Fighter Kites - Progress Check No. 21

We're starting really strong at the beginning of this semester. It was such a great idea for everyone to take a rest over winter break and NOT touch any thesis work (I can speak for myself especially).

The method we're approaching improving each shot is choosing a master and working that thing all the way through. So we spent time as a group picking apart Scene 1 Shot 1 and dissecting every element. We discussed how the skydome needs improvement, camera movement, the school needs wonking and reshading, the ground plane needs to be reshaded, and the set dressing needs to be finalized. After two weeks of work, we're headed in a great direction and will be done by next Monday.

This week, I wonked the school, redressed the set, and added scratches and further stylized detail so the building fit into more of a storybook/illustrated narrative. Below are examples of a variety pack of scratches team members can reference at will and decorate buildings/assets in each scene. The colors can change easily and be manipulated to fit the needs of the decoration needed. Today, I'm implementing these on the school in Sc1Sh1.

Above is the wonked school which looks much better with the overall style of the short. Having the original building being a perfect square with heavily stylized shading didn't work and it stuck out like a sore thumb.

I have a few concerns about scheduling and running through the short shot-by-shot is not feasible and takes too much time. I think attempting this method was smart for a master shot, but we'll have to reconsider how to approach this next. I think that we should go scene by scene and establish assignments for each team member to complete by the end of the week. That way we're working on a series of shots and not just spending all our time on one. This worked for our rendering before the Preview Screening last semester.