End of week report

I managed to flee south for Xmas on Thursday morning just as the snow hit Newcastle... anyway...

.....my tutorial with David on Wednesday morning although filling me with more ideas than I can chew did kind of scupper my progress in as far as continuing to complete every scene for my cut-out animation. This is not a bad thing, David has merely pointed out a number areas, techniques and effects that I could apply to embellish the appearance of may animation.

Unfortunately this means pulling the cord on my bullet train of progress and bringing it to a halt while I go back to my 1st scene and mess around further with the overall lighting with regards to introducing a late evening/night time of day feel by applying a sun with a certain brightness and a certain hue to the scene and colouring up the shadows, I'm now happy with what I've achieved but want to de-saturate the colour of the final animation in Final Cut once complete and add more textures.

I've also softened up the dust clouds in the pursuing monks wake which means amending assets, I'm a little torn about this because part of me doesn't want the dust could to look like dust and would be quite happy if it retained the look of cut-out card slotted into the landscape. I'm not trying to convince people that what they see is real, just odd, but I'm all for experimenting

I've looked at adding mist effects which would flow over the ground in various odd colours. This has in itself absorbed a fair bit of time as there is an immediate issue with the transparent parts of the plain on which characters are animated as it does not react well at the point where it meets the mist effect and it is visually obvious that the legs of my characters are on an invisible plane which would now be visible. I have tried countless settings but have had to give up.

However rather than relying on pre-set effects what I did do was create my own mist on a plane of its own by editing some clouds and lay this over the ground to cause a similar effect. Unless there are any other solutions this will do and at least keeps the whole animation as a cut out rather than merging it with pre-set fancy fog effects.

I now have to apply all of these lighting, dust and mist effects to every previously completed scene asap before I can continue creating the last few scenes.

Sooo, I'm still having fun and enjoying the results of my re-evaluation of what I've done so far but it has created an enormous amount of work with regards to revisions to existing scenes.

On a more positive note I have almost completed my research and essay for the sound module, about 80% there, I want that out of the way asap so I can focus on the animation and actually creating the sound for it over the Xmas break.

What's to happen this week?

So far for my 'cut-out' animation the progress looks like this:

Scene:

1- COMPLETE

2- COMPLETE

3- COMPLETE

4- COMPLETE

5- COMPLETE

6- COMPLETE

7- COMPLETE

8- COMPLETE

9- Need to draw up overhead view of characters, scenery already created

10- Background complete, falling character animated, need to create a couple of assets and animate secondary characters

11- COMPLETE

12- Background complete, main characters animated, just need to compile elements

13- Background complete, animation based on Scene 1 plus one additional element

14- Background complete, animation based on Scene 1 plus one additional element

My plan for this week...

I just need to focus on these elements and hopefully everything should be complete by Tuesday.!

Then I can focus on my sound, for which I already have drawn out what elements go where.

BBC2 Xmas Stingers

Really nice 'cut out' animation for the latest BBC2 Idents...

http://idents.tv/blog/2007/12/20/cutting-up-christmas-on-bbc-two/

Mid week updateroo

Well, I'm not quite where I planned to be, just in a parallel state.

I'm pleased with my progress this week so far. Scenes 1 & 2 are in the bag and I feel like I've progressed after establishing the look of the world in which the rest of the animation will take place. This now makes the creation of every other scene more viable, rather than changing everything after I've set it up and I've now dropped the new sky into scene 8 which has completed that scene.

Whilst at college I have been concentrating on creating files with the animated movements of characters which can be dropped into the environment that I have been working on during the evening.

So I'm pretty chuffed that not only have I got my characters bouncing along but also created a pulsating dust cloud similar in technique to that of cut-out animated rolling theatre sea. This would rise out of the floor as the characters moved along and would be used in many scenes. This is an important ingredient as it will be used in scenes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13 & 14.

I have also concentrated on scenes that are more focussed on characters and have created the animation for the main meeting point of characters and the turning point in the animation ready to drop into scenes 10 & 12.

Then the close up shot in scene 11, which I have decided can only be achieved using pose to pose animation and I have to admit I got a little carried away and produced 22 separate frames at the point where my character reveals himself. Unfortunately this also meant that due to my style of animation meant I also had to draw up 22 unique alpha channels to fit behind the colour files and then another set of alpha files to sit behind the first two for the fuzzy texture. So about 1 second of animation took 66 separate pieces of artwork, all be it manipulated from an initial couple of drawings used previously.

This just leaves the origination of the artwork for scene 9 which hasn't been touched yet but will use elements from the current landscape but with the characters viewed from above.

I've also been back over my initial storyboard, scribbled down and firmed up on the gaps and new scenes such as the latter one above so I'm clearer on what needs doing next. I do have yet another idea to add to the story if I have time but this will mean creating a smaller side character (creature).

I've discovered and enjoy the fact that the project expands and metomorphasises as it goes along, I try to keep evaluating and adding alternative solutions as I go along. (Bearing in mind the time it takes).

The introduction of the sound module this week simply covers elements that I have been working on already. I have already recorded a rough demo of the music track I'd like to apply to the animation (using Garage Band), although the sound module has lead me to constructing a list of necessary sound effects which I am currently thinking about.

Class Retro Animation from the days when we could get ice-cream from a lady walking around the cinema with a portable tray suspended from her neck

In many ways we've moved forwards but can u imagine a woman bringing you ice-cream after the 30 minute of ads we sit through today before the film starts?

OK, it's midnight....

I'm happy because I've got my environment for my animation much more like I want by breaking up the sky into pieces to give it more depth and yet still keeping the cut out style, plus I've managed to mess around with the colour and lighting and I'm much happier with it now, the main thing now it is to apply this to everything I've done so far to keep the continuity!

Monday Morning Update and Week Plan....

I think I have finally worked out how to squidge my characters while bouncing along. Seems simple enough but have had a bit of a set back over the weekend dedicating time to solving this issue. As always it's simple once you know how. I pretty much managed to set up Scene 2 at the weekend but I have had to leave out the bouncing characters until now now but now I seem to have sussed it out with Simon pointing out that the moving characters should be grouped in a nil folder file thing so I can move them around while keeping their bounce cycles.

Monday - Sort out my bouncing characters.
Tuesday - Update the latest landscapes from scenes 1 & 2 into all the background of all previously set up scenes.
Wednesday - I'd like to have every scene from 1 to 9 pretty much set up with animation and camera tracking.
Thursday - Start working on the second half of the story which will involve more detailed animation of the characters using arms legs and head movements. I'd like to have all the assets drawn up for these parts by today.
Friday - Develop scenes 10 to 14 using the new assets
Sat & Sun - Try to finish off all elements of the animation if possible, ready for post production effects and textures to be added next week.

Ambitious I know!

Just watched the film 'Monsters'

It's got tentacles that cunningly only come out at night so the CGI effects only need to be low tech budget. Also the cinema seemed to be filled with idiots constantly being shouted at by the sensible folk, which prevented me from doing it. It's a Cloverfield take on tentacle monsters where the story doesn't rely too strongly on effects. Shows what can be done with a shaky camera and suggestion alone.

What have I done this week.

Well apart from repeatedly turning up at college to be told to go home again....
I have actually started animating Scene 1 and I'm working on Scene 2 now, I've set up the set and characters for scene 4 & 8. I'm struggling to get my 'monks' to bounce in Cinema 4D, I've done it once but then they don't want to move anywhere, or they move but don't bounce (squash). Frustrating but will pester David on Monday!!

This is the construction of Scene 4, It's kind of developed in it's look by constructing the cliff face out of separate shards which I've introduced into the landscape.

This is the camera view which follows the bird as it flaps and circles the hole on the ledge.

Original charcoal drawing used as the inside of the hole in Scene 8, this was scanned in as black and white and texture and colour added in photoshop.

The hole was then duplicated and larger areas were masked out in the centre of each layer to give the hole more depth. 

The hole set viewed from below, with a hint of sky in the background.

My main character, all hinged and ready to walk. I set up a walk cycle in a separate file  then duplicated the keyframes in the time line to animate a longer walk.

Scene 1. You can see my main character dropped into place in the distance followed by the monks, I'm struggling to control the unruly bunch at the moment!

This is my bird with animated wings, head and legs in it's 'landed' format for Scene 9.

So far so good!

The big question is....

...will the snow stop play again today

So far this week I've managed to set up the sets and scenes in Cinema 4D for: 
- Scene 1
- Scene 4
- Scene 8
And have started animating elements including a walk cycle for the main character and setting up the camera movements within the scenes.

The great thing is that the elements used in some of these will be the basis for other scenes so they wont have to be re-created from scratch:
- Scene 1 - the set for this scene can be used for the creation of scenes 2, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 & 13
- Scene 4 - can be used to develop scenes 3 & 5

New scenes still to set up from scratch are:
- The new scene 9 inserted into the animatic sequence
- An additional scene in between 9 and 10 to help explain the story