The Refugee

I started on the model for Maqbool...this is what I have so far. I'm struggling a little with the design - he feels a bit generic to me.

Nice chappals

I'm more or less done with Bir - I'm still not happy with the hair, but the rest of the model is close to final. Modeling curly hair is really tricky and I've tried several times in both Maya and Zbrush, but still can't quite nail it.

I like his chappals i.e. sandals - they're based on a pair that I own.

The texturing is just temporary, I'll continue to tweak the textures as the look of the film evolves. Still, the temp textures reflect the dirty, dusty look that I'm going for.





Most people think he looks like me, which is a good sign because it's deliberate. The resemblance is based on the idea that as the filmmaker, I've become part of this story.

More modeling

Bir's final appearance is getting closer. I like the eye brows. The hair needs some work. The ear was super hard but it looks ok now. Maybe his face needs to be rounder and cuter.

I'm using the very useful modeling tutorials available at Second Reality as reference.

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.