Story development

 Here is the initial animatic Dayle and Andriana  conjured up, and from there Alex re wrote the second draft script. Tell us what you think.

2 Draft Script

Further Character Development

Villain Development

Dom has been working very hard to get the Characters work right and got our Villain spot on. In the fairy tale version he is meant to be the witch that leads Hansel and Gretel into he gingerbread house house but in the urban world he is the drug dealer that offers them drugs. As you can see, his features resemble  that of a witch with the triangular facial features and the pointy hat. 

Hansel and Gretel Development

Initially, Hansel and Gretel were going to be normal humans but after looking deeper into the style we could go for, Sam suggested German Expressionism as a link to Brother's Grimms' fairy tales. This creative movement suggest rough surfaces and bolder silhouettes which why the following character concepts resemble carved dolls.

Environment Development

Our animation will be split into two worlds: the urban and the fairy tale world. The transaction between the two will be subtle during the animation with different elements of the urban world appearing gradually in the fairy tale one. To make the two environments different to each other we got two of our group members to work on them separately.

Urban/ Modern Environment

Ryan will be working on the urban environment based on Sam's Influence Map using cold colours and gritty textures. The urban world will mainly be inspired by London's suburbs with the tall house blocks and dark alley ways.


Sam's  Urban/Modern World Influence Map

Ryan's Urban/Modern World Concepts

Fairy Tale Environment

Dayle is responsible of the fairy tale world inspired by Disney's colourful forest environments. It is meant to be cheesy to convince the audience that the animation starts with a generic fairy tale world which will eventually change and surprise them.

Sam's Fairy Tale World Influence Map

Dayle's Fairy Tale World Concepts

When Folklore meets the British

With our final story conjured up, without giving away too much this animation will be based around the fairy tale story of Hansel and Gretel.

Many factors has affected the designs of the main characters of the story which are, Hansel, Gretel and the Witch. Our focus with the plot is dealing with putting a British grit modern twist on the story, therefore the character designs created by Domantas had to keep developing in order for the British feel to merge well with  folklore aspect of the traditional story.

When creating Gretel we had the idea of creating a streetwise London bound girl. Drawing from influences from Jamie Hewlett Tank Girl and British actress Jaime Hewlett

 British Actress Jamie Winestone

Jamie Hewlett's Tank Girl 

Here are Domantas's initial and development character designs for Gretel. She started off as a strong female character ready to tackle anyone who can threaten her. 

Gretel's designs were then followed by Hansel's who appeared to be a pathetic, weak and passive character in his initial designs.

Branding our team

We've been hard at work over the past 6 weeks, and Ryan El has been going through the process of branding our team.

Check below his many logo designs, and tell us what you think.

Welcome to Nanomation.

Welcome to Nanomation Creative Group Animation Blog, put together by seven undergraduate students hailing UCA Rochester.

This Blog is to track down our progress through the fully fleshed animation pipeline. From pre Production of the storyboarding and character designs, to our live and kicking 3D production, and finally the last touches in Post Production. Continue to follow our blog, comment where you see fit, and Watch this space !

File System

Modelers Read Me

FILE NAMING CONVENTION

Character/Prop/Environment_mod/rig/tex_intials

EXAMPLE: hansel_mod_JE


FILE HOUSE CLEANING

1. Are all transformations frozen?
2. Has history been deleted?
3. Are pivots in a logical place?
3. Is your model to the correct scale?
4. Has you model been placed at the center of the grid?
5. Are the model parts named logically? Character/Prop/Environment_part, EXAMPLE hansel_head
6. Have all the parts been grouped correctly and named GEOM_grp?
7. Has GEOM_grp been added to a layer named GEOM_lyr?


FOR PROPS

All the geometry plus the GEOM_grp translates, rotates and scales must be locked.

The GEOM_grp must be parented to a nurbs circle control named 'propName'_MAIN_CTRL.

Moving parts on props should have an appropriately named control that is a child to the MAIN_CTRL


FOR ENVIRONMENTS

All the geometry plus the GEOM_grp translates, rotates and scales must be locked.

Moving parts should have an appropriately named control.