This Week & Xmas - Progress

My aim for this week and for over the christmas holidays is to get at least three quarters of the animation done, all assets completed and make a significant start on the sound design, this includes all research as well as the saved sound samples.

All the sounds will probably be made by mouth and then manipulated so that they sound almost unrecognizable from the original sound clip in Audacity.

Once this is all completed I will render out the finished animation and then insert the sound clips in, in Final Cut or Premiere.

Week 4 - Progress.

Monday 6th Dec.

Thanks to the bad weather I haven't been able to get into college much (also thanks to generally terrible public transport.) however I have been hard at work at home (I'm not even joking!)

This week my main aim is to get at least half of my animation done, so far I am about a quarter of the way through, I have one of the main sequences done I just need to experiment and find camera angles I'm happy with, the program is difficult in some parts however I've managed to figure it out through just playing around with it.

I have the majority of my assets finished, only a few pose-to-pose frames need to be finished in photoshop, but after they have been finished my assets should be complete. I decided to add a few more pose-to-pose frames in this morning, I decided to draw a frame of my character trying to push the cart from the back and also added a cartoon-like flash to show a swift movement from the front of the cart to the back.

I feel by adding this frame it'll really show how much the caveman is struggling to move the cart and it'll give real conviction to his attempts.

I'm still disappointed that I can't get a blur on the background, the planes from the character and other objects, such as the trees, seem to block it out.

To test whether the movement I want works I decided to quickly render a few frames (without global illumination or any other stuff like that) to a quicktime

I've also decided to add more aspects to the background/foreground to make it a bit more interesting, perhaps a few rocks or blades of grass, this will just make the scenery abit more interesting, I also want to give more emphasis on the 2D within a 3D environment aspect of the animation.

Week 3 - Progress.

The aim for this week is really to get all the assets of my animation finished, this means all seperate parts, all pose-to-pose frames and all environmental components, all of which need to be coloured up.

So far the majority of these have been done, the environment has been finished, I used landscape planes and changed the sizes and shapes of these to give a three-dimensional mountain range look, I then used my crumpled paper texture over the top to give it texture and colour, I used the same texture for the ground but just changed the colour. I also added a few trees to make the environment abit more interesting and colourful. (see picture in previous post)

As far as the character goes, I aim to get the different arms, legs and expressions finished, so far about half of these have been done, and from these I have actually been able to animate a section of the animation in cinema 4D, however it is still abit rough and it will probably require tweaking and polishing up a little.

Progress - Cut-Out Animation - Week 2.

Tuesday 23rd Nov

I decided to take the character originally used in my animatic and intial storyboards and simplify him and change his look slightly. Although I have simplified him I have kept the style of mixing high-detailed close-up shots of his face to really grasp the intense emotion. I also included brief notes on the movement types on some specific shots, outlining if they'd be pose-to-pose movements or pivots.



A sketch of the simplified character.



The shots to the left are just a few examples of the character sketches I have produced.

Aswell as a few sketches of a redesigned character I have made progress on my framework. Most of my animation is going to be pose-to-pose movement so I have produced about three frames per movement.



Examples of one shot that will be used in my animation,
I have kept the high detail. This shows the first and last
frame of the pose-to-pose shot.

I have also produced some groundwork for my animation, I decided to crumple up a sheet of A4 paper into a  ball and then scan the piece once I straightened it back out, I then used the color range tool and changed the black and white to different shades of brown, this will really give the illusion of a cracked, dry, uneven surface when used in my animation.

I have also planned to use a similar technique for the mountain range in the background to give some texture to them.

So far I am undecided of whether to colour my character or leave him as black and white to give the impression that he is made out of paper, this will go well with the technique I have used for the ground and if I use this technique throughout the entire background it could give the illusion that the entire world within the animation is made of paper/card.

 
Wednesday 24th Nov

I produced more of the framework that will be used in my cut-out animation, I decided to leave the characters white when I put them in the animation to make them stand out against the coloured background and to give the illusion that they are made from paper (influenced by the characters in the Flatworld animation).

I also produced a quick sky to be used in the background using a two-tone gradient tool, I may also include clouds that will be on a separate plane that could move as the animation progresses.

The mountains that are going to be used in the background have also been completed, it will consist of just one mountain that will be manipulated to change its shape when layering them up to give a sense of depth. I also used the same technique as I did with the groundwork, in which I used a crumpled piece of A4 paper to give the mountains texture. 

Thursday 25th Nov

After a computer session in college practicing different techniques and generally just playing around with cinema 4D for the first time I decided to change my character from using pose-to-pose movement and change him to using pivots and seperate limb movement in Cinema 4D, I decided to go down this route as I really liked the smooth and seamless movement of the character when using this technique, it is also alot simpler and allows will not affect my character.

I decided to just have a play around using a still from my new character and a mock-up of a background I could use. I made a very, very short sample of a scene that would be in my final animation, however this is just a practice piece and really only uses a few of the effects that we covered in the session, this is my first real attempt at using the program.

The background will probably be changed and will use various effects to give it more depth, I will probably also include clouds and perhaps a few trees to really make the background more interesting and colourful.

Friday 26th Nov

I just spent the day really just messing around with the program and experimented with the different tools such as 'global illumination' and different types of lights, I also drew out some clouds and trees to add more to the background.

I tried to use the tool to add focus depth to the test, however I found the planes would actually block out the depth of field.

A test shot from the program showing all the background and a shot of the
coloured character.





'Circle' animatic.

Using hand-drawn frames, coloured in Photoshop, I made this short animatic using the animation tool in Photoshop. The Narrative was based around the theme of a circle, my narrative is literal and very simple; a caveman trying to make a wheel!
Seeing as my narrative was very simple I didn't want to go with a 'classic' sort of caveman, so I made a kind of primitive reptilian creature instead to make the animation/illustration style abit more quirky in comparison to the straight-forward story (which I could of been more creative with!).
This will be used as a storyboard and rough concept for when I take it forward to create a cut-out animation.

First animation character sketches.

Just a few sketches of my main characters for my first animation, I tend to draw in biro.

Run cycle/loop animation (first ever animation!)

This is my very first animation, ever! This is also my very first Blog ever!
This animation itself is a loop and was done with Dragon Software and a load of hand-drawn framework, some of the frames are very scrappy and I really should of included another set of frames with both characters in at the same time, oh well.

This is just a short clip of the Flatworld animation, it's a mixture of 3D, traditional 2D and cut-out. When looking at examples of cut-out animations for research and inspiration, this animation was definitely a stand-out! I recommend watching this if you haven't already, it's amazing.

Black Cat Crossing

Catwalk - Black Cat Crossing from no name party on Vimeo.

This is an example of a short cut-out animation found on Vimeo, I really like this animation, in particular the illustration style of the characters and the backgrounds.