JLawranceANI3

Salutes

2008-06-12T05:42:00.002-07:00

Victory cheers

2008-06-12T05:42:00.001-07:00

Duck, Dive and Turn Renders

2008-06-11T04:34:00.000-07:00

Here are all the fiels rendered out: -

Dive Render

Duck Render

Turn Render

Final Dive + alternate duck/turns

2008-06-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

The Dive was OK'ed straight away, which was nice as i haven't done anythign that was accepted instantaneously before. The other two shots did not recieve such a welcome however. The duck was wrong - by bringing the legs forwards i had succeeded in crouching the grunt but to have his legs so far forwards was unacceptable. This had to be scrapped and done again. The turn just needed a little work to show the grunt had already seen the car coming.

I managed to have a go at redoing these files but i did not have an awful lot of time in my schedule on tuesday to do this. I had allocated the whole day to complete this work and had sent the first blasts away for feedback by 12 midday. I did not recieve feedback until 7 pm and as such i was unable to spend a lot of time correcting the shots.

Here are the new attempts at the duck and two versions of the turn: -

Duck blast 2: Less rotate on the legs and the hands now just reach for the characters temple/helmet tip. Not so much a crouch as the character simply bends forwards but the geometry won't allow for a real crouch.

Turnblast 2: To show he's looking at something i had the character guard his eyes from the sunlight in a sailoresque way.

Turnblast 2a: In this one the idea is that the character is pointing and shouting to his comrades that the car is coming before the turn.

These blasts may not be used in the final render as Adam outsourced to other animators to get the work done in the evening.

Ice cream 2

2008-06-10T04:41:00.000-07:00

Here is the second ice cream shot. This one has been edited by Dave and blurred to better fit in with the Maya sequence (the 2D looks very flat on top of the 3D). Although the effect is his work the ice cream trickling down the poets back is what i worked on. Sadly the majority of the patterns i drew into the ice cream have been blurred out by the effect.

Final Bridge Blasts

2008-06-10T04:33:00.002-07:00

Here are the final Blasts with tweaks from the bridge sequence:

Car pickup

I had previously made the suggestion of keeping the leg completely still and just moving the arm into shot to avoid the foot bumping around all over the place in front of a close up camera. Despite my suggestion i was asked to try and prevent the bumping from happening. This was an uneventful excercise. Only after actually seeing the problem was the decision made to duplicate a leg and leave it stationary as a stand in. The 1-2 hours of my time spent on this task could have been put to better use animating the grunt blasts in the prior post (i did the bridge sequence on the 9th and the grunts on the 10th - the blog update is staggered).

Car throw

Octopus POV

Car throw 2

On the Whole all these shots look better. The throws have more power and twist, the octopus POv shot is less distracting and a couple of poses have been polished up.

Turn, Duck and dive!

2008-06-10T04:24:00.000-07:00

Here is some last minute animation i have been given to do as part of a crowd scene. I had to animate grunts ducking, diving and turning away and from cars being hurtled towards them.

Turn Zooka

Dive 'Nades

Duck Disarmed

A Year of Learning - summary

2008-06-09T02:25:00.000-07:00

This year has been quite a rollercoaster ride in terms of what i have learnt, acheived and completed in comparison to what i thought i would.

I entered the year with the intent to work on a 2D film or a hybrid film that involved 2D. My pitch had been chosen within the first week so it looked like a 2D film would definately be a possibility but by the end of the selection process no one wanted to work on a 2D film. I found this slightly odd that the film could be chosen but yet no one who chose it would be willing to work on it. I decided that risking my degree on a film i would be working on alone was not a worthwhile risk as the stakes were too great.

In retrospect, having seen how the other groups have composed themselves and seen films being developed over this final year, i do feel that i could have completed my film if i had taken the risk. If i had the oppotunity to try again i would definately go for it. Not only would this have been far more fun to work on it would have given me far more creative freedom in terms of story, design and compositing.

I started work in the War in Wunderland team ready to complete concept work - this was not to be however as the majority of the film is based on existing designs that the film simply characterises. This aspect of the film i think is its weakest point - that fact it isnt completely original - but the zany idea was the most fun and is what appealed to me. Instead of working on the concept designs for this film i outsourced to other groups and did very well for myself in terms of work (i was awarded an A grade for my artist folder). I kept very busy over the first term and put a lot of effort into getting various films concepts finalised. This i expected as concept and drawing are my greatest strengths (or were at the time).

I managed to complete in the first term:

Full character sheets, brief, storyboards and one character model for my own Desert Race.
Expression sheets, storyboards and mood boards for Wunderland.
Character design, prop/exterior modelling and scene development for Cafe de Beiginet.
Thumbnails, storyboards and character design for Rusty Petal.
Minor character design (birds) and font/alphabet design for The Muse.
Environment mood board for The Stamp Collector.
Building concept for Moon smile.
Character concept forThe Day that I Died and Aztec Escape.

This term was very well structured and organised. I met every deadline set and because i managed my time well i was able to build up a large body of work.

The second term was broken into two chunks and i was forced to dived my time between writing and researching my dissertation and completing work for the films. This was a struggle as the dissertation process was very demanding and stressful. The pressure was worse as there was also work to do for the 3rd year films and there were problems with late dissertation feedback that threw me off schedule by 3 weeks. Despite this i do feel that the work i completed in the second term was valuable and i did meet the main deadlines on time (dissertation included).

I do feel though that this term was the least productive of the three. Groups had not finished their concept by this stage and animation was not started till much later in the term. Ideally animation should have started either a the beginning of or in the holiday before the second term. This was not the case and many of the groups then found themselves struggling to meet the final terms deadline. If i had been director of my film i would have finished the concept element of the film in the first term and left a little room to start animating in the holiday. I would have completed the main animation pass by the beginning or middle of the third term and left time to render if necessary and composite. People deal with pressure in different ways and with people relying on their teams to be on time, those who are not due to poor time management in relation to the dissertation causes a knock on effect that prevents others from doing any work.

I managed to complete in the second term (on 3rd year films):

Character animation (Bigbot), Runcycles and Firecycles (Grunts and Robots) for War in Wunderland.

The third term was, surprisingly, my second most productive term. I have been able to focus on animation throughout the second half of term two through to the end of the third term and have done quite a lot of work. I feel i could have done more work on various projects had the work i have done not been bounced backward and forward so much. Having to redo scenes over and over again is not only demoralising but when you have to do it for seemingly picky and unecessary reasons it is drastically more demoralising because it seems like a waste of time.

I understand that directors are the boss and that their vision is the vision we are trying to create. There has to be though, i feel, some compromise at our level of development. Finishing the main first pass of the animation should be the most important task in the second term at least and any tweaks should be made afterwards. That way the core film is complete and you can make it much better in 'layered' steps. Obviously you cannot have your way all the time and one persons ideas will not be the same as anothers. As i was not director or in charge of any of the films i did not have any control over this process and i had to just get stuck in as best as possible. The industry will be no different, just in the industry i'll have the luxury of getting paid. Wunderland was quite frustrating to work on in this respect because my director had very set ideas about what he wants, prehaps because he has been planning this film for a while. this does not make for a bad director or team player, it simply means i found it difficult to work on the animation because i was limited in how creative i was allowed to be. Several bits of animation i liked and thought worked were scrapped because they didn't fit the greater plan.

Despite this the third term has been very productive and i have had the oppotunity to finally do some 2D work as well as 3D animation. This was very refreashing and i definately enjoyed this work more than the 3D work. It is important to vary skills within animation but if i had the oppotunity to work in the digital animation discipline i would.

I also had to work hard on technical aspects of production. This was something i was very worried about as this is where i am weakest in the production pipeline. Unfortunately several films ceased production mid year and that added more students to the remaining films. Technical work was hard to find and i was forced to complete my own tests and research techniques myself. I focused on developing my understanding of lighting and render layers. I learnt alot about how various presets can be used within render layers to achieve different looks that can highlight or blur the main body of work. I focused mainly on the following aspects of rendering:

Luminance Depth
Occlusion
Shadows

While experimenting with all the settings i came up with a couple of tests i could create then compare that would help bolster my technical folder. I looked into creating depth of field (DOF) using two different mediums that i could then compare and contrast. The result would be that i learnt two separate techniques and what would be better for different situations. I created a camera that automatically generated DOF in Maya for one test and used Luminace Depth renders to create DOF in After Effects.

I also experimented with lighting using directional, ambient, point and area lights in Maya. I also taught myself how to use a few new features in Maya - the Sun and Sky lighting system and the Mia_material shader. These two can be combined to create some really realistic and interesting effects. For more information see the relevant posts earlier in the blog.

I offered what i had learnt to the various films but they had already developed a particular lighting and rendering system. Even though my technical work will not be featureed as part of the final film products the lessons and techniques i have learnt are just as valuable to me than if they had been featured.

I managed to complete in the third term:

Character animation (Bigbot, some Red, Gold Robot, Grunts and Workerbot), Reaction cycles for War in Wunderland.
2D animation (Birds, Flowers, Text+symbols) for The Muse.
Lighting Tests in Maya (Sun+Sky System, lit model, lit run/firecycles)

Overall what i have taken from this year is: -

Time management+organisation: I have done well to manage my time over the past year and, if anything, my understanding of why time management and organisation are so important has increased. Seeing various groups struggle to meet the hand in with incomplete renders has shown in particular that to have a finished product you cannot underestimate how early on you need to have started and completed animation and rendering.

Communication: Is of the upmost importance and helps in the management of time and schedules. Emails cannot be relied upon (one misteriously did not reach the recipient and as a result a day was wasted) and people need to be willing to make phone calls to organise work and feedback if they are not working in a group in one place. This is especially true towards the end of a project when time is really of the essence.

Artist: I believe that i have not had the oppotunity to do as much drawing as i would have liked this year, but i have been able to work ona variety of versitile projects with varying styles. This has helped bring me out of my own drawing style or comfort zone and has helped me develop as an artist.

Animation: I have done a lot of animation this year on Wunderland and the Muse. Thankfully some of it was 2D, which i really enjoyed. I feel that where i had problems with speed and weight in year two i have developed my animation technique and i can comfortably judge how fast or how heavy characters should be. Working on character animation has been a lot of fun and i even got to work with a giant death dealing robot. what more could one ask for?

Technical: Technical aspects of aniamtion production remain my weakest aspect. Where i have gone from strength to strength with my artistic and animation skills, technical has suffered greatly. It is not a lost cause however as this year i have become far more familiar with After Effects, Maya lighting and camera operation. I still take no joy in technical work but i am more capable than i was before.

In all it has been a successful year and despite the number of films that have ceased production i think that there is a very diverse set of work from a group of very talented individuals. I am looking forward to seeing the final products at the end of year degree show.

Wunderland Bridge blasts

2008-06-09T02:07:00.001-07:00

Here are the last few shots from Wunderland i have been able to work on. A bridge scene involving Bigbot throwing cars at the monkeys and then turning to face his demise at the tentacles of the octopus.

Here is the Car pickup...

...Car throw...

...Octopus rising from the deep (animated by adam to be put in foreground)...

...and the final throw before the octopus takes him.

Although Adam would like certain things to be tweaked to be the best they possibly can (and i would agree) there is now no room for fiddling about as the deadline is so close and so much is left to be done. A level of compromise needs to be met to achieve a finished hand in on friday.

Final Renders from Wunderland + The Muse

2008-06-09T01:57:00.001-07:00

The main Bigbot shots i completed for Wunderland will be taken directly from the final render. I am obviously not going to take credit for the amazing work that has been put into the textures, lighting and effects but i do want to show my work in context. If the clips are small enough to upload then i will when i get a hold of them but they may be too large to post here so instead will just be put into my animation folders.

In regards to the Muse i am currently trying to negotiate with Dave to try and get the full title sequence and ice cream shots for the same reasons - to show the work in context.

I dont think my showreel would benefit from half finished shots so i want the final renders so that i can confidently present the work in my showreel.

Extra modelling

2008-06-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

I found a little spare time in my schedule this week amongst the animation and PPD hand in so i decided to model and texture a character from my original film pitch. I had planned for it to be a 2D or hybrid film but i thought why not see what one of my characters would have looked like in 3D?! I chose to model an armadillo and here's the result: -

Here is the front perspective and back perspective render shots of the model in greyscale.

After playing around with the lighting (directional and area lighting) i ended up with 'queen' lit armadillos. This lighting would be very useful for horror films or prehaps a remake of the bohemian rhapsody music video!

Here is the model lit normally in the sun+sky system (easier to see detail).

I then tried different texture and shader styles to get a 2D toon look. By experimenting with the toon shader i ended up with this test shader:

...and after more experimentation and tweaking i had a final shader texture like this!

And here is the shader with occlusion combined. It has a bit of a gritty look to it (which would have been good considering the film was set in the desert heat).

Compared to the original image i don't think this was too far off (original image shown below)!

The only thing missing from the 3D model is the number stickers. These i am uncertain how to put on the model but i think it has something to do with a layered texture and is something i am still working on.

Final passes on animation cycles

2008-06-04T23:54:00.000-07:00

To experiment with lighting and rendering i have personally lit and rendered out all my runcycles and firecycles that i completed early in the year. Each has been lit in a colour that emphasises their allegiance in the Wunderland war (Grunts are green and robots yellow). I removed the textures as they were not created by myself and i wanted people who view my showreel to focus on the animation rather than the texture artwork.

Each cycle has its own lighting (and camera rig) which is a combination of directional lights and area lights with one ambient light per scene. The ambient lights are an extremely dark opposite colour to the model (so green= purple ambience, yellow = purple ambience) for shadows and the directional lights are brighter warmer lights like yellow, orange and peach.

In terms of camera i have used a basic 'camera and aim' and for the most part kept the camera passes to a minimum. For the firecycles the camera is static but for the runcycles i have the camera view the run for a full cycle from the front then swing to the side to view a full cycle there. This is so the cycle can be seen from the two main perspectives that are 1) easy to judge and 2) allow for a perspective sweep inbetween.

GruntZookaFirecycle2

RobotRun!

Each cycle has then been rendered out in 2 layers: a master colour layer and an occlusion layer. I am working on a shadow layer and will update if i can get this finished.

Technical: Combination Pass

2008-06-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

Now to further work on the development of the technical skills i have investigated, i have combined the DOF and Sun+sky lighting system into a scene using models from my main film War in Wunderland to show how the two could be used together.

Scene lit solely by Sun&Sky System

Haze settings played with

Blue shift added and horizon tampered with. (looks like a orbiting platform!)

Final render shot (minus LD and Occlusion).

Sunlight Runcycles (minus DOF)

Sunlight Runcycles with DOF (Red is in focus- green is most out of focus).

I think this lighting system could be extremely useful for any film using an outside environment. In Wunderland alone there are several open street scenes with a climax on a San Fransisco bridge. This sequence, which i am working on currently, could also benefit from the use of DOF in long shots and tracking Bigbot through the ocean towards the bridge. Unfortunately Wunderland has already got a lighting system rigged and copied into every single shot to keep the films look consistent. The camera set ups and rendering are also done in a very specific way so unless they have already used the Luminance render pass or DOF cameras they are unlikely to at this stage, Other exterior set films have similar set ups and have been lit by technical specialists.

Despite the fact it won't be implimented in any of this years films i believe that these skills and experiments will be useful in the future in the creation of my own films. Having the knowledge is certainly far more useful than having no knowledge on the subject at all. Researching these methods has also built a foundation and understanding of the more techincal aspects of Maya and AE that i can now build upon and improve in future.

Technical: Depth of Field

2008-06-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

To help me in my understading of cameras, how to use them and how they work in Maya, i have experimented with Depth of Field. Depth of field is something that we take for granted every day as our eyes automatically adjust to light and distance. Duplicating this effect - where objects are blurred depending on where the cameras focus is - is something i thought would be very useful in any groups films. It would add a more realistic camera shot and, depending on the strength of the blur, prehaps even give the audience the impression they are looking through the eyes of a character or passer by in the films themselves.

Depth of field can be achieved numerous ways. I have experimented with two techniques with two programs i am familiar with: After Effects and maya.

After Effects
In after effects it is possible to create depth of field through the use of a Luminance depth (LD) render from Maya. This is an effect created from the preset menu of the render layers in Maya. LD appears similar to the occlusion render pass in that the whole scene becomes black. The only difference is that the LD layer will gradually fade from black to white. This colour change is key to the work done in after effects.

By importing the render layers into after effects and placing the LD sequence on top the scene should look very much like a test LD render shot. From this point figuring out where on the canvas you want to focus the 'camera' is raltively easy. By hovering the mouse cursor over any area of the canvas it is possible to check the top right hand menu for information on what colour values are present at the cursor location. These also act as a map for the blur. Adding the chosen value to the blur focal distance attribute of the Lens blur effect sets the pinpoint focus of the AE 'camera'. Anything outside the radius of this point will gradually blur. To remain in focus the cursor point must be keyed like any other effect. The three following examples show a character running into focus, out of focus and remain in focus using this method.

Character Focus Video

Near Focus Video

Far Focus Video

This technique provides an excellent, smooth blur over a great distance. This can easily be modified to change the blur radius.

Maya
it is possible to create depth of field (DOF) in Maya using a simple camera and aim. By using the distance measurement tool and constraining (point contrain) locators to both the camera and the aim a camera that can judge the distance between it and its focus has already been created. This takes less than 2 minutes and no rendering is required. Constraining the locators to the camera and aim can be done in the outliner menu by control clicking both the desired child and parent nodes and constraining through the constrain menu. The final phase of this process takes place in the connection editor where (once the distanceDimensionShape1 node has been selected) the left column 'distance' must be selected and in the right column 'Focal distance' (not length!!).

Focus
Out of focus

To turn on DOF selecting the camera1Shape node and entering the attribute editor will unlock the DOF menu. Simply tick the box and voila! The video below uses the same footage as the AE tests however it has all been created and rendered through maya - not composited in AE.

Character Focus Video

This technique works well but the further away from the focus the worse the blur. Aspects of this test resemble a cave painting or pastel artwork! There must be a way to reduce the amount of noise and blur within the attribute DOF settings but for the purpose of quick and easy DOF the AE method wins over for the moment. The Maya method also suffers from an incredibly long render time - especially when occlusion is used (150 frames = 4-6 hours).

technical: Sun and Sky test complete

2008-06-04T03:04:00.000-07:00

I finally got the test to work and understand why it does!

I began with a few indistinct cubes to act as the 'buildings' or objects within the scene.

I then applied different coloured lamberts to the cubes, added a directional light source and set up the 'physical sun and sky' in Maya's mental ray globals. The file mia_physicalsky1 is added to the attribute editor. When renders are completed at this stage Maya has set up a horizon line and skyline automatically. The attribute Mia_physicalsun represents the sun and within that attribute, samples define the number of rays used for shadows. There is also options to play around with photons, colour and shadows amongst other things at this stage. The attribute mia_exposure_simple1 is automatically added to the camera to make the camera look the way the human eye sees.

By applying the shader mia_material to the cubes it is possible to experiment and create various combinations for render effects. This shader also has ambient occlusion built in (usually reserved for render layers to my knowledge). Ambient occlusion darkers corners and helps to exaggerate details in the geometry. These cubes do not have a lot of detail but they are quite close together so the shadows inbetween them would be quite dark if ambient occlusion is added. I decided to bump up the reflectivity of my cubes so they would mirror their surroundings slightly - making them look more plastic.

Here's a close up of the reflection of the red cube in the blue.

Mia_physicalsky has a built in haze attribute that when raised can achieve a foggy effect by diffusing the lighting of the scene.

By applying a high integer to the haze attribute there is a drastic red shift (above) in the light spectrum - making everything more yellow, red and orange.

By applying a high negative integer to the haze attribute there is a drastic blue shift (above) in the light spectrum - making everything more blue and purple.

Combining the effects of the sun and sky system in a render with a separate render of the scene's occlusion pass, a fantastic time effect can be created to show the passage of time passing either for sunrise or sunset depending on colours used in the background. This first video shows the first experiment and the second below it shows the same experiment with the sun and sky skyline in the background.

This system is definately worth using when animating scenes that have high quality environment or character models that have lots of detail in the geometry. Simple shapes like these cubes work for tests but the best results can be acheived using highly detailed models.

Using the sunlight on one of the Wunderland models, the following tests show how simply manipulating the main sun directional light can create easy to use shadows. The first test shows the light simply turning (erratically) and the second shows it turning up - obscuring the model from the light and simulating a sunset.

Shadow manipulation

'Sunset'

The Muse Occlusion Renders

2008-06-02T05:04:00.000-07:00

Here is an example of the render shots from the Muse. Dave has asked that i not put up all the blasts so that the film is not spoilt should anyone view the blog. I felt that there is no need to put all of them on the blog as they are all show the same process and effect. Here is an example from the first scene. All the elements in the blast have been added toa render layer set with the Occlusion pass preset. The settings have been edited to allow for a faster render time and then batch rendered in tiff sequence. These images are then ready to be added into an editing software.

Renders/Ice Cream/lighting update

2008-06-02T03:37:00.000-07:00

The Muse

Here is the first shot of the 2D ice cream splat for the Muse film (done in 2D Flash over imported Maya render files). The second part will be added later on this week once i have added a shadow to the udnerside of the ice cream and completed the highlights.

Dave has asked me to set up and create several render passes for his characters for The Muse. This requires me to set up Maya to run an Occlusion render pass through Mental Ray. To do this i added all the character elements (body, props) and assign it to a new render layer set to the occlusion preset. Rather than run the render in basic format, scaling down the sample rate of the render but raising the sample rate of the character and props allows for faster renders with no loss of render quality.

I have been experimenting with the sun and sky system in Maya, a system that allows the user to simulate real sunlight that affects the Maya scene and geometry. This is a new feature of the 8.5 update of Maya and i thought i would be a useful addition to several films who have scenes set outside. My first test went well for the most part until somewhere, somehow i went wrong and ended up with an odd prism rather than a well lit textured cube (see below).

It's hard to notice exactly what is in the scene but there should be a rectangle and a plane - both textured in red and green respectively. Unfortunately something in the process of developing my understanding of the sun and sky system has led to the rectangle becoming a transluscent object and the ground texture disappearing altogether. The actual sky isn't even visible. Prior to this it had been a really vivid blue gradient. More tests are required!

render tests+lighting1

2008-05-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

These pictures and video show experimentation with mayas render settings and lighting. the first picture his simply been lit with a variety of lights (2 area, 2 directional) to give the grey character some colour and basic shadow.

The image below is an occlusion render pass. This effect stresses the proximity of shapes to one another. By using occlusion areas of deep shadow (such as under the hat and under the characters feet) become much darker. It also has the bonus of creating a specled effect over the geometry as the dark areas dissappear and fade to white.
This video shows the two passes and a third (a shadow layer) all merged.

I hope to play around some more with lighting and render tests in the coming week as i animate my final pieces for Dave and Adam.

Wunderland Tank Tracks

2008-05-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

Here are animated texture tank tracks! originally drawn in illustrator by Adam, I have animated the still image in Flash by converting parts of the image to symbols and distributing them across multiple layers. by Motion tweening the majority of the parts the animation has worked out incredibly smooth(despite the many pratfalls along the way trying to get it to work).

By using masks i have hidden large tread pin lines so you can only see the ones on the tank. unfortunately using motion paths did not work in tandem with the masking so one method or the other had to be used. Masking was faster and gave good results where the motion path required every individual tread pin to be guided by hand. This was not going to be time efficient given the looming deadline so masking was chosen.

The tank tracks, tread-pins, wheel highlights and wheels have all been animated.

ThePoet - Ha

2008-05-27T03:33:00.000-07:00

These blasts were intended to be used in the sequence with the laughing ducks. The tests include variations of the phrase 'Ha!' and how it would explode onto the screen. These have been fazed out by the same decision to faze out the text in favour of simple icons and symbols.

Flower Cycles for the Poet

2008-05-27T03:29:00.000-07:00

Here is all the flower cycles created for The Poet.

Wunderland update

2008-05-27T03:12:00.000-07:00

Here is a blast of the small yellow robot leader marching to a halt, avoiding a missle and preparing to disassemble.

Poet Changes+ Wunderland progress

2008-05-27T02:48:00.000-07:00

The Poet

The Poet film has changed dramatically. No longer will dave be using 2d words for his characters as the final look has become messy. Instead he s going to use animated symbols - still from the font i designed but this way the screen isnt cluttered. Less is more.

The ice cream test shown here was a basic test to try and show a ball of ice cream hitting and sliding down a target. the final product however needs only to be the splat now so this willbe far easier to animate.

War in Wunderland

I have been given the task of animating the tank tracks in flash for Red's Wunderland tank. This will require me to use several technical aspects of the flash program to complete the task the way Adam wants me to. I have to use a mask to complete the track itself, a motion path for the track teeth and timed movie clips for the wheels inside the track.

This is an incredibly helpful assignment as i feel that my technical folder is severely lacking and although i have done effects and text blasts for dave in post, i feel more is needed. This task will help bolster this folder. Once this task is completed i will return to Bigbot and animate him throwing cars of a bridge.

2008-05-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

here's the final cut of the quack animation.

Muse Update 2

2008-05-20T03:01:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks i have been very busy with the 2D title sequence which involves one fully animated sequence duplicated at various points to create a full fly cycle. This cycle was so well recieved that another was created (in pink rather than blue) to compliment it.

the basic blast is below (minus the duplications which were finished for the final edit in after effects).

Here is an example of the bird colour scheme in pink: -

All the main edits of the lettering animation are unavailable for blogging as Dave wants to keep the final cuts under wraps until the final film is complete. There have been a few changes to the original tests i did. They are as follows: -

The quack? sequence was rescaled to fit the HD cut with little or minimal changes made to size and scale of the letters.

The Waa sequence was completely redone however.The text had to be rescaled, moved into a diagonal tangent and positioned so that the word fit across the screen but more artistically than before. We used drop shadow to crate a letter shadow across the character but applied a mask so it only cast shadow across the area of the character it passed rather than the whole scene. All the 'A's in the WAA had to be redesigned and reversed so that the brown 3d depth was cast in the opposite direction. once this was completed we created a dissolve effect using coloured fractal noise to make the word disappear near the end of the scene.

The second waa scene was animated directly onto the final cut of the film and featured multiple A's flooding out of the poets mouth onto his book and beyond. Having completed this scene we realised to keep the continuity of the film the previous scene (described in length above) needed to be reworked to accomodate the new speed of the text. d'oh!

As mentioned before these cuts are unavailable for blogging as Dave wants to keep the content censored until the film is complete.

Muse update

2008-05-20T02:53:00.000-07:00

By using PNG files instead of Jpegs we can utilise a better quality picture and avoid using the green screening and green highlights. Now all the pictures feature the background alpha'ed out so it saves time to create the test sequences and it looks crisper. Here is an example A (other letters are all very much the same) and a string of random symbols to prepresent profanity.

Today i have completed several tests using these letters. The first wave of tests included Quack?,Nooo, Wait and Waa. Each sequence's letters move and react differently depending on the situation. The second wave will be updated later on this week.

Letter styles

2008-05-06T03:00:00.000-07:00

The final colours for the 2D letters are yellow and brown - matching the title sequence. The video below shows an early test for letter decoration using fan-flowers.

The Poet Update

2008-05-06T02:49:00.001-07:00

Here are the recent updated works for David Bate's The poet. Letter tests will be updated later.

Below are the pencil concepts for the 2D dickie birds.

Once Dave had chosen his preffered design i completed the colour concept sheets complete with alternate feathers, colours, beaks and styles.

The flight test shows the bird in action! the birds are designed to be fluid - like tear drops gliding down a cheek - so their bodies move more like droplets of water than real birds. The image above the test shows how the video was constructed - using parented objects and flexible skelton guides.

Term 3 Week 4 Update

2008-04-29T02:40:00.000-07:00

War in Wunderland

Since the beginning of term animation has been the order of the day. I have successfully finished 2 complete scenes with a third to be finished with my assigned character Bigbot - the giant mechanical menace from War in Wunderland.

Prior to animating in each scene i had to set up a camera that mimiced the one in the blockout and position the character. I operated the scene with only Bigbot present so i have had no focus for any of his reactions or movements other than that shown in the blockouts. The rig is similar to the previous monkey and robot models so i had no problem adapting to using Bigbot. When i was given him to animate he did not have any expressions so i couldn't add any facial movement to exaggerate feeling. I later got a rig upgrade which allowed me to move the mouth but the eyes are still motionless.

The first scene see's Bigbot emerge from a crater and walk aggressively towards the hero, Red.

This is the scene i had the most problems with. This is really because i was getting used to the character, how he moves in comparison to the other robots. I had the same mentality animating Bogbot as the monkeys i had previously animated and the robot . Obviously, as he is roughly 10 times the size of the other characters he wouldn't move in the same way. It took several tries to get the right weight for his walk and movements. I eventually got there but that is why it has taken 2 weeks to finish this one file because (amongst the other work) i have had to keep working into this cycle. I am pleased with the result though as is Adam and both this shot and shot 2 are green lit for the film.

Timing was another initial problem as i thought the file had to be the same length as the blockout. The result was far too fast for a large object like Bigbot. I later found out that i had control over the scene length (to a degree) and that i didn't have to stick to the same blockout time - just the keyframes. This made things flow much faster in other cycles and scenes.

The second scene see's Bigbot reach in to grab Red, but as he does he is shot and he is forced to step back.

This scene proved to be far easier iin terms of setup and completion. With a few minor tweaks i finished this scene relatively quickly. I also animated an extra second or two to add a roar at the end of the sequence with was not originally favoured by the team but now there has been a rethink and the roar is in! My mentality was that corned animals will lash out in self defense so why would a 10 story robot with a missile lodged in his hand be any different?

The third scene see's Bigbot retreating from the monkey army (backwards) to what he hopes will be safety. I managed to complete the first pass near perfectly for this cycle. This week i need to tweak some of the leg shots (as Bigbot looks like he has rickets/a full diaper) near the end to seal the sequence and move onto the next.

My forth sequence will be Bigbot making his way towards the sea to escape. This cycle will follow sequence 3 and i will recieve the file later in the week.

The playblasts are huge so i am going to render them out at a smaller scale to add to this site. Blasts of the shots and pictures to be taken and added by the end of the week.

The Poet

I have just recieved the most recent After Effects package so i can start Dave's work now. He has also asked me to design some small, cute birds to be animated over the top of his film (in 2D). These will be finished by the end of the week.

Fundraising/Film Marketing

2008-04-15T02:15:00.000-07:00

I had an idea at the beginning of term to raise money for the end of year degree show and/or promote our film - War in Wunderland.

By designing prints to apply to mini badges (a popular unisex accessory to bags/belts/hats etc) we could offer unique designs to the students of Ravensbourne and the public that would not be otherwise available in a popular format.

This site: www.badgesforbands.com, is one that i found that may be useful. They also produce tshirts/flyers and Boxes (complete with a selection of everything).

You are allowed to use 2 designs per badge pack you buy and i thought we could have character related badges linked to iconic parts of our film (e.g. the robots heat rate monitor and the monkey army's star insignia).

These could be sold at uni or to friends and family. Public selling requires permits and may be too time consuming considering our workload. The Badges are also something small that can be attached to invitations to the degree show (where we can have the product available for visitors to take away) or to CV's to post graduate employers.

This idea has been run past the team but as yet a decision has not been made. Updates to follow.

Runcycles update 1

2008-04-15T02:02:00.000-07:00

Here is the second bazooka grunt fire cycle (underslung to over shoulder fire). The grenade firecycle is to follow shortly.

Term 3 - Animation

2008-04-15T01:45:00.000-07:00

The holiday has been slow. i have not recieved any work from my project lead as he has organised to pass work on at the beginning of this term. My other project links either had no work they could hand out or did not reply to my efforts to contact them. To make up that lost time i am going to have to work extremely fast to bolster my folders.

This term I have opted to do the following: -

Continue animating for War in Wunderland (my first set of blasts can be found below for BigBot in the city).

Letter animation for the Poet (this will allow me to use technical skills in order to put aniamtion into maya through other programs using various means - a post-production effort). n.b. designed alphabet shown below - see animation ideas previously updated in the blog.

Cafe de B... - i am hoping to do some animation for this project - namely the waiter i helped design - but over the holiday i had no work to complete from this group. I had asked several times to help model the cafe interior props but i recieved no feedback or reference photos with which to work. This was a shame as i spent the majority of the holiday preparing to leave university finding houses etc. than actually working on the project.

War in Wunderland - Here are the first blasts of Bigbot emerging and attacking Red before he retreats!

Lettering (Alphabet for the Poet)

This is the plain text (patterns to be added later and updated). Each letter has roughly 3 variants. (sticky/bold and bold curvy). The plan is to add patterns into the text and then add the text into maya or after effects and animate it. This stage is extra concept but the animation and placement will be aniamtion and technical .

Fundraising - Animation had a fundraising event the first thursday of this term to raise money for our end of term show. i had been asked to draw up a evil clown to be used as a poster flyer. this is shown below: -

concept1

concept2

final
more to be added later!

End of Term 2

2008-04-15T01:33:00.000-07:00

This update is a long time coming. With the problems i had with the dissertation deadline (having it move backward taking up more time) i had been busy with the extended essay for longer than planned. This led to a mess in my schedule and less updates.

Blogger did also prevent me from uploading all my blasts - prehaps too many at once slows the transfer down. Since the previous update i completed grenade monkey/bazooka monkey runcycles and fire cycles. The bazooka monkey i did an extra run and fire for as well as an underarm slung rocket variant.

Here are those run cycles: -

Gruntbazooka1

Gruntbazooka2

Gruntbazooka2 tweak (less bounce on gun)

Gruntbazookafire1

Gruntgrenade1 (This was a flawed run that i had to do again. I had hoped to have the grunt shaking the grenades wildly but it looks horrible and the shakes are far too fast. Instead i opted for the better run (shown below in gruntgrenade2) which is a more regular run )

gruntgrenade2

grunt grenade fire 1 to be added next update along with news of term 3.

military chimps

2008-03-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

the robots were my first attempt at using adams skeletons. the robot run was a little too slow but can easily be shortened and the speed inreased by tweaking the graph editor.

the following videos are from the space monkey soldiers: bazooka andd grenade variant. the bazooka troop has two separate runs and fires. the grenade troop's fire animation is in development at the moment.

robot cycles

2008-02-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

Above is the run cycle for adams robot and below the walk cycle. The problems i faced before were due to joints within joints. the smaller joints were inaccessible and the larger ones the manipulators. now it is easy to manipulate the models.

week 5 update

2008-02-11T00:36:00.000-08:00

Here is the finished counter top and props for ash's cafe de B...

Unfortunately i was unable to complete the animation i was set due to a technical error. i was planning on completing a couple of walk cycles for adam's wunderland but i was unable to access thejoints or handles of the model in order to manipulate it. they had all been locked out as part of the rig and there seemed to be no way to animate the model. i have sent an email to adam explaining the problem and hopefully he will email me back soon.

Text background animation tests

2008-02-07T02:02:00.000-08:00

(Above) Swirl test. Created on flash with wacom tablet. This test was designed to get an idea of how the aniamtion in the background of the text animation may work. the text is on a loop of squash and stretch.

(above) Ribbon test. Same as above but with progressive streaming coloured ribbons.

(above) ribbon flower test. same as above but flowers bloom as the ribbons progress forwards.

(Above) quack test. pop lettering for daves ducks.

These tests were the final few chosen by dave that he really liked. since completion, we have both been designing text to be used within the animation and whether the text will be animated itself.

J

week 5: ash's bits and pieces

2008-02-06T05:01:00.000-08:00

here are the modelled elements for ash's mis-en-scene. there are 3x mailbox, 3x bins and 4-5x street posts. These are all built in various parts so they can be mixed and matched and rebuilt to look different.

Week 5 Update

2008-02-06T02:16:00.001-08:00

Wunderland

This has been another slow week. I have completed the building texture for adam after having to tidy up the outlines for adam and i also added some depth to the detail using darker coloured shadow. i will resize this and update the post with a picture later. Adam has also sent me the robot rig to begin run cycle and walk cycle animation tests so that is my task for this week coming.

Cafe de B

For ash i researched several different types of rubbish bin, mailbox and street sign for his background outside the cafe. I also looked into coffee shop counters. these will all be modelled this following week. the research is below:

Dave BatesFor dave i have worked on various types of animated text and styles of text for his characters words. Unfortunately he was not in this week so i could not share my designs with him. I am currently waiting on a reply to an email to see whether i should work on my ideas or his own.

Term 2 Weeks 1-4 + Xmas recap

2008-01-31T03:27:00.001-08:00

Over the previous term I focused on the production of artwork for my concept/artist folder. This includes colour work/drawings/inkings/digital art and storyboards. My next folder is an animation folder so i hope to be working on ash reemul's and adam smith's projects animating various characters be they primary or secondary.

These first 4 weeks have been quite slow in terms of work as many people are wrapped up in their dissertation production or in house work. I have not wanted to take on a lot of artwork as that folder has been completed. I have taken on some building texturing for adam, lettering animation for dave bates and building modelling for ash reemul since the beginning of this term. The pictures are shown below.

Dave Bates
Dave has not only charged me with the task of completing lettering animation but also the design of the letters as well. These letters will be used amongst several key words in his film, spoken by characters, and each word requires a different font (updates will show text i have designed and that have finally been chosen by dave). these then need to all be individually coloured and animated. So far i have completed several basic flash animation tests, a few of which dave has oked and likes. Due to space issues not all the videos can be uploaded, so i will upload the files he was happy with (see separate update - Daves Tests.

It is important to note that these are basic tests to get an idea of delivery, shape, movement and flair. They are by no means a finished product.

Ash Reemul

Adam Smith

The building for adam has been quite hard to complete as i have had to start learning a whole new program to do the work. Using Adobe Illustrator is both exciting and frustrating as it is a new package, and a new skillset i am learning, yet it is so different to Adaobe Flash that i am finding it hard to adapt. The line tool, gradient tool and colouring system are completely different and take far longer to use than if the work was completed in flash. This means that i feel like i am wasting productive time trying to compensate for the odd controls. Adam is using illustrator for all his work as that is the package he is most compfortable with. This is liely to happen in the industry to i am trying to learn the software as soon as possible. This building has yet to be completed. I still have to clear up some lines and colour the windows.

I completed 4-5 buildings for ash using reference photos given to me by him. I was not given a size comparison, bottom reference for doorways and ground floor windows or an idea of how the buildings would be used however. I ssumed they would be in a line of a street (hence no sides) and, unsure of height, i separated roofs and layers midsections so they could be duplicated and joined at ash's leisure, depending on what he wanted. He was pleased with the work i had done, although i do not usually like to hand in unfinished work myself. I have not been contacted as yet in regards to completing the rest of the buildings.

No one has yet to enter the animation phase so i have taken the time to write my dissertation now and finish the draft before the animation starts, thereby saving time and stress. I will be able to focus on the animation rather than the essay in the second half of term.

Week Nine Update

2007-11-27T11:01:00.000-08:00

It's tuesday and, as planned, I have completed the character study for Ash (Macromedia Flash MX2004) and pencils.
The penicls outline the characters for the digital inkwork. I have not coloured the piece yet as I am uncertain if Ash has finalised his colour scheme.

Week Eight

2007-11-25T08:05:00.000-08:00

This week has been incredibly slow. All the groups are so busy with essays and animatics that I have not been able to get any decent work off of anyone. I had offers for some exterior work from a couple of groups but the people were not available mid wee for me to collect it from them.

Early in the week I took on an alternate exterior design of Ash's cafe, he already had one design but wanted an alternative. I researched tables and buildings and came up with the design featuring wide windows and flower beds as asked for. I had also been tasked to complete a character montage of all three major characters in the cafe but I did not recieve the picture reference until late saturday night. This picture will have to wait until next week to be uploaded as i have not had time to sketch anything i am happy with at this time.

Where I have not had a lot to do this week artistically, it has given me time to complete both my essays for M.Hirsh and G.Munden respectively. I have also had the opptunity to sit down and research my dissertation subject. I also drafted a more professional timetable.

Cafe de B...

As I mentioned above, this week I completed the external view of the cafe - with plans to complete a character study this coming week. The cafe was drawn and coloured in flash mx 2004 using a wacom tablet.

Week Seven Blog

2007-11-18T02:19:00.000-08:00

This week I have had no work form any of my major groups. Due to the short timescale of our terms, now is roughly the time when people are churning out their animatics or blockouts. Seeing as I completed storyboards for War In Wunderland, Adam and Caspar are completing the blockout. As I am an extra in Ash's group he is completing this task 'in house'. I have not heard from Kyle at all and I have not recieved any work from Becca.

This gave me a completely free week to play with. I managed to write my first draft of Gareth Munden's business essay and take on some extra concept/colour/environment work from Jessica. For this project I was asked to create some buildings that could be used in the film. These buildigns did not have to be realisitically drawn, just clear and colourful enough for the group to get an idea of what they liked or disliked. The only rule was that the buildings were all warm colours (reds) and there is one building that is more blue as it is not lit by lanterns.

I designed the elements of the buildings (so Jessica can take them and create her own) and formed 7 myself. 6 of these have blue alternatives. I also coloured up 3 sets of 3 lanterns in different colours based on the research Jessica provided me. I then designed 2 dragons to be used as decoration. I drew the pictures in pencil and coloured them digitally in Flash.

Dragons

These dragon designs can be found on the buildings, windows, lanterns and fences I designed. The two black dragons (done in Flash) were the 2 I favoured and used in the final concept designs.

Lanterns

Blue lanterns are not used in festivals but I coloured one anyway as I had an idea prehaps the reason the odd house out was blue because its lanterns cast blue light. This could be because the lantern itself is blue, because the lantern has a mystical blue flame or prehaps it is not even lit (so in the dark the clour would seem blue/purple/grey rather than red/orange and gold).

Building Bits (like lego but less fun)

The designs below are the elements I used to create my building concepts. These pieces can be scaled up, down, out or in to create larger or smaller versions of the same thing. The idea was to create a basic idea of what the buildings would look like so the designs are all relatively simple.

The first set of pieces are the doors, windows and fences used to decorate the blank wall templates. The next pieces are the various roofs. Some elements are more ornate than others.

Buildings

I think these are all very different from one another and give a good range of different building designs. Structure design is not a strong point of mine, I am more involved in character design, so I hope these are what Jessica wanted or sort of imagined when she asked for building concept.

Week 6 Update

2007-11-11T08:42:00.000-08:00

Week 6 was another week filled with colour! I spent the entire week working on artwork for War in Wunderland. I did not manage to aquire any work from the other groups. They are all either in a stage where all the work is being completed 'in-house' in their three's or they were not available for me to contact them in uni.

War In Wunderland

This week I completed 3x character preliminary expression sheets (9x expressions per sheet, 3x sheets in pencil then 3x sheets in digital colour - the colour ones are available to view online) and 54x colour concept alternative monkey colours. The alternative colours were designed to be different from 'Red' so he would stand out from the other working monkeys. I drafted 18x colour schemes for the monkeys (including 'Red' who is actually pink) then created a light and dark colour scheme for each one (each colour scheme has a light, normal and dark scheme so we know which colours to use in bright light or dark shadow). The beauty of producing so many colours together is that even if some are not picked, ones from the dark or light sheets may be - then these can be drafted up with lighter and darker colour schemes. These are all shown below: -

Here are the expression sheets. I went for basic expressions to begin with so that the favoured ones could be chosen and any more exaggerated or obsure ones could be drawn up if they were missing. At one point the monkeys talk so when the sound comes in for that segment I will draft out the lip sync mouths. Here is Red, Robot and Secret Agent Monkey.

As I mentioned before there isn't an awful lot going in the main groups i'm working for at the moment so I may have to branch out and steal some work off of the other groups in order to keep busy next week.

Week Five update

2007-11-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

Week Five

Week five was a colourful week! This week I spent most of my time researching colour schemes and styles as well as creating mood boards for many of the storyboards I completed last week. I also had more formative for the movie projects so I know now where my weak points are and where to focus my efforts.

New Media

Although I am still using the same art programs on the computer to digitally draw/ink and paint, I recieved a wacom tablet for my birthday. This equipment essentially acts like a digital pencil/pen/brush and makes digital artwork much easier to create. I am still getting used to using it on my PC (as i have only had experience with tablets on MACs) as well as getting used to the new digital airbrush (which I am still experimenting with). Hopefully the tablet will help me turnaround my weekly work faster than before!

Formative

My formative went rather well. I was pleased with the feedback I recieved. The main criticism i recieved was that I did not have enough research, concept or colour work. There were areas that could be improved upon as well but those were the key areas I needed to work on. Up until this point I have produced a wide array of pencil work (mainly storyboards) and some digital work (with few colour concepts). With this thought in mind I spent this week focusing on reasearch, colur concept and mood. I have researched colour/mood and style for Becca, from which I have created three mood boards of the beach in her story. I then did colour concept boards (based on my own storyboards) for Adam, to get an idea of lighting and colour in his scenes.

The Stamp Collector

Up until this point I have not had a lot to do for Becca. She has seemed quite content to continue on working on her project without any need for my help. This week however I got pro-active and offered to do some mood boards for her (specifically mood boards of the the hawaiian beach featured at the end of the film). I researched into various beach houses from varying time eras and also into style and colour. Here is some of the research that has influenced my designs: -

This final picture is actually a stamp, which I thought was quite fitting considering the films subject! These pictures (all sourced from the internet) show a wide range of architecture and colour. I was particularly drawn the the fantastic blues and pinky-reds associated with the hawaiian skyline. I have tried to emulate these colours in my mood boards shown below. This is the same picture of a beach but 'lit' differently for different times of day. There is the early morning sunlight, sunset and night time boards: -

The morning board focuses on daylight colours: blue, orange, green.

The sunset board focuses on warmer colours: pinks, reds, oranges and yellows.

The night time board focuses on cool colours: blues, purples, greys and tans.

War in Wunderland

As I mentioned in my opening paragraphs, this week I coloured some of my storyboards from last week for Adam's War in Wunderland project. We sat down as a group of three (including Caspar) and picked out all the storyboards we thought would demonstrate the widest variety of colour in different circumstances. We chose a few from the opening scene which are quite drab and dark then a few from the fight sequence which are rife with colour and then some from the climax of the film which are set underwater. From roughly 77 storyboards we chose 9 pictures to colour - and here they are :-

This opening board was chosen to show how boring and grey the office is. I added bloodshot eyes to show monkey may have been working here for hours on end without breaks. THis is a pretty bleak and mundane colour scheme. Money stands out very well here so we (the audience) instantly recognise him and what he is doing.

This board was chosen to show monkey in a darker colour scheme for when he enters the alley and meets secret agent monkey. All the colours here are closer to black than white in the digital colour spectrum.

This board was chosen to show allthe robots massing together in the streets. Unfortunately there have not been many designs fo rhte robots 'OKed' at this time so I stuck to the yellow and brown colour palette of the original robot design and created a colour silhouette of the raging mob in darker versions of those colours. I made all the eyes 'glow' red to make the robots more ferocious and I also coloured the sky red to dramatise and emulate their war-walk.

Here we have the opposite. All the monkeys/space monkeys are busting onto the scene in their tanks, lorries, helicopters and jeeps. The sky here is a more natural blue in contrast to the previous board.

This board shows the tank shell exploding behind the majority of the robot army.

Here we have the Wunderland naval octopus whisking the robot off of the bridge. This board is useful because it has the octopus' colour scheme in light and dark due to perspective and distance in relation to the camera postition.

This board has two versions. We chose this to get an idea of what the sea would look like underwater as the robot was dragged down to his doom. The first board has the robot in his true colours (yellows etc) and the second has him in blues. The reasoning behind hte second one was i wanted to show that as light does not penetrate particularly deep in the ocean, the robot may look more blue or green the further he went down.

This is a follow up board to the previous two. The robot is so far gone his eyes have turned off and he is barely visible. The octopus, previously a silhouette, has now completely been obscured by the lack of light.

This final board is from the end sequence where secret agent monkey looks on at a victory for monkeys everywhere before he leaves to the next mission in his banana-copter. i wanted to do a sunset skyline so the helicopter could fly off into the sunset for the ending but Adam said he had never planned to animate the helicopter taking off and leaving, only the monkey walking towards it. This picture was based on a couple of boards I accidentally left out of the blog last week so here they are: -

That's pretty much the workload form this week! The only piece of work I offered to do for Ash was a perspective drawing. I have not had time to do this so I plan on completing that this monday.

Week Four Update

2007-10-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

This week I spent the majority of my time pondering over my essay topics and storyboarding. I completed the remaining four storyboards for Kyle and then completed roughly 70 storyboards for Adam. I was given until the end of term to complete them but I thought the earlier the better. Now i have more time to spend on other concept artwork and research.

The storyboards are all mechanical pencil on paper. Kyle storyboards are, as before, more graphic and comic like than Adams. This befits the style of Kyles story/film. Adam's storyboards are all relatively the same as his thumbnails bar a few. These few I changed the angles and perpsective of the shot to better fit the film.

Kyle Elliot - Aspiration Point

Adam Smith - War in Wunderland

There is one storyboard missing currently. This will be added at a later date.

Week Three blog

2007-10-21T00:11:00.000-07:00

This week has mostly been a follow-up week to work I have previously done. I spent some of my time on model sheets and the rest on thumbnailing and storyboarding. In terms of finished 'product' for my folders I have not produced as much as before, but I have been working on my essay plans for my two essay units as well.

In week two I had the oppotunity to experiment with colour with some colour concept designs for Ash's cafe characters. I felt that by using pastel colours it enhanced the rustic look of the elderly. They certainly wouldn't be wearing neons at that age! (unless they were Merlin from Disney's Sword in the Stone, hip beyond his years in bright orange bermuda shorts). This week I have gone back to drafting sketches using pencil (which decided to die on me - again - for the third time. Curse you Pentel!).

Freelance Work

I have freelanced out a little bit this week as Adam still did not need any current help with War in Wunderland. I did some character drafts considering shape and size for Jonathan Pryce's Aztec Escape, and a simple character study of a little girl for Asa Wilkman's The Day that I Died. These are both shown below.

I originally had thought of bats hung upside down mocking the intrepid explorers entering the Aztec temple in Aztec Escape. The idea of the lad's away from the wives having a chin-wag over the 'sporting event' of choice (i.e. seeing humans attempt to navigate all the temple traps successfully) sounded fantastic. Looking back on the designs though they are all a little too flat and have no shape to them, bar the bottom right one. This character caught Jono's eye but he decided that he did not want bats to be the main characters. Looking down the list of acceptable alternatives I chose frogs instead (below):-

These designs are far more fun and varied than the ones above. I think the charm lies in the bulging eyes. There is plenty of scope for funny gags, expressions and animation in a character with eyes like that. I still kept a couple of fat body shapes in there to juxtapose the tiny, more wirey ones. My favourites are the top three. I think these work quite well together as a whole but the scale from large to lazy to small using pretty much the same character idea interests me. The odd shape of the right hand frog is quite comic. I do not know how Jono plans to proceed with the dialogue and animation in the film but I would hope he has the frogs zap a couple of flies here and there with their extendable tongues (fast food anyone?). This is, of course, if he decides to use frogs at all! I have yet to hear whether or not these designs will be used. As with the bats, this picture was drawn in mechanical pencil.

The Day that I Died is a poetic story of tragedy turned to happiness when a girl dies and becomes reborn through death to a better place. The real world is colour drained and almost lifeless - mirroring the little girl who is close to death - but the afterlife is everything she wants it to be, colourful and exciting (this is my understanding of the film - quite like Corpse Bride in terms of colour). Wheni drafted up the sketch I had completely free reign over design and materials used. It simply had to be a little girl on Death's door (so to speak). I drew two pictures of the same girl, one in hospital garb with an I.V. and one in a summer dress. The first girl is the girl near death, she has dark circles around her eyes and she is bald from all the treatments she has recieved to cure her illness. I had her hunched over to show her phsyical frailty. The I.V. is oversized to emphasize just how small and young she is. The Grim Reaper in the shadow was something I added to literally say - "you are about to die". The second girl has all her hair and a beaming smile. She is far more open and expressive in body language showing she is perfectly alright (albeit dead) in the afterlife. I have no idea what the afterlife looks like so swirly clouds sufficed for this early draft. This picture was drawn in mechanical pencil. I do not know as yet if any of these ideas have been chosen, but to this point i have not had any follow up talks about them.

Groups - Week 3

As mentioned before there was little work to be done on some of the groups I am involved in so i freelanced out a little bit. Here is the update for the main four groups (and the synopsis I missed last week for my fourth group):-

War in Wunderland: Adam told me this week that the storyboard artist he had planned has dropped out last minute so I snapped that job up with a big smile on my face! I have planned to begin these storyboards this week coming (monday onward) to be finished within two weeks, I hope. The reasoning behind the long turnaround is that I am working on the boards on my own with all my other work on top. There are a lot of reference thumbnails so it is going to be time consuming. Adam has given me to the end of term to complete these but I want to get them done sooner so whoever works on the animatic can start working on timing. More updates on this part of the project next week.

Cafe de B...: Ash finalised three character designs this week. He was happy with the old man and the two coffee shop employees. He had said previously that he was less keen on the old woman and i did change the eyes as asked but it still was not what he was looking for - which is fair enough. Three out of four isn't bad is it?! The next step was to complete the model sheets for the old man and coffee employees (see below). These model sheets were completed on Macromedia Flash 2004 and they all share the same hand template. On one of the old man's model sheets there is a hand template that can be copied and modelled separately. By reapplying textures to the same model hand this will save Ash time modelling and rigging/weighting.

The same re-texturing idea can be applied to the coffee employees bodies - which are essentially the same. The normal employee can be textured with normal trousers and shoes as the rock/goth employee can be textured with jeans and converse sneakers. The red highlight on the old man is designed to allow the modellers to model him with or without his blazer jacket. I was not sure whether he was going to have it on in the cafe or whether it would be hung up on a rack. Other than these model sheets I have not been asked to do anything more for Ash at this time.

The Stamp Collector: Becca has yet to task me any jobs so I have concentrated on other concept areas this week.

Aspiration Point: This story was omitted from last weeks blog as I completely forgot the title! Aspiration Point, a Kyle Elliot story, follows a young boy and his passion for fishing. Set in a fantasy realm where humans hate sentient robots (much like the end hours of I, Robot) the boy is harrassed by a young inquisitive machine who is actually much better at fishing than him. The two eventually land themselves in a scuffle with a wild beast/machine. When they exit the skirmish alive it is as friends. What interested me about this story was the strong visual artwork that accompanied the pitch (very heavily influenced by Manga Japanime etc, which is a very distinguishable style) and the underlying racist storyline. Whether or not it is intentional, the story shows a young white boy constantly ignoring and alienating the other young 'boy'. This alienation and prejudice becomes discrimination when the white boy throws mud at the other. The white boy then gets his come-uppance in the form of someone or something much larger and stronger than he. Before he is squashed the other 'boy' intervenes and together the two save themselves from the threat. The heart behind intervening even after he had mud thrown in his face really appealed to me. The overt story of acceptance and friendship and the subtle reference to racial equality shows this story has really been thought about strongly.

Since last week I had drafted an idea for a wild mecha beast, which I then re-drew this week. The original was a warthog - Pumbaa from Lion King meets Lord of the Flies - with rat teeth. Not incredibly scary but this is after all an all ages film.

The second design is far more scary. Kyle wanted the beast to be a wild machine, so here we have a wild mechanical wolf complete with chest cavity power source and piston driven legs. Neither of these two designs have been confirmed as yet.

I thumbnailed the middle sequence of the film, Kyle took the end fight sequence and Rob Evans took the beginning fishing sequence. My thumbnails are shown below: -

These thumbnails were then drafted into first stage storyboards. By this I mean that the ideas are still lose and succeptable to change as the story develops and progresses. I deliberately did not conform to the conventional picture in a box storyboard formula for two reasons. 1) Kyle's attention to detail is insane. There is no way i am going to draw that much into the storyboards one after another and so on. A lot of the backgrounds have been left out so they can be added later digitally when they are finalised. What is important I think is that the characters be shown doing or looking the way they should at the time they should be. This helps the animator with poses and the backgrounds can be added afterward. 2) the style of the story and the artwork begs for more dynamic and interesting boards. The artwork lends itself so well to comic art that the boards would look far more interesting as a storyboarded comic so to speak. These are all shown below (with the exception of the final few pictures as the beast has yet to be finalised. I represented it as a giant american hard-gum in the thumbnails but for storyboards the likeness should be more accurate): -

Finally, here are some sketches that didn't make it into the first week or second week blog due to neglegence on my part (I misplaced them). I found them though so here they are!

The six above pages are all the original concept sketches for the old people and coffee employees for Ash Reemul's Cafe de B... idea. I did not just jump straight into one drawing for all the ideas I really did work on it honest! Ash picked out the ones he liked and then I went from there. Little arrows or stars mark the preferred designs of the time.

Week Two Blog

2007-10-14T09:02:00.002-07:00

Groups

I have associated myself primarily with four group projects. My primary group project is There's a war in Wunderland, directed by Adam Smith. I was particularily interested in the style of this film, and excited by the prospect of woring on a project that may be linked to one of my favourite bands - Less Than Jake. This project, in my mind, is more like an industry project as we are producing a video musically scored by the band (hopefully). The 2D animated graphics on 3D models suits me perfectly as i wanted to work on 2D projects as well as 3D. I will be working alongside both Adam and Caspar T.Turner on this project.

Cafe de B... by Ash Reemul is a fantastic showreel short which includes comedy and a moral. The idea of the characters being opposites really interested me, there was plenty of scope for varied animation between the large woman and lanky man. I hope to work on concept design for ash.

The Stamp Collector by Becca Chandler interested me because she wanted to work on a 2D project like me. Unfortunately because not many people in our year want to produce an entirely 2D film, she has had to make it in 3D instead. The story really swayed me to work on it as my idea had been fast paced and dynamic where Becca's was more character driven and emotive. I hope to help part-time with concept, modelling and animation.

Group Roles

There's a war in Wunderland: Adam had already completed a lot of concept work on this project so I hope to work primarily on texturing, modelling and animating. I had been set the task of researching the buildings of San Fransisco, where the film is set. This research would be used to help design our 2D buildings. I also drafted some concept designs for robot textures. These were completed in mechanical pencil but if any are chosen i will colour them and begin work on the animated textures.

Cafe de B...: I hope to help Ash throughout the concept process form design to storyboarding. This week I completed some alternate character designs for the elderly man and woman as well as the young coffee shop staff. These designs were drafted in mechanical pencil before I scanned them and coloured them in Macromedia Flash 2004. Unlike my concept designs for Desert Dash, these drawings have outlines around the colour fill. I have been in contact with Ash over the weekend and he is happy for me to draft some model sheets for the old man and the coffee shop staff. He was not as keen on the design of the old woman.

The Stamp Collector: I hope to work on this project from concept through the animation stage. This week I was set the task of researching any element that may be useful to the film. I looked at Bahamas beaches and beach shacks for the environment during the end segment of the film. I also discussed the structure of the story and how it may be shown throughout the 2 minute time constraint. One comment I thought was quite important was that the film is driven by two characters and the collector spends a lot of the film chasing after the stamp before he reaches the girl at the end. I felt that there should be less chase and more character interraction. I asked to be told if anything else was needed of me but to this point I have not had any follow up conversations on the subject.

Week One Blog (Continued...)

2007-10-14T09:02:00.001-07:00

Here are the penciled character designs and ensemble pictures. Also included is the birds eye view of the race track (basic pencils).This picture shows the protagonists escaping their doom riding Emile's neck frill parachute.This picture shows the reimagined vehicle designs. Wind surf boards with a hole cut in the middle for the armadillos to act as a wheel.
Original car design and decals.

James Lawrance, Week One Blog (Continued...)

Week one blog

2007-10-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

Here in my first entry is the concept artwork for my pitched film, Desert Dash. This idea followed two

desert lizards as they 'wind-surfed' through the desert in a race against one another. They would travel past some predatory creatures who would antagonise them throughout the rest of the race, pursuing them in hopes of an easy dinner. I wanted to animate a race so that i could address a weakness in my animation technique. Some of my animation could be a lot more snappy (pop a lot more) and a race sequence would force quick, dynamic animation.

I was lucky enough to have my film shortlisted along with 13 others. Unfortunately I did not have as much talent as interested as I would have liked. I felt it would be better to dedicate myself to the projects I had voted for instead rather than try to do the majority of my idea alone without a core team.

The artwork included in this entry includes front and back profiles of the main characters Emile, Russo, the Armadillos, desert biker scorpion and the snake. These pictures were drawn in mechanical pencil first then scanned in and coloured in Macromedia Flash 2004. I also had 13 storyboards pencilled ready to be worked on and a couple of sketches for displays and vehicle designs. The character designs are based on real animals.

Cutaway from behind Emile's neck frill/poncho (which would have doubled as a paracute in the film when the two lizards and their armadillo buddies escape the two antagonists.)

I had planned to outfit and texture the armadillos with various racing decals like Formula one and nascar racing cars. The armadillos would curl up around an axle to become the wheels of the lizards racing vehicles.

The scorpion would essentially have acted as a vehicle himself. As a power character he would have punched through scenery and taken shortcuts the lizards would not be able to take in their wind powered boards. The snake would have coiled around the scorpions tail and hung down from there, occasionally tugging on it to get the scorpion to speed up - much like a retro steam train operator. Of all these designs, the snake is my least favourite. I was not keen on it's colour scheme and hoped a team effort would have led to a decent redesign.

Here is a scale comparison of all the characters (above). Basic storyboards (below).

James Lawrance, Week 1 Blog

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2007-10-11T01:37:00.001-07:00

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