Shaw Brothers

Practical Research Project - Day 5

2011-12-16T20:33:00.001Z

As you may have noticed, I quickly abandoned my plans to make a daily record of my progress after I spent the better part of Tuesday thinking and writing about what I'd done on Monday.

From there, having realised that I needed to return to the basics, I went over rigging a character for animation using Maya's own "getting started" tutorial. (http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/Maya2012_Getting_Started/index.html) I'd already gone through the modelling, texturing and animating parts of the tutorial, and I find that they're a good introduction to the program, although they really do only cover the basics. Unfortunately they're not enough to let you successfully create, rig and animate your own model, as I found with some interesting results...

After much perseverence, I managed to get something that looked a bit like a bear trying to jump, so I went with that, and ended up with this:

Shocking animation and terrible compositing, I know. I found animating in Maya frustrating, because I got a much poorer result than I would have done in 2D, despite spending a lot more time on the work. Setting up the model for animation was particularly time-consuming, and even then it didn't deform the way I wanted it to, and was difficult and unrewarding to animate.

I do intend to continue trying to learn 3D software for animation, but I've realised that I severely underestimated the steepness of the learning curve. Although the basics can be picked up relatively easily, making anything which actually animates well and looks good is much harder. While looking for uselful resources, I came across Digital Tutors (http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?cid=5) which offers some free video tutorials, and then the rest on subscribtion only. I didn't use any of the tutorials, but they seem to have a lot which go into depth on rigging and animating in Maya.

Practical Research Project - Day 1

2011-12-13T14:31:00.000Z

For this project our instructions are to choose a filmaking technique or approach that we would like to learn more about and to do some individual research into that. I've wanted to learn how to use 3D software for animation, specifically Maya, since it's one of the few major packages available on mac and, on top of that, Autodesk offers a free educational lisence to students.

I'm not so much interested in making whole films in 3D as being able to use 3D elements in combination with 2D. To research what aspects of 3D are most important for this technique, I decided to look at films which use 3D elements in a way I like, and find common factors between them. These are the films (I thoroughly reccommend all of them, if just for the visuals):

Don't swim after lunch from Jens Blank on Vimeo.

Topologies (Excerpt) - Tiepolo from Quayola on Vimeo.

Please Say Something from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Après la Pluie ©2008Gobelins from Emmanuelle Walker on Vimeo.

While looking into how some films were made, I found that several films which I had thought used 3D where actually made entirely in 2D (and some which I'm still not 100% sure about).

Peter & the Space Between from Cartoon Brew on Vimeo.

Countdown - HD from Desrumaux Celine on Vimeo.

Little Boat from nelson boles on Vimeo.

This goes to show that good animation and clever compositing can convincingly imitate three dimensions, but for the sake of broadening my skills I'm going to make the effort to learn the basics of 3D animation anyway, and hopefully some tricks to help blend 3D and 2D elements.

Looking at the films above (including the 2D ones, since I like them, too), the design choices that I feel all of them have in common are:

Flat or cell-style shading (this is a little ironic, since the 2D ones are cell shaded)
Restricted colour schemes
Grain, noise, or brushstroke effects to introduce analog-like elements
Sharp geometric shapes contrasted with curves
High levels of stylisation in character design
Abstract elements

Obviously, five days isn't enough to thoroughly reseach all of these aspects, especially when I first need to learn basic modelling, rigging, animation and rendering in Maya. I've therefore decided to try to model and rig a (very) simple character, animate a small movement, and learn to render and export the result in a way which lends itself to compositing with 2D elements (i.e. cell-shaded).

With complete disregard for logic, I started at the end by checking two tutorials on cell-shading in Maya.

http://shikijiyu.deviantart.com/art/Maya-Toon-Shading-Tutorial-156746043 - easy to follow instructions

http://www.cgchannel.com/2010/05/tutorial-cel-shading-in-maya-with-christophe-desse/

While both are worth a look, neither of them provides a complete route to the result I wanted. The first has clear, easy to follow instructions which give a reasonable result, though only after some tinkering with the settings (see the 1st and 3rd images below). The second completely skims over how to render a cell shaded image in Maya, and instead focuses on compositing seperate outline and fill renders in photoshop. This wasn't particulary helpful to me, but it did indicate a possible direction to take, though my efforts to get an outline that matched the shape of the model ran into some difficulties (see the 5th image below).

Oh, I modelled the bear based on this design, but it could use a bit more work:

Memory Project - Part 2

2011-12-10T22:33:00.001Z

Also just finished (well, nearly finished) the Memory Project, a short film about my first pet. I'd still like to go back to it and add some colour, but for now this is how it stands. In retrospect, I think I tried to fit too much action into the film while trying to keep up with the narration, making it a little bit confusing to watch.

Here are some screenshots to make up for the low-quality video:

Apex Project - Part 2

2011-12-10T22:04:00.001Z

Just finished work on the animated short for a project with the Apex hotel chain. The video will be officially launched online early next year, but for now here are some screenshots. Sorcha unfortunately left the project, so I ended up completing it on my own. The shooting was done in seven days in the studio, and I made the film with as little post-production as possible, since our original concept was to focus on the fact that we were interacting with the same physical object that hotel customers would find in their bathrooms. The animation process actually ended up being more of an exercise in special effects than anything else - I spent more than half the studio time on the snowing section. Lighting the scene was also a challenge, as I wanted the light to be bright enough to erase the gap between the platform and the backdrop, but not so bright as to erase detail on the duck or cause multiple strong shadows. The solution I came up with wasn't perfect, but time restraints meant that it had to do.

Life Drawing

2011-10-24T20:20:00.000+01:00

Just some life drawing from this semester.

James Bennett

2011-10-19T09:51:00.002+01:00

The only finished thing I've drawn for a while is a picture of my good pal James Bennett.

I'll draw a self-portait next time I want to put off studying for exams.

Apex Project - Part 1

2011-10-09T16:11:00.000+01:00

The other project we've got this semester is the Apex Project, a semi-commercial (i.e. for a client, but unpaid) piece of work. We had the choice of two briefs. One was to create two 30-second pieces of animation to be played in the hotel reception on a special three-screen set up. This is to be related to some new branding for the hotel chain, and was intended to be a more abstract piece.

I played around with a couple of ideas involving maps, then star charts and RGB lighting, but this image was as far as I got with that.

Although I'd like to work further on something like this in the future, I didn't feel comfortable enough with this sort of abstract motion graphics subject to pitch it to a client, so I chose to go with the other brief instead. This was to create a 1-minute animation using the Apex hotel chain mascot, a brightly coloured rubber duck, using the theme of one or more of the four seasons.

My initial idea for this brief (after playing around with different ways to draw the duck) was to use the rubber duck itself as a canvas for the animation, rather than a character within it. From there it was a short step to come up with some seasonal imagery than could be painted and then animated on the duck in stop-motion.

Because this technique will be particularly time-consuming, I arranged to work on the project with one of my classmates, Sorcha. The second part of the idea came when we were discussing ideas for the Winter/Spring section and we realised that we could substitute the rubber duck for parts of the film with different models, giving us a lot more flexibility and the ability to physically transform it into different shapes. For example, a snow duck, sand duck and topiary duck:

This helped us create a much more interesting storyboard to pitch to the client, combining painting on the duck with stop-motion animation.

The pitch went well, and we got approval to go ahead with the project. Next we'll work on a finalised, and hopefully improved, version of the storyboards, and do some animation tests to work out how much time in the studio we'll need to realise some of the more complex ideas.

Memory Project - Part 1

2011-10-08T19:28:00.002+01:00

As suggested by Jared (the new commander in chief of animation at the ECA), I'm going to post production progress of projects here, along with a bit of commentary about my thought process.

First up is the memory project, where we each record an unrehearsed 30ish second audio clip of ourselves speaking about a memory and then animate visuals to go with the audio using any technique(s) we chose. In my case the memory that came out was about my first pet - A rat called Marzipan.

Thankfully, I had a fairly clear idea of how I wanted to animate it. Since I didn't say anything particularly interesting, and there was no real story in what I said, I needed to find a way for the animation to entertain the viewer. To do this I chose to exaggerate the rat's exploits and, in doing so, to make him the lead character of the film, rather than myself.

The first step (after listening to the recording once or twice) was to sketch out some rats to try and pin down how I wanted him to look. I did these without reference to keep them loose and kept in mind the poses and movements that I wanted to use in the animation.

After that, I scanned the pages in and made a very rough animatic to make sure that the timing would work.

Next up: pencil tests.

Bristo Square

2011-10-04T18:09:00.001+01:00

Riddles In The Dark

2011-06-24T12:58:00.003+01:00

Bilbo and Gollum chillin' in a cave.

eca Animation 2011

2011-06-24T12:52:00.002+01:00

Short title sequence I made with Alex and Gavin.

Threadless Challenge

2011-06-21T09:18:00.004+01:00

There's a competition over at Threadless to design a T-shirt based on Adventure Time (my favourite show ever). Obviously, I had to enter.

Check out mine and the other entries here, and don't forget to vote!

Some stuff...

2011-04-10T21:46:00.005+01:00

Been pretty busy lately, but here's a few things I've been up to at eca:

And a little preview of something I'm working on now:

2010-02-26T09:57:00.002Z

2010-02-26T09:46:00.002Z

2010-01-15T09:06:00.001Z

University applications are almost sorted.

2010

2010-01-04T17:55:00.002Z

An old painting finally a step closer to being finished. I'm trying to organise my applications to art school for next year. Wish me luck.

More line tests

2009-12-15T20:11:00.002Z

Another one. His wife still needs animating, but she'll bring him a cup of coffee.

Production is underway!

2009-12-15T19:09:00.003Z

Not quite officially, but I've already started drawing. Here's a line test for one of the early scenes. I've got a few more ready now, and then I'll try to keep updating as the film progresses.

Troll

2009-11-02T20:56:00.001Z

A sketch I quickly (about 45 minutes) filled in as a photoshop excersise.

Jičín TV spot

2009-10-29T18:35:00.004Z

Oh, if anyone was wondering what happened to all those cartoony fairytale characters I was drawing, this is the finished spot. In the end I couldn't stay in Zlin long enough to the animation, but another girl from my class at school was kind enough to put in the hours and get in finished in time.

28 Weeks Later...

2009-10-29T18:05:00.004Z

(...almost)

Ok, summer's over, my thesis film's been approved for production and the budget's almost finalised. All being well I'll sign the production contract next week and we'll be able to start work. In the meantime, here's some concept work and a pencil test:

Vikings

2009-06-07T21:25:00.003+01:00

Sorry again about the quality

And some hand studies:

More Character Designs

2009-05-31T12:10:00.005+01:00

Sorry about the quality, I took the pictures with a webcam. Anyway, I'm just playing around with ideas for different fairytale characters. They're intentionally cute, since the spot is for a festival aimed mainly at young children, but some of the designs are maybe a bit too cute.

This week

2009-05-25T09:22:00.007+01:00

Some character designs for a tv spot we're going to animate.

And a school excercise: comic strip on the theme "hunt". I let myself get a bit carried away with this one. It still needs colouring, or at least some toning, but I don't have time right now.

Latest Gummage

2009-03-01T11:40:00.003Z

Some bits and pieces:

Here's a doodle (portrait of the artist as an old man)

And here's some pixels, my latest hobby

Now in VistaVision TechniColour with SuperSound(tm)

2008-12-17T17:33:00.002Z

Actually, I apologise for the awful quality inflicted on this by YouTube. It looks much nicer in real life.

Fortunately, I survived

2008-12-02T20:00:00.003Z

Doodles from school today.

Something From School

2008-11-27T20:37:00.003Z

A (very) short line test for a walk and jump. And a little painting as a bonus.

Soon to come: real animation, with colour

I'm so slow

2007-12-29T22:48:00.001Z

I should paint more often

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T09:07:00.001Z

Painted this a couple of weeks ago, but I was waiting for a good excuse to post it

Another One

2007-10-10T17:22:00.000+01:00

The lightbulbs in our room keep breaking

2007-09-30T20:46:00.000+01:00

A rose I painted at our flat in Brno.

My turn

2007-06-10T03:20:00.001+01:00

Might as well try to make this place look busy.

Trying to get back on track

2007-06-08T15:46:00.000+01:00

I can't promise daily updates, but I'll aim for fairly frequent, at least.

doing my part

2007-04-18T08:03:00.000+01:00

I'd better actually post something seeing as I said I would

2007-01-22T21:49:00.001Z

Nemluvím česky.

2007-01-22T21:49:00.000Z

Sorry about the bad quality, I had to use my camera.

Concept

2007-01-12T22:58:00.000Z

Mercenary hunters and trailblazers in a future of decaying cities over-run by strange beasts.

The Day The World Went Hollow

2007-01-11T23:26:00.000Z

Title courtesy of George.

A sort of beetle-monastery

2007-01-10T23:03:00.000Z

Not so much

2007-01-09T17:56:00.000Z

I've been drawing tendrilous cloudy stars instead.

Old & New

2007-01-08T21:40:00.000Z

Still catching up with myself, so here's 3 from the Christmas holidays, and 2 from today.

More Recent Drawings

2007-01-07T22:50:00.000Z

They're a bit messy, but that's just how fresh they are.

Czech Republic

2007-01-07T14:23:00.000Z

I even did a bit of drawing in between everything else. They're a bit old now, but I'll put something more recent up soon.

2006-10-19T14:47:00.000+01:00

Drawings From The Lighthouse

2006-10-01T15:54:00.000+01:00

Not On Bressay Yet

2006-09-25T21:12:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the second one. The drawing of Judith was too big to fit all of it in the scanner at once.

Y Control

2006-09-23T23:08:00.000+01:00

Sketches about a lonely young woman with an imaginary friend.

Let The Bells Ring

2006-09-22T23:17:00.000+01:00

Caw

2006-09-21T22:14:00.000+01:00

Just this today, I'm afraid.

Lightnin' Bar Blues

2006-09-20T22:22:00.000+01:00

This second drawing I did entirely for my own personal amusement. It's a kind of copy of this from explodingdog.

Yesterday's

2006-09-20T09:10:00.000+01:00

The Albion Sails On Course

2006-09-18T22:41:00.000+01:00

Only two pages today because I've spent most of my spare time drawing a giant map for David.

Dirk; Advertising Icon

2006-09-16T17:15:00.000+01:00

Many thanks to thesurrealist.co.uk and their "advertising slogan generator".

Also to whoever took the photo (I took it from Marjolein's Bebo).

And last but not least, Walls, for creating an icecream with such a funny name.

Pen&Pencil

2006-09-15T22:36:00.000+01:00

Slow day.

2006-09-14T19:07:00.000+01:00

George drew the mushroom; I animated it. But it's not working. Sorry.

...

2006-09-13T21:02:00.000+01:00

Last Night

2006-09-13T18:25:00.001+01:00

There's a red tray on my desk which steadily fills up with drawings, sketches and doodles. They stay there until the tray gets so full that I have to empty it, sometimes into the bin, sometimes by giving my brother or sister any pictures they want. Last night I realised that a blog would be an easy way to show these drawings to my friends, family, or anyone else who's interested enough to look, and maybe get some comments or feedback on them, too.

Enjoy

Ignore these. They're just pattern templates:

Marjolein and David

2006-09-13T16:34:00.000+01:00

Sketched in pencil and coloured in Painter IX.5

Retro

2006-09-13T13:26:00.000+01:00

I've been trying some stuff out in Pixen (a free program for Mac). Pixels are Old School.