[ @Phil ]Fantastic Voyage - Fern Life Cycle Animation

Due to time constraints there's a scene or two missing.

 

Making of:

Fern Life Cycle Making Of

Fantastic Voyage: Meiosis and Sporangia redo

The pace ended up being too quick for this, so it will be reworked for the complete animation.

Fantastic Voyage: Fern life cycle

Taking on board the feedback, the primary focus for this is too embrace the 3D a bit more. My models were incredibly flat and the lack of camera use emphasised that. So there has been some readjustments to the storyboard where that is concerned.

The main areas I've focused on for this is; the sporangia, spore dispersion, the gametophyte, fertilisation and developing sporophyte.

I quickly scribbled the new storyboard down to keep it on track:

The fern was remodelled:

 As was the gametophyte:

I've still tried to keep to my simplistic designs from the original concepts:

Fantastic Voyage: The Fern Life Cycle Final

The Fern Life Cycle Making Of

Fantastic Voyage: Archegonium model

Archegonium model:

For this scene I decided to change the order which was originally shown in the storyboard. Here I have the antheridium model morph into the archegonium model.

Fantastic Voyage: Meiosis sequence 2

Spores and track cam added

Fantastic Voyage: Gametophyte to Antheridium sequence

Gametophyte model:

Antheridium model:

Sequences between the spore to gametophyte to antheridium using a series of blend shapes and extracting the mesh to split the pieces up.

Fantastic Voyage: Meiosis pipeline

Final model:

Wireframe:

Untextured model:

Fantastic Voyage: Leaf model pipeline

Final model:

Wireframe:

Untextured model:

Fantastic Voyage: Fern pipeline

Final model:

 Wireframe:

Untextured model:

Fantastic Voyage: Gametophyte model pipeline

Final model:

 First model:

This was first made before I worked out how to do blend shapes, it also didn't turn out how I wanted at all so it was scrapped.

Wire frame:

The roots are separate to the main model for easier animating.

Untextured model:

Fantastic Voyage: Blend Shape tests

Did a few test animations to get the "morph" transition in, by using the blend shape in Maya. I made some mistakes which halted the progress but I finally managed to overcome it.

The first test is a simple transformation of the spore:

Next is the morph from the spore to the gametophyte, which was done quickly just to get the basic shape of it and to get use to the blend shape:

Fantastic Voyage: Meiosis model

For this the opening animation needs to be worked on to look smoother as the tops slightly come off before reattaching.

Next step is to animate the spores into this scene.

Fantastic Voyage: Fern model

Along with the model I did a quick test animation to get used to the rigging:

The movements obviously won't be exaggerated that much in the final animation, and the plants in the background will also have some movement.

Fantastic Voyage: Fern Life Cycle Animatic

Timing needs to be worked on, however due to my Premiere trial running out this won't be able to be worked on until during the week.

Fantastic Voyage: Fern Storyboard

The transitions between each stage will rely on the "morph". The animatic will show this process a lot clearer.

Fantastic Voyage Visual Concept

My chosen bio-scientific scenario is the life cycle of a fern and my target audience would be secondary school students.

For this project, the type of style I want to present my final animation is an oriental shadow puppet inspired style. 

Work in particular that have inspired me are; part of the opening sequence for the Japanese role-playing game Drakengard 3 and the "Tale of the Three Brothers" sequence from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 . The black on a plain, paper-textured background is very appealing to me, and if done well the whole thing looks incredibly mesmerising as the objects morph.

Drakengard 3 gifs

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1; "the Three Brothers" sequence

Influenced by Alexis Liddell's concept art for the "Tale of the Three Brothers" sequence in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1