Shot 1 Animation

The animation I have been working on is in Shot 1. The Tree unravels as a hand, follows and shoots up through the flying eagle, as if to grab it. The eagle is knocked out and starts falling, before it transforms into a dragon and flies past the camera, sweeping to the next shot.

Tree-Hand animation:

Eagle fall and transform animation:

Dragon transform and sweep animation:

Here is a video with all the characters together. The eagle and dragon animation overlap to allow the compositors to blend between them for the transformation. I've put it on X-ray view so the eagle and dragon can still be seen. I also animated the camera for this shot:

I've also uploaded these playblasts to vimeo, the quality is slightly better to view over there instead of on blogger. The password for the videos is 'GoingLive':

Tree-Hand: https://vimeo.com/92246473

Eagle: https://vimeo.com/92246472

Dragon: https://vimeo.com/92246471

All together, X-ray view: https://vimeo.com/92246470

- Lilly

Scene 3 Final Animation

Finished the animation on scene 3. Kieran has it rendering over night tonight, but here's a playblast.

https://vimeo.com/91326521

Dragon Updated..

wee bit more wing movement.. and reduced neck sticky-out-ness ... just noticed the wings intersect! arrg!

as mentioned on FB .. "first attempt.. sort of Dragon cum lizard fish.... errr.. was trying to keep some sense of weight and size.. hence quite slow... thoughts welcome!"

Dragon Rig

Here is a bit of a break down of the rig I've created for the dragon.

 Here are the controllers for the tail. The circular ones run the whole length of the tail and allow each section to be posed individually. Or if you want one big even curve the square controller rotates them all at once using set driven keys.

The wee squares allow for a bit of control over the curve of the spine. Not for anything too major but good for little subtleties.

The body controller. That big box allows you to move the body up and down and tilt it without moving the feet or the head if it’s in IK mode. Good for up and down movement in flight cycles and stuff. 

I put in an IK FX switch for the head. This means that in FK mode the head can be positioned using controllers along the neck, or in IK mode the head will stay more or less where you put it even if the body control is moving, which is good for that sort of bird like movement.

 The feet have an IK rig in them in the lower half, allowing you to place them where you like without too much fuss.

 The hip swivels separately which adds more control there.

There are also two set driven key type extra attributes, one to make a grabbing motion and one that will allow a bit of squash for when the dragon lands from flight.

The wing has rotation controllers at the shoulder, elbow and wrist.

The one at the wrist also allows the wing sections to stretch out or fold over each other, and can give a nice curve along the spines, all of which I set up in the connection editor. 

 The spine bit for the inside section has an aim controller in case things get a bit messy when you’re posing the rest of the wing, and I used a bunch of constraints to set up an extra bone that causes the the inner section to fold neatly and automatically as you pose it. Pretty pleased with that bit, although it doesn’t always work perfectly.

This is the first rigging I’ve ever done. It took me a while and it’s not perfect by any definition of the word, but I actually kind of enjoyed the process...

Dragon Fire Test 2 - 3D Fluid Containers...

This time I've used an early version of Kieran's dragon with a quick and dirty rig animation. The fire this time is a 3D version of the 2D fluid containers I tried before, so there's a bit more depth to it etc. Still problems to be ironed out in reference to the way it moves along with the dragon's head near the end of the short clip etc. But that will come....

Dragon Progress

Still lots to do, but here's an update. Ignore any texture/shading issues.

Final Dragon Design.

The rendering isn't quite as good as the first test, but it's more just to post the model. Ignore any shading/texture errors.

Paper Dragon Head Turnaround

Shows off the paper much better than the previous render. Please excuse the dire modelling.

Full screen and HD for best effect.

   

Character Concepts

Done some character concept sketches for the Eagle and the Dragon, then I took them into Photoshop to test some paper textures and colours...

Parchment colours:

The Eagle on the left I made darker and had fiery golds shining through (as the Eagle is "corrupted by Morgoth" and goes through flame and sorcery to become a dragon):

Light parchment colours, was experimenting with how to make them look similar, as the Dragon morphs from the Eagle:

Experimented with adding flecks of foil gold to the paper texture as this is Smaug The Golden:

Tried a slightly cooler hue as I wondered if the paper Dragon might blend into the parchment-like map background too much in the film, depending on the final look of the background environment:

Turned up the contrast to experiment with the foil gold texture, kind of looks like fire on the surface of the dragon now:

- Lilly

Rough Character Designs

Here are two rough character designs, one for the dragon and one for the eagle:

 I tried to make a nice body shape for the dragon, and I tried to make his head shape to look like the Smaug's head, from the film (big jaw, similar horns, etc). But I didn't spend much time to the wings.

On the eagle, I tried to make his wings to look nice, while I made some other body parts (head, legs) not to imitate folded paper.

Fire Test

Thought I'd do some dynamics tests and see how difficult it was going to be to create fire for the Dragon. I created a simple rig and did a little animation using Maya 2D containers. If we want to tumble around the fire we'll need to use 3D containers, but that will come later! This is render from the master beauty, the video is a wee bit better.

Click the link below to see the video...

YouTube Dragon Fire Test...

Modeling Ideas for the Dragon

Although we haven't actually done the design proper as yet, I thought I'd try to create a Dragon head to get the ball rolling, and with the idea that someone can use it for texture and lighting testing etc. I have uploaded the Maya file to the facebook page for use, feel free to ask me as well of course, if you want to use it for anything.
So, here are a couple of stills and an mov of the head turn rendered with ambient occlusion:

Project Board & Paper Dragon

The main project board in the studio is starting to fill up with rough storyboards and moodboards, which different members of the team have contributed to:

Kieran's Hobbit map, which is the original idea source and inspiration for the film, is also up on the wall:

This is a gold paper origami dragon I made yesterday to help with reference for paper textures and possible shapes for the 3D model:

- Lilly

Moodboards

Hobbit Imagery:

Link to 'Hobbit' Pinterest Board

Paper Dragons:

Link to 'Paper Dragons' Pinterest Board

Eagles and Dragons:

Link to 'Eagles and Dragons' Pinterest Board

Illustrated Maps and Landscapes:

Link to 'Illustrated Maps and Landscapes' Pinterest Boards

Fire and Smoke:

Link to 'Fire and Smoke' Pinterest Board

- Lilly