Sizzle Reel

Personal Pipeline Process

My personal pipeline starts with research. Once my research and references are thoroughly collected or created I move onto the next stage of my pre-production process. If the task at hand is rigging then I begin the concept designs, if it is animation however I move onto thumbnails which I make sure are detailed. It probably helps they are one of my favourite parts of the pre-production stage of animation.

When my research, references, and thumbnails are all complete I move onto storyboards. The reason I move onto storyboards and don't skip right into the layout is because of my camera placement. Storyboards help me get a better idea of where I would like the camera to maximize the performance in the animation. Storyboards also help get a better understanding of the key poses I need to convey the story or emotion of the animation, on top of that when exported into an animatic they assist with timing the animation out properly.

Depending on the project the boards will be timed out with the audio being used in the animation or with a click track. Once that is complete I put together a layout with the assistance of the animatic which is pulled into the Maya file. If there are any constraints in the piece I will also add them during this process.

Next, I will move into the blocking stage where I will start adding in-betweens, making sure that each movement moves in a clean curve. If constraints are present in the file I will check to make sure they are working correctly before carefully adding some overlap and followthrough. I tend to tackle blocking in chunks and will only focus on 50-100 frames at a time, the more challenging scenes such as the turnaround in the animation below, come first.

Polishing is where I really start refining the facial animation and body mechanics. If there is lip sync in the piece this is when I would focus on it.

If I choose to take the project a step further. I will light it. I start this process by researching different lighting techniques and collecting references before I even open the file in Maya. Once I have a clear idea of what I want, then I will start the lighting process. After lighting, I may take the piece into Premiere to do a colour grain pass, I may not. It depends if I was able to achieve the lighting I wanted.