Scene One- Saving

Quick test animation of what it looks like. Hopefully they will be impressed.

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Tests

Jump test- quick playblast

Taking inspiration from Yoshi from Mario, I wanted to add the leg wiggle. This is what it looks like.

Finalizing the wiggle movement. Pretty pleased with the outcome

This is just to test how the pig would drag the briefcase into the scene. Although jumping wouldn't work due to the weight of the object, having looked at the way dogs interact with items, I was able to portray a movement similar to what is depicted above.

This was to see how to make the money move. Obviously there was a lot of trial and error, and this happens to be one of them. I decided against putting it all on

This is a movie to show the first scene, in playblast- low quality render etc.

References

The NatWest advert shoes a pig run cycle. It's well done and includes everything- they have thought of timing and spacing, and added the bounce. What makes it more interesting is it doesn't appear to be moving from location when it's running.

The latest advert from Barclays is used to promote how hard it is to keep track of money. Although I imagine everyone has used it, it is a good representation that it can easily escape you. Quite like the coin ambient noises you hear from time to time, think it helps bring it all in and add to the realistic quality of it.


I really wanted to stylize and gives something extra to my character. In order to do this, I animated and looked at the reference and timing for how they did Yoshi.

I did a few tests which can be seen in a hope of achieving something similar.

This was the very first animation I saw and what made me decide that instead of having a pig with the normal walk cycle, I wanted to have it bounce. I really like the squash and stretch and the humor behind it. Overall it's simplistic yet depicts a story.

I wanted to make my pig move like a dog. The only video of decent quality that contained what I was aiming for was this. I am keen on how his hind legs work and the way he drags the object. Very useful for incorporating into my scene.

Money Reference

Used for the reference of money and how it moves.

Once again, just something quick to do with the money and the way it moves and falls. Good thing is it's piles similar to my animation which aids in pulling it together- making it more realistic.

Video Support

This is a quick video I did in order to find out how the character would move.

This is me getting up.

I used this as reference for my animatic as I sometimes add too much information to them.

I also wanted to back it up with some research that I have done, into how the industry goes about doing real animatics. I see they skip a lot and it works just fine so I hope to achieve a similar effect.

Story Structures

We had to analyze a film called Joyride and do some tasks to follow that.

Below are the tasks and answers:

Activity 1:

Story Structure:

Write, in list form, the things that happen in Joyride

• Broken Device
• Undressing as he goes home early
• Notices body in the middle of road
• Attacked
• Wakes up in back of car
• Hands tied together
• Discovers flashlight and turns it on
• Kicks off panel to destroy electrical (rear break light)
• Police notice and pursue
• Stop for police
• Man kicks and screams
• Hear screams
• Police officers get killed
• Blood drops on his face
• Threatened to get killed if he tries anything again
• Chase by police again
• Fuel can spills, sparks from broken circuit threaten to start fire.
• Electric fail and car crashes into tree
• Gets out, Staggers towards police car
• Threatened by man to cut throat
• Alarms go off drawing police attention
• Ends where he starts off
• Sets alight?

Where one thing happens because of another link them with the word because:

Because he screams and panics, causes death of two police officers.

Activity 2

Describe the main character at the beginning of the film

At the beginning, he talks on the phone and decides not to fix the final 'late' job.

Describe him at the end

He is able to adapt to the current situation, when in the trunk. He seems grateful/ironic to be back where it all started

Write a single sentence which sums up what this film is 'about'

Two strangers joyride an unsuspecting mans car, holding him prisoner- escaping finds himself where he started off.

Activity 3

Consider the Three Act Structure in relation to Joyride:

Act I Set Up

Act II Confrontation

Act III Resolution

Describe the set up

The moment he decides to abandon his job, he finds a 'dead' person laying on the road. They hit him on the head and he appears inside car boot.

Explain & Describe where Act II starts

The victim of this 'drama' wakes up and struggles to free himself causing the death of innocent people along the way, without intention. This all happens in the hope of escaping the confrontation ends when the car crashes into the tress.

Explain & Describe where Act III starts

The victim fights back against his captor, coming to an end where the story began. Transformer sparks and sets alight in the end. This completes the 'circle'

Looking At Scripts

Today we began to analyze what makes a good script and what doesn't.

Here are what we went through:

Looking at a plot and subplot

What's plot and what's sub plot?

Plot- Goal/Purpose

Subplot- small stories running parallel.

A1---2---3--B -> this is known as the highway mindmap

3 Act Structure

Act I : Ask Question

Act II: Answer Question

Act III: Resolve Issue.

-----------------II-----------------

--------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------

I-----------------------------------------III

(above is a 'graph')

Life lessons- All stories are character driven.

Stereotype- localized to cultural conditioning

Archetype- universal character recognized in any culture.

Theme

Life Event- Volcano Eruption

The task was to write a 200-500 word summary of something interesting that had happened in your life. It was also aimed at how it had changed you, making you what you are today.

The thing I chose was the volcanic eruption from back home in 1999.

The story and video can be found below:

I remember like it was yesterday, let me take you back to 1999. My family and I were watching the news around the dinner table a few days prior to the incident. There had been previous warnings that the volcano Guagua Pichincha was active again.

We lived in Quito, the capital of Ecuador where the skies plummeted into darkness that morning. It was 7am, I had just woken up and was getting ready for school when we turned on the news. The volcano had erupted for a second time that week. That day however, at 7:12am when the city was coming to life, a huge cloud of ash formed in the sky. It was a spectacle of a different nature, fearsome yet impressive. The cloud formed a Giant Mushroom, something that until then, I’d never seen. Eight minutes later there was a second explosion, followed by the last one at 8:07am.

As the country was put on Yellow alert, schools & businesses were closed. We had to use masks when stepping outside, due to the falling ash. The city went into panic and chaos. The grey substance that fell was like snow (something we don’t really have over there). I recall a spec falling onto my hands; I rubbed it between two fingers and watched how it spread and disappeared. Later on, we were advised not to go out unless necessary and to bring any pets indoors. The ash continued to fall during that day. My family and I stayed inside and gathered around the lounge to play games and things to distract us from reality.

This incident made me realise that anything could happen. It made me eager to take control of my life, and appreciate what I have achieved and done so far. Looking back, there was probably some kind of horror aspect to it, though at the age of 9 I was probably naïve and didn’t really understand how serious it was. I’ll never forget what it looked like, and thanks to modern technology I can revisit photographs of the incident as many times as I like.

Tests

This was my first test animation. Just a quick camera animation to understand how it works.

This was just to see if the glasses fell properly... I realize that it too slow and doesn't work well.

My second animation test on the 'soap' ball to see how to make it move/rotate

In order to understand how things fell, I decided to attempt to create my own little test animation using real objects. Glad it worked well, I was able to learn a lot from this.

I had the utensils, which I based my design from, however- it didn't animate quite as anticipated. I will defy some rules in order to successfully accomplish my set design.

Dynamic Animation

In order not to have to create all the individual movements and change angles of the Dominoes, I have used Dynamic Rendering to make this animation happen.

Enjoy...

(Excuse the Bad quality as it was only a quick Playblast render.)

To make the dynamic animation, I used Rigid Bodies on the floor and the cube( that sets off the dominoes). Then, I placed them slightly higher than the ground and applied a Gravity Field on them. Once everything was done, I keyframed the cube, at the start of the domino, then passing the domino and keyframed yet again 1-15.

The results can be seen above.

Overall I am pleased.

Temple

Progress of Temple

Final Design

Following the book given to me by Richard, I was able to create the same thing- The amazing... Temple lol... I was tired of going for the same look of the 'golden' appearance that I decided to slightly edit the design.

Here ya gooo :>

Wine Glass

I was practicing quickly on Maya, and just wanted to see what it would be like to make a quick Wine Glass. Although it's not 100% see through, I changed some of the atributes for it etc... It's okay for my first attempt.

Using cv curves and revolve, i was able to create this simplistic wine glass. Granted, I need to make it more crystal and stuff... but it's not bad- at least I got the shape right :>.

This shows the 4 layouts of the image: Top, Front, Side.

This is before I changed the attributes to white and transparency.

Showing the glass from different views.

Showing the glass from different views.

After much hard work and dedication, I was finally able to create the glass effect I'd always wanted. I will update with my methods and trail later on.

But here you have it, a wine glass :>

Showing the glass from different views.

Showing the glass from different views.

Flat Pack- Shorts on Walls

Well… at first I was actually surprised that it was on an actual brick wall. I thought it would have been on a screen and that was just what they’d named the event. As I arrived early, I witness them go through trials ensuring that everything was working before the 6pm given slot.

To start off we were shown “A model Christmas”- and what a way to open the

Animation festival. It had talking Lego, I mean what else can anyone ask for. I liked the idea of recording people’s conversation and then adding it to toys and changing the expressions. It was filled with light humour and could be enjoyed by many different audiences. Although, having seen this kind of thing before- it still captivated the audience.

I like that they didn’t let everyone talk and that they used the typical ‘rich girl’, who had a list of things she wanted. It made it more realistic as there is always at least one person like that in the world.

The animation was smooth and was to promote the bullring and the people shopping there. It was for a Christmas theme of what people wanted. I liked the attention to detail of having the luggage change colour and the people moving in the background. Overall, the animation achieves what it set out to do and incorporate humour with ‘live’ performances.

Without further adieu, here is the animation

The aforementioned mentions I have seen this kind of stuff before. Although, presented in a different manner... This 'trailer' of the Animation "I Met the Walrus" captures the same essence that is conveyed in the animation above.

Apart from this, the "Creature Comforts" series offers the same range of things and displays the style which can be seen in all of the above.

Creative Commons

Creative commons was founded in 2001 with the support of Centre for the Public Domain. In 2002, the first set of copyright licences were made for free to the public. They developed their licences by the Free Software Foundation’ GNU (similar to Unix) General Public Licences. They also incorporated a Web application to help you licence your work freely for certain uses, or conditions; or dedicate created work to the domain. In the following years of their initial release, Creative Commons and its licences have grown and been further improved.

Who uses Creative Commons Licence?

Al Jazeera – Launched a Creative Commons Repository in 2009. A section of their website was dedicated to posting videos under the CC Attribution Licence.

Flickr- Flicker was one of the first major online communities to incorporate the use of Creative Commons licence, allowing photographers around the world to share their work under terms of their choosing.

Google- Utilized CC licences by enabling CC- search capabilities through their main search engine, image search engine, and book search engine, or allowing users to CC licence their own content in Picasa and Google Knol.

Youtube- Although Google owned, they have also used CC licences in their audio swap program, which allows users to swap “All Rights Reserved” music for similar sounding CC licensed tracks.

Wikipedia- Changed their licensing recently from a GNU Free Documentation License to a Creative Commons Attribution –Share Alike license. By changing to a CC licence they allow Wikipedia (and the entire collection of Wikimedia sites) content to legally flow in and out at ease, enabling a great cultural resource in digital revolution.

With a Creative Commons Licence, you get to keep your copyrighted work but allow people to copy and share distribute your work providing they give you credit. These are on the conditions you specify on the creative commons website when uploading the work.

“Creative Commons helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what they can and can't do with your work. When you choose a license, we provide you with tools and tutorials that let you add license information to our own site, or to one of several free hosting services that have incorporated Creative Commons.”

History of Stop Motion- Video made by Me.

So, we were asked to look into a category of Animation- a timeline if you please, and present it in an artistic way. I chose to look into Stop Motion, without realizing that it had pixelation integrated into it. Well anyway, I decided to make it in the style of a documentary and this can be seen below.

Enjoy

The Third & The Seventh

The Third & The Seventh is a short (12min) CG film on photography and architecture. Everything on this movie has been textured, lit and modeled digitally. This piece is visually stunning, the music adaptation sits beautifully with what has been rendered.

The audience is immersed into the video because of the camera carefully situated at the front of the 'building'. It just shows that with enough attention to detail and textures you can achieve what is regarded as a realistic vision of 'perfection'.

Spirited Away

This feature long film by Hayao Miyazaki from the well known Studio Ghibli, is a story about a girl lost in a fantasy land trying to find her lost parents. It is acclaimed for many things from the mastery story telling, to the character design and realistic scenarios. The main character Chihiro, is lost in a parallel universe, with a tunnel being a way of entering and escaping it. The story is filled of unforgettable characters, Chihiro, Haku, Yubaba, No Face and many more.

One of the things that stands out for me, is the character design. I've always loved Miyazaki's style of work and looked to it for reference. Despite the amazing story telling, each character is portrayed in a unique way and apart from the twin witches there is little repetition of character design. Even though this animation is aimed at children, the story line and plot in itself could technically be aimed at adult audiences.

The power hungry Yubaba is always trying to outdo her twin sister Zeniiba. She is always trying to gain more control over the land. I like the music that is incorporated into her scenes- it just ads that extra humpf in order to create the perfect atmosphere.

No-Face is a well known character. He seems to be innocent however, later becomes a huge inconvenience. I think that the character design for him is outstanding. The mysterious appearance and the name form a formidable duo. I know if I was in Chiharu's position, I would definitely be cautions of him... he gives me the creeps!.

Overall, like every Studio Ghibli Film i've seen, this equals the outstanding work of the artists and storytellers. Definitely a must see!

I Met the Walrus

This 2008 production- based off an interview with a reel to reel tape deck, is about a 14 year old Beetle Fan named Jerry Levitan, interviewing John Lennon in Toronto whilst he was in the middle of his 'bed-in' phase. 38 years later, an award winning short film was produced. The incorporation of hand drawn with digital illustrations and photos, were able to create this spellbinding animation. The animation shows the visual movement of what is being said by John Lennon, he hangs on every word and you can see how all the ideas and suggestions were swirling through his head.

This is a great method of portraying how a child imagines, sees things in an all together different light than when you grow older. What I like, is despite the 38year old gap between the recording and the development of the animation, they have remembered the thoughts behind it.

This is a good way of illustrating how a thought pattern can occur. Something that could be looked into when creating my own animation.

Flip Festival (Day 2)

Opening Shorts

This was a clump of different types of animation throughout the world. They were aimed at inspiring people, and whilst some did the trick, others disgusted the audience (Puppet Boy) I still have nightmares about it... We just sat in a cinema and watch films, it was too dark to even take notes so it was a little bit pointless in that regard. I didn't gain much from it, apart from a list of animation films, for reviewing at a later date on Youtube.

The Brothers McLeod.

The Brothers McLeod presented a variety of animation which inspired them with their things. Although, most of the stuff they presented didn't sit well with me, I still managed to watch throughout hoping that this would lead me into understanding my subject/competition. Apart from the things I didn't like, I did come to find a couple of interesting things. This inspired me and motivated me in order to achieve better quality animations.

Lapsus

I really really REAAALY liked this animation. It had light humor which made it a definite contender for me. I like the idea behind it and a slight 'mockery' on religion (although some people may hate me for stating that). I thought the concept was original and something I hadn't seen before. I'm hoping to recreate something like that- although done digitally, I still like the simplicity of the characters.... it just links in well with the animation.

Overview

Although the review and question and answer session didn't really enlighten me into anything. Due to the fact that they didn't let anyone speak, they kept on interrupting throughout. I thought it was rude and apart from one person, who sounded at least somewhat prepared to do a speech was rudely interrupted by the host. Overall, the event was interesting. I don't feel it was a necessity to pay to watch films. Like I said, films and lists of things that are out there were okay, talk about animation and the whole point for the visit... 'limited'.

WALL-E . Looking at Sound

Wall E is an amazingly well created film. Despite having little or no dialog in it, it shows that a movie can still owe with only sounds. The reason for this was because they focused on creating new noises and ambiance sounds for every minute detail. Every character has it's own unique identity and this is portrayed with the sound behind it.

In Animation and sound design, you get nothing for free. It's hard to walk onto a set and know what the sound is going to be like, or the voices that would be depicted. In that case, sound really means everything here. From each squeak,bump,noise splat to the voices of Wall-E and Eve - everything has it's own meaning. Ben Burtt the academy acclaimed winner for the sounds of Star Wars, was asked to produce the noise for this film. He looks into the past of what sounds have been created by Disney, and the way they showed this.

One thing that still presents itself to me as being outstanding is the way the film is shot. Without adding too much details, you can get characters like Wall E to appear more realistic, than having something too clean and polished like Eve. The use of Depth of Field in shots and the shift of focus is something that for me, gives the film more credibility.

Below you will find a link, unfortunately I was unable to embed the video, but it is from the extra footage of Wall E DVD.

Enjoy

Wall E Special, Building Worlds from Sound

Le Voyage Dans La Lune

This movie was created in 1902 Georges Méliès, The idea behind this film was a way to awe the audience. For the first time, through camera trickery, people appeared to appear and disappear from screen. Due to the sought after techniques of his idol, Robert- Houdin, a master of magic and tricks, he found out a method he could use for himself. By pausing the film and changing the object or performer with something else, it gave the illusion of disappearing. Splicing, editing, rolling animation and many other techniques were used to produce the uniqueness of this film.

To date, Georges Méliès is known as a pioneer in Animation and Film Techniques.

We were asked to be in groups for the new animation. The groups were decided

but us- mine consisted of: Louie, Ashlea, Sarah, Zez, Roxy and Myself.

We were then given a selection of three different stories to choose from. We all decided to do Frankenstein.

We began by editing the script which was done by Louie. This can be found on his blog LJ Animation.

We began by doing research into asylums- they can be seen below.

I then decided that I would do the cat armature. To begin with the armature that I came up with was the one which can be seen below, followed by the plasticine moulding on top.

As I found out the hard way, you need to do face sketches from all angles. The cat does not resemble my initial sketch and the face looks startled.

After this I tried to do it again, I found that this time it worked better.

Replacement Animation

These images were taking from Coraline, this shows how they made a separate mouth for all the dolls and I thought it would be somewhat useful to do in this stop motion production.

This is the armature for Coraline. The eyebrows are changable and although they have used resin in order to achieve this look- the idea of diving the face into upper and lower work well.

This is an example of the cat walk cycle. This is an animation done by someone, and sometimes they get it wrong- so I thought I would record the Tiger walking, the day we went to the zoo.

Tiger Walk

Here is my version of the walk cycle- This was a bad test.....

Although I didn't animate Victoria, I asked my room mate if she could walk up the stairs to ensure we got the right movement.