Atom Pancakes - The Final Chapter

This really is the final chapter of the project. Its been a tough but ultimately rewarding 4 months as today I present to you, our collaborative animated short, The Final Chapter.

You can find more information at the Atom Pancakes Official Blog.

For me, the highlights of this project have been how I've managed to take what I've learnt recently and apply them to this project. Most notably, the rigging, but also the lighting / rendering. It has also been good to get back into animation again.

Since I have been more secretive about showing animation in progress, now that the final animation is completed, I've decided to release a selection of play-blasts showing the stages of the parts I've worked on.

Pencil Sharpener 01



Pencil Sharpener 02





These pencils were handled with dynamics.

Pencil Draw 01





Maid Walk 01



Maid Walk 02




I never quite got this right. The bottle slips and the hand is holding the bottle awkwardly.

Maid Idea 01



Maid Idea 02



Maid Idea 03




An alternate end to the maid walking, which I quite liked but ended up changing.

Maid Attack 01




Jamming 01



Jamming 02






This was one of the last shots, and effects wise was the most challenging for me.
I had posted earlier in the year a test with pouring liquids, which I was able to replicate in the beginning sequence of the animation, but splashing the liquid to go where I wanted it to go was a bit more tricky. I'll let you in on a little secret, the liquid in the bottle is not the liquid coming out of the bottle! Trying to force liquid through the bottle was making the liquid go everywhere so instead I put an invisible lid on the bottle, and had a second set of liquid particles emitting from just outside the bottle. This was easier to control. The bottle itself was animated traditionally as I knew it would be difficult to control with dynamics and so avoided using dynamics where possible. The flames, while simple Maya particles, had some more effects applied in After Effects to make it look a bit better too.

Burnt Work 01


The has a really silly over the top bit of animation on the character. I completely restarted animating him as I was not happy with this. I don't think I even showed Ruben or Jordan this version!
Burnt Work 02



Burnt Work 03



Burnt Work 04





This was a very tricky scene to do as it was the only one to have three characters in the scene. I focused on one character at a time, going between the three, and gradually refining each of them in turn.

Arguments 01



Arguments 02



Arguments 03



I have to mention that there is something that isn't quite right with the first interior shot, where the camera pans across the room. It is intentional though, and you probably won't spot it unless I told you what it is, but my clue is that it is absolutely crucial for the story!


A Flock of Pixels