Final Space Animation

I am very proud to say that we completed our space animation. Despite having to remove scenes and edit the script multiple times, we think that this final version still works really well and that we've achieved a pretty high standard

There are still parts I'd like to change, as some of the animation is a little jumpy, like in the scene where the rovers are leaving the lander. Some of the effects could also use a little work, as I think that the perspective of one of the flames when the second lander enters the scene is a little off. Overall though, I'm pretty pleased with the result, especially after the amount of problems we encountered along the way, as I've highlighted in other blog posts.

Proof of Concept shot

This semester, my animation shot is in a very different style and of a very different character. Because of that, it presented different challenges when making it, but it was good to do that also helps prove that the art style works in this format.

The director instructed me to have the rat waking up and peering up out of the hole of an upturned ship. Here are a couple of videos of my progress to making the final shot. I’m quite happy with the final outcome, although I wish I could have worked more on putting follow through in the ears and in his sway. I also want to put more thought into his arm actions too.

Now that the story has started to develop more for Sold Out, I have started to create some artwork for the project. As I am acting as producer, I have been keeping the director organised and on track to create all of the things we need for the bible. Our concept art has so far been a team effort, shown below. The lineart was created by someone else, while I have taken the time to colour. I have then passed this on for more shading, so that we can get the best possible outcome.

Here are some turnarounds and expressions I completed for our child character, Kid Li.

And these are backgrounds we’ve been working on. I would have liked to work more into the shading on the noodle stand, but I tried to make the shadows on the ground look as accurate as possible.

Below is some work I've completed for Rat Trap as well, including turnarounds, expressions and poses. If I have time, I would also like to add to the turnarounds and do a view from the back to show how their clothes and tails look. I would also like to work more with the character Scab (green), as I think I've managed to draw him quite well so far, really getting his face shape.

EGX Rezzed

This year I had the opportunity to attend EGX Rezzed with the Pocket Pals team, using it as an opportunity to promote the game. Not only did we speak to the public, but we also spoke with developers and game designers, and attended talks about getting into the industry. While it was focused around gaming, I think a lot of this could be applied to animation as well, and therefore it was a worthwhile trip for both education and a bit of fun as well!

Inspiring Animation - Isle of Dogs

I went to go see Isle of Dogs in the cinema recently as a fan of both the animation technique and Wes Anderson, and I was very impressed by the quality of the stop motion. The models of the dogs were fantastic, and you can tell the animators were skilled. I particularly like the attention they paid to the dogs facial expressions, and you could feel their emotions even though they weren't human.

One thing I really appreciated about this film as well was the amount of background they provided for those who were interested. I have watched a number of videos about their animation process and the creation of the movie, and they're all very interesting to see.

Updated Concepts

Following my original post of the character art from these scenes, I have now worked on the backgrounds using references I took myself by going to the beech near Falmouth. I was able to use the rock shapes and layouts to plan my compositions, which was quite helpful. I also added some lighting to the characters to make them look like they were actually in the scene, and also added shadows below them. One difficulty I did have was with the sky, as both the director and I didn't want this to be an empty colour, but it was difficult to reference from the artist who influenced the style. I think we managed to do something simple that still works within the image though.

Space Brief Progress 2

Here I have some more screenshots of the things I've been working on for our Live Brief project. The first image shows one of our large crater scenes, which like the last one, we had to change in order to show the real size of the crater. This meant I had to work a lot with the camera as well as the lighting, and it took a lot of tries to get this right.

 

In this next screenshot, I completed the first pass animation in this shot. Our original idea was to have this linker with the wide shot above, but as we couldn't get this to look good with our moon texture, we compromised and made them link in seperate shots, which I think still works well.

 

 Below is an example of some of the texturing work I had to do. While we had a team member who was quite good at texturing, we found that these textures weren't transferring correctly between programs, which meant I had to fix the issues we were having. This took extra time, but the outcome wasn't too bad in the end. If I could do it again though, I would learn more about how to use hypershade and things like bump maps and shaders.

Inspiring Animation - Lone Digger

 

Lone Digger Video

This is a music video, Lone Digger by Caravan Palace. I was introduced to this quite a while ago now, but I recently encountered it again and thought I could talk about it. The animation works really well with the music, the shots cutting in time. I also really love the lineless style, like I've said about other animations before, and the lighting is also quite striking to look at. The story of the video takes an interesting twist too, with the characters being not quite who you thought they'd be.

I unfortunatly couldn't place the video directly, so I have provided a link.

Concept Drawings

Here are some of the drawings I have been working on for one of the preproduction projects.

Currently it is only the characters, but over the next week I intend to work on the backgrounds as well, although these will take a little longer because of the style. I think these are quite dynamic poses, although it would be good to investigate some more to make sure the silhouettes are interesting and they have a lot of action in them.

I have also been looking into action scenes for the other bible. Here are some examples, one being from an anime called Cowboy Bebop, and the other is from a live action movie called

Inspiring Animation - Sand Planet

This music video, Sand Planet, was released a few months ago. I really love the 2D effects animation in this short, and the movement of the smoke as she swipes through in the first gif is really impressive. The shadows through the smoke are also quite interesting. The way the clothes move looks quite realistic, and their is nice anticipation on her arm movement.

 

I also really like the character designs in the back. They're all similar yet have subtle differences that make them unique, in both their masks and their coats.

Space Live Brief Progress

Recently I have been putting a lot of work into organising and setting up our scenes so that we can finally begin animating and rendering for the final film. As producer, I am very determined to keep the team motivated so we can produce something we’re proud of, and I am glad that most of my team also want to dedicate time and get involved.

Here are some screenshots of some of the scenes I have been working on. Seeing these will break the illusion that we are going to create in the animation once it’s is rendered and composited. The scenes themselves look quite simple, but I have to shape the planes, apply the textures and places the rocks, as well as plan the lighting. The lighting also has to be consistent between scenes, which is something difficult I have had to deal with.

Something we’ve had a hard time with is getting the crater to look as large as it actually is. Our model can only have so much detail before it starts to become unusable, so we have started talking about ways we can use lighting to respond to feedback about this problem.

Since it is the beginning of a new study block, we will again be producing new animation bibles for submission this term. I have decided that I want to contribute to others work this time, and help them develop their stories to become something better.

One project I am interested in is about rat pirates, with the title in progress. Here is a sketch I have done for this project already, although the style hasn't been decided on and the story is still in progress.

Another project I am showing an interest in is very action based, with a lot of fight scenes. I will be working as producer on this project, and will hopefully be able to create a good bible with a very different subject matter and style to my last.

For our Live Brief, we will now start animating and finishing actual shots, and I am excited to see how far we progress, as we have a lot of work to complete.

Above is a piece of concept art I did for my bible. I used noir reference for the scene, but then made it my own with the characters and the colouring. Below are a couple of facial expressions for the Monkey character. I had fun doing these as I really like his character design, although I think I could have worked more on the colouring of his clothes.

Below are the images that I only coloured, as the sketches were created by Dorian Barry, a member of my team. I had gained a lot of experience at this stage with the colouring and was happy to take on the task.

http://dorianimates.blogspot.co.uk/

Final Test Shots

Here is a video of the final outcome of my test shots. I've tried to stick to the style as best as possible with the characters and now the backgrounds too. I struggled quite a lot with the backgrounds, as the ones seen in Rojankovsky's work are mostly of grass and woodland, whereas the setting for my story is more urban. Even so, I tried to get across the pencil strokes - this was quite different working in TV Paint rather than in Photoshop.

I looked at atmospheric audio that would put across the slightly eerie and tense situation Parrot is put in when he's about to discover the victim. I used sound effects such as footsteps, breathing and a squeak. As for the Chameleon, I wanted to use the short piano sound to indicate his surprise alongside his gasp.  

Over the last few days I have been working on more animation as a proof of my concept. I tried the Chameleon character this time, and this was very different from the Parrot I animated before. Here are two videos that show some progress. I still need to work out how to do the hands and integrate in what he's holding, but for now I'm quite happy with the animation. The colouring is in a different style to the parrot, as the chameleon isn't covered in feathers or fur.

As well as this, I've also drawn more for my production bible. This included a 'hand' sheet for the parrot, which was quite difficult to do when he has feathers, and a few different expressions for the moose character. As the moose isn't a main character, I won't be completing turnarounds for him for the bible.

Ticked Off (3)

Below is a more complete test animation I did for Ticked Off. It's not the final shot, and the characters have since been changed, so while I worked on model before, they are no longer correct. I'm quite happy with how this came out though, and I had more practice in working with the characters and the lineless style. It was also fun to make them interact.

Proof of concept animation

For my Preproduction module, I have to create an animation in the style of my artist. THis has presented a few challenges for me, and it took some tests to overcome them. The first two videos here show both of the tests I tried. One is where the frames are coloured individually using the same colour pallete and order. The second is using a stamp tool. I have found I dislike the stamp tool, as it doesn't flow very well and is very obvious, even though I tried to make it work. While the first process takes a long time, I discovered it did get the best results and that I would continue using this style.

Below is my final animation of the parrot running. The scene is taken from my animatic and has been edited slightly to fit the character model and has been inbetweened. I'm quite happy with the result, and now I will just need to add some kind of background and audio.

 

Paint on Glass Animation in Mob Psycho

This study block I found the free time to rewatch a show called Mob Psycho, which stood out to a lot of people because of it's quite unique animation style despite it being a Japanese anime. It seemed quite rough around the edges in some cases, but this was by choice, and it really made the 'bigger' scenes stand out. The director Yuzuru Tachikawa wanted to adapt the source material in fantastic ways, and I think he achieved this by working with Miyo Sato, a Tokyo University of Arts graduate and animator who has had her work nominated for multiple international animation contests. They  included Paint on Glass animation, which is a very different media from the usual. It was even combined with the digital animation in some shots, but I still think it worked well in getting across the stronger emotions.

Below are some examples.

As a continuation to the work I did in my preproduction module, I was lucky enough for my pitch to be chosen to move forward into the production bible stage. I am now producing and have a small team to work with, and we'll be designing and creating lots of art to go into the final product.

Here are some examples of the work I've completed for the bible so far. Working in the style has been tough but I think I have managed to capture it well enough to be recognisable if you are familiar with the artist. Having animal characters also provided a challenge when creating the expression sheets, but I think I managed to portray some quite well.

Modelling Environment Assets

For Pocket Pals I've started work on modelling for the environments. First I had a go at trees, making a few slightly different variations of Pine Trees (with a different number of layers or tilted). Everything is still in the low poly style, so the bunches of leaves on the more general trees don't have to look more detailed than that.

As well as this, I've also modelled three slightly different logs. It's hard to see now, but on one I have also included some moss, which will show up in texturing. These were more of a challenge to me and introduced me to a couple of new modelling tools.

 

The final environment task I was given was to create bunches of grass. This was my least favourite of them all, but I still tried to find variety with the shapes and directions of the blades.