I had a lot of different ideas when it came to the Development, none of which I was entirely sure I could do. While all of them related to the main project in one way or another, they were all different aspects of the animation, all of which added a certain look or feel to it. For example, I could have chosen to develop character modelling and facial rigging – making the expressions and faces of these characters the main focus, or I could have chosen movement, in all characters, which would dictate the flow of the animation. How a character is timed and animated is vital in making a successful comic short, like the one I am making.

Instead, I opted for something a bit more different. While both of the above things were incredibly important to the final piece, there was also another aspect to it which I wanted to develop – something which I think I had the least experience in and I wanted to add experience to. This was, interestingly enough, the final “look” of it. That is to say, I wanted the furniture, the texturing, lighting and the overall shape and design of the cottage and its contents to have the right feel. With the wrong lighting something can look too “gritty” or “real” and I wanted it to have a very smooth, very cartoony feel to it, all the while looking, as much as possible, realistic.I learnt, from watching various special features on DVDs and blu-rays, and observing different animated films, how much of an atmosphere you can create with your scenery. After all, a wrong background or some bad grading can completely change the feel of the piece you’re trying to create.

To begin with,at an early stage, possibly before any story was planned, I had already ruled out making it cel-shaded, as is often the case with a lot of “2D-style” video games – such as Killer 7, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and, more recently, Street Fighter IV – because while I did draw a lot of inspiration from classic cartoons such as the Looney Tunes shorts, Tom and Jerry and some Tex Avery shorts, I wanted it to be, in all respects, 3D.

I looked at the style that Dreamworks and Pixar Animation Studios use – a sort of well textured, well detailed type of art, all the while keeping an almost naïve, simple and cartoonish drawing style, and decided that was probably the better option, after all, I wanted everything to look like it could happen, but only on a much different plane of existence (preferably one where anvils fall on heads and the smell of pie makes you float).

So I started with basic objects. The look and layout of the cottage would determine the chase path of the animation and, as a result, also determine the flow and smoothness too. I started with a floor, and slowly built everything around it. As the early entries in my blog will show, the room where the action starts (the cauldron area) was a separate room, with a mini corridor leading into the main cottage. That didn’t work though, as I figured that when the summoned blob creature escaped, it could only go in a straight line, and therefore be incredibly easy to be captured again. What the house needed was a much more open space – not only would this give a lot more possibilities for antics but also provide a nice, open space which would feel much less claustrophobic to the audience.

As I was building furniture: chairs, tables, bookshelves, cauldrons and everything else, I wanted to give the place a very traditional “old English” cottage look, so I of course gave the place floorboards (a very light brown colour, as I wanted everything to have a nice, fresh colour palette, to make it easier on the eyes and more enjoyable to watch) but couldn’t decide on the walls. For a very long time, they were simple brown, with a boring brown wooden brown texture basically dragged and stretched stupidly over the top. I later changed this, much later, into a light green paint which not only looked natural, “earthy” and traditionally English, also had the advantage of being quite airy and light – again making it quite easy for the eye as, being the very identical walls of the only location, it would be the one thing, save for the characters, that the audience would see the most.

V-Ray was my renderer of choice. To be honest, I really don’t know why I chose it. Probably just because everyone else was using mental ray. Either way, when I had made up my mind to use it, I began to mess around more with lighting and shadows and how various light sources looked in the scene. While I have not included those in the video – as they are all still frames and would take up all the time allocated in the video to show – they are on the blog, and as I explain on the blog, I ended up choosing a mix between a VRay Daylight system and omni lights. I found that the Daylight system created too many dark shadows, even with the variables turned out, while the omni lights by themselves didn’t look as good or as natural. Together, though, the omni lights reduce the shadows from the Daylight and the entire room looks about as good as I actually wanted.

A second light source was needed though, for the first few seconds of the film where the only light comes from the cauldron – a sort of cold, gritty green. I experimented with a few lights and eventually placed a single light in the cauldron, green, and increased shadows on it. To make things not near the cauldron visible I also placed a much smaller, but less bright light on the floor in the middle of the cottage. I experimented with both those lights, taking many stills and video renders until I got the desired look I wanted. These, along with one where I played with the grading and contrast in After Effects, are in the video.

As the last pan of the room in the video shows, I think my “definite” look for the cottage, the one I’ve been working towards, is very much the step in the right direction I needed. It has a light cartoonish look, all the while keeping a very real and natural ambience.

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At the end of the video, there are a couple of movement tests. While there are not many, these are ones I started in the past, but only recently finished. Like I said earlier, movement and action is vital in these pieces as it can really take away the excitement if done too slowly. Of the videos shown, there is a trial “spell-casting” motion, and two more defined ones, done through online research and video footage of myself. Now, with the cottage almost over and done with, I will have more time to develop this to get more cartoony, expressive movements.