The making of twins

Contents
Introduction ............................................................................
Script ......................................................................................
Voiceover ................................................................................
Pre Production
Characters:
Designing The Characters ......................................................
Characters Final Designs .......................................................
Characters Orthographs ........................................................
Props:
Inﬂuence Maps .......................................................................
First Designs: Isometric Style ................................................
The First Redesign..................................................................
The Second Redesign .............................................................
Final Changes: Colour Theme .................................................
Final Designs ..........................................................................
Prop Orthographs ..................................................................
Storyboard .............................................................................
Animatics & Pre Vizs ..............................................................
Sound Effects .........................................................................
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3
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25
29
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67
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97
Production
Characters:
Modelling ...................................................................................
UV Layout ..................................................................................
Rigging and Skinning ..................................................................
Facial Rigging .............................................................................
Texturing ....................................................................................
Final Renders .............................................................................
Facial Expressions .....................................................................
Props:
Butterﬂy Metaphor ...................................................................
Plants and Webs Metaphor .......................................................
Sun Metaphor ............................................................................
Windows Metaphor ...................................................................
Pens and Paper Metaphor .........................................................
Speakers Metaphor ...................................................................
Birds Metaphor ..........................................................................
Boats Metaphor .........................................................................
Lion Metaphor ...........................................................................
Road Metaphor ..........................................................................
Turtle Metaphor .........................................................................
Peacock Metaphor .....................................................................
Mountain Metaphor ...................................................................
Animating ..................................................................................
Lighting ......................................................................................
Post Production
Compositing ...............................................................................
Sound Design .............................................................................
Rendered Stills ..........................................................................
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183

This project started by reflecting on some personal experiences that I could explore through animation. I
chose to explore the differences between myself and my twin brother- Adam, depicting the contrasts
between us when we were growing up and how I was able to become more independent as we got older.
Over time my ideas and designs for my film changed quite a few times as things developed. I eventually
settled on the idea of having metaphors, shown as individual planets, which in the first half describes the
contrasts between us and in the second half describes myself as we grew up. Each planet houses a
metaphor which links to and depicts what I am saying in the voiceover.
My inspiration was to give people an insight into life as a twin, especially twins that are dissimilar and
have very different personalities.
I hope you can relate to my film if you were always known as the quiet one. If not, I hope it gives you a
better understanding of people like myself.
This book is a complete look at the making of my film.
2

The script process started by
coming up with short sentences
that described the differences
between myself and my brother:
when we were younger, how I
became more independent and how
I view my shyness now. I then
moved onto thinking of metaphors
for each of these sentences that
would describe what I was talking
about without literally showing it
on screen. Over the course of the
project I have had many drafts, but
this is the ﬁnal script.
6

After writing my script I recorded the
voiceover for my ﬁlm using a hand-held voice
recorder microphone. I recorded many
different versions of my voiceover until I was
happy with the result. I then edited the audio,
cutting out any extra noises or long pauses.
Originally in my voiceover I had each statement
one after the other, but then I realised this
meant there wasn't enough time around each
statement for the animation to play out on
screen. I edited the audio so there were gaps
between each statement to allow enough time
for the animation to happen and also for the
camera to move from one planet to the next.
Voiceover
7

Characters
-initial designs
9

Face
and
Body
Development
12

Final Design
Originally the symbol on the character's
shirts were representative of the butterﬂy
that the camera followed from planet to
planet. However when I redesigned my
animation, I got rid of these parts, so I needed
a new design. I chose a Yin and Yang symbol,
using the character's two colours, as this
symbol represents a pair that are connected
but are also opposites. I believe this describes
myself and my twin brother well.
14

After thinking of all of the metaphors I wanted to use, before I could begin designing them I needed
influences and so I created influence maps for each metaphor. I initially created the more realistic
influence maps for each metaphor at the start of the project but as my ideas developed and when I
needed to redesign, I created a second set of influence maps for each metaphor which included some
more stylised and cartoon-like influences.
17

At the start of my project I developed the idea of having everything in an isometric style. I
focused on creating miniature planets in isometric form that related to each of the
metaphors in my script.
I also looked at having two distinct colour schemes representing myself and my brother
with objects representing my brother having a bright colour scheme and objects
representing me having a more muted colour scheme.
As my project developed, I drifted away from these ideas as designing in isometric was
limiting my designs and I knew I could create better looking designs if everything didn't
have to be isometric.
19

After moving on from my idea of having everything in an isometric style I redesigned
every metaphor.
I drew production art and concept art for each metaphor so I could get a better idea of
how I wanted everything to look in my ﬁlm.
I used my isometric designs as a starting point and developed the designs from there.
25

During the pre production stage of my project I decided to change the four leaf clover metaphor to one
which centres around a lion roaring, as this works better with what is being said in the voiceover about
being brave.
28

After some time working on this project, I realised that I needed to redesign my metaphors from the
beginning as I needed them to look far more interesting and to have more to them if I was going to keep
an audiences attention. Some of the metaphors changed more than others but all of them were
rethought and redesigned fully. I started by working out the world of my ﬁlm and I had multiple different
ideas of how the world could work (see page opposite). I also created a new inﬂuence map (see below)
which helped me to visualise what I wanted the world to look like and the style I wanted.
I then developed these ideas of how the world could work and how things would link together. (See Page
31). I also drew little thumbnails of assets to add to each metaphor as I started to think about
redesigning them (see Page 32) and did some tests in Maya (see Pages 33 + 34).
After this I started with initial designs on paper (See Pages 35 + 36) and then developed those into
production art (See Pages 37-40) and concept art (See Pages 41 + 42).
29

After redesigning what my world could look like I did some tests in Maya using my old designs to see
how they would work in a 3D space and how all the metaphors could be laid out together.
33

Originally my film was going to start with my two characters on screen, explaining via the voiceover
that we are twins and although we share a birthday we actually couldn't be more different. (See
Figure 1). This opening scene then developed into a similar idea but now it shows the characters as
babies to reiterate the differences between us. (See Figure 3). Then, while animating, the babies
popping up wasn't working, so I changed it so the babies appear in thought bubbles as if the
characters are thinking back to how each other were as babies.
Also originally my film was going to end with all of the metaphors coming together in a picture
collage that made up a final picture of the two characters to show how all of these things make up
me. (See Figure 2). But as my ideas developed and I redesigned my world I kept a similar idea but
instead at the end the camera now zooms out from the characters to reveal all of the metaphors
around them. (See Figure 4)
Figure 1 Figure 2
43

After redesigning all of the metaphors I decided to make one last change. This was to create
a colour theme throughout my ﬁlm to help the audience understand which part of each
metaphor is representative of me and which part is representative of my brother.
I used the same colours as the characters and so the parts of each metaphor that represent
me are purple and the parts of each metaphor that represent my brother are orange.
I also made a few others changes such as having the house for the windows metaphor open
up like a dolls house rather than be on top of a hill. I also changed how the webs looked in
the room- instead of cobwebs they now wrap around the furniture and have connecting
strands between them.
45

Butterﬂy Metaphor |
"As babies my brother
would be off exploring
the world around him...
... whereas I'd be happy tocrawl straight to my mumwhere I knew I was safe."
47

| Flowers and Webs Metaphor- Flowers
"When we'd visit family, my
brother would do all the talking,
answering everyone's questions...
48

Flowers and Webs Metaphor- Webs |
... I'd just sit there, happy to listento the conversation, but toocaught up in a web of nervousnessto contribute"
49

| Sun Metaphor- Happy
"My brother was never afraid
to talk to teachers...
50

Sun Metaphor- Sad |
... I'd go unnoticed, just quietly doing
what I was told to do, hoping a
problem wouldn't force me to be
brave and ask a question."
51

| Windows Metaphor
"My brother was able to talk to
strangers, happy to do things like
order his food at a restaurant...
... I was scared I'd say the wrong thing. I'd stay
quiet and ask my mum to speak for me."
52

Pen and Paper Metaphor |
"Playing together
as children, my
brother was always
the leader...
... and I was happy tofollow him."
53

| Speakers Metaphor
"I was always told to
speak up because of how
quietly I was talking...
... But my brother
was loud and was
never told to speak
more quietly."
54

Birds Metaphor |
... I found it harder,
happier with my one ortwo best friends."
"My brother was
popular at school
because he found it
easy to make friends...
55

| Boats Metaphor
"When my brother
and I went to
different schools, I
was suddenly on my
own and I had to
learn how to be
independent"
56

Lion Metaphor |
"In hindsight, I was lucky that we went to different schools as it
forced me to be brave."
57

| Road Metaphor
"I was unsure about
making new friends,
not knowing how to
approach people, I was
always too cautious."
58

Turtle Metaphor |
"Once I was able tomake friends, I cameout of my shell."
59

| Peacock Metaphor
"These people are
now my best friends,
I learned to express
myself. I was able to
be my own person."
60

Mountain Metaphor |
"This experience showed
me I'm able to overcome
difficulties."
61

Having ﬁnalised the designs for each metaphor I moved on to drawing out orthographs for
every prop that I needed to create in 3D.
I drew multiple views of each prop, such as front view and side view to make it easier to get the
right proportions when turning them into 3D models in Maya.
62

Animatics and Pre-Vizs
During my project I have drawn out multiple versions of my storyboard, as things developed
and changed. Each animatic that I created was made from a different version of my
storyboard.
See the page opposite to view all of the different animatics and pre-vizs that I made as my
project developed.
73

At the start of this project I ﬁrst created two different animatics- developing my ideas further each
time. Also at the beginning I created a rough pre viz which helped progress my animation.
Later on I recreated my animatic, having redesigned my animation. I then created a pre viz which
focused only on the camera transitions. I then developed that pre viz- improving the camera transitions,
working on the sound and making more improvements.
Having developed my project further I then improved my pre viz another two times- ﬁxing some issues
with camera movements and positioning of the planets.
First Animatic 1: https://youtu.be/VFKJi0xmJnQ
First Animatic 2: https://youtu.be/IfNyfHV6IaI
Rough Pre Viz: https://youtu.be/BNLgwhuymY4
Second Animatic (Redesign): https://youtu.be/r-gRkk9773M
Pre Viz (camera transitions only): https://youtu.be/iF6u1VB2c8c
Pre Viz (WIP): https://youtu.be/2yu0hizITJU
Final Pre Viz: https://youtu.be/4H3iHpXyjkc
Improved Final Pre Viz: https://youtu.be/6FoU5b28D1g
74

During the process of creating my pre-viz I wrote a list of all the sound effects I needed for my film.
I used royalty free websites to find the right sounds to fit with my animation. I edited these sounds so
they would work for my film and I edited them into my pre-viz animation in After Effects so they fit to
the timing of my film.
Sound Effects
75

Rigging
and
Skinning
I started out by binding the
mesh to the joints. I then
blocked out the weights by
closest joint and painted the
weights fully, smoothing
everything out. I moved onto
creating pose space deformers
to ﬁx any problems created by
the skinning. I set up controls
and constrained them to the
joints and used IK handles in the
legs and feet. I also limited the
movement of some of the
controls so that the characters
can't 'break'.
86

Facial Rigging
I created a jaw control, two neck controls, an eye look rig, a blink rig, a brow movement rig and a
mouth shapes rig for each character
87

Brow
Movement
Rig
Up
Down
Surprised
Angry
Blink Movement Rig
Emily- blinking
Adam- blinking
88

Open Narrow
Open Wide
Closed Narrow
Closed Wide
Sad
Happy
90

Prop Modelling , Rigging & Texturing
Modelling: 2D design -> Orthographs -> 3D Model
Rigging: Joints -> bind skin -> paint weights -> create control -> connect joints to control attributes and limit movement
Texturing: Layout UVs -> UV Map -> Paint texture in Photoshop -> Apply texture map to model
99

Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- rotate wings
- rotate antenna
101

FINAL RENDER | Butterﬂy Metaphor
102

Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- grow scale
105

FINAL RENDER | Flowers and Webs Metaphor- Flowers
108

Flowers and Webs Metaphor- Webs | FINAL RENDER
109

Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- sky texture
- sun texture
- sun rays texture
112

Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- wings
- neck
- legs
113

FINAL RENDER | Sun Metaphor- Happy/Sad
114

Windows Metaphor | FINAL RENDER
119

FINAL RENDER | Windows Metaphor- Inside
120

Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- each joint's rotation
122

FINAL RENDER | Pen and Paper Metaphor
124

I tested different
effects in both Maya
and After Effects to
see which ones worked
the best.
Video: youtube.com/
watch?v=R_7aOMjiknw
I think the After Effects
sparks are more ﬁtting
than the Maya ones
and work well with the
robot. Also I found the
Maya smoke looks and
works better than the
After Effects test.
126

Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- arms
- dial
- neck
- antenna
- legs
- pelvis bend
- claws
-mouth
127

Speakers Metaphor | FINAL RENDER
129

FINAL RENDER | Birds Metaphor
132

Rig Controls:
- transform - rotate - scale - visibility - tail -ﬁns
135

FINAL RENDER | Boats Metaphor
138

Lion Metaphor | FINAL RENDER
141

FINAL RENDER | Road Metaphor
144

Turtle Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- head (in/out of shell)
Crab Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- legs
- claws
146

Turtle Metaphor | FINAL RENDER
149

Rig Controls:
- transform
- rotate
- scale
- visibility
- legs (separate controls)
- wings
- neck
- head
- head details
- tail
- feathers rotate
- feathers spread
- pelvis
152

FINAL RENDER | Peacock Metaphor
154

FINAL RENDER | Mountain Metaphor
158

Having created my two characters and all of the props I was ready to move onto Animating. Firstly I
imported the characters and every metaphor into one Maya scene. I used my pre-viz as a guide to
help ﬁgure out where to place each metaphor planet.
I then started by animating the camera's movement. I wrote out a shot list, using my pre-viz as a
guide, so I would have a rough idea of the timing of the animation. I was then able to move onto
animating the characters and props in each metaphor. Having then animated the ﬁrst pass of my
animation I was able to make improvements to it.
Animating
159

I split my ﬁlm into three scenes at points where you wouldn't notice the
cuts. The ﬁrst point it cuts at is when the camera goes through the sky to
then reveal the house. The second point it cuts is when the camera goes in
towards the green planet at the end before it zooms out to reveal all of
the planets together.
The curves and frame numbers in these images show the cameras
movement and timing. I used my voiceover and pre-viz as a guide to time
out the camera's movement. After this, I cleaned up the animation in the
graph editor so that it glides smoothly.
SCENE 1
161

I animated each prop by ﬁrstly working out the timing of the scene by timing it to the voiceover and
also working out how many frames the camera stayed focused on the prop for. I blocked out the prop's
movement and then reﬁned the animation and cleaned it up in the graph editor.
In order to animate the characters I had to record reference footage of myself and my brother acting
out the movements so that I could look at the footage and work out what the key poses were and the
timing of those poses. This helped me to create more natural movements for the characters.
163

I began lighting my scenes by creating a skydome which acts as a fill light for the scene or as the light
from the 'sky'. I then created two directional lights, one to act as the 'sun' and another as a rim light to
produce highlights. I duplicated these two lights for each planet and angled each of them so that they lit
each planet well.
The only change I made was instead of using the rim light for the windows metaphor, as it has interior
shots, I used area lights to light the inside of the rooms.
I then used 'light-linking' to tell Maya to only affect the objects on the specific planet that the light is
meant for, so the planets don't cast shadows onto each other and so that they are all only lit by one
'sun'.
For the extra lights such as the lamps in the room and in the house, the lights on the robot and the
traffic lights and zebra crossing lights on the road I added 'emission' to the relevant surface shaders to
make them light up. I also added two spotlights to shine onto the peacock.
Lighting
167

Lighting example: Room scene with ﬂowers
168

Lighting example: House scene with an area light for the interior
shots and emission added to the light shades
169

Lighting example: Lion Metaphor
172

Lighting example: Peacock scene with added spotlights
173

This image shows the skydome around
everything in scene 3. The skydome ﬁlls the
world with light while the directional lights add
more speciﬁc light and shadows.
174

Compositing
Compositing consisted of ﬁrstly editing together the different scenes of my ﬁlm. Then I moved onto
adding in the effects that needed to be created in post production. I worked on the sound design editing
in the voiceover and sound effects. Finally I created the title sequence and the end credits.
175

Having rendered the easel scene with the drawing on the paper I took the frames into Photoshop to
edit each frame so that the lines and colours appear as the pens draw. I did this by erasing the
drawing up to where the pens were on each frame.
176

Having previously tested out the effects for the robot I used the same tutorials to create the smoke
in Maya and the sparks in After Effects. I decided to take a different approach when creating the
sound waves and musical notes as my tests proved that it was difﬁcult to make them look good in
After Effects. Therefore, instead I chose to model and animate the musical notes and sound waves
in Maya. I composited all of these effects in After Effects and keyed their positions so that they ﬁt
with the robots as the camera is moving.
177

I created the hawk's shadow effect by taking the frames, that the shadow would appear in, into
Photoshop and drew a hawks shadow which I then animated ﬂying across the bird bath.
178

For the lamps and lights that are in my animation I added a glow to them in After Effects. I did this by
rendering out a 'matte pass' which has the light in white and everything else in black. I then used
these matte passes in After Effects to add a glow to the lamps and lights.
Effect applied to:
Room- Lamps
House- Lamps
Robots- Eyes and Flashing Lights
Road- Trafﬁc Lights and Zebra Crossing Lights
Matte Pass
179

I added a title sequence and a rolling credits to my ﬁlm. The sequence at the beginning shows the
title of the ﬁlm and my name. The end credits show details such as which websites I used for the
sound effects and music.
180

Sound Design
I firstly edited in the voiceover and sound effects so that they were all in time with the video. I used the
same audio clips as I had used for my pre-viz but edited them so they would fit with my final film. I then
set the gain of each clip so that there were no spikes in the audio, so the high points of each clip sat at
around -6 dB. I then exported the audio in three sections: voiceover, main sound effects and secondary
sound effects. This allowed me to re-import these clips with the video and lower the volumes of the
sound effects so that they are quieter than the voiceover, with the secondary sound effects being
slightly quieter than the main sound effects.
181

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