- Mighty Giant: Season's Greetings Campaign 2021 -
Brief
I worked with Mighty Giant to help them create a short animation based on the theme of 'giving'. We were supplied with a concept, accompanied with a rough storyboard, which we helped to expand and flesh-out.
Once the storyboard had been finalised and approved, 3D production began.
My role included:
- overseeing the 3D production pipeline,
- building, rigging and animating the characters
- building the foundations of the scenes
- 'reveal' transition animations
- camera work
- overseeing the 3D production pipeline,
- building, rigging and animating the characters
- building the foundations of the scenes
- 'reveal' transition animations
- camera work
We had a team to create background assets, to add a bit of life to the scenes.
(Disclaimer: a couple of scenes at the end were originally animated by freelancers; however, I had to overwrite these animations due to client amends.)
Approach
The visuals needed to be established and approved early on, so this was the starting point. The next priority was the creation of the characters, then the scene foundations, and lastly the camera moves. These to-do's would allow us to reach the first milestone (animatic), which the rest of the development would build upon.
The Visual Aesthetic and Motion
The visual theme was centred around paper and ribbons, with everything (apart from the ribbons) looking like it was made out of paper.
Using paper-like materials only addressed part of the theme; the objects in this world had to feel and move like paper.
This led to different methods of modelling assets, and different methods of animation.
(A breakdown of the modelling and animation process can be found here.)
Above: some RnD variations of the tree model
Above: experimenting with how assets could be revealed
I went with a procedural set-up, which allowed me to transform basic geometry into something that looked paper-like. This, along with some pre-fab animated deformers, were then distributed across the team to be used for asset creation.
The team were happy with where things were heading in terms of modelling and animation; the texture was kept as a placeholder for now, and to be revisited later on.
Modelling and Unveiling the Characters
The characters were built with two different meshes: one for rigging (which would be invisible), and the other for display.
The mesh on display was built in the same way the tree example was built, so they could 'reveal' in the same way - to retain consistency across the animation.
The 'rigging' mesh would be used for character animation, and would drive the 'display' mesh with the use of 'Mesh' deformers. This meant that a rigged character could reveal in the same way the rest of the assets revealed.
Above: successful test of a rigged character being revealed (well, just a leg...)
The characters were prepared for animation; however, character animation wasn't the priority at this stage.
Setting the Scenes
Whilst I was testing out animations and character modelling, the team were working hard on creating assets to populate the environment with - with narrative-dependent assets being the top priority.
I started setting up the scenes, based on the storyboard panels. This included the house, school, and landscapes (simple hills). Add the narrative-dependent assets and characters, and a few camera moves, and the first milestone was reached.
There was still a lot to address (character animation, animated ribbons, timings, texture refinement, lighting, etc), but the core narrative was in place.
From this point onward, it was simply a case of populating the scenes, adding the character animations, refining the other animations, implementing feedback amends, and giving the film an overall polish.
More Information
Additional info about the project can be found here:
- https://mightygiant.co.uk/work/seasons-greetings-3/
- https://mightygiant.co.uk/work/seasons-greetings-3/
