Okami VISUALS!!

During our meeting on the MAYFLY project, me and Iredia both agreed, Okami the PS2 game from years ago was a very inspiring and one of the most successful games which used painted brushes to express outlines and the characters authenticity, as the design linked to asian themes.

http://dayfly89.blogspot.com/2011/01/styles-to-work-with.html

watercolours:


Thicker Ink lines:




other styles with less dominating calligraphy lines.



Iredia has done a brief visual analysis of several images from Okami. I'll carefully studying each point to try grasp his visual despair. We still haven't decided on the final look for the background. And since we've both decided to use TVPAINT ONLY, its been a long journey to even creating acceptable images. I've grasped some basic skills from tutorials, and have even gone through forums for the Chinese paint brush textures. But actually controlling the brushes has become a bit of a challenge.

As you can see here ::


I did this as a quick test of the calligraphy brushes, It came out quite well! The Mayfly would obviously not be animated in such thick brush strokes but more consideration in how we portray this character is needed. This would all be determind after I've finished the other tests this week.

I even went over one of iredia's flight tests for the mayfly. Originally, I was given a folder that was over 300 frames long!! But then after looking through them, 200 odd frames were in fact empty! So that was a relief. I know its not something to complain about, since the final thing will probably have thousands of frames to go over!

Heres the Test animation with the brushes. Its not visually amazing, but its a start for the overall FEEL for the atmosphere.

After having a video conference with Iredia over our progress and so on, I pointed out, the character IS pretty flicky. He has mentioned we would be the only group with that traditional flicky feel from our project. But this seemed too much. I went over the MAYFLY character with a THICK brush, I personally didnt find it convincing, it was probably because the frames were so fast, the audience don't have the chance to even see the textures let alone study it.

Another thing is, Iredia pointed out the Mayfly animation was alot faster then his original test. And I couldnt figure out why, I sent him the project file for him to check out.
I totally forgot about the basic settings, from the fps and size. I've noticed, after drawing for long hours, my technical thinking don't come in, so i'll have to keep that in mind before I render out scenes in the wrong settings! = wasting our precious time!

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I actually got this feedback from him:

"hey yuki i figured out the problem- the import settings you had were 30 frames per second, so because the animation is 24, it cut out certain frames & also sped it up- I've done a correct settings import with the frames cut to the exact right time that the animation stops- so i'll send this 2 you asap. so hopefully sometime this week, (give it a few days break after today of course), you can have one more go?

here are specific changes I feel need to be made for the next attempt:

*As little flickering as possible with the colouring (this may mean you need to really zoom in on the frames to make sure
that paintings are as close to each other as possible)- so that the painting matches the smoothness of the animation.

*no black outlines on the character - when they flicker its really obvious and distracting- I want the outlines similar to your 1st mayfly painting you showed me, coloured so they blend in well with the colour of the mayflies body- (if this means you need to ditch the Chinese brushes for the characters body then do so- as long as we can have them in the awesome background you're gonna create).

I hope I'm not giving too much, if so please let me know- I just wanna make sure we're fully ready to start producing the film come the 24th "


"by the way don't do this for all 109 frame because I feel that may be a bit unfair, considering you did so well to attempt to tackle the whole thing today :D may b up to frame 56 Max "

and I replied with:

"ooOOO!!!! Forgot to set the settings xD My bad xD And dude, its ok, its understandable. I'll have another hack at it next week =D And the 109frames wasn't so bad actually =O I'll try get that done, don't worry =D "

Since I've chosen the route as an animation student, I have no time for excuses, its a path I've chosen myself, something I chose to ENJOY. And I really didnt feel much "pain" in going over someone elses animated frames. I actually have the feeling of correcting a few frames at the same time. Its a tedious job, but its also something I've agreed on. I can't let my team down, since Iredia's working just as hard on secondary effects such as water splashes, a challenge I would dread to do. Much respect for them water effects, as a fellow animation student I feel motivated to work even harder for him.^^

AND GOOD NEWS, I just received some Chinese books on the arts of Chinese painting, with some basics and some in depth thoughts from many famous artists. Its hard to read since its in simplified Chinese, Its like trying to read Shakespeare English!

So heres whats been decided for the next week:
-I'll be working on CONCEPTS directly on TVP
-I'll be working on diff ways of animating in TVP with an moderate usage of the thick lines.
-I'll also be animating the test again WITHOUT outlines so that it hopefully, cancels out the flicky feeling of my first test.