Friday 28 December 2012

Read All About It!

So, a theme I noticed a lot in The Lost Thing, is a lot of old newspaper clippings and scraps and whatnot, to add to the untidy, jumbled look. So I thought that a good way to tell some of the story quickly would be through newspaper clippings and headlines.
I made up a few of these and I think they turned out pretty good, I think they will look good in my animation if I can figure out  way for them to flap in the wind or something.






Wednesday 19 December 2012

New and Improved Artworks

So I took a couple of the sketches I drew and polished them up using Photoshop. I was quite pleased with the results.



Tuesday 18 December 2012

First Attempts at Modeling a Turtle

 I liked the stance on one of the sketches I drew so i thought i would try and model it in 3ds max, Here are the results:


 


So, it didn't work out perfectly but I think I got the stance pretty accurate. The things i need to work on most I think are making the shapes smoother and less blocky and working more on the details in the skin and shell, so that it looks more realistic and less simplistic. i also need to model more of the body from one block, instead f from separate pieces  otherwise, when smoothed, it pulls the planes apart as you can see, leaving gaps in the skin.

(Edit, I have since learned that I was supposed to model the characters in a 'T' position or it makes it very difficult to animate, so I will have to start over anyway)


Thursday 13 December 2012

Animation Choices and Some Art

So I decided to chose the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I will be rebooting in the style of The Lost Thing.

My reasons for choosing the Ninja Turtles are that it is the option I was best acquainted with, having grown up watching it, whereas I wasn't as knowledgeable on Paddington Bear or Rhubarb and Custard. I also felt that there was more versatility as they were more humanoid characters and so would be easier to model and animate, as well as being better at gesturing or expressing emotion, which is a direction I wanted to go in.

My reasons for choosing the lost thing were that the textures were closer to the sort of textures I would be likely to use anyway, and I also liked the whole look and feel of the piece. I liked the fact that on the surface it could appear as just a sweet simple story, but it also had a deeper meaning about growing up and losing your imagination and creativity as you get older, and about how things change over time. This was a feel I defiantly wanted to use in my animation.

Here are a couple of sketches I've Been Working on.




Wednesday 5 December 2012

VE Project 2

We started a new project, to reboot a children's TV series using inspiration from an existing animation. this was the brief:


Title:
In the style of
Task:
Re launch a children’s TV programme

Pick from: Paddington bear, Roobarb and Custard or the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

And re-boot them in one of the following visual styles:

Lost and found from studio AKA
The Lost Thing from Passion Pictures Australia
Varmints from Studio AKA.

Produce a 1 minute promotional trailer for this rebooted franchise.

Objectives:
Understanding and interpreting visual style is massively important as is character and scenic design. Autodesk’s 3ds max and Maya are merely tools, understanding how to push them in specific visual directions allows you to produce added value in your creative enterprises.
This project encourages you to develop a broader understating of the 3d development pipeline and how to use it creatively.

Friday 16 November 2012

My Final Animation

After 6 weeks of hard work, I've finally finished my animation, Steampunk Chess Robot.
P.S. When watching the video, don't forget to change the quality settings using the 'cog' button, or it looks terrible, being automatically at lowest quality.


Saturday 10 November 2012

Some Rendered Images

These may not be my final rendered .PNGs , I haven't decided yet, and may change them as I animate.
Yes, there are five and there are meant to be four, I couldn't decide which to get rid of.
Yes, some of them are .jpg's, Blogger had an issue with some of the .png files and refused to upload them.




 




Sunday 4 November 2012

Furnace Guy and Interior Environments

 Some images of my other character 'Furnace Guy' a stationary furnace, in his room in the factory, including the chess board and pieces  all fully textured and bump mapped.





These images are of the entrance room in the factory, rows of dusty bookshelves creating a darkened corridor leading into the building. lit from the front by the outside moonlight shining through the windows and from behind by a single yellowed light bulb.



Bonus image of the outside again, as I decided to change it slightly since the last post, I placed a statue in the village square and added a sky box  for more dynamic shots of the surroundings and a better sense of scale for the character. The only thing missing in this shot is the rain, but as I have said previously, I plan to add that in After Effects, for quicker rendering.


Wednesday 31 October 2012

Texture Model and First Images of Environment


So I finished texturing and adding final touches to my Robot Birdie, including glowing eyes and steam effects. His fingers are now also fully rigged along with his arms and legs, so he's all but ready to animate.




I've also finished the environment for my first couple of scenes, fully texture, bump mapped and lit, the only thing left to add is the rain, but most of that sort of thing will be done in After Effects.
I have one more environment and another character to create after these, then I will be able to start animating.








Tuesday 23 October 2012

Robot Birdie Model

Almost finished modeling Robot Birdie, just need to rig the fingers and toes, and texture him up, then onto the environment.


I did make a few changes from the original design, for example, I changed the position of the arm, so that he could more effectively manipulate the chess peices. I also made his body more boxy to create a more mechanical feel and added a furnace in his chest for extra lighting and interest.

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Environment Artwork

An idea I had for my external environment.
A deserted, cobblestone, Victorian street on a stormy night.
Light sources: cold blueish light from the moon/sky, Yellowed flickering light from the streetlamps.
Occasionally the whole scene is lit by a flash of lightening.


Friday 5 October 2012

Steampunk Robot Artwork

Painting I did of how my chess playing robot should hopefully turn out :)
May upload more developmental work at a later date


Monday 1 October 2012

Character Sketches

Some sketches of possible character designs:

Main Character:




Secondary Character:



Saturday 29 September 2012

A Steampunk Robot Character

My next university project will involve creating a steam punk robot character that will be playing chess, here is my first attempt at drawing and painting a robot:


I tried to make him look as steampunk as possible, mainly through the colour pallet and details like cogs and valves.
This probably wont be the robot I use in my final animation, partly because his proportions would make it difficult to utilize a chess board, but also because he just dost look the chess playing type, more the planetary destruction type.
As I said this is my first attempt at painting a robot at all, since my usual art style is more biological creatures, so bare in mind that it is very rough and I hope to improve my robot drawing skills.

Thursday 27 September 2012

Digital Artwork

Just some digital art I've been working on over the summer etc. let me know what you think ^.^ (Just remember I'm still learning =D)





Wednesday 9 May 2012

Interactive 500 Word Self Assessment


I feel that the overall design of my site turned out to be better than I had hoped; using the feedback that friends and family gave me I was able to expand my design and make it more unique. Originally I wanted to create a more colourful site, but seeing the websites that are too noisy and loud put me off that idea, to the point that I even took out the purple, and stuck only with the blue, black and white, keeping the site minimalistic without looking too dull. Another way I achieved this was using a subtle background, keeping it black, but adding a lighter, grey pattern to break up the plain colour and make the page more interesting and feel less empty.

In designing my website I wanted it to be set out in a minimalistic way that was easy to navigate while still being aesthetically pleasing. I think I achieved this because though at first my website went through a lot of changes to things such as colour schemes and fonts; my final design was clear and concise while still being professional and attractive. I think my most successful pages were my gallery pages, because they are well laid out and look very professional.

The audience which this site is aimed at is possible employers or other interested parties looking for examples of my work and skills, for this reason I made the site easy to navigate and very clear and concise, so that these users can find the information they are looking for fast and efficiently without having to mess around looking for links or deciphering jumbles of text and images.

In this project I have learned how to use the Dreamweaver software on a more advanced level. In the last project I did not have to use anything so advanced as a CSS page, so this project was much more complex, and so I had to learn a lot of new techniques and processes for producing things on the page such as paragraphs, break tags how to use headers, footers and DIV boxes, also how to embed images and video in pages using iFrames.I also learned what Adobe Bridge is for and how to use it to create and embed galleries.

There are a few points in which I believe I could have improved on, most of which are related to having a better and more in-depth understanding of the programs I used. I know I could have incorporated the images and the videos into the page better, making them look more in place.
I would also have preferred the background to be more detailed and ornate but time was short and it was complex enough to make it repeatable. Given more time I would have added to the design.
I would also have added more information to the site given more time, as there is not a lot of text. However being a portfolio sit it would naturally have been built up over time.

I may use my new knowledge of to create an proper portfolio website, which would be helpful to me in networking and self promotion. This may help me find employers in the future.

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Photoshop Practice

So I decided that while I was off over the holidays I would start learning some Photoshop painting techniques, and I don't think it went too badly:


Its my first attempt at using blending modes to produce the light and shadow, so its a bit untidy and rough, but hopefully with a lot of practice I can get it to look as good as the professional's one day.

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Self Evaluation for DP2: Moving Image Project

The main ideas I was trying to express in this piece of work was that the main character 'Andy' is a normal guy working a normal job going about his day to day life and he was reasonably happy even if it was monotonous work, and that the character of Vinnie arrives and disrupts his life and eventually leads him (Andy) to snap. The ways I tried to represent this in my piece was that in the beginning of the film the sun is still up and the scenes are much lighter and brighter. This is also shown through the music and the slower calmed cuts between shots. However when Vinnie arrives the viewer knows immediately that something is wrong. The music changes to a darker tenser ambience, and the sun goes down making the whole scene dark and eerie. There is also the fact that as far as sound goes, Vinnie's arrival cuts through Andy happy existence as much as the loud thudding, electronic dubstep he is blaring out of his car cuts across the light-hearted acoustic music of the opening scene. This point is further pressed when Vinnie steps out of the car and the cans fall to the floor crating sharp high sounds, wrecking Andy's peaceful silence and the gentle hum of traffic below.
When developing my ideas I used a lot of research methods, including looking at existing film and comparing and contrasting different takes on classic literature, as well as reading about places and people that I could use as influences in my work.
Another method I used, for character design in particular, was to start from the beginning with the most basic ideas and themes, creating brainstorms of the characters based on what their histories might be and possible motives driving them to act the way they do in the film.
A problem I found while editing was that the sound of the dialogue was at times too quiet to hear, this was due to the fact that the actors were talking too quietly or that the mic was too far away from them. I attempted to rectify this by making the sound levels higher at these points, but there’s only so much you can do in an edit and by making the sound levels higher overall I was also increasing the background noise, making cuts between shots painfully obvious. I realise that the problem was that the microphone was not close enough to the actors and so did not pick up enough sound. The best way to fix this would have to be a retake, or for the actors to rerecord those lines exactly as they said them in the shot and layer them over, making them loud enough to hear.
I think if I was going to redo this project, I’d defiantly acquire better lighting equipment, perhaps take to a couple of those personal lights or use the car headlights on full beam in more shots. I would also spend more time making sure the props were better positioned. Another thing I'd do would be to spend more time learning how to use other equipment better, when it came to filming days I felt a tad useless as I wasn't very helpful setting things up like the sound or camera equipment.

Monday 12 March 2012

Editing


I started editing the film after day two of shooting, I got the first half of the film off the Arnold server and edited it together as best I could up to where we had finished shooting. I left music and sound effects until I had the rest of the film, so that I didn't have to edit around sounds just yet.
After day three I took the rest of the footage and began editing in earnest. I started, as I usually do with looking through each of the clips, and labelling them appropriately, then I can clearly see whether they are outtakes, seconds of nothing or usable footage, and what is going on in each shot. I then organised the shots I decided I was going to use roughly on the timeline, trimmed off the 'action' and 'cut' segments and watched it through. I then cut out any useless footage, seconds of silence where nothing was happening, points where the actor had broken character by smiling or looking at the camera or there were unwanted background sounds. I then rewatched the film again to see where I was at.
At this point I just began tightening up the action, making sure that there was always something on screen that was showing progression of the story and shortening the film as much as possible, as it was still over the limit.
Next I had to gather together the sound effects and music I was going to use.  Most of the music and sound effects I ended up using were free downloads, but some of the music, such as the music used in the opening credits I would have had to get permission from the artist for if this was an actual film.
The hardest part during the sound editing was getting the music that played from Vinnie's phone to sound realistic. Because the original song I used was deep and bassey I had to manipulate the track so that it sounded distant and tinny as it would when coming from someone's phone. To achieve this I used another program called Adobe Sound Booth. I had never used this software before and it took some time to get to grips with it, but eventually I managed to manipulate the track into sounding like it was coming from a phone and echoing round a stairwell. If I had time I would have tweaked the sound slightly between the stairwell shots and the outside shots to get rid of the cold echoes, as it wouldn't echo like that outside, but it proved too time consuming for such a small change that would likely go unnoticed.
 A problem I found while editing was that the sound of the dialogue was at times too quiet to hear. I attempted to rectify this in the edit by making the sound levels higher at these points, but there’s only so much you can do in an edit and by making the sound levels higher overall I was also increasing the background noise, making cuts between shots painfully obvious. I realize that the problem was that the microphone was not close enough to the actors and so did not pick up enough sound. The best way to fix this would have to be a retake, or for the actors to rerecord those lines exactly as they said them in the shot and layer them over, making them loud enough to hear.
Trying to get the sound and especially the music and sound effects to match well with the visual element was the hardest part of editing, as it is harder to tell what point to start or stop the music compared to how you can clearly see when to cut visual footage. Because of this I don’t think the music and sound effects are as good as they could have been for my final edit. This is something I need to work on.

Friday 9 March 2012

Production

We shot the film over three days. On the first day of filming, we found that our actor playing Andy had cancelled, telling us that he would suddenly be busy today and would have to make it tomorrow instead. We tried that day to shoot what we could of the film just using Vinnie, but this was difficult as there were not many scenes where he didn't interact with Andy or the girl, who, as it turned out, would also be busy that day. In the end that day turned into more of a practice filming, as we noticed when we looked back at the footage that because a lot of the shots were hand held due to space issues the shots turned out to be too shaky or over lit.
The shaky camera also made it look as though he was being watched because it looked like a first person view, so I ended up using this footage only once, where Vinnie actually does feel as though he's being watched.
The sound however turned out better in these shots than in the actual take, so although we fixed the visual aspect of the film, the sound somehow managed to get worse as we progressed.
The second day of filming turned out to be better, although it was not without its share of problems. For a start the actor that had assured us that 'tomorrow would be better' failed to turn up again, and so the owner of the spare car we were using as lighting had to step in and act as Andy, as we were running out of time and could not wait on the original actor any longer. Luckily the actress playing Vinnie's girl eventually turned up and that day we were able to shoot half the film, including reshooting the failed footage from the day before, this time knowing to use the tripod.


 The second day was also the day we filmed the majority of the car sequences, as previously stated we used aerial shots and location shots to plan out the route the car would take and to look at possible camera positions for the best scenes to show the car in action.
On the final day of filming we shot the last half of the film. The most difficult part of day three and indeed of the whole shoot was the elevator scene, where Vinnie is tied up. This was because we were using a public car park and didn't know whether a customer was trying to use the elevator or not. The doors kept trying to close and it was a rush to get people organised and the scene shot so that we could leave the elevator as soon as possible so as to cause as little disruption to the car park as possible. It also didn't help that the corridor the elevator was situated in was vey cramped and it was difficult to get a good camera angle in the small space along with the tripod, other equipment and the crew.