Zayd Shaik Art

  The final 'caveman' sequence that I have been working on for the internship, with added scenes for further context, and additional corrections to make the scene more faithful to the boards that I was given. Namely, the addition of the POV shots at the beginning, as well as a change to the shots where the caveman is carrying the animal. See my previous blog entries for the work process.

  [time taken: 1 week; 1-2 days per shot]   These shots are part of a much bigger scene, involving a caveman chasing after an animal. Here, we were given different storyboards for each shot, which we have to base each our shots off of. The new shots were based off of these storyboards: Description: A much larger animal has jumped out of the bush, ready to ambush the caveman. In the nick of time, the caveman throws away his prey and jolts off, with the big animal (a sabre-tooth tiger) giving chase. The caveman then finds a cliff and climbs up it, and the tiger is seemingly not able to catch up... Here, I also included some corrected versions for the previous set of shots, as shown in the previous blog post. Here, I made it more faithful to the original storyboards, as per the feedback of the given shots. For the new shots, I had searched up some reference for them, since these shots involve actions that haven't really animated before. Namely, I had never animated biped/quadrupe...

  [time taken: 2 weeks; 1-2 days per shot] These shots are part of a much bigger scene, involving a caveman chasing after an animal. Here, we were given different storyboards for each shot, which we have to base each our shots off of. These shots were based off of these storyboards: Description: As the caveman climbs up the tree to pluck out the fruits, he soon notices a rabbit hopping around the scenery. The caveman then decides to give chase, and the rabbit scurries off to a nearby pond, where it hides within the water. After peeking out from the water to assess its surroundings, it soon gets knocked out by a rock thrown by the caveman. The caveman then proudly walks off with its prize, but soon notices something rustling in the bushes... For the animal, I was unable to find any decent free rabbit rig that was also a quadruped rig (there were a few rabbit rigs that were bipedal, like the Judy Hopps rig). So in its place, I decided to use the Boxy Sabertooth Tiger rig from Truong ...

  (time taken: 1 day total) This single shot is part of a much bigger scene, involving a caveman chasing an animal. Here, we were given a different storyboard for each shot. Like the scene with the kids, we have to base each shot off of the given storyboard. This particular shot is based off of this storyboard: Here, the caveman has found some fruit on a tree, and he is reaching out to get them. I added an additional scene at the beginning, showing the fruit on the tree. We then cut back down to the caveman's perspective, as he's looking up at the fruit. This shows the caveman's goals in the shot,  without having to show the caveman himself. In the next shot, the caveman will find something more lucrative to chase after. So I decided to show the caveman climb up the rock, but not up the tree itself. In the next shot, he will notice that more lucrative option just as he's about to climb up the tree and decide to chase after it.

  (time taken: 1 day total) This single shot is part of a much bigger scene, involving a caveman chasing an animal. Here, we were given a different storyboard for each shot. Like the scene with the kids, we have to base each shot off of the given storyboard. This particular shot is based off of this storyboard: Here, the caveman is walking towards his destination, wherever it may be. I was given criticisms for the previous shot, and was shown reference for a more proper caveman walk cycle; one that looks more animalistic in nature. Most notably, there wasn't that much swinging in the arms, and the legs always stayed bent. I made the walk cycle for this shot with these new revelations in mind. In addition to that, I added in some quick head turns as the caveman is walking, which further added to that animalistic caveman attitude. With the addition of new elements like the trees, I feared that the environment would become too dense, and Maya would lag crash more easily. So I rendered...

  (time taken: 1 day total) This single shot is part of a much bigger scene, involving a caveman chasing an animal. Here, we were given a different storyboard for each shot. Like the scene with the kids, we have to base each shot off of the given storyboard. This particular shot is based off of this storyboard: Here, the caveman is walking out of his cave into the wilderness. I created the scene based off of this shot, from the composition to the colour palette. I chose the Ultimate Bony rig (https://www.behance.net/gallery/17774421/Ultimate-Rigs-for-FREE) for the caveman in this scene, because of its resemblance to the figure in the storyboards. I had to find reference for the caveman in this shot. But since there aren't any easily available references of actual real life cavemen, I had to look elsewhere for inspiration for this animalistic ancestor. Eventually, I settled on videos of monkeys and primates, our closest relative, walking around, mixed in with artistic interpretation...

  [time taken: 1 day] For this assignment, we were given another butterfly shot to do. We were given a small description, and had to base our shot on that. The description was 'A butterfly on a flower with a confused mindset is ready to fly, flapping the wings slowly'. Despite being told to do only one 3-second shot, I added another one at the beginning to show the butterfly's motivation for wanting to fly in the first place, that being, seeing his fellow butterflies fly off somewhere. The same compositing/editing tricks as seen in the previous internship work was used here as well to achieve this. I was also told to use a more slower timing for the butterfly's wings, to show his contemplation and realization better, which is what is shown here in the final animation.

  [time taken: 13 days total] For this assignment, we were given a set of 3 storyboards for a much larger project, involving a group of kids playing with some butterflies by a lake. We then had to animate a whole sequence based off of the given storyboards. The kid rig used here were modified versions of the famous Norman rig, particularly Gary. The colours of the characters were changed for each kid so that they all felt distinct. (http://www.romanim.com/norman_database.php) The storyboards in question: As you can see from the video above, there are 4 scenes in total instead of just the three depicted here. This is because I felt there needed to be a scene with some extra context to show what the kids were doing originally, before they started to play with the butterflies. This helped improve the staging of the scene for the final animation. I also made it so that only one of the kids was seen killing a butterfly. This is because, in the story for said larger project, only one of ...

  (time taken: 2 days total) For this shot, we were instructed to create a shot involving two figures: a worm and a butterfly. We were given freedom to let them interact in whatever way we wanted. So, I came up with a simple premise: a worm is sleeping on a flower, only for a butterfly to fly by it so fast that the resulting force flings the worm off the flower. Of course, butterflies normally don't go that fast, so exaggeration principles had to be employed in order for the animation to be believable. The worm rig was given to me by another student doing the internship, and the butterfly rig was Truong CG's Boxy Butterfly.

(time taken: 2 days total) For the first work I had to do for my internship at Image Creative, I had to animate a butterfly going from one place to the next. The butterfly had to think for a moment before it landed at the second place. I used Truong CG's 'Boxy Butterfly' Maya rig for the shot, as it was the only butterfly rig that was readily accessible to me. Prior to this shot, I had created two test animations using the rig: a flying cycle, and another basic shot. With these two tests, I had learnt how the rig worked, and how I can use it. Butterflies are naturally very lightweight, and fly very quickly, due to their nature as small insects. This, along with the fact that the scene was staged in such a way that we can't see the butterfly emote, presented a challenge to show the pause in thought that was required for the shot. The exaggeration and anticipation principles of animation were necessary to convey the desired feeling for the shot. The flight pattern of the ...