Grandmas VS. Aliens: The Series

So I had an idea. What if my senior project were an episode in a television series? What if that series was entirely about old women and extra-terrestrials battlin' in strange ways? I don't know about you, but I find that hilarious. I'd be very interested in watching that show. Therefore, I am creating an animation that would serve as the intro to that show in After Effects. Above are some assets that will be used in the creation of that very animation.

The show would be similar to The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits in that each episode is a self-contained dilemma with a resolution and no direct connection to other episodes. Perhaps different directors and studios could be hired for each episode, pitch their own ideas and have a central in house group to work with them on maintaining a consistent feel while allowing a great variance in the overall style and vision episode to episode. Celebrity voice actors! Collectible action figures! I'm no expert but it just very well may be the most exciting, critically acclaimed and profitable animated series franchise in history!

2D Characters

These characters will appear on the television.

Latest Animatic

Still in progress.

Some Renders

Just a couple renders that show, more or less, what the finished product will look like. Currently blocking out animations and preparing any missing models that are essential for animation.

Before and After

Here we have a side by side comparison of the original Grandma model and the current version. I'm not sure which is creepier but the new one definitely looks funnier and much truer to the original concept.

Practical math: COMEDY(AGGRESSION+FATNESS) = BETTER COMEDY

Her rigging is nearing completion. What's left is creating the facial GUI and a whole mess of painting weights. Here are some disembodied heads that will serve as blend shapes for expressions and lip syncing dialogue. Hope you find them upsetting.

Alien Spaceship - 360 degree view

Jumping around a bit. Returned Grandma to the back burner and applied texture and light effects to the alien's spaceship. It has a nice robotic meatball quality. Seeing my original sketches starting to come to life in this way is very exciting.

Gaze into the Face of Fear

Progress on my second attempt at the old lady. Way happier with this than the first version. Everyone I've shown her to has been horrified, which makes the whole effort worth while.

Grandma 2.0

The first Grandma model I created was a little lackluster, so I'm starting over from scratch. The model is still in a very rough form, still pushing and pulling those first few rows of verts, getting things flowing right. I promise the skirt won't be sheer in the final version.

Living Room Stuff

I've been on a modeling kick since I made the couch. Here are some delicious morsels of 3D rendering.


Probably enjoying this too much.

Playing with Light

I'm anxious to start getting the "final look" of the film figured out, so I decided one area I need to start playing with is lighting and materials. Then I realized in order to play with lighting and materials I needed to make things first. So, here's a couch I put together today with a simple lambert with a few lights on it. I'm planning on going through some tutorials to get the more complex materials required for the ship, flesh, glass stuff, etc. but this little exercize has relieved some of my concerns and shown that a little light goes a long way.

End of the Semester

Part of me feels like I should have more to show for the end of the first semester but looking back on the progress I've made puts my mind at ease. It's hard to imagine but just a year ago I had absolutely no clue how to model in Maya, not even a cube. I spent the previous summer learning all the most basic information about modeling, lighting and texturing. Last semester I took my first actual class in modeling and started this semester with almost no idea how to create a functioning animation rig on the level than I needed.

Most of my energy has been spent this semester rigging. I am left with a functioning rig that needs a little more attention before it's ready for use. There are some ugly deformations occurring at some of the joints. I may add a few more controls here and there as needed but otherwise I am happy with what I've ended up with. The video above is the latest animated test of the rig and I will continue to work with it until all the kinks are worked out.

I also spent a lot of time refining my story. The alien story was the one I had been planning on working on coming into senior studio. At the beginning of the semster I almost went an entirely different route, favoring some storyboards I had created centering around a "Little Red Riding Hood" story. I was afraid Grandma VS The Alien was too long, and any cuts I made were going to ruin it. People were generally bummed I had ditched the old hag and the goofy little monster, so after some soul searching I decided to go back to Grandma VS The Alien. This meant completely reimagining the story and creating dramatically different characters. I recreated the storyboards from scratch, cut as much time wasted introducing characters as possible and boiled the interaction between the characters down to one major gag. I was never very happy with my original storyboards because that version of the tale relied heavily on dialogue for interest. This new version is much leaner, funnier for the right reasons and more manageable being half the length of the original.

Just like last summer, I will be spending this summer preparing for my return in the Fall. My goal is to be ready to animate so I can spend the majority of the semester focusing purely on the animation. That means I will have to complete both my Alien and Grandma rigs. I will have to model and texture all the characters, props and sets. I will have to create lighting and effects. Maybe most importantly to proceed with animation, I will need to record all my dialogue and sound effects.

There is a lot of work ahead but I'm not worried about anything. The most important thing is that I'm happy with my story and know my project is worth working on. If I didn't like it then all this would be a huge chore but knowing the final product will be great if everything proceeds as planned makes it more of a sense of anticipation than dread. I'm excitied to see how it all comes together.

Rough Animatic

This is the working animatic. There are a lot of notes I've taken since completing this. The look and sound will likely change dramatically by the time I've finished but this is how the story will progress more or less. I like it but it definitely needs more zazz.

Untitled from John Sasser on Vimeo.

The Living Room

Just started blocking in the living room with rough forms to get an idea of how everything's going to be scaled and how shots will look in perspective. It's nice to see this rough blocking and imagine things to come. I'm feeling three walls should be wood paneling. The side with the window will be wallpapered. Everything will have a dusty, retro feel to it, as if the old woman hasn't decorated since the late 70's.

A Tale of Two Constraint Systems

I've been stuck for the past couple weeks trying to understand how to allow the arms of the old woman rig to function in either IK or FK mode at the touch of a switch. If you're unfamiliar with the difference, FK allows arm movement by rotating joints at the shoulder, elbow and wrist whereas in IK mode you simply reposition the wrist control and the rest of the arm falls into place accordingly. The difference in application is FK allows for more natural swinging motion of the limbs when the hand is free and IK allows your character to grab or pick something up more effectively.

I am definitely a novice at rigging. Even so, the construction of such a system shouldn't have taken any longer than any other step of the rigging, but due to the somewhat complex nature of switching constraints on and off there was a lot of room for human error, which I provided in abundance. After my first attempt the poor old lady's arms were helplessly contorting in a series of excruciating positions just from switching between systems. It was all FK'ed up! After much struggling, adjusting, deleting, reconstructing, testing, repeating, etc. I think I finally have the arms under control in both modes and the ability to switch from one to the next and back again at will. So here are lessons learned from trying to fix the mess I created.

THINGS ALWAYS GO WRONG: I was making quick and promising progress as I worked my way through the rig. Being my first attempt at creating a rig of this complexity I became cocky and eager to get this part of the project done with. The trouble I ran into with the arms was unanticipated and sort of devastating to my momentum. If I had stepped through the process a little more cautiously, not only would I have needed less time to grieve (and rage) over the speed bump, I may have avoided some of the mistakes that led to the problem.

TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT: In a "time-saving" effort I attempted to patch holes in my malfunctioning arms as opposed to just starting over. What happened was every time I tried to fix one issue, two more popped up. If a joint moved out of placed in one mode I'd shift it back, if it twisted one way I'd twist the other way, if a value seemed to shift inexplicably I'd make connections where they didn't belong. Hours and hours of trying to counter bad mistakes with bad adjustments just to avoid deleting my precious work. In the end, I spent a lot more time trying to noodle with something I knew was broken than I did rebuilding an arm that worked from scratch.

YOU LEARN MORE WHEN YOU SCREW UP: I've basically been following step-by-step instructions to complete this rig. When I ran into problems a large part of my horror was due to the fact that I was suddenly responsible for fixing this thing on my own. I had to go through a painful process of trial and error, constraining one thing to the next in a variety of ways. As I went I became very familiar with how each change I made would effect the rig. By the time I ran my last test to see if everything worked I was already confident that it would. My final tweaks were handled quickly since I knew exactly what wasn't working and how to fix it. If I hadn't had to fix these damn arms on my own I would not be able to say I could construct a rig of this nature without some form of direction. Now, with enough time, I think I could probably work my way through just about any simple character rig.

I see my next two greatest challenges as being the facial controls and the skirt, since I'm still uncertain how these are going to be pulled off. There's still a lot more to do, and a lot more potential missteps to be had. I feel a little more confident about the whole project than I did before now that I apparently conquered the arms.

Ship Modeling Progress

This guy is based on one of the concept sketches from my last post. Still a lot to do but I'm happy with the look. Modeling the interior and rigging the whole thing to split open is going to be fun. I still have rigging to do on my characters so I may go back and finish them up before I spend too much time with this ship.

Space Ships

Originally I envisioned the alien sprouting from a meteorite which would be rock-like in appearance but in the course of reworking the script I decided he would be piloting an actual spaceship which crash lands on Earth. I had imagined the meteorite splitting down the middle and opening in two perfect halves, I thought it would be fun if the spaceship opened in the same way. Here are some initial sketches.

The Stars of the Show

The character models are looking pretty good. Grandma is less lumpy and hideous than I had imagined and she's rocking a nice bouffant wig. I've had discussions with various folks about developing the story more and I think I want to make the Grandma less aggressive and more eccentric. And by eccentric I mean out of her gourd.


I've also began the rigging process, Grandma's feet, legs and spine are currently all boned, handled and clustered up. How I'm going to achieve the rigging for the skirt is still a mystery to me but I'm still feeling pretty cocky about the whole thing. No worries.


Having some foundation work complete on the digital side of things is a relief. Once I have a handle on the rigging and the story is totally fleshed out I'll be at ease. Then things will really start rolling along.

Now Begins the Senior Film

Working Title: Grandma VS. The Alien

Premise: A confused old woman is visited by an alien unfamiliar with the ways of our planet. Hilarity ensues as she attempts to fix what she believes to be her broken television, which is actually the alien itself.

Approx. Runtime: 2 min. 30 sec.

Format: CG Animation (Maya)