Lifecycle of a Mushroom: Plasmogamy test

Animation and Post-pro technique for the Plasmogamy/mycelia section. This pretty much caps off all my R&D for the animation. I'm satisfied with how this turned out. Onwards to production then.

Animation alpha!

All righty! Finished a quick alpha of the animations + a quick-edit of the introductions of the characters. Didn't have time to finish the music for this yet, but it's looking good. Going for a non-intrusive ambient track, although I'm still playing with the idea of going all out cartoony with the soundtrack. But I think that might be a bit much in combination with a voice-over. And by the looks of the animation currently, I do believe I'll need some light voice-over in the clip to explain what's happening, even if I'll try to keep it to a bare minimum with the information.

Lifecycle of a Mushroom: Background Basidium Render test

The texture overlay isn't really doing much for me but I like the softness and subtle 3D of these. A whole bunch of them should look quite nice. This is a technique I'll be employing throughout the animation. I'm looking forward to experimenting with render passes and layering up in After Effects.

Lifecycle of a Mushroom: Basidium Animation test

Using deformers to create some bopping Basidium, a snake charmer like dance and a minor Blend Shape test for the growing apendages.

Red or Blue?

I was originally going for the top one. but thought I would have an experiment, now  I'm in a quandary, any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Environment Teaser

Oh the joy of instances. Several thousand Cilia waving about at the back of the throat.

Lifecycle of a Mushroom: Production Development 1

Issues still exist with the animatic but as Peter noted a lot of the issues are due to timing and letting text linger for longer so at this point I’m confident of fixing these once I’m in Maya - animating and editing footage. In the meantime, I’m keen to move into the production of the scenes that have been established as working.

I want each phase of the cycle to have a specific look with the style. The Basidia section is the one with the most exotic sound. The music at this point makes me think of exotic Arabic belly dancers coming on to the stage at the shift in music, wiggling their hips to the wild applause of the drunken audience.

I’ve established that the animation is black and white, so that rules out use of the lush colours Arabian colours but the dresses often have lovely glittering sequins and patterns. I want to incorporate this extoic aspect into the design and texture of the Basidia.