Yes, we have lots of versions till now, 9 to be exactly.

Work is becoming perfect in multiple changes and changes. I showed to some of my friends, and I'm so happy they like it. There are certain scene and image people like most:
1. Lady animation (thanks Dorothy, it is fabulous!!!)
2. Ocean ( big hug to myself :))
3. Underwater goldfish newborn ( hug again :D)
4. Fish on the plate (Dorothy again)

And we started the preparation for the presentation Lol. we will do first rehersal tmr, and the day after tmr, we gonna discuss deeply with Eddie.

After occupy Render Farm for almost whole week, we finally finish render this whole scene. The studyscene's texture is always very heavy.
Vera and I divided this scene's animation:
-Vera: all nCloth, 0301, 0302, 0303, 0305
-Denian: Hand Pose, Hand animation of 0301, 0304, 0401. 2D texture of 0304, 0401.

Actually, Dorothy took the 2D texture part, but when import to 3D, I revised it to better match with hand's movement and rhythm.
​

But when dealing with the post-production, lots of problems came out. 
The most obvious one is there are some noise and insequence white dots. Even we rerender that frame, the problem's not solved. I also tried to higher the quality and setting in final gathering, didn't work.
So at last, I used the most stupid method: correct each frame in PS...
​

After two days overnight, I finish composition and editing. Welcome our first full animation. 

Of course, this version has many things to revise, but I'm happy that we have it finally. 
I have listed few things for improvement:
1. 0101 whale, rerender, the pose and swimming by (no motion blur)
2. 0107 Color and camera movement
3. 0201 butterfly texture, 0202 texutre, camera
4. 0401_overview, flower lake of frames
5. 0501, oldman sliding
6. 0503, oldman lighting/eyes texture
7. title, effect test
8.0201 splash slow down
9. 0104, big butterfly rotate with the whirlpool
10. 04: lotus color (lower saturation); Butterout, tail last longer
11. roof wet texture and reflection 

All the calligraphy (scroll, book contents, title, end credit) shown in our animation are wrote by me :) I'm kinda proud on this.

Only 4 shots in 3D left till now. 2 are mine and 2 are vera's.

I'm responsible to do the C03S04 (a new added shot) and C04S01. Both scene are in the study room and both are using moving textures.
I spent sometime in timing, because stay overnight too much, brain's not working... effectively...

While for the hand and ncloth animation, it's kinda tricky. Because Vera and I are not satisfied with the modeling Dorothy left behind, Vera remade a new hand, smaller and easier for animation. But the ncloth need to interact with the original body. So it's two hands, one showed and one hide (thanks to Vera's genius idea!) 
Animation of the brush and hand are matched with the moving texture ( ink butterfly) frame by frame, bone by bone.

Everything is in Render Farm now. Hope they run well and faster.
Learn from the lessons, something need to be notified and highlighted for next render:
1. Check all the textures file place
(because we keep exchange files between three accounts, so when copy the scene and hand to the other, the file place for the shader is wrong.)
2. Check the layer's contents
(when divide the shot for render, make sure the related camera and light are also in the layer)
3. Check Render Setting for each layer
(When seperate layer for render, make sure the setting for each layer are right by clicking each layer one by one, especially the render camera)

I started continue on C05S05-our final scene's maya production.

Tutorials & References:
Underwater scene reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNmhGg7a7Sc
AE underwater scene tutorial: http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2009/05/underwater-scene/
Add shadow on underwater object: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/depth_charge/
After Effect Red Giant Psunami: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKUrSSHTXVw
Goldfish Movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiy7U0-MUmQ
​
I tried the underwater environment in both Maya and After Effect, and it seems that I can do better in After Effect because I'm more familiar with it. The problem of creating the environment in After Effect is that the fish gonna be 3D, so the composing gonna be difficult.
Also, I need to add some bottom image of the lotus leaves.

Videos below are for testing light colors. Purple or Orange, this is a question.

We have marked 23rd as our inner deadline date. We gonna have our final version 1 before 23rd, and for 24th to 28th, we gonna have some inner screening among friends and get some feedback and comments for further development. Also on 28th, we will give our final animation to the music studio. 

I also made a list of things need further development in the storyboard based on the meeting with Eddie.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with the music studio, it's a nice chat. And I made a new version with timecode and music modify comments along the timeline. 

Wish we good luck! ​

I started to compose the whale falling shot. We discussed a lot on how to make the splash. Because all the tutorial we could find on making splash are Realflow or some high tech software, which we may not have time to download or learn. After the meeting with Eddie, we came up with a more effective way: use sources and particular overlay on top.
This method works perfect on the splash.
But the other problem is the sea is so realistic compared to the whale. So just like what I did to the C01S03 storm shot, I add a 'vector blur' to the ocean layer and make it less realistic but stylish.
Also, I add two layers of particular, one fog generated from the ocean plane, the other generated from sky grid, to smoother the and blur the scene.
Still the whale is the huge problem. Vera did the animation before, but the outcome is not really good compared to other element in the shot. So I redo it yesterday night, and this morning, I made a third version, add more subtle movement to the whale based on the second version.  Furthermore, in this version, I try to make the S02 and S03 in sequence, so I put the ocean layer of S03 on top 'add' to S02, to add more white foam. 

And the render time in After Effect got longer and longer... For 3rd, it took 2.5 hours. My laptop is dying for FYP...

In our last rough animation, the oldman's hand is weird as the back of the hand curved in a ridiculous way. And according to Vera, I told her wrong on the pose of the hand of holding the brush...Though I didn't remember it in the same way... Anyway, i remade it last night or this morning...

pics below:
1. Vera's version
2. Mine version (ignore the lighting and texturing issue)
​

- Rough Animation (click for the link on Vimeo, or view the one on the top)

- Artist Statement
Life and death are one cycle; one end means the other begins – much like the life transformation between big whale, butterfly, and goldfish in the animation. Every time one creature goes away, another creature will come back as the nature is always balanced. Fascinated by the miracle of life and death and nurtured with traditional Chinese wisdom, we create an allegorical landscape-like Chinese animation out from within. By applying various metaphors to these objects, the artists integrate the issues of life cycle and equality of things smoothly into the poetic animation. 
生死乃氣質聚散，方生方死，方死方生 ﹣正如我們動畫中 大魚、蝴蝶與金魚之間的交替變幻。每一次‘歸去’都意味著新的‘來兮’，无我同一，自如其然。痴于道家的生死观与齐物之说，醉于中国传统文化艺术之哲思，我们创作了此山水画般诗意的中国动画。基于《逍遥游》《庄周梦蝶》等齐物论中著名篇章的思想，并对其中的意象加以想象变幻，此动画是完全的中国制造。

I started composing this scene from yesterday, but still the outcome is not that good. Because I used some AE plug in which school's computer doesn't have, so I can only use my own computer. And I felt that my computer gonna burn at anytime. SOSOSOSO HOTTTT!
And it spent almost three hours to render and still didn't finish... I used the lowest quality......
Here is the low quality version of what I have done today.
And I have listed things need to be modified after show to Vera:
​1. The lightening is so regular, the second one can be longer.
2. render separately: divided the timeline into small part

Change the texture to another one made by Vera, more flower-like and stylish. 
Also, after showing the animatic to Amy, one of my friend, she gave some advice on the timing. We adjust the time for this shot, make the oldman eye-closed part longer.
And last time, when Vera rerender the old man part, the outcome's color is dismatch with the old one. We match all the light and their relationship and cannot find the difference. At last, we figure out that it is because the environment color of the Camera. We never know that this element will affect the final outcome, because that should be png, alpha.

I redo the first scene: whale falling today. Last time, if I remember right, it should be two months before, I made two version. One is the cloud moving backward while the other is moving forward. In terms of the cinematography, the previous looks better. And today, I add more animation to the cloud, to make them less 3D, I add another two layer of cloud with trapcode particle in After Effect. 
The cloud animation, which rendered out in maya is not that good, so the effect can only be depends on post-production.

Start making the C05S05, the underwater thing, so many problems to overcome. 
1. let the light go through the surface
2. deal with the ocean shader, make the wave naturally

​pics coming soon, hopefully :)




ps. Useful Tutorials and reference for Maya underwater
***
http://pol3d.blogspot.hk/2011/06/underwater-lighting-partivolume.html

https://vimeo.com/groups/svacomputerart/videos/128840555

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUjGoky4HPo

***
https://support.solidangle.com/display/AFMUG/Underwater+Scene+with+Fog

http://area.autodesk.com/tutorials/rendering_volume_lights_in_maya_with_mental_ray

We started the communication with the Music Studio (Production Yuan) and also a Junior friend who is studying in University of South California for music. 
This latest version of animatic is not just animatic, I have put the final animation into the timeline. 

I took this shot from Vera, modify the ocean based on her process. After some tests, the ocean is more realistic.
Pics below are the working process.
The first one is Vera's ocean, second pic is the first time I composed it in After effect. The ocean's effect is not very good, so I decided to redo it by myself.
I also find a better way to deal with the rain particles. The first version also made by myself, but I found it difficult to deal in AE (premulti fault...)
The first video is the second version for testing. The second video is the final outcome, improvement based on second one is: more fog (made in AE trapcode particular)

I tidy up the storyboard, collect all the changes to the first version so far, so that the music studio will better understand our animation. Also, at the end of the file, we explain a little bit on our concept.

AND

WE finally come up with a working title: 归去来兮/ To be or not to be

Cheers!
​

This scene is about the butterfly comes to the flouting Tai-Chi Island and form into flower on the tree which the oldman lying on.
I'm in charge of making the crowd butterflies and the tree.
Dorothy made one tree before she left for exchange, but we find that the result is not very well, so I remade one. 
The technique for making the crowd animation is quiet new for me. Eddie helped a lot by giving me the tutorials and the expression codes.
But even though, I have watched lots of tutorials and have the pdf Eddie gave me, I still encounter some problems. Oh, it's not some, it's a LOT...
What I used to made the final butterfly crowd is not based on one tutorial, but based on numbers of different tutorials. For each one of them, it works very well, but when I tried to combine those together, problems come out.
Finally, I came up with these conclusions:
1. Particle grid can have the random rotation, random size, random position, random start-time, but it's difficult to move them smoothly.
2. Particle emitted from object cannot bare the creation expression for random size and scale.
3. Flow particle is a good way to animate the particle moving curve, but not work well in random size.

C04 is the scene happened in Study Room, combining both 3D and 2D. The textures for certain objects (Lotus Hanging Scroll; Fish Plate; Lady Porcelain; Screen) are different based on shot. Some are normal static texture while some are animated sequence textures. Thus the file management and rendering plan is kinda complicated. So I made the chart below to make it clearer. 
Also, to make the render quicker, I only include the objects showed in the shot and the window side which cast shadows. 

http://arnoldsupport.com/2015/02/28/the-case-of-the-disappearing-particles/

This post helps a lot on the 'particles cannot be visible in reflection' problem. The way to solve this problem is kinda tricky! 
So the main point is that only particle which can be rendered with Maya Software can be visible in reflection and refraction. So when the particle type with s/w checked, the 'visible in reflection' and 'visible in refraction' boxs are checkable. Then after check them, change the particle type back to the one we want.

Creation Expression is here for reference:

seed(particleId);
float $rotRand=rand(180);
rotateMe=<<$rotRand, $rotRand,$rotRand>>;

rotateMe+=10;

Vera tried the particles for the splash when the whale falling into the sea. But failed for the 'size over lifespan' part, so we watched tutorials tgt to figure out how to make it. But still in the progress.

I scanned the calligraphy pieces made last weekend and did the uv textures for scrolls and book. 

problemSSSS today:
1. The texture for the old book: to create the old feeling, need some bumps.
2. When render the book, what see in the viewpoint is different with rendered out. It's blurry in the rendered image, cannot figure out why, maybe it't camera's problem (focal length?)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php?t-149906.html
3. Light fog effect:
Yesterday, I tried few times with the 'wallwindow file', but failed. The light fog works perfect individual, but when composite with the wall and windows, it came up with problemsssss. And run so slow. 
Tried with the desk top scene, kind of ok.
​

I made all the modeling and texture of every objects in this room. So delightful to see them, it's like I make a real house by myself!

I learned a lot during this project. Do research on the furniture design refer to Ancient China, make sure all the furnitures share the similar taste but also not same. Modeling the complicated details piece by piece from simply polygons. The most progress I did is about texturing. This is the first time I used UV mapping, and I used this tech a lot. Each piece of objects on both bookshelf and treasureshelf are related to this process. But next time, I will do better in name every texture and every file. 
Back to the research part, which is the most important part I think. I divided the room into 5 parts based on the objects: bookshelf, treasureshelf, desk, screen, window_wall. 
Bookshelf and treasureshelf are similar, the objects are all porcelain, old Chinese treasures. While for the bookshelf, there are some scrolls and bookcases. I re-watch the 'Lang Ya Bang' to find more references. 
For the desk part, most of the object on the desk are related to Calligraphy, which I'm very much familiar with. Anyway I have learned it for 15 years, so I just model them based on my memory. But the texture for the Zhanzi(毡子) really take me more time. At fist, I decided to scan my Zhanzi and ps it into texture, but the effect is not very well, so I used the fabric in Maya.
Also, I did a lot of test in the lighting, to make it more stylish and make better usage of the shadow generated by the window texture. 

On 21st, March:
Introduced by our FYP advisor Eddie, we got the chance meet with the lady from RTHK. Me and Vera talked about our project.

On 24th, March:
Also introduced by Eddie, I have a chat with Terrie, who is doing research on student animation project. Different from the previous chat, she wants to know more on our procedure, how we make this work. 

We are appreciate that Eddie gave us so many chances to show our work. And this is a good practice for our final Presentation.

C01S05
Butterfly out and fly through landscape. This part is the scene that butterfly on the road heading to our flouting island.
I combine the 2D Chinese landscape painting and the 3D fluid together to create the mysterious and another-world-like atmosphere.

Busy in production, just want to say through images below.

As for the BGM, we found a profession studio to work for us. At first, he refuse us for his tight schedule, but after see our animatic, he said that was very attractive, thus agree to cooperate with us. Kinda proud!
It's called Production Yuan http://www.weibo.com/productionyuan?refer_flag=1001030102_&is_all=1
I first heard of him at last year CUC's  animation graduate screening. He composed for a short student animation I liked.
I'm so happy that he accept our work!!! Big progress!!!!