In this week’s project, we did a presentation where we had to explain the whole idea of the project2 and show the progress so far, and this is what I am going to do:
In this project, I plan to show some interesting creatures and landscapes through the interaction of the characters with some reality-based knowledge.
In this animation, I wanted to show deep-sea species through the construction of the environment, and if possible, I will add environmental conservation.
Previsualization/animatics/work-in-progress:
Set design and construction, character design and production.
This is a scene animation. The animation will focus on the environment and how the character’s activities are affected in such an environment.
Research & Inspiration
I like the theme of non-human species. My favorite is the mermaids of the deep sea. I wanted to share some interesting knowledge with audience, and I wanted my animation to be based on realistic information and knowledge, to convey some interesting biological perceptions, and to make the animation a certain educational nature.
As this is based on the development of a project I did a long time ago, I will still refer to this drawing style.
In the course of my research, I have learned that there are many things unknown to man in the depths of the ocean, so I am very interested in learning about this, and I have discovered that ‘luminescence’ is a feature of deep-sea fish so that I will be creating scenes and characters around this.
This is a scene reference I found from a 3D game, sky. This game uses very simple models to make incredible scenery effects. I like this presentation. It is a kind of Cel-shading.
This is the reference I found for the underwater scenery; I wanted to create a deep sea with blue and black as the main parts, with a bit of sunlight coming in so it would be darker and more suitable for the glowing creatures. The reference also has a screenshot of the game in the sky and a picture of ocean pollution; I wanted to incorporate these two elements into this animation.
This is the reference for the character as I want to stick with the previous character design elements, so I will use a different type of fish as the base this time. I’ve found a few tail fin shapes I like, a black-skinned character, and some glowing tattoos.
Character developing：
This is a character I designed earlier; this character is made of a whale shark as the primary element; I think the white spots on the whale shark are perfect for glowing in dark environments; most of the fish in the deep sea have lousy eyesight, so I designed the eyes to be white, and 60% of the fish in the deep sea glow, glowing is an essential survival skill for deep sea fish, so I used a dark blue base and painted the character’s hair is designed to glow to attract small fish to hide in the hair and take them home, this mermaid is still a collector.
After I designed the character, I realized it was too complex for my animation style, so I simplified it a bit and made the character female so it would looks cute
Final character
The materials that are already available:
I have searched the internet for licensed models for the storyboard and used these stones to create the introductory scene (I will recreate these models later).
Also, a friend of mine has created the underwater effect in Unreal for me. I will animate in Maya, model, and then move to unreal to develop scenes and effects.
Problems:
This is the first time I have used unreal to create a scene, which makes it challenging. I also need to learn more about special effects for the scene.
Next:
We are continuing to work on scene models and character models.