Surviving creating an animation in a week...

[sworrub]

Hi there,

I was recently cruelly tricked into the last minute task of creating a 'CGI' competition entry 8 days from it's closing date. Always up for a challenge, I accepted! (Plus, there'd be consequences if I didn't!)

The finished (well, as finished as it could be) item is here: http://canimation.redbull.co.uk/gallery#32166798

It was very very hectic to say the least and I probably aimed too high for the time at hand.
I limited myself to one key character, in this case a fairly generic looking tiny dinosaur: modelling, detailing and texturing had to be done in a day and a half tops. Sculpting was a blur in mudbox and the textures are essentially a projected concrete wall with some colour variation. The sculpted skin texture hopefully breaks it up enough that you can't really notice.



Apart from that the only real props are two rocks, a can and some wings that hopefully all came together to tell a story!

The animation is very jerky, due partly to limitations in the basic rig and time constraints (...and also the fact that I'm not actually very good at animating...) If given more time that's definitely where the polish would go (there and sound effects). On top of that I made a lot of silly little errors like modelling his mouth open, only to find on the last day of animating that the jaws don't meet when they close.. whoops.

I do feel the need to say 'thank you!' to Michael Paixao for creating mFeather, without which the wings wouldn't ever have had a chance of coming together..so, thanks Michael Paixao!

Software used: Maya, Mudbox, Mental Ray and a few tweaks in After Effects

Thanks and feedback is welcome though be gentle, I'm still catching up on the sleep!