Bananabeard III development thread

[koalaclock]

Yo. This is where I will post regarding the development of my work in progress clock epic, Bananabeard III.

I'll start off with original posts from my thread, "3d clock development".

If you have any questions or queries about the whole thing, then give me a holla in this thread!!!
_______________________

Bananabeard III
Dir: Simon McClure

Q&A:
PLEEEEEEEASE post questions in this thread. This is more development and production orientated stuff rather than story and plot, however I guess I'll answer some.

Give me the key facts!
Release date: Clockday 2011
Teaser trailer: Pico Day 2011
Production software: Autodesk Maya, Adobe After Effects
Resolution: 720p
Length: Estimated 15-30 minutes
Distribution: Newgrounds and Youtube

I cant wait for it that long
Well I'll be releasing a ton of stills, development material, test videos and animatic excerpts on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/mrsimon). There'll be plenty of new stuff to be loving up.

What kind of style are you going for?
Ideally, I'd like to depart my flat shaded design that I've used throughout the years for my flash movies, and produce something semi-realistic. I'd ideally like enviroments to look fairly dense, whilst applying rich textures to both characters and the scenery... whilst retaining traditional cartooney elements in the character. Simular to this.

Will we find out what the origin is?
Yes

Have you decided what the origin is, or are you making this all up?
When I produced Bananabeard II, I have several ideas what the origin could end up being, and had several endings ready. While I've now decided what the origin is, its not anything I intended during the development of BB2, however its something that still makes the BB and BB2 script work.

Will I have needed to have watched Bananabeard, Bananabeard II, Clock Tales, or any of the Clock Movies to understand Bananabeard III?
Bananabeard III will be an isolated movie from the first two Bananabeards, you will not be required to have watched them to understand part 3. However, you will need to have to be somewhat aware what Newgrounds and the Clock Crew are.

[koalaclock]

Hello girls and boys. Well straight to the point, someday I'd like to develop Bananabeard III, sooner rather than later. It would be my last ever clock movie, probably my last ever Newgrounds orientated short.. However I'd like to take this in a new direction.

I have a giant story for the entire thing, and it looks as though its going to be between 15-20 minutes long. However I'd like it to look fresh throughout. I've decided that I'm going to attempt to make the movie entirely CGI. This is quite a bold claim, so before I start work on that, I'm developing a super short CGI clock movie just to test whether its possible.

This might be a short scene from the original Bananabeard, maybe even The Void or something else. Something not too complex which will test my ability to...

• Animate clocks in a 3d enviroment
• Design multiple clock characters whilst retaining the key clock face and consistent emotions
• Mask the clock face in a 3d enviroment.
• Create CGI scenery, and implement matte-painting
• Apply real-life voices to a CGI clock performance.

There have been a few 3D clock movies in the past, such as "Battle for the portal" and "Juicy fruit"... however I feel that these could be much better. For instance, in Battle for the Portal, the clock models are crudly built.. and in both, there is little to no variation in emotion. The closest thing to a movie I would like to develop is Tateclock's entry in "Stairway to Heaven". Emotion and direction is retained to a high standard throughout.

I have been working on a crude CGI clock for a while, however I've decided to devote the majority of my effort during freetime outside of work towards this project, should it take me months or years.

During November, I had put together a quick CGI clock and posted it quietly in the "Whore your newest flash" thread. New to this thread however are these new video tests I had created.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwCUy8w79Q

A few problems arose with this version however. The way I had approached this was to focus upon three objects, simular to a Flash movie. Firstly, the clock body, in this case the round orange sphere. Secondly, the clock face, which here is a sphere with an old school clock face on it. Thirdly, were the eyebrows. Here I had approached this by making the eyebrows a completly seperate object, and this is visible in the picture, as you can see a rim where the gradient of the surface suddenly changes when the eyebrow stays in contact with the clock "body".

Because of this setup, I had two major problems. One, how can you get rid of this outline? Two, how would I handle clocks with bodies smaller than their eyes, like Tobacco and Strange?

For my newest revisions, I decided to scrap this approach, and instead focus upon an eyebrow system which I would instead build clocks up upon, rather than throw onto a clock object. This will be much more time consuming, however I feel the results will be great.



In addition, I also added rim lighting to the main clock body shader. Here a white highlight is displayed upon the edge of the character (Like Mario Galaxy). I also replaced the clock face texture, with actual geometry for the hands of the clocks, meaning you get a more realistic soft shadow underneath them. (The first image still has the old shader though)






I also developed an eyeball for laughs.



As you can see, I've based the eyebrows upon a simple square. This is infact a 4x4 plane, with vertices I should be able to easily stitch onto a clock character. I still have a few new problems though....

Firstly still, what if the clocks have a smaller body than their face? With this, I should be able to wrap the square around the back of the eyebrow system, so it looks as flat as an actual clock, however the eyeball would poke through the back. I'm going to have to create a mask 'render layer' in order to hide the eyeball sphere through post-production.

Secondly, the clock now cant rotate or translate his 'face' if its attached to his body. Although this is much more realistic, it takes away from the traditional 2D clock crew style.

All in all, I'm proud of what I have so far, but I'm going to have to keep hard at work. I hope to have a full clock character developed by the end of next week.

[koalaclock]

That idea confuses me a little as I'd think that most clocks have their faces on their bodies except for a few that hover one over a logo but in that case couldn't the face and body just be completely separated.

I've very quickly created Tobaccoclock to illustrate the problem. Please note, the new eyebrow object isnt attached to the cylinder in this case, just for a quick demonstration...

The eyebrows are spikey and the texture has messed up. Please note this is a QUICK demo!!!



You can see that although I've sized the eye at what I'd like it to be, the eyeball is poking right through the back.



You can imagine that for characters like Strangeclock, who have absolutly no body immediatly behind the face, this'll be a huge problem...

I have a few solutions here though...

1) Shape the character around the eye regardless of consequences....

Characters will look shit though....

2) Mask out the eyeball using Adobe After Effects in the final edit. This'll bump up render time though, and may cause me some problems...

3) Deform the eyeball using a lattice. This effectivly squashes the entire ball.


Actually, I dont know why I didnt think of this before, it works perfectly.... LOLS OK that I will do

I have another major problem right now though. When I create an object to stitch the clock face onto, I get some problems during animation...


BEFORE... (BTW, this is technically my first completed clock, minus texturing Horray)


AFTER!!! (The eyeball, I'm not too concerned about. What I am really worried about is this 'spiking' at the edges of his eye area)

Once I get round this problem, I should be ready to press on with exciting stuff.

[koalaclock]

Its tough juggling real life, projects at Travelers Tales, socializing and other stuff, whilst trying to throw this into the blend....

But I'm going to produce this movie, even if it takes me forevar =O

I've gotten back onto developing the emotions. This is pretty tough, since I need a solution which I can quickly apply to all clocks, yet I want quite a complex emotion system.

First off, I considered using "Blend Shapes" which are the morphing technique I used in "The Mascot".



This means that your character can morph from one state to another (E.g. Happy to Sad). The problem with this is its fairly tough to get complex emotions going with fluid motion, and I feel it just looks too mechanical. Sure you can make more blend shapes, but the whole thing becomes very complex very quickly...

I've decided to at least attempt to create a much more complex system for the eyes based around joints, constraints and a single blend shape. I've created a number of joints for the eyelid (Around 10 or so), which I can indepedantly move. I can set these up to go to preset states, but I can also go in and do it all manually should I need to, so this means I could perhaps have nice crowd scenes later without doing too much animation, yet still adding some subtlties later.

It still needs tuning up though. This polishing process could take a while... but already, I can pull expressions like this...



As you can see, I've only set up basic controls for the top eye. The small triangles are manual controls, and the large arch is for the entire top eyelid.



However, the problem with this is that its rotation isnt perfect, so I get some glitches.



I need to fix these up, perhaps set up driven keys to do so.... it'll be looking rather swanky. Its a system I should theoretically apply quickly to new meshes (IE, I can make a clock 'body' then attach the 'face' to it).

[koalaclock]

Quick update. I've been trying to find a decent way to handle the eyelids, but I've had no luck as of yet. Each method has its own pro's and con's. I'm really going to have to knuckle at this one weekend if I'm going to handle it. I want to try and avoid blend shapes though, since everything can look quite mechanical.

Instead, I'm going to try and build an enviroment at some point. The Atomic Bar exterior should be a good start. I'm also going to start producing an animatic of the teaser trailer I have planned.

To the majority of the community, as well as Newgrounds visitors, this'll all be one crazy awesome surprise when I finish the trailer (If I do...  and I must). But you guys are in the loop right here. You're special. Horray.

BTW, here are my personal deadlines for this project, ideally, I want to be completly finished with each stage of production BY this time.. not AT this time:

Full animatic of teaser trailer: End of February 08

Enviroment test, fully rendered and constructed scene: Early March 08

Enviroment test with advanced texturing: Late March 08

Clock face with complete eyelids, animation test: End of March 08

Full character screenshots, and teaser poster: Early April 08

Full character animation test: April 08

Enviroment animated fly around: April 08

Full complete CGI clock crew short: May 08
(I'll be producing a regular clock crew cartoon to test my skills)

Particle effects and post production experiments: May 08

Complete script: Summer 08

Full complete teaser trailer: Clockday 08 (Newgrounds, Youtube and Stage6)
(Estimated length of content: 1 minute)

First full shot of final movie complete: August 08

Full trailer: Newgrounds day 2009
(Estimated length of content: 2 minutes)

Full complete movie on DVD (Perhaps Blu ray) for purchase: 2009-2010 as part of "mrSimon: The complete collection"
(Estimated length of content: 20 minutes)

Full complete movie released on Newgrounds and Youtube: The Clockday after release on home video
(Estimated length of content: 3x6 minutes)

Of course, I'll be sharing absolutly everything here (Except a lot of the animatics. I dont want to give away too much of the story!!!) I dont want to pretend like I'm producing something when I have nothing.

Please please PLEASE encourage me guys. I've always wanted to produce this

[frozennn]

Full complete movie on DVD (Perhaps Blu ray) for purchase: 2009-2010 as part of "mrSimon: The complete collection"
(Estimated length of content: 20 minutes)

This is exciting!

[PolyhedronClock]

Wow MrSimon, you're a role model to me now. Not just because of your works alone, but how you multitask so much around. Has that LeekClock vibe to you, embracing many arts (music, flash, 3D animations). I can't wait untill I see something ClockCrew-ish from you in the future. Ever since Bananabeard 2, I figured it turn into another "Void".


Keep it up

[Topcatyo]

I'm really excited
I think this picture looks wonderful and wouldn't mind Blue looking like this in the final movie.

[koalaclock]

I'm really excited
I think this picture looks wonderful and wouldn't mind Blue looking like this in the final movie.

This isn't final. I plan to add some very very subtle texture to the body, as well as the eyeball so it doesn't look as ping-pong ball like... and more like an actual eye (Yes, blood vains as well... nothing too obvious though)

[TequilaClock]

The screenshots are absolute groundbreaking. 25 minutes? Man you are an angel Good luck!

[RobClock]

i thought the day wwould never come.
*kisses mrsimon's feet*

[DillClock]

I was expecting to see Bananabeard 3 in 2D, but so see it in 3D would be awesome to the max.

[ChocolateBarClock]

You're my greatest awsomest role model ever!

[OvenmittClock]

cool, i thought you scrapped this project.

[CeleriacClock]

I am looking forward to seeing this, when do you think you will finish it?

[frozennn]

I am looking forward to seeing this, when do you think you will finish it?

Full complete CGI clock crew short: May 08
(I'll be producing a regular clock crew cartoon to test my skills)

Particle effects and post production experiments: May 08

Complete script: Summer 08

Full complete teaser trailer: Clockday 08 (Newgrounds, Youtube and Stage6)
(Estimated length of content: 1 minute)

First full shot of final movie complete: August 08

Full trailer: Newgrounds day 2009
(Estimated length of content: 2 minutes)

Full complete movie on DVD (Perhaps Blu ray) for purchase: 2009-2010 as part of "mrSimon: The complete collection"
(Estimated length of content: 20 minutes)

Full complete movie released on Newgrounds and Youtube: The Clockday after release on home video
(Estimated length of content: 3x6 minutes)

here's the post.

[patriotclock]

I am excited for this. Also I love how the OrangeClock's Clock moves

[EgalitarianClock]

Looks very nice; I smell money coming your way. Which program did you use?

[koalaclock]

Ok I've been doing two things but with not as pleasing results.

First off I was trying to get that complex crazy joint based face deform working, but to no luck. So I'm going to settle with Blend shapes. However to prevent errors with the eye popping out its socket, I've found out about "in-between" targets, and implemented them.



So now I have it blinking, without any geometry collision. Now I can start getting some emotions together. Once thats done, I should be able to move onto making the first clock character.

I've also been experimenting with scenery modelling... I've quickly put together the exterior of Atomic Bar... but it simply looks pants. It looks totally shit.



This is why one giant hurdle I'm going to have to jump for this project though. Scenery modelling and texturing. I'm going to ask for some advice from guys at work, as well as find myself some study material. This DEFINATLY needs work.

[buttplug]

Cool, how much do you think you will sell it for? I might buy it if it's cheap.