Work Preparation:
This week, we are busy preparing for the half presentation. Each member worked on one portion of the deck and put on their research results and findings there. We also rehearsed multiple times and tried to make the presentation as clear as possible, as some research could be hard to understand for people not familiar with animation production pipelines and AI.
Gladly, based on the playtests on the story, people seem to be able to understand 80% of the story, and most of the confusions come from the ambiguous character models and animations, which will definitely be improved later.
We also made some last minute changes to the approach 3 camera sequence making and also the approach 1 rendering.
Progress Report:
- Updated the project website and weekly blogs.
- Compiled the so-far research results into one documentation.
- Talked with Pan-Pan for sound support.
- Implemented the cloud and mountain assets and VFX into the camera sequence and updated some shots.
- Continued researching AI rendering.
- Continued researching AI modeling.
- Updated the Pangu’s full body model.
- Playtested with the current greybox camera sequence to see whether people can understand the story.
- Prepared for the half presentation.
Research Results:
- AI rendering:
This week, we switched from character generation to environment generation using AI rendering. The results are rather satisfying.
Animation Production:
- Pangu Full Body Model:
Our artist iterated on the Pangu full body model so that we can make it more muscular, more godlike, and have a more powerful feelling.
- Updated Greybox Camera Sequence:
We updated the greybox camera sequence based on instructors’ feedback, to make some transitions look more connected, some scenes look more dynamic and some scenes more powerful.
Plan for next week:
- Continue to contact Panpan for sound support.
- Continue compiling the research documentation.
- Email Vicki for sound support compensation.
- Continue working on the website and weekly blogs.
- Continue modeling the Pangu full body and face.
- Iterate on rendering the film.
- Work on more cloud VFX.
- Animate the background environment of the film.
Challenge:
- Hard to estimate how long each approach will take and what potential problems we will meet throughout the semester.
- Hard to estimate the cost for AI tools, and how effective they will be.
- Need to think of better ways to document our research process.
- Need to come up with the plan and tasks towards Soft Opening.
- Need to make sure we have some powerful shots in the film.
- Need to keep Panpan on the same page for sound production.
- AI modeling is proved to fail, and need to shift focus to AI rigging for approach 2.