YPGTTO: The Cello District - Master Environment Pre-Vis & Rendered Stills

I've now completed what is required for to render the environment for The Cello District. I'm really happy with how this turned out, possibly because The Cello District is one my favourite districts in YPGTTO. Now onto the Violin District after sorting out some extra detail lights for The Flute District.

YPGTTO: Viola District - Environment Animation (All Final Playblasts)

I've been quiet on my blog for a while, and that is because I've been hard at work to test out the animation pipeline (for the environment at least) for YPGTTO. I've been given the 'District Lead' role for The Violin, Viola, and Cello Districts. First I worked on The Viola District...so here are the combined playblasts (with bits of compositing and VFX in After Effects). The character animation is only roughly blocked in so that part of the animation is not complete, but I'm happy with how it turned out even just as playblasts. Some stills of what the animation will look like is included below.

YPGTTO: Texturing - The Horn District

The Horn District is now textured and ready. It took some tweaking, as the original concept art contained some blue shades, blacks and cooler tones. However, it was decided to stick with warm tones and dusk colours to keep with the aesthetic of brass...so those colours were then tweaked and changed into pinks, oranges, yellows, or warmer toned purples.

YPGTTO: Texturing - The Viola District

The Viola District is now full of life and colour. I enjoyed creating the set, so I was glad I had the chance to work on texturing this District as well.

YPGTTO: Texturing - The Percussion District & The Machine of Doom

After finishing up The Horn District, I went onto texturing The Percussion District and the district's 'Machine of Doom'. This was quite challenging because it had to look like a nighttime scene with moonlight, and sometimes the colours would blend together so I had to be sure that certain buildings had a more purple hue while others were perhaps more teal or blue. The white moonlight outline helped bring everything out though. Overall, I'm happy with the result and enjoyed the challenge.

Personal Work: Sunday Speedpainting #8 - Chester Bennington #2 (WIP)

This week I chose to continue working on this painting I started last weekend. My computer was giving me a hard time and wasn't recognising my tablet, so I wasn't able to paint as long as I wanted to originally. Despite this, I focused mostly on the jacket this week and a few other bits on the face and hands.

Buildup (continued)

Before & After

YPGTTO: The Horn District

I've been working on The Horn District set over the last few days and I think it's come out rather nicely. It took me some time to clean up the models to ensure they didn't collapse when in smooth preview but it got there in the end. I tried my best to imitate the camera angles as seen in the animatic/pre-vis...this set is now ready to be textured.

Personal Work: Sunday Speedpainting #7 - Chester Bennington (WIP)

For this week I wanted to do a painting of Chester Bennington who recently passed away. Linkin Park was the first real band I ever listened to (thanks to my mother who first showed me their music) and that shaped what music I'd be interested in later on in my life. Their music in general (along with many other people) has helped me through some difficult years. I only recently saw Linkin Park live on July 3rd, so I wanted to do a portrait of Chester in honour of his memory. I plan on working on this painting for my weekly speedpaintings until I feel happy with it.

YPGTTO: The Clarinet District - Modelling & Digital Sets

I've now finished setting up the digital sets needed for The Clarinet District. I've had to do a bit of 3D modelling to make a more detailed staircase and slide for a scene where the character Red chases Yellow up a building. Since the stairs then switch instantly into a slide, I included both the steps and the slide in this scene so they could be switched on and off.

That scene is then followed by a more abstracted aerial shot where Red is sliding down the spiral. I modelled the spiral in a way that it is somewhat of an optical illusion (the end of the spiral is further away from the camera but I also scaled it so it was smaller and looked even more distant). I also added a funnel/cone around the spiral and added some windows to create a sort of 'inside out' building.

I also finished creating the distance shot, and in this scene I used the models that I rigged for animation as the buildings in this scene are meant to squash and stretch. I also modelled an extra 'entrance platform' for this scene so Red has something to stand on and so I could place the sign somewhere that would be easily visible.

There are a few more sets that I've made for this district, which can be found on my 'catchup post' and the properly textured versions of these sets will be on the CAA/ONE blog. Now onto The Viola District!