. It's a good change of pace to actually see Bruce's face!

Score! - Jan 03, 2005 Yiannis Kranidiotis is writing an original score for this film and has just completed three concepts: 01 | 02 | 03 The final score may be a more developed version of one of the above, or a product of all three. Post me your opinion on the cgtalk forum!

Grunt Track - Dec 20, 2004 I just recorded what I call the "grunt track." Sound for film can be divided up into three major categories: score, dialogue and foley effects. Because this film has no dialogue (as cavemen at the time had no language), in its place is a slew of grunts and heavy breathing.

Blendshapes! - Dec 15, 2004 I wish I had a complex facial muscle rig that I could just animate to my heart's content, but since I don't - I have to tediously model each and every morph shape. I discarded all my previous versions because I actually have a new hi-rez topology (and those past shapes were pretty half-donkey'd).

More Tweaking - Dec 14, 2004 If I don't continually remind myself to move on, I could probably tweak the materials to death! It's so fun! I replaced the simple Lambert with a shader called Human Skin v1.1 you can get here.

Switch Successful! - Dec 07, 2004 I decided to switch Web Host Providers and so far, so good! I just signed up with SherWeb Solutions. Together with CGChannel.com, they have a special deal, particular to cg artists, you can see here. True unlimited bandwidth is a great thing to have when it comes time to releasing animated films on the web.

Procedural Textures - Dec 05, 2004 I've written a few preliminary shaders for my scene. So far I've used nothing but procedural textures - I haven't painted anything by hand at all. Although I'm tempted to draw in the individual pores and hairs, I'm actually liking the simplicity at its current state. I am currently deciding how detailed I want to go with this thing - the final look may not be far off from this first render!

Ready For Closeup - Dec 04, 2004 For my Texturing & Lighting final project, I have to (duh) texture and light a scene and character. Lighting in the computer feels like lighting for a miniature set. One by one, I hang lights in strategic places and double check with the render to make sure tonal qualities are balanced. This render has a total of 7 spot lights. You can see a brief explanation of the process here. I took off the mountain texture because it looked great from a far, but up close, it was far from good. I'm in the process of making a new one.

When More Is Less - Dec 03, 2004 For months I've been toiling over the creation of a simulated SSS (Sub-Surface Scatter) shader that doesn't require Mental Ray. I've resolved that the rendering times required to acheive this effect will actually hurt production. On top of that, looking back at my concept sketches reminds me that realism was never the intention for this short. With utter restraint, I am going to say "no" to SSS.

Time to Texture - Dec 01, 2004 72/76 shots animated! I've laid out the UV coordinates to Bruce! You're looking at Bruce's head. Here is the 2-dimensional UV layout: UV. Can you see where the seams were made? Again, I'm using the checkerboard pattern to check for distortions. So far so good! Now to write some shaders!

How I Work... - Nov 29, 2004 These last few shots are quite long in comparison to the rest of the film and though sometimes I animate straight-ahead, for longer scenes where timing needs to be a little more precise, I animate pose-to-pose. When I do this, I like to plan out the major beats in the acting by drawing out little thumbnail sketches. These will give me a good sense for how the sequence will play out. After these are established, I jump straight into animating - going back and forth to the mirror to observe how different body parts rotate, translate, etc. Just because this is computer animation doesn't mean everything's done in the computer!

Run Time - Nov 23, 2004 As I animate the final shots of the film, I can now give a better approximation of the film's run time: 4.5 minutes. With the opening + end credits, it will round off to about 5 minutes - just as planned! It really helped that I timed my storyboards. Though shot for shot they didn't match entirely, it did give me a really good feel for the story beats and which shots I could take liberty with in its timing.

Sixty Seven Shots Down - Nov 19, 2004 I've got 67/76 shots animated! With the Thanksgiving break just around the corner, I'm hoping to finish up a good chunk of the remaining 9 in between bites. I've made a change in some of these last few shots, and I've been spending a lot of time finding the proper composition to reflect it. The change had to do with the feasability of a character's reaction, so even though I'm hesitant to alter plans locked down in the storyboards, I'm confident it will make the short stronger while preserving the original story.

Title! - Nov 18, 2004 I finally got around to designing the graphic title. I was fumbling around trying to incorporate an egg somehow but I couldn't rescue it from cheesiness. Besides, I think the spear works out better. What do you think?

More Scene Lighting - Nov 11, 2004 I've been practicing lighting a lot by creating several different setups for my scene. I noticed that I wasn't paying enough attention to contrast ("contrast before color!") so I began studying desaturated versions of my renders. You can see a color/contrast comparison of lighting draft 1 & 2 side by side here. It might seem like the image is simply brighter, but the entire lighting setup has been totally revamped - each rock has its own setup with exclusive lights, designed specifically to the shot. Artistic license is a beautiful thing!

Scene Lighting - Nov 08, 2004 Though Mental Ray's radiosity renderer is the more accurate photon simulator for light dispersion, I am chosing to render this film with Maya's default raytracing engine. This will give me much more control - and it doesn't hurt that renders won't spill over to hours per frame. I have never done lighting for an environment before, so I'm mulling over cinematographic books and getting extra feedback from my instructor. This render has a total of 10 lights: 1 directional, 1 point, and 8 spots.

Whoa. - Nov 05, 2004 I just got back from watching Pixar's the Incredibles and I thought I'd play the critic and offer a thorough analytical review: Holy cow. I would be honored to someday work with those giants.

Texture - Nov 04, 2004 I am in the process of laying out the scenes' UV coordinates. It's kind of like skinning a bear and trying to make it as flat a rug as possible. Each 3D vertice is assigned a 2D coordinate so I can have a flat image to paint on and reproject back onto the model. I am using a checkerboard pattern in this stage so I can check for distortions.

Gearing Up for Lighting - Oct 31, 2004 I'm currently taking a lighting & texturing class and I will be rendering the main scene for my final project. I just recently found this great photographic book in a B&N bargain bin called "the Grand Canyon." There's some amazing shots, but one in particular is really neat. It's a timelapse you can see here. Asides from studying the nuances of lighting behavior, I'm also in the process of trying to decide what time of day "egghunt!" occurs. In the beginning I was pretty sure I wanted it in the dead of afternoon with clear blue skies, but I'm not so sure now. We'll have to wait and see what works out best!

Fifty One Shots Down - Oct 18, 2004 I've completed four out of my six shot sheets - that means I've got 51 shots completed and only 26 left to go! The Incredibles is fast approaching and I'm definitely due for another dose of inspiration to reinvigorate some passion for animating in the coming cold!

Two Minute Marker! - Sep 23, 2004 I've completed 2 minutes worth of animation! It may not seem like much, but believe me - it's plenty! I'm finally entering the section of the story where the antagonist steps into frame, so this will be fun! Also, I'm taking a texturing and lighting class, so expect to see some test renders in the coming months..

Twenty Shots Down - Aug 27, 2004 I've got 20 shots animated! These first few were probably the most difficult to animate of the entire short since they establish the pace and general motion for the rest of the film.

Website Redesign - Aug 25, 2004 I've completed approximately 16 shots of animation (not including facial animation) so far. Because the previous version of the website wasn't compatible with certain computers, I decided to redesign the site. So check it out! I will soon add more sections for things outside of this short film, but it's not of high priority to me at the moment.

Committing To Storyboards - Jul 19, 2004 I'm glad I spent so much time on my storyboards - it's forcing me to stick with the compositional decisions I made when drawing on a two dimensional plane. This is shot number two and sort of an idea how close I am sticking with my blueprints for this film. Shot 02 (Cinepac 1.85Mb) I won't be posting every single shot as I go along (or else you'd have seen the entire film in pieces!) so expect less frequent posts at this point in production :)

Olympian Bruce! - Jul 16, 2004 Here goes the exercise! Side View (Cinepac 4.57Mb) Perspective View (Cinepac 4.87Mb) If you're wondering why Bruce looks so edgy (haha!) and simple, it's because this is the actual lo-rez version I use to animate with so that playblack is top-notch and an accurate reflection of the actual time.

Practice With Bruce - Jul 14, 2004 We have to do an action-oriented motion for my animation class, so I'm using Bruce to 1.) practice with my rig, and 2.) to continue testing my rig. I'll post the animation when its ready!

Walk Cycle - Jun 29, 2004 I'm in the process of taking a Character Animation class. We've cranked out some 10+ walk cycle animations with a variety of characters in a matter of two weeks. I decided its time to apply it to Bruce so here's his strut: Walk! (DIVX 77Kb)

Morph Targets - Jun 27, 2004 I just finished modelling out 30 some targets for Bruce's mouth targets alone. I'm sure I'll be making plenty more specific to the shots - but for now, I need a break from modelling!

Roar!! - Jun 23, 2004 If there's one thing that I don't have a strong feel for in my mind - it's Bruce's voice. What does he sound like? How does he grunt? How does he scream? The film won't have dialogue, but his sounds are going to make a big impact on his character. I recorded my friend, Thomas Feng, to see if he could give me some ideas.

Itching To Move! - Jun 18, 2004 I've been making several several tests with this new rig and I'd say it's got another 10% to go before its production ready! Get ready!

Skin Shader - May 29, 2004 I just finished reading Steven Stahlberg's tutorial on Human Skin Shading. He utilizes the characteristics of a toon shader to acheive the warmth that is generally lacking in most cg renders of human skin. I built myself a skin shader based on his suggestions and I'm pretty impressed with the results. turntable (DIVX 665Kb) With just a flat color (no painted maps), the shader is doing a better job than the skin shader I downloaded for the first version of Bruce's model. Score!!

Bruce's Bryce Part II - May 21, 2004 I, for one, could never be an environmental modeller. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate and respect the artform - but it is in no way for me. I'm already not a big fan of modelling, but to model rocks and terrain... ugh. In any case, here's a progress check on Bruce's Bryce Canyon.

Box Modelling - May 13, 2004 I started blocking out the general shapes of the mountains so I can get a good idea of scale and how things will frame up in the final picture. So far, so good - now it's time to start detailing things.

Bruce's Bryce! - May 11, 2004 I decided to whip this up as I was sipping coffee today at my corner Starbucks. I think I'll start modelling the scene soon.

The Perfect Score - Apr 30, 2004 I've spent the past three wekends at the local libraries rummaging through the entire jazz and world cd selection looking for a score to accompany my film. To date, I have found nothing. Caveman music is quite difficult to find. I do write/play music on the side - I am seriously contemplating arranging my own score... we'll see where this goes.

Storyboards Complete!! - Apr 26, 2004 Well they're finished! Originally I was planning on making these storyboards a full on color script also, but after the first two boards, I realized that my sense of color and conceptual lighting aren't as intuitive as I'd like them to be. I need to take a painting course or something. But it's ok, I'm happy with the storyboards and evidently the class was approving too! The blueprint is in place - time to build!

Storyboard Roughs - Apr 25, 2004 I've started making rough sketches of my shots. With the rest of my other classes out of the way, the rest of this weekend is going into just working on storyboards! Monday I will have my final boards all done and ready for presentation! I'll be pulling an all-nighter with my best friend the coffeemaker.

Storyboard Greenlight! - Apr 10, 2004 The script is completely finalized and my initial storyboard thumbnails have been approved. I'm getting tremendous feedback from people in the class and the story and character seems to have strong appeal. (Always a good sign.) It's incredible to see this huge project slowly mesh itself together. I'm looking forward to boarding out the sequence and putting together the first animatic draft. Here we go...!

Script: Approved! - Apr 02, 2004 So if you haven't figured out already, I'm still working on this project... April fools! My instructor likes the concept! Suh-weeet! He gave me a lot of great suggestions and pointed out areas I didn't really think about or assumed was readable. The next step for me is to thumbnail the entire film shot by shot for another round of approvals. Here goes!

I Quit. - Apr 01, 2004 For personal reasons, I will not be able to complete this film. Sorry. If art is never completed, just abandoned - this one is definitely a piece of work.

The New Model - Mar 24, 2004 Unveiling... the new and improved BRUCE v2.0! turntable (DIVX 252Kb) There are a couple things to note - the arms are dramatically shorter (he won't be dragging his arms anymore) - and things are modelled so that as many portions of his body are separate objects as possible. For instance, in the old version, Bruce's hands + arms + head were all one mesh. Not here! With a rock bracelet in place and a conveniently placed robe, his hands are completely separate from his arms, and his head is one separate object. Rigging will be much easier :)

Location: Set - Mar 22, 2004 I can now put a name to the film's primary location: Bryce Canyon. I love how the mountains punch this vibrant orange against the clear blue skies. The weird rock formations on top of the mountains are called "hoodoos." Their shape does play a subtle role in the story, so it makes Bryce Canyon the perfect choice!

Today I Am A Writer - Mar 21, 2004 On my offtimes from the cold, big box called the computer - I've been trying to be a better writer. The story still has a few kinks here and there so I've been spending a lot of time trying to sort those details out. I am currently taking a Storyboarding class and for our final, we have the option to board out a sequence for our own personal films (if we have one). The story has to be in script format and the idea has to be approved before we can board them. If I can get the pressure of a good grade to push me to do these boards - then I'm all for it! Two birds down with a single stone is the best way to throw! I hope my instructor approves!! I'm crossing my fingers...

Mr. Caveman is... - Mar 17, 2004 I've decided (with the help from loved ones) that Mr. Caveman's first name is... Bruce. So now we can skip the formalities and get to know him intimately - first names are always a great place to start!

Shoulder Fixed!! - Feb 23, 2004 Good news and bad news. Good news first: I've fixed the shoulders! It totally works in 99% of the poses he could possibly make. Now, the bad news: the rig is perfect, but not animate-able. For starters, I smoothed my lo-rez version, deleted the history and started rigging the hi-rez because Maya 4.5 can't smooth UVs (but now Maya 5 fixed that problem). Secondly, there is little flexibility with this rig because its so anatomically correct (for a guy whose legs arent attached to his body) So, I'm going to declare today the end of the R&D portion of this project. I'm going to start over with all the above considerations in mind. I'm not sweating it :) I had a feeling I would be doing this somewhere around now because there was so much I didn't know. So it's time to kick it into high gear and start over with hindsight in mind!

@%#&!! - Feb 15, 2004 I've been told the shoulders are the hardest part to rig on a character and I'm here to confirm that. Maybe I'm being super anal and wanting it to work perfectly for every single possible pose, but FRIGGIN!! WORK!!!

Foot Rig - Feb 02, 2004 Because you'll never get a chance to see under the cave-robe (sorry ladies) I've made his feet completely separate objects from his main torso of a body. This gives me a lot of freedom - I don't have to make knees or thighs so I don't have your usual leg/foot setup. It's my version of the reverse-foot but not.

More Closeups - Jan 30, 2004 Here's a couple more closeup renders of Mr. Caveman. I have yet to decide if this is the level of detail I'd like to pursue on the final picture, but in time we'll see. These tests are looking pretty good so I'm going to pat myself on the back. On to rigging...

A First Look... - Jan 27, 2004 I've learned so much in the past three weeks. I've learned how to UV, write shaders and light (sort of). Accompanying this learning spike will be a whopping Amazon bill for purchasing every possible Maya book there is on the net. I guess I'll have to prove to myself that it was worth it!! More incentive!

Layered Shaders ROCK. - Jan 23, 2004 Man. I know I'm an animator, but I could easily get sucked into painting maps and writing shaders!! I just realized that you can apply more than one material to an object, and the possibilities this is opening up to me is amazing!!

UVs? Mapped. - Jan 21, 2004 Dude. I just spent about two weeks day in and day out trying to figure out this whole UV mapping thing - it's a tedious nightmare!! I've unwrapped Mr. Caveman about 5 times now so the practice has been good. At first I was trying to separate things out into separate objects, but I decided to keep a single mesh and just unwrap him as such. Now onto the shaders!

Texturing?! - Jan 06, 2004 I have no idea how to texture, let alone UV map so this is gonna be an adventure! I've imported Mr. Caveman into Alias MAYA (ahhhhh.. home sweet home) and I'm going to try and figure out this whole texturing business. Wish me luck!

First Draft!! - Jan 03, 2004 He's got a long ways to go, but I feel like this is a pretty good start in translating 2D Mr. Caveman into 3D. His arms are really long, but I plan on having them drag as he walks. As I develop my script and his character, I'm going to do a lot of rig tests to see what range of motion I'm able to give him - so, his arms may get longer, they may get shorter.. sit tight and we'll see how he evolves.

Modelling Begins - Jan 02, 2004 So here goes with modelling! I'm by no means a good modeller, so my hesitance sometimes makes this is a slow process. I'm using Softimage XSI at this point because it's faster for me. I started off by taking my drawing and making a front/side/back panel so I can draw in 3d from it. I drew simple NURBs curves and lofted them to get a good sense of Mr. Caveman's overall volume. From there, I converted my NURBs surface into a polygonal model, and started splitting and moving points around. Although this is a simple model, I want good topology, so - I'm taking my time to make the right cuts. After I'm all done, I mirror my guy over and - voila! Here's my rough draft model!!

Character Design - Dec 31, 2003 It's nice to end the year with a wrap-up on the meat of the concept work! Here's my final design for Mr. Caveman! He definitely needs a name - it'll dictate to me what kind of personality he is, how he moves, how he acts! I've been getting a lot of positive feedback from my colleagues about the character design, so I'm going to interpret that to be my moving along in the right direction. Apparently everyone's first reactions are always in response to a certain visual break where the his tunic meets his back! What is he, a piece of meat? Respect his mind, people!!

Caveman Concepts - Dec 28, 2003 I've been drawing like a madman! Here's a peek into a few concepts of my caveman. I've concluded that full body characters are really boring. Walking heads are so-o in. Mwahaha!

Caveman References - Dec 27, 2003 I've scoured the net high and low for pictures of cavemen and saved them in a giant folder labelled "references." I've noticed there are a couple strong elements that artists have utilized in the past to really sell the idea that a caveman is a caveman. Leopard print drapery of a dress is perhaps the most distinguishable. Now that I know how caveman have been depicted, it's my turn..

I've Got A Story! - Dec 23, 2003 The other day I was thinking about how my mom used to tell me this short parable about how the angels and the demons feast in their respective homes, and somehow - voila! From this erupted my story about a Caveman! How? Don't ask. The mind is a mysteriously wonderful thing. From looking at my notes, I'm pretty satisfied with the story concept. It's got all the elements I need to make a pretty solid short animated film and in my opinion, it's got a touch of heart! Now it's straight to the drawing board to carve out some visuals!

Ideas Anyone? - Dec 11, 2003 Yesterday, I spent the entire day at B&N in the children's section. I literally went through the entire picture book section. No joke. There are some amazing illustrators out there and I found myself often distracted and oogling over the paintings instead of looking for inspiration in storytelling! Anyways, I jotted down all my ideas (or fragments of them) and after hours and hours of brewing, I think I have myself an idea!! (that's not me by the way..)

Senior Project. Now. - Dec 01, 2003 I've decided to get a headstart on my senior project and make me a short film. A short animated film. I just flipped the switch so hopefully you should be able to hear the rumblings of a brainstorm from a 3 mile radius of my head. I've also decided that before I start drawing and working on anything visual - I'm going to attempt and make story my king. So on that note, I'll be at Barnes & Nobles for the next few weekends. Next stop... STORY!