It’s easier when your character is a computer model – you can simply cut off her hands!

Mwahahaha…

Thought this might interest you. You know that we’ve been economising on our character models – to create a new character we re-use an existing body so that we only need to create a new head (see Demi Remi). You also know that our characters are coloured using “texture maps” – 2D image files that are wrapped around the 3D computer models (see Aileen unwrapped).

So, you’ve probably figured out that we didn’t create an entirely new character model when we needed to show Aileen’s Mum in episode 6. The two characters have a very strong family resemblance…

…because the computer models are identical. All the differences are in the texture maps:

Aileen’s Mum looks very good for her age! We would have given her wrinkles, but she’s only seen from behind or with her face in shade so there was no point.

You might not, but someone’s thought carefully about them. Not just the colour of costumes, props and sets, but the colour of the light and the overall colour balance of each shot.

Colours are used to give an atmosphere and to reflect mood. They can relate to characters. The overall colour will change throughout – there may be a colour arc that relates to the story arc or to a character’s arc. Pixar create “colour scripts” for each film – Lou Romano has posted a lot of his art for Up (warning, spoilers – be careful if you haven’t yet seen the film) including first pass colour scripts for Act I and a full colour script.

Now, in The Lost Book we had a different challenge. We didn’t know what the story would be, or who the characters would be, or what their stories would be. It meant we couldn’t plan colours or sketch a colour script. But, we still wanted to use colour as best we could.

In the first episode we set up some simple contrasts of colour and light. Dark colours and red were used when the book was stolen. Light colours, especially yellow, and bright light were used when Aileen was in a safe place. Tiny elements of purple/lilac were used to relate to the crime – the tag left on the lectern was purple and the bus set in the final shot, when Aileen discovers that all online copies of the book have also been stolen, features lilac as well as yellow.

We could build on this in episode 2. When Aileen’s talking to Kyle, she’s in a good place (yellows/light) but we’re not sure about Kyle (black). In the bookshop, someone bad has got at the books, so we’re using dark colours, reds and oranges.

By episode 3 we had a baddie – Otto Dafé. His name, with the reference to burning, fitted beautifully with the colour scheme we’d chosen for bad things, so we dressed him in black and made sure oranges and reds surrounded him. Even in episode 4, when he’s in the airport (a space we’ve made light and bright and full of greens – Kyle’s colour and another indication of a safe place) we darken the Otto shots by half-filling the screen with a black mobile phone, and adding orange/red tones in Otto’s books and in the seating in the background.

By episode 4 we also knew that Grazp Pharmaceuticals was responsible for the theft… so it turned out that their corporate colour was purple/lilac. This colour scheme segued into episode 5 where purples and blacks were used throughout – it wasn’t just the darkness that made this the darkest episode, everything about the tones used showed that the characters were in a tight spot.

But, we had a problem. Otto was no longer a bad guy, so his signature colours of red and orange couldn’t be used, and the link between him and those colours previously suddenly didn’t work so well. There wasn’t anything we could do about this, apart from reconceptualise orange/red as the colour range that meant books were in trouble.

The final episode showed a marked change in atmosphere. The scenes at the Sheep Heid Inn that frame the episode use bright light, yellows and greens. Both Aileen and Kyle are there, they’re safe and happy, no books are in danger. We used reds and purples in the early flashbacks, but gradually worked back through to yellows and greens as the mood lightened and the crime was solved.

Looking at all the stills, there’s quite a pleasing colour arc and the colours worked well to reflect the mood. But, Otto’s transition from baddie to goodie was very hard to handle!

(Oh, and on the subject of colours, this might amuse you as an insight into how obsessive we are about this sort of thing!)

Books are something of a theme in episode 6. To celebrate the Lost Book being found and returned we wanted lots of books. We have two scenes set in libraries and a big bookshelf in the Sheep Heid Inn. We managed to resist the temptation to make all the books individual (I’d have really enjoying thinking up appropriate titles!) and instead decided to go for matching bindings in a few colours. Here’s how we made them…

First up, we created a book model in the computer. In fact, there are two versions: open book and closed book.

Next, the book needed a texture map. We unwrapped the model to get a flat, 2D image and added the binding, endpapers, page edges and title page (1). Finally, some gold lettering on the spine was needed – a simple black and white image allows us to specify where the gold should be added (2).

And, there you have it. Books everywhere!

Sean, on the other paw, had the challenge of putting a voice to the thoughts of Watson. “Urbane gentleman spy” was an option for a while… and led inevitably to “Bond, Sean Bond” and much hilarity. The final voice is neither of those, but is a glorious big voice for a small but important dog. You’ll have to wait until Friday to hear it.

L-R: Helen Jackson, Adam Brewster, Cora Bissett, Sean Biggerstaff and Stephen Gilmour

At lunch afterwards it emerged that Sean is a great fan of Pimms, so we celebrated with a jug or two of Pimms and lemonade. It’s appropriate, then, that the popular vote has decided that Pimms is the drink of choice for Aileen and Kyle (thanks Kiwi for the suggestion, and thanks DJ for letting us know the Sheep Heid Inn can “rustle up a fantastic classic Pimms No 1″.)

We also have a decision for a book to feature in the last episode – it will then be BookCrossed in the Sheep Heid, so if you’re in Duddingston this coming weekend you might want to pop in and see if you can pick it up. The winning suggestion is another one of Kiwi‘s, seconded by Treehugger – The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. Watson’s grabbed it already; it’s one of his favourites.

The good, but slightly sad, news is that you’ve now made all the decisions needed for us to finish the final episode of The Lost Book. Instead of a story poll, I’ve resurrected our character popularity survey. Who’s your favourite character? Vote now in the sidebar poll to the right.

Thought you might like to see a (jaggy!) draft of Watson finding evidence of Grazp’s “project rejuvenation” – a rack of water-filled test-tubes with a note from the lab and the marketing department’s mock-up of a sales brochure.

The last tweaks to the animation, textures and lighting have been made and this shot is ready to be set off to render.

While the computers are working on the rendering, we’ll be going through to Glasgow tomorrow to record the voice track with Cora, Sean and Stephen. It’s all coming together nicely!

An exciting but sad day yesterday – our final music recording session for The Lost Book. Composer Alexis Bennett (left, discussing the music with viola player Kathryn Jourdan) travelled up to Edinburgh on Thursday evening, finishing off the music on the train. A new set of players assembled on Friday morning. Two exhilarating hours later, the recording was done.

We had new players because our regulars were in another recording studio – the SCO is recording Mozart’s Symphonies 29, 31, 32, 35 and 36 with the great Sir Charles Mackerras this week. You can follow their progress on their blog – it’s a fascinating glimpse of how the orchestra works.

So, we were delighted to welcome Mike Bennett on the trumpet (left), Mark Bailey on the cello (middle) and Kathryn Jourdan on the viola (right). The recording was done by three students from the MSc Sound Design course – Gav Fort (top photo right), Liam Webster (bottom right) and Simon Herron. Thanks everyone for a great session and some fabulous music!

We have some video taken at the session which we’ll post next week sometime.

Hurrah!

The music recording session is tomorrow morning – various drafts have been coming through from Alexis all day. It’s all getting very exciting!

The rough still has our scratch track for the voices – we don’t record Cora and Sean until Sunday. The timings of all the action are finalised – although, we do still have quite a lot of finishing off to do: all the 2D graphics/animation (pub sign, newspapers/magazines, text message), the character movement in the Sheep Heid Inn and some of the smaller movements in the cleaning/dominoes shot and the Watson laser beams shot.

By the way, we’re using the Aileen character model for Aileen’s mum at the moment. The fully-rendered version will be an older version of Aileen, with grey hair and different clothes.

(Judo classes. Aged five.)

Then I spent a lot of time on YouTube. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, YouTube is a brilliant source of reference video, particularly for anything that would be too exhausting to act out myself. Here are a few screen captures from the resulting routine:

(It was great fun to animate!)