This week has been a heavy crunch.

We started off with our Softs presentation on Monday. This was the first time many of the faculty members have seen the entire animation from beginning to end. Unfortunately, because of rendering time, what they were looking at was an older version than what was currently being rendered, but their comments were mostly positive. There were a few things they didn’t like, such as the art of the inside vs. the outside, coloring on the inside, and the timing of some of the animation with the sound. Many of those things had been fixed, but when the faculty hit on things that weren’t fixed, we put it on a list to try and fix this week.

So, we have adjusted, or are looking to adjust the look of the sky for the inside and out to get a more consistent look across both; the banging on the wall on the outside has been replaced with a new sound to make it sound more metallic; the lighting is being readjusted in scene one to more closely resemble the lighting in scene two; some animations are being adjusted to fit the soundscape, like Ramesh banging on the railings; some sounds will be adjusted by the sound designer after the final render; and the outlines to some of the shots are being readjusted to keep a consistent look for the character. The team has posted a list up in the room to more specifically outline what needs to be adjusted and each team member keeps that list updated daily.

There are also deadlines for these adjustments. The deadlines reflect the time Chen needs to composite and render these new elements into the animation. Some scenes have heavier asset loads than others and the deadlines reflect this–the heavier scene’s being needed first.

Joel also delivered the final creature early this week, this included some adjustments for having to drop our original plan of having more creatures in the film. Originally there were at least 5, but now we have our main creature, and three others coming across the plane in one of our final shots.