Gantt chart & Specification

This week I handed in the official specification for my project (below). As part of the specification I also re-made the Gantt chart I will be using the schedule the project, seeing as my project has changed quite significantly since my initial plan. Most of the major project work in my schedule is pushed back to start after February, after my Masterclass and Innovations projects are handed in. Once they are out of the way I will be able to focus almost all of my time onto this project and power through March and April, in order to hopefully start rendering in May. The lighting and rendering section of the chart runs through the project as I intend to constantly update my lighting with my assets, instead of leaving it to the end of production which could uncover some nasty surprises.

BA (Hons) Computer Visualisation & Animation: Level H

Title: Sleeping Forest

Author: Katharine Hill

1. Introduction

This project was inspired by the research that went into Disney's Tangled. The artists working on the feature aimed to create full CG environments that retained the charm and appeal of traditional hand-painted backgrounds, with the goal that a single frame would look like a painting. With that in mind, this project explores how CG can achieve the same appeal as traditionally painted backgrounds whilst utilizing all the advantages that CG has to offer, in order to create a kind of living illustration. Another part of this project is the exploration between space and narrative. This project explores how a presence or tone can be created and changed to help tell a story through the environment.

2. Aims & Objectives

In order to explore the theme of 'living illustration', study the paintings by Eyvind Earle for Disney's Sleeping Beauty and use his style to create a fully CG environment. The background plates painted by Eyvind Earle were chosen as they have a very unique painterly style which was inspired by pre-Renaissance European art, tapestries, and illuminated manuscripts. These inspirations resulted in a flattened, highly detailed stylization which will provide an interesting challenge to bring into 3D.

• Build a CG environment heavily inspired by Eyvind Earle's paintings.
• Use various dynamic effects to create movement and life.
• Create a short animation in which the camera will traverse the environment.

3. Implementation

THROUGHOUT: Keep lighting and rendering up to date throughout project

1. Research the style of Eyvind Earle and identify the elements to be taken into this project.
2. Create proof of concept to test the pipeline.
3. Plan the composition and progression of shots by creating a storyboard, block test, etc.
4. Model and texture a library of assets of varying LoD.
5. Model and texture a base model. Set dress using the asset library.
6. Implement dynamics to create subtle animation in the grass, leaves, and plants.

-STEPS 1-6 MINIMUM DELIVERABLES-

7. Implement growing thorns animation.
8. Add fluid simulation to create rivers/ponds.

4. Proposed Schedule

Completed tasks:

• Research on Eyvind Earle, his artistic style & influences.
• Identified key stylistic elements to be used.
• Finalised Storyboard.
• Draft block test.
• Preliminary research & tests on growing thorns.
• Modelling & texturing test.
• Created Gant chart for scheduling year.

December

• Block test – used to decide composition & timing.
• Proof of concept – take an asset through the entire pipeline.
• Lighting & rendering tests.

January

• Start modelling asset library (trees, plants, rocks etc.)
• Base/ground modelling & texturing.
• Check lighting & rendering with updated assets.

February

• Finish all modelling.
• Start texturing.
• Check lighting & rendering with updated assets.

March

• Finish all texturing.
• Set dress base model using asset library.
• Implement grass & leaf dynamics.
• Start implementing growing thorns.
• Check lighting & rendering with updated assets.

April

• Finish thorns.
• Implement water.
• Matte paintings.
• Finalise lighting.

May

• Rendering.
• Compositing.
• Report writing.

June

• Finalise report.
• Breakdown reel.

Proof of concept

I've started working on a proof of concept asset, which I will take through the entire pipeline in order to refine style choices and test the pipeline. I chose the cliff/rocky outcrop seen in the background of this frame as it's relatively simple but still provides a good variety of shapes and textures.

So far, I have modeled and textured the asset, although this isn't the final version as it still needs several tweaks. The modelling flagged up several issues that I had not previously thought of. To replicate the strong geometric shapes in the original image I extruded lots of panels from the model which creates lots of sharp edges. At first, I tried to make this work in smoothed mode (assuming this would look better) by adding lots of extra edge loops, however this didn't work very well and ended up making the mesh pretty messy. This render is actually in unsmoothed mode; I think for this aesthetic unsmoothed works well although I might go back and do some tests with bevelled edges to make a slightly softer line. The other main issue in modelling is the border between the cliff and the grass, which looks very harsh and unnatural. To solve this I think I need to make the surface of the grass more curved so that it hits the side of the cliff at a similar angle, not the harsh 90 degree intersection as it is now.

Texturing was a relatively simple process which combined fractal layers, photo reference, and some hand painting. I experimented with painting in cuts and lines in the front section of the cliff and using that as a bump map, which could work nicely. I need to spend more time looking into the rendering of bump and displacement maps to really make the most of these features.

Next, I need to make adjustments to the model and textures then move on the next stages. I want to try covering the ground in a grass bed using pfx which I think will make it looks much more realistic, as right now it looks like a low-res game asset. After that I will move on the lighting and rendering which is my least experienced area, so this will be a good way to practice before tackling the whole scene.

Storyboards

My storyboard has gone through several iterations since my original black test. The most dramatic change is that I am no longer building the indoor scene. Instead, I'm focusing on the change of tone in the scene as the thorns grow. 

I drew lots of thumbnails to sketch out ideas then put them together to form the story progression.

version 1: The camera follows the progression of the thorns as they overtake the forest.

Version 2: The camera follows a leaf falling to introduce the scene first, and then the thorns enter and start to grow. 

Version 3: Includes more back-and-forth shots as the thorns are introduced to create suspense. Also more focus on close-up shots mixed with long shots to create variety.

Thorn tests

One of the main challenges for my project is the generation of growing thorns. My initial plan splits the problem into 3 sections; background, midground, and foreground. Each level of detail presents it's own set of problems.

Background:

The thorns shown in the background require a low level of detail and won't need to be animated. A simple solution to this is the use of alpha planes and matte paintings which are quick and easy, allowing me to focus my attention on the higher detail assets. I put together a very quick and messy example of what the use of alpha planes could look like. By rotating and scaling this single image (below) I filled a large area with thorns without much obvious duplication

Midground:

This will be where the bulk of the thorn generation takes place. These thorns require animation but still a relatively low level of detail, and should work fine with a simple shader as opposed to painted textured. My first test was using Maya Paint Effects, in which the user defines curves which the vines climb up and a series of parameters which control the final geometry. This technique gives me a pretty high level of control and decent results without much time being invested, once the original parameters are set up. However, there are some issues with geometry intersection and it can be difficult to get the right aesthetic. Also, as I have to define each curve separately and define all the keyframes for animation it would be a very time consuming option for covering large areas.

The other technique I intend to implement is a script which will procedurally generate the thorns using l-systems combined with vector tropisms to define the growth patterns. This will allow me to simply select a growth point from which the thorns will grow, attracted to nearby geometry. This will automatically cover large surfaces without my having to define curves or animation keys. The user will be able to define growth parameters and the general direction of growth but the results will be largely controlled by the system. I will be working on this for my masterclass project so all of the research towards it will be found there.

In contrast to the pfx option, the script offers a quick solution for covering large areas, but without the high level of control. The best solution may be a combination of the two, using the script wherever possible but resorting to pfx whenever a higher level of control is needed.

Foreground:

There will be a couple of very close up shots in my animation which will require highly detailed and controlled sections of thorns. For these I intend to use the traditional method of modelling, texturing, rigging, and key frame animating pieces of geometry. To start, I will use the thorn wall from Maleficant as a reference for a design and animation style of these pieces.

BROKEN: Rock Paper Scissors

I found the short animation BROKEN: Rock Paper Scissors which has an interesting 2D/3D art style. The environments are particularly beautiful. I like how they have split the scene into foreground, midground, and background, with 3 quite different styles. The background in particular reminds me of the backgrounds in Earle's forest scenes as they are both very flat, use simple colour palettes, and basic shapes. In BROKEN, they use a semi-transparent single plane for each tree, which gives a very nice soft effect.

Before now I was considering using basic matte painting with Earl'es style of trees (see the image below), however I would like to experiment with the technique used in this short animation to add more depth on top of the matte paintings.

Earle's inspirations

I've created a new board on Pinterest - found here - where I have collated a variety of artwork in styles that influenced Eyvind Earle's work on Sleeping Beauty.  As I mentioned in my previous post, Earle was inspired by Tres Riches Heures de Jean, Duc de Berry, Persian miniatures, Japanese prints, Durer, Breughel, Jan van Eyck, and Gothic art.

 Tres Riches Heures de Jean, Duc de Berry perhaps inspired Earle more than any other source. It is a particularly lavish book of hours -a collection of prayers to be said at the canonical hours. Eyvind Earle took key points of his colour palette from here, the lapis lazuli blue of the banners, the yellow-green of Maleficent's flames, the shell pink and paler blue of Aurora's gown. You can also see the flat perspective than Earle uses as well as the tendency for geometric shapes and straight lines.

In this example of french tapestries you can see highly detailed foliage designs that have very similar shapes to those used in Earle's forest scenes.

Eyvind Earle mentions how he emulate the style of Jan van Eyck by rendering elements in the foreground with same crispness as those in the background.

 

I also found this great example of how Earle transforms real life castles into his art style, by flattening the image, breaking it up into simple geometric shapes, and creating regular spacing between the trees.

Research

To find out more about Eyvind Earle's style and the inspiration behind it, I've started gathering some research in the form of reviews, articles, interviews etc. One of the most useful items is the book Once Upon a Dream by Charles Solomon, which looks at various different productions of Sleeping Beauty, looking in particular detail at the two disney films: Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent.

From this research I can pinpoint the key elements that make up Eyvind Earle's signature style and bring some of them into my own work. I would also like to look at some of the artist's work that inspired Earle in order to get a deeper understanding of his style.

Key points from my research:

• Earle was inspired by pre-Renaissance European art, Persian miniatures, Japanese prints. He names Durer, Breughel, van Eyck, and the Tres Riches Heures de Jean, Duc de Berry and 'everything that was gothic' as inspirations. However, Earle reinterprets a lot of these styles with a fifties point of view, and the final confrontation completely abandons the renaissance style for a very abstract look.

• The colours are taken from Tres Riches Heures de Jean, Duc de Berry.

• Disney wanted a 'moving illustration'.

• Earle's art is 'flattened, highly detailed' with an 'emphasis on texture'.

• Earle's backgrounds are rendered with the same focus as the foreground (same style as van Eyck). Illusion of reality is cast aside to create a more unified, stylised look.

• The colour was 'muted' and modulated to ensure clarity and keep backgrounds separate to the action. The colour also emphasises the breadth of the world through tonal recession.

• Light defines where detail is (light has detail, shadow less so).

• He uses a 'strong presence of horizontal and vertical elements' and geometric shapes.

• He uses multiple planes of perspective. Also, perspective is exaggerated in some scenes to evoke emotional discomfort, and flattened in harmonious scenes.

• The film was realised in a wide 2.55:1 aspect ratio to emphasise Earle's paintings.

Information on Maleficent from Once upon a Dream:


For Maleficent, the artists moved away from Earle's style and instead aimed for a realistic look similar to the Celtic moors. However, some of his style is still seen in the film and preliminary studies, and it is interesting to see how they tackled the challenge of bringing his style into 3D.

Earl'es style is probably most apparent in the straight lines and jagged bends used in the production of the thorns, which I think works well. I also like the detailed texture and scale that they used, although in my production I would like to push this even further to make the thorns more stylized.

There are also some interesting digital paintings which show photo-realistic representations of Earle's trees. Again these aren't as stylized as the look I want, but still interesting to see nevertheless.

Time Schedule

One of the most important parts of my year will be time management, as I am juggling major project along with my other assignments. To help with this I have put together an initial schedule for the year. This is just a rough draft, I will revise it once I have a more clear idea of my major project and can identify all the elements that need work. 

The design stage lasts up until the specification deadline, but I plan to have most of it finished in the next couple of weeks. I have allocated most of my time to texturing and dynamics, as these are the biggest sections in my project. Lighting, rendering, and compositing appears to be quite cramped at the end, but by that time I will have handed in my other assignments so will be able to focus all of my attention on major project. Not mentioned on the schedule is my report, which I will be working on throughout the year in the form of this blog. I hope to write updates at least weekly if not more often.

Block test

I decided to put together a simple block test rather than a storyboard, as for my project it is easier and gets the information across better. The block test shows how the camera moves through from one environment to the next, although the composition and timing is not final, this is just an initial test. It flagged up some very important problems, mainly the issue of perspective when working in 3D. Getting a nice angle when travelling up the stairs was particularly challenging, and I would still like to push it more as at the moment it is still quite boring. The camera moving through the trees in the forest works well, although I need to experiment with scale to make the environment feel bigger. I also need to decide how I am going to handle the transition from the thorns to the castle, at the moment I can think of two options:

1. I could build another environment which will lead up to the castle

2. I could cheat by having the thorns fill up the screen entirely, then having a small section of the castle appear through a gap in the thorns (similar to the block test)

To decide which of these will work better I really need to think about the composition of my shots in terms of foreground, middleground, and background, as so far I have not given much thought to matte paintings or any background elements. After I've done that I can create another more detailed block test which should help solve these issues.

Mood board + gathering reference

To start, I gathered images of Sleeping Beauty and Eyvind Earle's artwork. I have a board on Pinterest which I am using to hold all the images I find, which you can find here. This board holds screencaps and concept art for the film as well as artwork by Eyvind Earle which is unrelated to Sleeping Beauty. I also put together a simple moodboard using key images which I provided during my initial pitch. At the bottom are some colour swatches which I took from these images, to look at how my colour palette/mood might change as I progress through the environments.

I tried to identify the common elements and themes in Earle's artwork by doing some quick sketches. The main theme that I found in all of Earle's work is lots of strong geometric shapes and a high level of detail. I particularly like his tree designs which use 90 degree angles almost exclusively to create these highly stylized shapes. This theme continues with the shape of ground by using zigzag edges and vertical line detailing; and again in the shape of the thorns. None of these shapes are realistic and it will be a really fun challenge to try and build shapes like this in 3D whilst still making it appear plausible.

Another key feature of Eyvind Earle's art is the use of perspective. You can see, particularly in the forest and castle interior scenes, that the perspective is not at all realistic. He pushes it to affect the mood of the scene, in the castle scenes the perspective creates these very dynamic shots which are uncomfortable to look at, enhancing the sense of distress. In comparison the forest scenes are totally flat, creating a composition which is calm and easy on the eye. This is something that I would really like to play with in my work, although as I'm not sure how it would be recreated in 3D I will have to do some further research on the subject.

Proposal

Here is the proposal for my project. It briefly outlines what I hope to achieve and some of my thoughts behind it.

For my major project I will be making three environments, for film, based on the art of Eyvind Earle for Disney's Sleeping Beauty. My goal is to create a 'living illustration' by translating the charm and style of Earle's paintings into 3D and avoiding realism or the typical plastic CG look. By incorporating dynamic elements such as moving grass, leaves, water, and growing thorns I hope to bring the environments to life. My end result will be heavily stylized, quite gothic and moody.

The three environments will be:

• A forest scene with a river as the main point of interest. I will use dynamics to simulate wind in the grass/leaves and movement in the water.
• The thorns/castle exterior. The main feature of this section will be growing thorns, which I hope to research in my innovations project. The castle will feature in the background either as a matte painting or a simple model.
• The castle interior. The camera will follow up a spiral staircase into a room with a spinning wheel. I would like to experiment with non-realistic lighting effects in this section, such as a moving glowing light which the camera follows, or a spotlight/glow on the spinning wheel.

I will most likely make this one continuous shot of about 40-60 seconds by creating short 'transitional' environments (eg. the camera moves up from the thorns into a castle window), although I may experiment with different kinds of transitions if this doesn't work. My project is a 50/50 split between the artistic and technical. Whilst there will be a lot of modelling and texturing involved I will also be including a fair amount of dynamics and experimenting with different lighting and rendering styles.

I chose this project as I want to try and bring some of the the appeal of traditional paintings into 3D art. I am a big fan of Disney and whilst I enjoyed their recent cg work (Tangled, Frozen..), I prefer their traditionally animated films. In this project I hope to push the boundaries of cg by bringing in the charm of traditional work to create something exciting and new. I decided to look at Sleeping Beauty in particular as it has a very striking and unique art style, because Disney wanted it to stand out from it's predecessors. This is all down to Eyvind Earle, the film's colour stylist and chief background designer. Disney gave Earle an incredible amount of artistic freedom on the film, resulting in Earle painting the majority of the backgrounds himself. In fact several of the animators working on Sleeping Beauty became disgruntled as they were used having some influence over the style and setting of the film.