This week, our primary focus was on refining the overall scenes. Having already created some key assets and visual effects, we turned our attention to designing creative transitions between the kitchen and the fantasy worlds. After discussions, we decided on three methods to transition between scenes: color extraction, a water splash covering the screen, and match cuts, ensuring the camera movements remain minimal.
To make the fantasy scenes “more creative” and “dreamlike,” Lucy, our environment artist, has made significant progress. Inspired by water parks and rainbows, she blocked out a jam-slide for a transition between the Toast Galaxy and Orange Juice World. In this sequence, Oliver and Margaret will slide down a flowing river of jam standing on toast slices, pass through a butter-cream cloud, and plunge into the orange juice world.
The Orange Juice Forest also underwent major revisions. Lucy’s creative redesign sets the scene on half a giant orange, with a lake of juicy pulp and an island formed by segment membranes. A floating juicer and an orange juice waterfall complete this spectacular, whimsical landscape.
We received feedback on the kitchen scene as well. The original layout, with the table at the center of the room, caused visual dislocation along the screen borders. Additionally, a large kitchen diminished the warm, intimate atmosphere we aimed for. To address this, we shifted the layout, adding a large bay window at the front and placing a smaller table in front of it. This change helped preserve the cozy feel of the scene.
With the layout set, our next steps involve adding materials and using small objects to enrich the storytelling within the space.
On the animation side, we reached out to Brenna, a dancer from the ballroom club, to assist us with motion capture. We met in person on Thursday to ensure she and her partner fully understood our project and its needs. Together, we scheduled a time for mocap recording in the studio.
Our sound designer also compiled the scenes and synced them with appropriate background music, creating an animatic with the right emotional progression. This animatic will guide Brenna and her partner in choreographing the dance moves, based on the timing and mood of the music.