This project was a struggle right from day one. I really wanted to do something to the same kind of standard as ‘Rockin’ Bones’ but at the same time learn more tools. Coming up with an idea that I was willing to follow through with was my first hurdle to clear. I had 3 main ideas.

1. Use a green room, film a friend in it, then bring him into an animated world (probably my favourite idea).

2. Build an animated character that can talk, and film myself having a conversation with it.

3. Create a scene movie with no talking, but have the facial expressions and movements of myself and an animated character created the mood.

As much as I would have loved to have done option one, I wasn’t able to get access to a green room, or make my own cheap one. Option three was my final decision.

I was again feeling overly ambitious in this project and wanted to build on the skills I developed in ‘Rockin’ Bones’ and make a complex character. I decided to make it more difficult for myself this time by making a dragon. It sounded wonderful at the time, but my skills from the last project were working with 2 legged, 2 armed characters. This time I was working with a 4 legged creature... with wings.

Things I knew I needed to develop on from last time were material and camera movement. With the project brief asking me to blur the barriers between what’s real and what’s animated, camera movement was something that was always going to be a focus area, mainly because, this time, I was going to film physically... in real life... with a real tape... in a real camera...

As for materiality, the problem was overcoming the complex shapes I saw myself as reasonably good at modelling.

This meant I needed to learn more about:

- Bone Movement and Physique – including IK controllers, path, position, and orientation constraints, spring movements, and attaching specified vertices to specified bones (all this just for the wings and eyes!)

- texturing – working with Photoshop to create a unique skin for my dragon, with 4 main materials wings, wing bones, horns, and main body, all with their own gloss and bump maps, while flowing nicely onto each other.

- unwrap UVW – applying the texture to my complex shape (a dragon)

- Camera Tracking – Tracking the camera movements of my filmed footage and using that information to animate the movements of my 3ds Max camera. The most painful process I’ve come across in all my years of study.

- Lighting/reflection/shadows – getting my dragon to look like he’s really there..

All this, in HD... a lot to learn.