the story of a hungry duck...
When the ranger at a local park is interrupted in the middle of feeding the pond wildlife, a determined duck decides to follow him and his delicious bag of oats home in hopes of more food. After all, what's a little breaking-and-entering when you're simply a duck?

meet the team !

Victoria Lo

+ Website Manager
+ Script Editor
+ Concept Artist
+ Storyboard Editor
+ Storyboard Narrator

+ Character Modeler
+ Environment Modeler

+ Texturer

+ Scene Designer
+ Animator
+ Video Editor
+ Visual Effects Artist

+ Sound Designer

Kirsten Wong

+ Project Manager
+ Website Copywriter
+ Script Editor
+ Concept Artist
+ Storyboard Artist & Editor
+ Character Modeling Lead
+ Environment Modeler

+ Texturer

+ Scene Designer

+ Rigger

+ Animator
+ Lighting Designer
+ Sound Designer

Danelly Joseph

+ Concept Artist
+ Environment Modeling Lead

+ Texturer

+ Scene Designer

+ Animator
+ Lighting Designer

+ Video Editor

+ Visual Effects Artist

+ Sound Designer

Riya Wang

+ Concept Artist
+ Environment Modeler

+ Texturer

+ Animator

+ Sound Designer

Riya Daiya

+ Script Writer
+ Storyboard Artist
+ Environment Modeler

+ Texturer
+ Scene Designer

+ Animator

+ Lighting Designer

+ Sound Designer

progress blog

-- Week of Jan 12
The team was formed. Kirsten created a Discord server for project communications with organized channels.
The team shared preliminary story ideas, inspiration, tutorial resources, and possible art directions we were interested in.

-- Week of Jan 19
A team meeting was held to further brainstorm story and art direction ideas on Figjam, focusing on artistic aesthetics and settings to explore. We each individually brainstormed story concepts separately and found images to serve as inspiration for our ideas.

Victoria created the preliminary project website.

-- Week of Jan 26
A team meeting was held to present each of our individual story ideas to the rest of the team and choose which one to pursue. We collectively decided on Riya Daiya’s story idea as we enjoyed the humour and visual appeal of the duck story.

Each team member used a duck avatar creator to make our own profile pictures for the website.

Victoria drew concept sketches for the duck and pond.

-- Week of Feb 2
Danelly drew concept sketches for the ranger.
Kirsten drew concept sketches for the kitchen, and the three characters’ side and front views, building off of Danelly’s ranger design.
Riya Wang added adjustments and back views to Kirsten’s character turnarounds.

Victoria edited Riya Daiya’s script and put it into formal script format, including camera movements.
Kirsten further edited the script.
Kirsten and Victoria jointly brainstormed title ideas and the team decided on Quacker’s Quest.

Victoria and Kirsten refined the website layout.
Victoria uploaded the relevant images for the home, script, and concept art pages.
Kirsten wrote the copywriting for each page and the progress log, updating the log every week.

-- Week of Feb 9
Project models were compiled in a list and each assigned to a team member.
Kirsten worked on the stove.
Victoria worked on the phone.
Riya Daiya worked on the window.
Danelly worked on the sink.
Riya Wang worked on the duck.

-- Week of Feb 16
The above models were completed.

Kirsten drew and annotated the first half of the storyboard, and modeled the dog.
Riya Daiya drew and annotated the second half of the storyboard.

-- Week of Feb 23

Victoria and Kirsten edited and formatted the storyboards together.
Victoria recorded the storyboard narration, uploading it to Youtube and the website along with the final storyboard. Victoria modeled the fridge.

Riya Wang modeled the hammer.

-- Week of March 2

Kirsten modeled the ranger, table, chair, placemat, cutting board, loose oats, and duck feed pellets.
Danelly modeled the cabinets, counters, and the house exterior.
Riya Wang modeled the oat packet.
Riya Daiya modeled the rope.
Victoria modeled water lillies.

Danelly consolidated all the furniture models into the house interior scene and set up lighting for the midday outdoor scenes.

-- Week of March 9

Victoria modeled components for a revised duck model, and modeled and textured the title sign.
Kirsten completed the revised duck model, rigged the ranger and duck, and textured the ranger, duck, placemat, cutting board, loose oats, and duck feed pellets.
Riya Wang modeled the duck feed box, and textured the oat packet, duck feed box, and hammer.
Danelly modeled and textured the house exterior.
Riya Daiya modelled and textured the coffee maker and mugs.

-- Week of March 16

Victoria modeled and textured cattails, trees, and grass.
Kirsten rigged the dog and textured the table, chair, and stove.
Danelly textured the cabinets and counters.

Kirsten and Danelly troubleshooted the project setup and file pathing for the team’s files.

-- Week of March 23

Riya Daiya modeled the pond and rocks, and textured the rocks.
Danelly modeled the stove hood and textured the sink, floor, walls, cabinets, counters, and stove hood.
Kirsten modeled and textured a revised window, and rigged the rope.

Kirsten imported and resized the team’s individual models into each scene, and set up lighting for the indoor scenes.
Danelly and Kirsten completed the model setup for the interior scenes.
Victoria worked on the scene setup for the outdoor scenes.

Each team member was assigned to work on between 6 and 11 shots each individually, following the storyboard but also having some freedom to adjust their shot direction (camera angles, animation, timing, etc.) as they wanted. Corresponding to the storyboard:
Victoria: Scene 1 Shot 1 - 9
Danelly: Scene 2 Shot 1 - 8
Riya Wang: Scene 3 Shot 1 - 6
Kirsten: Scene 3 Shot 7 - 14 | Scene 4 Shot 1 - 3
Riya Daiya: Scene 4 Shot 4 - 6 | Scene 5 Shot 1 - 4

-- Week of March 30

Everyone completed rough animations of their assigned shots for the animatic.

Kirsten drew an extra expression texture for the duck.

-- Week of April 6

Riya Daiya worked on the scene setup for the outdoor scenes, modeled and textured a pathway, textured the ground, refined the textures for the trees and water, and set up lighting for the evening outdoor shots.
Kirsten edited the outdoor scene setup to make elements consistent across all scenes.
Victoria further refined and finalized the outdoor scene setup.

Everyone worked on finalizing their shots and rendered them as they were completed.

Kirsten found some free-to-use sound effects, and compiled the previous individual animatic clips into a video, uploading it on the Animatic webpage.
Riya Wang found some free-to-use sound effects.

-- Week of April 13

All remaining shots of the main animation were rendered.
Kirsten rendered bonus stills and wrote the text for the credits.

Everyone found more free-to-use sound effects and background music.

Danelly compiled all frames for the entire film. She edited and added sound effects, transitions, and background music to Scenes 1, 2, and 4 with live feedback from the rest of the team. She added visual effects to Scene 4 (a transition screen with a picture of the duck drawn by Riya Wang, and an eye glowing effect).

Victoria edited and added sound effects and background music to Scene 3 and Scene 5. She added visual effects to Scene 4 and 5 (animated sparkles, and the black circle ending effect) and colour correction. She created the layout and animation of the credits.

Victoria uploaded the final video to YouTube and updated the website.

quack

IAT 343

QUACKER’S QUEST