Forget Me Not
In a quiet village, there is an old man who lives alone in his old house, haunted by the memory of his late wife.
Forget Me Not
Forget-me-not
- Style: Fantasy, Cartoon
- Synopsis: In a quiet village, there is an old man who lives alone in his old house, haunted by the memory of his late wife. Despite her passing, he keeps her skeleton in the house and imagines her presence, speaking to her as if she were still there.
Project Management
Project planning: We develop a comprehensive project plan outlining the timeline, milestones, and deliverables for each phase of production using Miro and Excel
Team Coordination: The coordination between departments within the team is carried out directly and through the project manager. We have had to discuss when transferring work between steps such as from concept to 3D model or texture. The project manager is responsible for overseeing the task handover and deadline allocation.
Quality Control: Ensure that the final product meets the highest standards of quality and aligns with the creative vision of the filmmakers.
Each member after completing their works needs to be sent to the project manager for quality checking. If the product meets the requirements, it will proceed to the next step; otherwise, they need to make adjustments to meet the requirements.
Pre-production
Art analyzing
The artwork utilizes muted tones and stark contrasts to convey a somber atmosphere, while symbolizing themes of loss and the passage of time through the presence of a skeleton, aiming to evoke a cute and humorous emotional response in viewers by stylizing characters, environments, and animations in a visually distinct and memorable manner.
The environment is a small, isolated village where an old man's weathered house symbolizes his isolation and the passage of time, with a warm atmosphere initially concealing the messy interior, reflective of his obsession with his deceased wife's memory, until the surprise revelation of a skeleton disrupts viewers' expectations.
The character is haunted by his deceased wife, always in a cheerful state as he imagines a happy life with her, portrayed in a stylized cartoonish appearance.
Concept
we brainstormed ideas for our character. The personality of the man in this story appears to be sentimental, and messy and he has a psychotic disorder. Then we researched references to gather inspiration from various resources, we needed to make sure his appearance aligned with his personality. After that, we created rough sketches to explore different visual elements like various poses, facial expressions, and clothing styles. We tried to find unique features that define our character. During the idea generation process, we receive feedback from our teacher, which helps us a lot to identify our character. In the final step, we added final touches and polished details to bring the character concept to its completed form
Storyboard
During the production phase, we made some changes, so there were segments in the original video that differ from the storyboard. Initially, the man was planned to kneel down to offer flowers to the skeleton, but we changed it to him sitting next to her and talking. The original plan for the film was 5 minutes, but our teachers changed it to 2 minutes due to many teams in our class falling behind schedule, so we had to cut out many segments.
Production
Character working process
Sculpting: we used Zbrush to sculpt character’s based on concepts . The character was depicted in a cartoon style, so the anatomical elements are stylized.
Retopology: we used Maya to perform. It involved optimizing and refining the mesh structure to improve efficiency and prepare the model for animation, real-time rendering.
UV: we tried to make UV map coherence, ensure relative scale between UV islands. We divided UV into 5 islands: Face, body, clothes, hair, and beard.
Baking: Substance Painter was used in this step. To optimize and make animation easier. We baked patches, belt, overalls, and pockets into one mesh.
Texture: For the texture, we used a hand painted technique. Hand-painted textures were created from scratch, allowing for greater artistic control and customization. The hand-painted technique is often used in stylized or cartoon-style artwork, where I aim to achieve a specific artistic aesthetic. By painting textures by hand, we could create unique and visually appealing results, with detailed brushwork, vibrant colors, and stylized details.
Environment
The house was designed to be old-fashioned with wooden materials. At this stage, some team members would be tasked with modeling, and after they finish, they would pass it on to the texture team. The Project Manager oversees these steps to ensure product quality and that the process stays on schedule.
Rigging
Rigged character model for motion capture, facilitating realistic movement and expression. We provided a well-rigged character model for smooth motion capture. we used Mixamo for this and later improved weight painting using Maya.
Motion Capture
Conducted clean-up and re-targeting of motion capture data, refining animations for seamless integration into the final scenes. We used Motion-builder for re-targeting and animating then used Maya for more clean up and exported Fbx to later use in Unreal Engine 5. Addressed technical challenges to ensure accuracy and consistency in motion capture results.
Editing and Sound
Credit:
Art Direction, Project Manager, Character Artist, Environment Artist : Van
D.O.P, Lighting, Animator, Rigging, Rendering: Martin
Concept, Character Artist Support: Ahmet
Character Artist Support, Texturing Artist, Motion Capture Actor: Shravani
Editing, Motion Capture Actor, 3D Modeling: Aman
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