As we are back on track now, I’m going to continue tradition with the weekly reports (like we did during the previous phase). At least I will try. ^__^
Just like before, we made a special list to track our progress:
In this case there are a lot more sub-procedures in our workflow and thus the notation is a bit more complex. First, I’m preparing the shot by importing keyframes, compositing them and setting up stickmans. Sometimes, depending on the situation, I’m animating stickmans right before tracing. Also I’m setting some guides to avoid the deformations during the motion like headturns.
After the shot is fully prepared, I’m putting he blue circle mark on the shot element in production list – that means that Nikolay can start vectorization. Sometimes I’m doing vectorization too, but at the moment the most of this work is done by Nikolay. If the shot wasn’t animated by me, then Nikolay does the animation right after vectorization. When vectorization is done, the shot is marked with one red line – that means it’s pending for my review. At review stage I’m composing the shot elements all together and looking for the inconsistencies. If the shot passed the review then the second red line mark is put on the shot element in production list.
This is just a basic schema which have a lot of variations. Sometimes one of us does the basic vectorization, then other makes rough stickman animation, then again the first one takes it to close all seams between stickman’s parts, and finally there’s last pass when we add secondary movements (for hairs, cloth, etc.). So the shot can be bounced back and forth a few times before it gets accepted.
