Turning something to dust is actually quite simple - it’s just a surface emitter with the same animated ramp plugged into Texture Rate as the ramp that is connected to the transparency of the object shader. The only difference is that the ramp for the particles is strip of white rather than a block.

I then applied a Uniform field to get the particles going in one direction and a Turbulence field.

Totally missed Chris in class today because I was hungry and went to get food. Then when I came back, he’d gone. I sent him an email with my revised playblast and luckily he sent me some feedback. Quite a lot of it:

I think the long shot up her body shouldn’t get interrupted by the dude at the door.
I think that she should “break out” of her stasis by him SLOWLY arriving and SLOWLY reaching up to the door, just before the “she says” and then quickly shutting it (like you have it, but with him glancing toward her ALL the time as if to say “I won’t get caught, I won’t get caught in his head” The arrival of the voice should seem as if it’s shocked him to close the door before he meant to, and in a manner which he didn’t mean to, and this should “shock her awake”, as if she’s hit by a little ripple… and then she settles very slowly…as if he’s the dream, but she can’t remember it on waking.

Her head motion right now looks as if she’s saying “no no”, in a kind of disbelief, but really, she should be not moving side to side, but more slumping up and down, as if she has a very heavy head. This will make her seem as if she’s having an interior experience, rather than reacting to her environment, and judging it as silly.

You have a jump cut when she puts her hand to her head, which reads bady. I suggest that you keep the shot close, and then go long when she puts her hand down. You can lengthen this shot, and shorten the shot of the hand afterward.

Have her look at her hand before it moves away - she looks too vacant when it comes afterward.

Try and mix up the smoothness of the animation, to make it a bit more rickety and sharp at this point. Just get to the keys quicker - see if this works. I think some more erratic motion will help build the sense of anxiety.

When she trips/stumbles, on her left foot, cup her toes if you can, quickly, like a spasm, when the right foot goes back.

When she reaches out to the mirror, move the head a little to the side, in a kind of “huh?” BUT JUST A BIT - we don’t want it to look like lassie.

AT 1.00, when we are over her shoulder, and above her head, the camera feels very rushed. Take the time before we concentrate on the frame, and cut the time on the frame.

When the hand reaches out of the dark - make her more jumpy - her head turns quicker. Shoulder reaction is just right.

When she walks out the door, give her more hip motion, and some moments of hesitation, and have her look up the hall as she comes out (just a glance as if to say “what’s up there” , then at the doll “wow this doll is amazing” then us..have her look for much longer (and have her shoulders turn a little more toward us.

Before her attack - don’t move the camera around to it - make the camera catch her up after she has walked out of frame, and then when she has her first second of attack, then CUT TO the next shot. The camera move looks bad.

After that, it’s ALL GOOD.
In fact, I think you got on a roll. It’s very moving.

Finishhedddddd the last 10 seconds of character animation today. 10 seconds in a day. Not bad I say. Behind schedule though!! NEXT UP: dust

Sticking with what I know, I used blendshapes for the drips.

Even though I haven’t finished animating, I figured I should start rendering what I can.
I have broken down the scenes into the frame number, so that I can render out non-moving backgrounds. My table is a little complex… but rendering is underway at least.

Chris was kind enough to help me out with the shader, and sent me a couple of files. I couldn’t do half the stuff he did with the nodes. The shader basically makes sure the objects acts like a proper plastic shiny object. As you may remember, my first couple of renders had the mannequin too reflective. This shader uses a facing ratio of a sampler info node plugged into the U and V coordinates of a crack image to control how much reflection are at the edges. While the LatLong image plugged into a spherical environment node, cuts down on raytrace time.

I modified it a little, layering two shaders - one that makes the smaller cracks and reflection and the other with the deep cracks - that way it’ll be easier to animate.

I’m staying up and up later and later…So it’s 2.30am. and I’m up trying to get my bump maps to appear like they should. Modifying the colour offset attribute of the file does work on the image, but the changes doesn’t show up on the bump itself.

I totally caved just now and emailed Chris about it.

*falls asleep*

Started tweaking shaders today. I remember asking Chris early on, what was the best way to go about this. He told me to animate textures. These could then be plugged into Texture Rate of a particle emitter.Thought the quickest way to make my crack bumps is to use the crack paint FX and modify them to fit my UVs in Photoshop. I made the borders of the cracks displace slightly up, because as a surface cracks, paint flick outwards.

I love Zebruv mel script as much as one could possibly love a script. SO GLAD I had a feeling to look for a UV helper. Basically the script creates perfect UV’s for you. All you have to do is select the seam edges and press a button. VOILA!

Only problem I stumbled upon is that the script fails on my torso mesh. Tried a whole number of seam variations. Nothing worked for it. So I ended up UVing the arms seperately, then the torso itself.

Still, the script rocks my socks.

THINGS TO DO:

Animate last part of hallway

Particles - turn body parts to dust

Shaders - cracks

Goo - ooze, drip and when it comes “alive”

Paintings - eyes moving