AsSeSt LiSt

QUESTION: Andrea, how do you get your characters so shinny in your renders? Are you just using a blinn in Maya? Do you add passes or different lights?

After discussing our story ideas with Jeff Paul and discussing our assest lists with Andrew I've decided to take their expert advice and discard the beginning scene of the exterior street. Although....after another group discussion about our stories I really like Andrea's idea about having the image of Japan and a flight trail flying over to the US and that's how the package arrives. I need to do those sketches now. I'm still working on my monkey character but plan to finish him by week 4.

Main characters:
Lenny
Monkey

Room:
Refridgerator
Table
Chair
Trash Can
Bowl of food....(I'm debating how to design this. By texture? or by actually modeling?)
chopsticks box (I have to finish with my monkey character before I can finish my inlay of the chopsticks box. Or I was thinking....should I just have a simple box? The box will glow as an effect later. Hmmmm....)

Week 2:
Finish modeling my Lenny character and begin the rigging process on him. While I'm rigging him I'll be modeling my monkey character and playing with some materials. I'm thinking that I'll do the watercolor effect in photoshop and probably play around with many passes in After Effects.

Week 3:
Model my monkey character and work on the rig to Lenny.

Week 4:
Start rigging my monkey character

Week 5: RIGGING and modeling the rooms parts. Play around with the openning scene and how I want to animate the dotted lines going from Japan to its destination.

Week 6: Play around with the lighting and what type of watercolor effect I want to achieve.

Week 7: BLEND SHPAES

Week 8: Have both character at least 90% done.

Week 9: RENDER PASSES

Week 10: Play around with render passes to finalize what type of effect and style I want.

Week 11: Have my characters finished and decide on my texturing and layouts.