Getting the other pieces together....

Here are all the other piece of work that I have completed for this unit.

Storyboards:

Colour Studies:

Chosen Colour for lights:

Tests:

I have also used a few books while doing this project:

How to cheat in Maya - Eric Luhta

Cinematic Storytelling - Jennifer Van Sijll

I have found them both helpful when creating my animation and planing the shoots out.

The next pictures are the first pieces of work that I did on this project( taken from my sketch book):

Character Performance- Final Animation

This is the final render of my animation! I am very happy with it and really enjoyed working on this. I found that the graph editor really helped me in created the animation and working out problems that I could not correct just by moving or rotating the character.

Finished animation! To a point

I still need to complete the lighting and set the camera up, but the animation is done! I going to look over it tomorrow again with rested eyes and see what I can change!

Character Performance - Facial Animation! how I love thee!

The facial animation is fun to do, and this is what I have done so far! I think I have finished most of it, but there is still places where I can improve.

Character Performance - Graph editor to the rescue!

Working on the graph editor all day so far and its been going slow but things are getting done! The animation at the beginning is what I have mostly been working on, but just went through and corrected the body, hips and shoulders. Now I'm going to work on the head then move onto the hands.

I have been putting in some secondary animation at the beginning, but will be putting this in more and more as I do passes. Can't wait to finish this animation!

Character Performance - A big Problem!

Just finished the second layer of blocking out and have just changed the graph editor from stepped to linear. I have a large problem with the body rotating inside out and that its a bit to quick in places for the eyes to move. I need to work out why it is doing this rotation and how to fix it. As for the face and hands, I will do this after I have fixed the body's movement.

Life Drawing Term 3 - A3 pieces of life drawing

Here are all the best pieces of life drawing that I have completed on A3 sheets.

Life Drawing from Term 3

Here are all the best piece of life drawing that I have completed in term 3. Below is all the image that I have completed on an A4 sheet of paper, using a mixture of pencil and charcoal.

Character Performance - Creating the favourings and more inbetweens

A video of the animation after the blocking, still working on the poses for the inbetweens near the end.

Will be moving the hands and fingers properly, after I have completed the body, face and eyes.

Character Performance - Blocking Out

The blocking out Phase of my animation.

Party Ideas and Logo Design

Here are some images of the parties that the virtual reality company may be using as products. Also there is a logo design that I have created using the company name VR Parties. All images below were created by myself.

Beach Party

 Clown party

 Food Fight Party

 Role Playing Party

 Space Party

 Super Hero Party

 Theme Park Party

Logo

All the image, a part from the logo were drawn by hand and then coloured over in Photoshop. The Logo was created purely in Photoshop.

Character Performance - Lip Syncing

Having fun with moving the lips, much better then essay writing and E&E work!! Though my cheeks hurt from trying to get the mount right!

Trend Research

Only found out what we had to do today, as I didn't understand before, but my research is done I believe. Thanks to the E&E tutor that explained it to me!

Zombie themes:

Zombies themes have been around for a long time, especially in older horror films. Now, zombies/zombie-like themes are becoming something that both games and movie companies are buying into, such as films like “Zombieland” and “The Crazies” or games such as the “Resident Evil” series and “DiRT 3”. Many games that did not start out as zombie games have jumped on the “zombie bandwagon” by launching downloadable content for existing games. Titles such as Call of Duty: World at War and Black Ops, Red Dead Redemption and DiRT 3 have all produced downloadable content for these games which include zombies. Also, there are games such as Plants vs. Zombies ( on the iPad, iPhone, XBox Live Arcade and PC platforms) and Zombie Lane (facebook application) which are are part of this recent zombie craze.

Online multi-player games over split screen co-op:

Many new games coming out are now stopping split screen co-op  and instead are creating multi-player experiences for the online space. Split screen refers to two or more people sitting together in the same room, playing the same game on the same screen. At the moment the trend for new games is that you will be able to play with others online, using the whole of your screen but solely one player per console. There has also been many massive multiplayer online games (or 'MMO’s') such as World of Warcraft and Rift which both rely on a connection to play. The problem with games becoming more dependent on using the internet for the multiplayer experience is that rather than two or more people playing with one copy of the game, each player must purchase their own copy. This is financially beneficial for the games companies, but expensive for the consumers. Also, there is the problem that if a server goes down,  players cannot play together where as with local split screen games players do not have to worry about this.

There are free online multi-player games, where it is free to download the game and play it. Games like this will normally have a service called micro transactions, which allow players to buy in-game items with real money to enhance their gaming experience. These items can be prosthetic like avatar mounts and clothing or actually enhance gameplay, giving an edge over players that choose not to pay for additional items or content  This seems to be a trend of its own, with more games like this coming out with extra items that can be purchased with real money - more recently Grand Fantasia (Nov' '10) and Metal Assault (Apr' '11). Game sites as; http://www.aeriagames.com/, http://www.gpotato.com/ allow players to download free MMO games, but also have items within the games that can be purchased.

Computer usage:

Computers have become part of our daily lives and this is a trend that looks set to continue. Computers are used for working as well as leisure, making it a normal day-to-day item in your home or office. Computers have grown to very few people having them when they started (due to the fact they were as big as a normal room), to millions of people having them around the world. The growth in computer usage has come with its own pro’s and con’s for both our health and lifestyle. On the one hand computers have allowed us to communicate faster with others and complete tasks faster that would have taken a lot longer by traditional processes. On the other hand, people spend many hours in front of a monitor which is damaging to our health. We move less, exercise less and can develop short-term eye problems or discomfort. There are protectors that are available to purchase to help stop the eye discomfort, which are available in a clip-on or film variation.

Fairytales:

Fairytales are making a comeback with revamped traditional tales such as ‘Tangled’ by Walt Disney Animation Studios, the ‘Shrek’ series from 2001 to 2010 with four films, ‘Red Riding Hood’ which recently released in cinemas on 11th April 2011. Fairytales can be said to be taking a darker turn, like with the film ‘Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale’ (http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi192256281/) - a horror film with Santa himself. The remakes of old tales look like it is set to continue as the article from the 10^th of March 2011 on The Guardian's website shows. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/06/hollywood-remakes-fairytale-snow-white)

There are many different upcoming films such as; Jack the Giant Killer, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Brothers Grimm: Snow White and Pinocchio - all just from Hollywood alone. So marketing to these fairytale themes of a darker nature would be a good option as this trend is going to continue for a while.

Modern settings, but Old Plots:

A lot of different films have been coming out of the cinema, but a recent trend I have noticed is that many films have taken an old plot or theme and created a modem twist to it. Films such as District Nine (2009), Avatar (2009), Battle: Los Angeles (2011), Cowboys and Aliens (2011), Priest (2011) and Transformers (2007- 2011) all have a theme of invasion or uprising in them or both and all are either set in futuristic surroundings with modern day themes or older surroundings with futuristic elements. The plot of Avatar for example in a basic form tells the story of one race arriving at another planet to take an object for profit. The natural inhabitants of the planet are unwilling to surrender the object and instinctively defend what's their's. In the act of greed the invading race decides to take the object from them by force, while someone is trying to talk the natives into moving on. They don’t and rise against the invaders and protect their land, ending with a large-scale battle. This same basic plot can be said to run through many of the films listed above, where there is something to gain from invading another race with a large battle towards the end of the film, ultimately resulting in a one-sided win. This sense of eventual victory seems to be concurrent in most films throughout the last century and as this victorious feeling resonates well with an audience, it is a prime example of a trend that writers and directors have proven to take advantage of.

New Scene - Brewster's Millions

I thought that the scene that I had first chosen was nice, but Im not sure how I could change it for animation. So, I have chosen to do another scene which is later on in the film. The Scene is about thrity seconds long, but Im going to cut down the pause in between Brewster talking and Spike talking. This should help it fit into the twenty second time amount.

Basic Lip Sync

This is the first Lip Sync test using the sound given to us by our tutor,

Character Performance- Film Reference- Brewster's Millions

Brewster's Millions, This scene is just after Brewster has found out that he has inherited 300 million, but has to spend 30 million without anyone knowing. This video is of the whole scene and for the animation I would be cutting it down more.

Character Performance

Term Three Year 1- Character Performance

This terms unit is on Character performance, basing an animation on a piece of speech of our choice. There are many different sources that can be looked at, such as film, audio books and television. Its been hard to find something that is interesting both as a audio piece, as well as an animated piece. Also the problem with extracting a piece of audio from a whole track is that the audio can seem out of context, unless it is the beginning or the end of a track. The audience that will watch the animation might not understand the audio if its just taken out without thinking of the context of the piece, whether or not it can be understood on its own or not.

I looked at animated films first of all, as the audio is written with animated characters in mind. The problem with taking the audio from this type of film is that it was written with a specific piece of animation in mind. This can be a pro or a con when it comes to animating my own piece for the audio, depending on whether the piece stands on its own or not will also be a large factor.

Looking at live action films make it easier as you can see how an actor/actress is performing at the point the audio is playing. This will give me a better insight into how my character could be animated and will help to see what emotions are being played out on screen. The good thing about choosing a live action film is that there is already reference to work from, without having to film extra references to animate from. Though creating your own reference will aid in in the animation process, especially in facial animation.

Audio books are a great reference for audio for the project as there are many different books to choose from, but there is not visual reference to go by, also there is normally just one person reading that narrative, as well as all the different characters. There are pros and cons to this for animation, one pro is that as there is no visuals with the audio this allows for more creative thinking for that animation. A con to this is that because normally there is only one person reading the book, there is not that much of a range of voices to work with. This can make it hard to animated to as the intention for the audio for it only to be listen to, rather then have visuals placed beside it.

Finished Walk Cycle

Here is my finished walk cycle moving forward and changing.

Life Drawing for Term 2

Here is the best life drawing that I have completed in term 2, enjoy!

I think the torso studies are the best^^

3D walk cycle! Finished

I haven't had that much time to update the blog, but this is the finished walk cycle for the 3D project. Just walking on the spot at the moment, but all the bugs have been ironed out, at least that I can see!

Here is the video for it!

I like the walk and hope that I can pull off what I am thinking for the project.

Animatic!

Here is my part of the animatic. The visual images are my storyboards animated slightly.

Created Using After Effects, Premiere Pro and Hand Drawn work

I enjoyed creating the animatic and working with Josh, as we both communicated and explored ideas, instead of rushing in and finding mistakes. I wish that I had spent more time on the animatic, but much of the project time was spent on creating characters and redrawing storyboards. I'm very pleased with the outcome of the project and hope that the animatic tells the story well. 

Final Storyboards

The storyboards below are the final set that I used to create the animatic:

Storyboards!

For this project I have created and revised a few different sets of storyboards. Below are two sets of storyboards: 

The storyboards above are the first draft that I had completed. After looking over them again and getting feedback, I revised the storyboards and the the image below shows one of the more recent storyboards completed. 

These storyboards show more perspective then the first set that I have drawn. I still needed to tweak them and completed a finally set of storyboards. 

Animatic! Designs continue!

After a small break I went on and changed the designs. These new designs are shown below:

After talking with Josh we decided to go with a similar concept to the number 2. We thought that showing this character as a plump young girl which could add a bit of humour into the part that we had chosen to do.

Going with this idea I changed the girls design alittle more and created a quick character sheet for her, this is show below:

This is the final design for the girl! Time to get her into the storyboards!