The Maharaja's New Clothes

The clothing worn by people in this period and part of India consisted largely of salwar-kameezes and kurtas. This form of clothing is extremely difficult to animate in 3D, so I am working with two options:

1. Use a cloth simulation -- difficult, but nice secondary motion
   
2. Stylize the cloth and rig it -- easier technically, but may look too stiff
   

I got some great advice from Mark de Sousa of Sony Imageworks, who suggested that I use a combination of bones and deformers to rig the clothing if I choose not to do a simulation. But he felt that cloth simulation would still be better overall if I could fit it into my production schedule, and liked this test that I did using Maya's new nCloth system.



I'm still deciding, but am leaning towards rigging the cloth because I already have my hands full with technical issues and cloth is known to be tricky. Still, I'll keep working with the cloth simulations for a bit longer.


In addition, Christine Panushka suggested that I differentiate the clothing between the Hindus and the Muslims more, instead of relying solely on colour. Now, the people from this time would wear similar clothing, so it'll be tricky to do so, but maybe I can give the Hindus shorter kurtas or a waistband or something.

Shonali Bose Script Review

So I had the good fortune to have the newest version of my script reviewed by Shonali Bose, director of the acclaimed film 'Amu'. This review served as an important validation for me, since she is both a filmmaker and Indian, and is therefore much more familiar with the historical and cultural context that I am working in. The good news is that she liked the script and had some interesting suggestions as well.

• She agreed with Mary Sweeney's comments about telegraphing the significance of the cap, so I will continue to try and think of a way to integrate it into the script.
  
• She also liked the text that I introduced in the beginning instead of the old Khushwant Singh quote, and felt that it was a step in the right direction.
  
• In addition, she suggested involving the mother to a greater extent at the end, and mentioned that one way in which I could do this is by having the mother succeed in getting to the door of the compartment, only to witness Maqbool placing Bir on the train through the door at the other end of the compartment. I agree that the mother's role could fleshed out more during the climax, so I'm going to look into ways to resolve it, including the above suggestion.

Overall, this is good - I'm going to keep moving forward and do some more modeling.

Second crowd test

For this test, I started to explore what the crowd might look like before the riot starts. I still want to stay with the idea of silhouettes, but they don't need to be black.

I like what I came up with because it's getting away from the idea of distinct 3D characters in the crowd and starting to resemble a moving painting. I've still got a lot of work to do - for starters, I need to get some more dust and atmosphere in. I also need to integrate Bir and Maqbool so that I can see if the crowd design is too distracting.




**** Update
Christine agreed that the projected texture looks weird when the characters are really close to camera. So I need to try to give each character a unique texture, perhaps by projecting the textures in 3D.

Motion Tests

Based on my meetings with Mike Patterson and Christine Panushka last week, I decided to try some motion tests to see if my ideas for the crowd were even feasible.

Massive (the crowd simulation software) doesn't export geometry to Maya, so I had to hack together a script to get my Massive animation to drive Maya characters. These tests use just one character although the final version of the film will have more variety.

Here's the 3D render:



The composite with color correction, temporary smoke and a background:
***Update: I also added Bir to this shot



I think the next step is to get some more handdrawn texture onto the crowd and Bir. Also, the white caps are not really that visible right now.

Mary Sweeney script review

I had another script review today, this time with Mary Sweeney of the Writing division. Overall, she liked the script, which was really encouraging.

• She really liked the use of color palette to separate Hindus and Muslims into two 'tribes'
• She liked the transitions, especially the animated transition from the map into the train
• She thought I did a good job showing, instead of telling, and that the images and dialogue are both used efficiently
  

I asked her about the use of dialogue, and she thought I should keep it in because although the story works without the historical context, it's the context that makes it even more interesting. And the dialogue between Bir and Santosh is the way in which I provide this context.

Also, she did have one interesting story suggestion - to telegraph/foreshadow the significance of the cap beforehand. For example, Bir could find a prayer cap and playfully put it on his own head, when his mother quickly removes it. This way, the audience realizes that the cap is specific to one religion and its transfer is not common. So this moment amplifies the significance of Maqbool's gesture later on in the film.

I like the idea a lot (in fact, I had a variation of this idea in an earlier draft), but it may cause problems because I already have Bir picking up the cap and giving it to Maqbool. So, two cap incidents might be too many. Therefore, I need to either combine both the incidents or use only one of them. Food for thought, I suppose.

More mom

Well, I had a frustrating day today trying to put cloth on my characters, but I did make some fixes to the mom that I liked. She's starting to look more feminine, but I still need some more work. Something about her lower jaw bugs me.



I really want to avoid the technical problems that come with cloth simulations, especially since I need to animate crowds as well. I hope I can think of something.

Modeling Day 1

A low poly first pass at Bir, his mom and Maqbool. I. I'm going to try and keep that carved look as I add more detail. I also threw on a simple shader that my professor Eric Hanson created to see what it may look like after texturing. I'm not too happy with the mom yet, but the other two are more successful.