This week I started placing our cameras according to the latest storyboards, and also worked on making an nCloth tent that can be used in Lake’s camp.

Camera Layout

• Summary: I started placing stand-in props and static cameras in our 3D scenes to match the latest storyboards, so that we can begin our pop-through animation.  Even though these cameras will all be replaced down the line, they serve as a guideline for where our actors need to be, roughly what will be in frame, etc.
• Positives: Recreating our storyboards in 3D helped iron out some weird framing issues and highlight where we may need another shot or two to convey what’s going on in a scene.
• Negatives: After all our script revisions our storyboards are scattered all over the place, and it’s unclear which are the most up-to-date.  Because of this, I was only able to work on cameras for two scenes.  Luckily, this will be a non-issue once we round up all the latest boards!
• Hours: 3

Tent Sim

• Summary: This tent is several cloth sims combined together, and could serve as the basis for the tents around Lake’s camp.  Because of the way it is set up, any part of the tent that doesn’t interact with our characters can be simmed and saved out ahead of time, so that only the flaps, for example, have to be re-simmed after animating.
• Positives: It’s a surprisingly stable and fast sim, considering all the interacting pieces of cloth.  It should be easy to continue adding on to.
• Negatives: It’s not fast enough to sim in real-time, so when animating with it we’ll have to make adjustments, bake the sim, and see how it looks.
• Hours: 5

UPCOMING TASKS

1. Complete camera layout, set up files on a shot-by-shot basis to begin animating