Stunt Dippy! :oD

I had a problem with combining the Biped, Look-At and Morpher functions so I needed to find a way round it.
I think the problem may have been that the Physique was struggling to capture the Look-At Dummy within it's Envelope?
The way I side stepped the issue was to have two models that performed different functions..... The 'Stunt Dippy' could move around controlled by his Biped and a 'Close Up Dippy' had the Morpher and Look-At functions.
In most cases I was able to swop out one of the Dippy's during a scene change but a couple called for seamless changes which were pretty tricky.

Stitching scenes together.

I'm now well into animating the scenes to tell the fable and have rendered each out. The scenes are then stitched together in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.
I've not used Premiere before but using it's built in tutorials I was able to find my way around ok.
I've also added some basic effects like blending scenes and an intro title.
The software seems pretty user friendlty and intuitive which is handy ;o)
If I get time, I'd like to use it to add sound effects too.

Expressions...

We did a tutorial some time ago that animated a head by making multiple copies and changing each to a different expression. These new heads were then referenced back to the original and could then drive that particular change.
I used that process known as the Morpher Tool with Dippy. Here you can see the dummy expressions that are then hidden out of scene.

Filling out the scene..

I've been trying to think of a way to make sense of having marbles on the shelf. Having a Ker-Plunk box on the shelf justifies that as they may have splilled out :oD

Alternative modelling tecniques...

Once I'd modelled the window, it looked pretty sparse without the curtains so I wanted to model something that looked half decent.

I tried several tecniques using the standard primitives but couldn't get anything to look right so I finally used a wavy Spline then was then extruded using the Sweep Modifier. Although this looked like gathered up material it didn't hang right so I converted it to an editable poly and scaled down the vertices on the top to give a more realistic curtain form.

A pole and rings were added and a Polished Metal Material added.

The bigger picture..

The fable takes place in a relatively small area in upstaors room so I only needed two sides of the room for my scene.

To set the scene, I wanted a couple of establishing shots to give the viewer a feel for where the action will take place, so I've textured the walls, modelled a abasic window and put an image of houses across the street out of the window.

Lighting the scene

I've used the Three-Point Lighting approach in the scenes which is similar to how tv shots are set up.

The lights I've used are:

Key light - Target type outside the window simulating sunlight and creating a slight shadow

Fill light - Omni type over the scene in a similar position to a lightbulb in the room

Back light - Omni again placed behind the scene to reduce the dark areas cast by the key light

Where neccessary, the lights were moved for close up shots to reduce dark areas.