Model

The final video is to be produced in the 3D program 'Autodesk Maya'. I originally intended to do my video entirely in 3D, however, seeing as my character modelling and rigging skills are poor and my 2D character animation is better. So I have decided to a 'puppet' technique similar to made the character similar to the TV show 'South Park' which is also made in Maya, the character is made of different planes with textures applied to them. Pictured below is the different pieces.

The reason it is in pieces like this is so that each individual part can be moved. To animate it each point will have its centre pivot point moved to where the pieces is expected to move and will be rotated on that point, for example, the head's pivot point will be moved to where the neck would be. The finished model is below.

The mouse will also be made this way. Although the characters in the video are 2D, the backgrounds will still be modelled in 3D which includes things such as the church/cathedral and the forest. I realised this is a style similar to 'Paper Mario', however, something i want to avoid that is in 'Paper Mario' is when the characters rotate and look as thin as paper which is similar to 'PaRappa the Rapper', i want my video to be more similar to 'Who Framed Rodger Rabbit' where a cartoon character is in a realistic world rather than a paper man in a realistic world.

Storyboards

I have worked on storyboarding the plot, finished results are attached to this post above.



I also produced a Leica Reel of the storyboard, it was going to be the scans originally however i changed it to a computer animation since i was having difficulty bringing what i wanted to bring across, I took out the scenes about the 'evil' to reduce it for the timing and changed a gargoyle's post to something mentioned at the end, the cha rather is intentionally crudely designed since this is not his final design, also the music used it place holder music until i find better royalty-free music.
Disclaimer, the first minute and about half a minute on the end is just for the fans to tell them I'm buzy working on this project.

'Plot'

Due to being a documentary, there is no heavy 'plot' to the video since I learn that mixing a plot into a documentary really doesn't work, it is more based around showing 'a day in a life of a gargoyle'. Although it focuses on one single gargoyle its actual are based on the of the species as a whole just like in real documentaries.

The video shows that gargoyles are nocturnal creatures, during the day they sleep in their petrified statue forms upon old buildings such as churches and cathedrals. After sunset the gargoyle will awaken and de-petrify itself, after some exercises due to being stiff for so long, it’ll fly into the forest and obey its 3 instincts:
1st instinct; Hunting, gargoyles feed on small mammals such as mice, they sit on branches scanning for them scurrying on the ground, it will then take off, swoop down, grab it and then land on another branch to feed on its catch.
2nd instinct; Protecting humans, there is a creature known as 'Evil' (physically it resembles a purple mist ball that gets larger and larger) that is dangerous to human societies, it comes from another world (hell) and it travels to our world, gathering in forests (hence why the gargoyles come to the forest) to find and corrupt humans. A gargoyle’s job is to scare away the 'Evil' so that it will shrivel up and return to where it came from in order to protect humans.

3rd instinct; Avoid being seen by humans; although gargoyle protect humans, they must be silent protectors, for a human to see such a creature would really unbalance things, if a human sees a glimpse or hears one, then a gargoyle must hide until they give up searching.

The video ends with showing as the sun begins to rise, the gargoyle return to where it originally was resting to turn back to stone and sleep.

And those are the events I intend to show in my video. Some of it was longer but for timing purposes I had to cut a lot of it out. I still hasn’t timed all of this but I’ll work on that and see if I can fit it all in. I hope I can anyway, the last time i had a project and had to cut a lot out for timing purposes it really ruined the whole thing.

Introduction

I don't feel comfortable posting my real name online but i am comtable enough to say the name to my youtube account, which is beats0me.

I am a university student at Swansea Metropolitan University and am studying 3D computer animation, I am on my third and final ear which is mostly based around my Final Major Project.
The Final Major Project will be a 2 minute video created in Maya (a 3D program we have been using throughout the course), we get some help from lecturers but the project is mostly self-led. Due to which, the project is themed however I wish.

For my Final Major Project I Plan to produce a documentary on the mythological Gargoyle, however treat it as if it were an actual animal. I'll be working on the project all year, so far its still in its pre-production stage, im currently working on cocnept designs ans storyboarding.

Since this is my first post i'll stop here to prevent it from being to long. I hope i'll rmemeber to update when i have good progress in the future.