Because of personal reasons I haven't been able to achieve much today.
My jobs for the rest of the week are as follows:
Tuesday: - Catch up on missed modelling
Wednesday: - have a line test for my ident readied
Thursday: -So on
Friday: - And so forth
Monday, 14 February 2011
Monday, 7 February 2011
More of the E-Sting Thing
Work's continuing on developing concepts for our ident/E-Stings/whatever I should actually be calling them. I have a presentation tommorrow on my concepts which would be fine if... I had all of the concepts.
I'm quite sure the minimum is 3 ideas and so far I only have two, which I'll run over after a brief whingefest about how I keep coming up with ideas - it's not that I can't think of things, it's that I'm extremely picky about concepts and 98% of what I come up with is absolute rubbish. I just feel like there's this slight, slight little chance of me coming up with something halfway workable but I have to wade through all these random very dull ideas I've just pulled out of nowhere in desperation. So it really takes me a while to decide on things like this... I'll get there eventually. Brief enough of a whinge? Good stuff.
Moving swiftly on, my first concept.
It sort of popped out of a very unimaginative idea (packed with unimaginative messages of course) where there would be a dusty TV, something would happen, E4 logo pops up, suddenly the TV is dusted off and becomes funky or whatever. Dull? You bet'cha. But it sort of evolved into what I think would be a mildly decent idea with dust bunnies (yeah, those lumps of dust, but they would be cutout into little bunny shapes and it would all be very cute and that) which carry out an E4 logo and start praying to it or something. I was originally going to have them do a little Indian dance around it but I thought it might be a tad offensive. People can be sensitive about their culture after all... another variation would be where they'd put the E4 logo down and admire it a bit, then someone would pass the camera with a hoover in the background behind them, causing them to flee and leave the E4 behind. I thought perhaps this way I could make something a bit cute and pleasant to watch without being overtly obvious about the E4 thing (if you look back a post, I complained profusely about having logos shoved down my throat!).
The second idea I had which is probably my current favourite would be one of those clips where you think something is going to happen, and you anticipate it, but nothing ever does. There was one advert in particular I can remember where there was a cup in a gutter. Nothing happened, but at the end it said something like 'See? You will watch anything'. I've tried to find it again but because I don't actually know what it was there for it's been difficult. If anyone knows where to find this one, please let me know, because I'd like to take another look at it! But I find clips that use this sort of anti-climactic approach to be effective partially because of their contrast with everything else you see (because seriously, who wants television to be clogged with clips in which nothing happens?) and they're also bizarrely humourous. I don't even know what makes them funny, they just invert expectations so nonchalantly I can't help but love them.
So before I waffle on for even longer, the idea was to have an old lady standing under some apple trees - the apples, however, are E4 logos - and she's got her walking stick and she's trying to prod a particular E4 logo out of the tree. Occassionally other E4 logos just plop down from the other trees of their own accord, but she ignores them and just keeps happily prodding away at this same E4 logo. While I was considering having some other odd things fall out of the trees over the 10 seconds, the basic idea is that nothing happens. I'm oddly attached to this idea for some reason.
I'm going to have to come up with more concepts; I might try for a more abstracted third idea so that I'm getting a good balance of concepts, but I'll see. Priority is my presentation, though, everything else can wait until I've done that. Speak of the devil, I'll get back to my work on that right now.
I'm quite sure the minimum is 3 ideas and so far I only have two, which I'll run over after a brief whingefest about how I keep coming up with ideas - it's not that I can't think of things, it's that I'm extremely picky about concepts and 98% of what I come up with is absolute rubbish. I just feel like there's this slight, slight little chance of me coming up with something halfway workable but I have to wade through all these random very dull ideas I've just pulled out of nowhere in desperation. So it really takes me a while to decide on things like this... I'll get there eventually. Brief enough of a whinge? Good stuff.
Moving swiftly on, my first concept.
It sort of popped out of a very unimaginative idea (packed with unimaginative messages of course) where there would be a dusty TV, something would happen, E4 logo pops up, suddenly the TV is dusted off and becomes funky or whatever. Dull? You bet'cha. But it sort of evolved into what I think would be a mildly decent idea with dust bunnies (yeah, those lumps of dust, but they would be cutout into little bunny shapes and it would all be very cute and that) which carry out an E4 logo and start praying to it or something. I was originally going to have them do a little Indian dance around it but I thought it might be a tad offensive. People can be sensitive about their culture after all... another variation would be where they'd put the E4 logo down and admire it a bit, then someone would pass the camera with a hoover in the background behind them, causing them to flee and leave the E4 behind. I thought perhaps this way I could make something a bit cute and pleasant to watch without being overtly obvious about the E4 thing (if you look back a post, I complained profusely about having logos shoved down my throat!).
The second idea I had which is probably my current favourite would be one of those clips where you think something is going to happen, and you anticipate it, but nothing ever does. There was one advert in particular I can remember where there was a cup in a gutter. Nothing happened, but at the end it said something like 'See? You will watch anything'. I've tried to find it again but because I don't actually know what it was there for it's been difficult. If anyone knows where to find this one, please let me know, because I'd like to take another look at it! But I find clips that use this sort of anti-climactic approach to be effective partially because of their contrast with everything else you see (because seriously, who wants television to be clogged with clips in which nothing happens?) and they're also bizarrely humourous. I don't even know what makes them funny, they just invert expectations so nonchalantly I can't help but love them.
So before I waffle on for even longer, the idea was to have an old lady standing under some apple trees - the apples, however, are E4 logos - and she's got her walking stick and she's trying to prod a particular E4 logo out of the tree. Occassionally other E4 logos just plop down from the other trees of their own accord, but she ignores them and just keeps happily prodding away at this same E4 logo. While I was considering having some other odd things fall out of the trees over the 10 seconds, the basic idea is that nothing happens. I'm oddly attached to this idea for some reason.
I'm going to have to come up with more concepts; I might try for a more abstracted third idea so that I'm getting a good balance of concepts, but I'll see. Priority is my presentation, though, everything else can wait until I've done that. Speak of the devil, I'll get back to my work on that right now.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
A Very Late Update (Complete with Excuses) - E-Stings
Well hello! Once again, a late update. This time I have excuses though - the bane of all computer users, the terrible Random Viruses That Popped Out of Nowhere. Though I've managed to save my computer from such a terror (I just wouldn't be able to go through another issue like last year where my computer exploded) I've been quite paranoid of the Macs used in college, because I think the viruses came from one of them. I had noticed that my memory stick had started to behave strangely; it has a small light that flashes red when information is being accessed which usually stops a few seconds after a file is loaded or saved. But when plugged into one of the Macs it began to flash non-stop and wouldn't eject. Eventually I just pulled it out and thought nothing of it, but my antivirus software later detected the viruses that I had almost transferred to my work PC.
So I ended up having to essentially delete all the data that had been transferred recently and replace the memory stick entirely (a bit over-the-top perhaps, but it's cheaper to replace the stick than to replace the computer, and I've had enough with broken-down computers. Some viruses are hugely destructive).
But now that everything's been taken care of, things should get back on track fairly quickly.
We're now looking at idents, specifically E4-themed idents. So I've trawled through Youtube and Vimeo, but it was the actual E4 site that provided these gems:
'Dirty Pidgeon' by Brunommf, 2009
This first E-Sting I like because of its use of pixellation (can't go wrong with that) but moreso because of its use of texture. If you watch the background there's a huge variation of shapes and textures - rusted corrogated iron, pipes, bricks, plywood, roof tiles, etc - that is directly contrasted with the images in the picture frame, which are fairly plain. Similarly, colours are contrasted in a similar manner - the bright greens and purples of the images in the picture frame and the duller tones of its background really help to make the animation's style feel collaged and interesting. Unlike some of the idents I've looked at, this is an example of it being fairly unclear about its purpose until the end, but is interesting enough with its mixed visual style that the audience is very likely to watch until the E4 logo is unveiled.
'Punch!' by thedmc, 2009
This second ident I like firstly because of its very basic, almost juvenile humour; it plays with the childish game of making someone else hit themselves with their own hand (and then ask then why they're hitting themselves) which is oddly very funny here. Though I'm not entirely sure why (perhaps its the sound for the person's voice - they sound very confused) it still really works for me and is good for a giggle. It looks like very simple cutout animation using photographs - real enough to make it more humerous (oh, we just love the suffering of fellow humans, don't we?) and yet cartoony enough to escape any possibility of being labelled inappropriate.
'Addicted to Light' by RDColey, 2009
This ident for E4 I find intensely cute (it's the voices that do it, bless them) and it's very good at making the audience aware of it being for E4 from start to finish without being too forceful about it. The most obvious use of the logo is in the lightbulb element, but the moths are also made of two E4 logos. When they fly into the bulb I believe they say 'E...E... E-E-E4.... E4' in what is possibly the cutest way ever. It's rare that an ident manages to reuse and reuse the logo in practically all of its assets without seeming either overtly obvious (to the point of it insulting your intelligence) or just generally trying too hard, but this one does it with a lot of tact which I thought was nice about it.
'A Ride of Some Sort...' by GeeTeeEff, 2009
Another one of my favourites (though I must admit a bias for traditional 2D animation) is this ident. It's interesting as the concept is unusual but the style isn't too unusual - which actually makes it stand out, oddly enough. Most idents either use 3D animation or much more abstract use of traditional animation if they use it (which is rare in and of itself), so using 2D for this ident really works for me. It's humourous, too - though the boy on the E4 ride looks like he's having a pretty horriffic time initially, he actually loves the ride (takes another penny out for it) which keeps it pretty tame as well. The use of colour vs. greyscale is a fairly easy way to draw the viewer's eye to the E4 logo as well. Overall, it's a classy and well animated little ident that isn't trying too hard - and amongst the hordes of idents that though well made feel like they are trying a bit too hard to drill the E4 into the viewer's heads, this one seems very charming.
'Recursive Culture' by Cyriak, 2009
As far as I can tell this ident is one of the most recent winners of the E-Stings competition. It's a highly creative affair and feels very collagey (is that even a word?), using what looks like a bit of live action, a bit of photomanipulation and a it of cutout animation (particularly the spider-robot creature) in what I think is a 3D environment. It's effectiveness is in how incredibly strange it is; you can't help but want to watch it several times over to try and figure out what exactly is going on and where each bit of building is coming from. What I said for the last few idents, as well, holds true for this one. Though the spider-robot starts popping E4 logos out of its pincer it never has to shoot the logo right into the viewer's face which always earns points with me. (Viewers aren't stupid. They don't need to have logos so close it hits their noses!)
I think I'm going to take a lead from a lot of the idents here where they're not overtly obvious about what they're trying to show you. I really do prefer the low-key approach. I prefer the logo to be visible, not huge, but involved in the activity going on in the ident rather than just have a semi-related animation play and then have the E4 logo just appear afterwards (sometimes, if done badly, it just seems random and tacked on). I particularly like 'A Ride of Some Sort...' for being brave and less abstract than some of the others (though to be fair, I do like the creativity in the abstracted idents too), so I think I may try for something quite simple and not too busy - and yes, perhaps a bit more predictably styled - than some idents initially and see where I go to from there.
So I ended up having to essentially delete all the data that had been transferred recently and replace the memory stick entirely (a bit over-the-top perhaps, but it's cheaper to replace the stick than to replace the computer, and I've had enough with broken-down computers. Some viruses are hugely destructive).
But now that everything's been taken care of, things should get back on track fairly quickly.
We're now looking at idents, specifically E4-themed idents. So I've trawled through Youtube and Vimeo, but it was the actual E4 site that provided these gems:
'Dirty Pidgeon' by Brunommf, 2009
This first E-Sting I like because of its use of pixellation (can't go wrong with that) but moreso because of its use of texture. If you watch the background there's a huge variation of shapes and textures - rusted corrogated iron, pipes, bricks, plywood, roof tiles, etc - that is directly contrasted with the images in the picture frame, which are fairly plain. Similarly, colours are contrasted in a similar manner - the bright greens and purples of the images in the picture frame and the duller tones of its background really help to make the animation's style feel collaged and interesting. Unlike some of the idents I've looked at, this is an example of it being fairly unclear about its purpose until the end, but is interesting enough with its mixed visual style that the audience is very likely to watch until the E4 logo is unveiled.
'Punch!' by thedmc, 2009
This second ident I like firstly because of its very basic, almost juvenile humour; it plays with the childish game of making someone else hit themselves with their own hand (and then ask then why they're hitting themselves) which is oddly very funny here. Though I'm not entirely sure why (perhaps its the sound for the person's voice - they sound very confused) it still really works for me and is good for a giggle. It looks like very simple cutout animation using photographs - real enough to make it more humerous (oh, we just love the suffering of fellow humans, don't we?) and yet cartoony enough to escape any possibility of being labelled inappropriate.
'Addicted to Light' by RDColey, 2009
This ident for E4 I find intensely cute (it's the voices that do it, bless them) and it's very good at making the audience aware of it being for E4 from start to finish without being too forceful about it. The most obvious use of the logo is in the lightbulb element, but the moths are also made of two E4 logos. When they fly into the bulb I believe they say 'E...E... E-E-E4.... E4' in what is possibly the cutest way ever. It's rare that an ident manages to reuse and reuse the logo in practically all of its assets without seeming either overtly obvious (to the point of it insulting your intelligence) or just generally trying too hard, but this one does it with a lot of tact which I thought was nice about it.
'A Ride of Some Sort...' by GeeTeeEff, 2009
Another one of my favourites (though I must admit a bias for traditional 2D animation) is this ident. It's interesting as the concept is unusual but the style isn't too unusual - which actually makes it stand out, oddly enough. Most idents either use 3D animation or much more abstract use of traditional animation if they use it (which is rare in and of itself), so using 2D for this ident really works for me. It's humourous, too - though the boy on the E4 ride looks like he's having a pretty horriffic time initially, he actually loves the ride (takes another penny out for it) which keeps it pretty tame as well. The use of colour vs. greyscale is a fairly easy way to draw the viewer's eye to the E4 logo as well. Overall, it's a classy and well animated little ident that isn't trying too hard - and amongst the hordes of idents that though well made feel like they are trying a bit too hard to drill the E4 into the viewer's heads, this one seems very charming.
'Recursive Culture' by Cyriak, 2009
As far as I can tell this ident is one of the most recent winners of the E-Stings competition. It's a highly creative affair and feels very collagey (is that even a word?), using what looks like a bit of live action, a bit of photomanipulation and a it of cutout animation (particularly the spider-robot creature) in what I think is a 3D environment. It's effectiveness is in how incredibly strange it is; you can't help but want to watch it several times over to try and figure out what exactly is going on and where each bit of building is coming from. What I said for the last few idents, as well, holds true for this one. Though the spider-robot starts popping E4 logos out of its pincer it never has to shoot the logo right into the viewer's face which always earns points with me. (Viewers aren't stupid. They don't need to have logos so close it hits their noses!)
I think I'm going to take a lead from a lot of the idents here where they're not overtly obvious about what they're trying to show you. I really do prefer the low-key approach. I prefer the logo to be visible, not huge, but involved in the activity going on in the ident rather than just have a semi-related animation play and then have the E4 logo just appear afterwards (sometimes, if done badly, it just seems random and tacked on). I particularly like 'A Ride of Some Sort...' for being brave and less abstract than some of the others (though to be fair, I do like the creativity in the abstracted idents too), so I think I may try for something quite simple and not too busy - and yes, perhaps a bit more predictably styled - than some idents initially and see where I go to from there.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
A Very Late Update; Animation/Sound Design Deadline
I realized that over the last few weeks updates to my blog had come to a standstill, and it's mostly because of the deadline for both my animation and the sound design accompanying it fast approaching (14th of Jan). I have just under a working week now, and though I'm seriously concerned as to whether I'm going to get this beast finished, all I can really do is make sure I cover as many of the learning requirements as possible.
The animation itself has been shortened. In the animatic I made, the Eagle would give Ratatosk a rock which he would throw at Nidhogg, then in retaliation Nidhogg would give Ratatosk a rock to throw at the Eagle. Upon having a stone thrown at it, the Eagle then gives Ratatosk a second rock to throw at Nidhogg, and the second time around Nidhogg retaliates by hurling a boulder (reason No. 53 for Why You Don't Mess With a Dragon). However in the animation I've decided to cut out the second phase of rock-throwing entirely. Now, The Eagle gives Ratatosk a rock to throw at Nidhogg, and Nidhogg has a quick revenge when he up and hurls his boulder immediately.
With that taken into consideration, I'm probably almost halfway through. The areas that are currently more or less finished are
-The opening scene; camera pans through a forest following wisps, zooms in on a sleeping Nidhogg and then pans up the Yggdrasil tree to reveal the Eagle and Ratatosk sitting up in the branches, looking down. -- I've ran into issues with animating the characters in this scene in Cinema 4D, as they are separate planes from their background and when they move, Cinema 4D automatically resizes the images to fit in their plane. Which means the characters just won't stay still or in proportion. Wobble wobble. I think I can fix this if I recreate the images with their own background plane in Adobe Photoshop, but I'm going to look into fixes in Cinema 4D before I resort to that. I'm anticipating the same problems with a lot of my other scenes, so it's important that I find a fix quickly.
-Ratatosk is given a rock; a scene I made entirely in Adobe Photoshop because the angle is impossible in the main Cinema 4D scene model. It shows Ratatosk sitting, and he flicks his ear back towards the viewer; the Eagle's foot, acting as a hand, extends from behind the camera to hand Ratatosk a stone. Since the characters and their backgrounds aren't seperated, I don't see myself running into any problems when it comes to rendering this scene.
-Ratatosk throws the rock; he jumps down to the base beside the sleeping Nidhogg and hurls the stone; Nidhogg glares at him so he points upwards towards the Eagle. I was considering also having a shot of the Eagle laughing, to make it clearer to the viewer what Ratatosk means when he's pointing (the Eagle is the baddie and not him) but since it's not hugely important to the story I'll see if I have time to slot it in at the end of the week.
Scenes that are still in progress are as follows:
-Nidhogg picks up the boulder; Because of the differences in the scene layout between the animatic and the final, this shot is both more tricky and less tricky at the same time. Good news is that falling water is much easier to animate than crumbling earth, but it's slightly less obvious than the original version (which is one of the reasons I inserted the boulder into the scene where it originally was not there).
-Rat gets splatted; Nidhogg tries to hand the boulder to Ratatosk, but ends up squishing him. I haven't focused on this scene too much because, depending on how things go, I might snip it entirely.
-Nidhogg throws the boulder; Subject to constant resketching because an upward shot of a dragon throwing a giant rock is tricky to make look right. Luckily it's a quick shot though. Less drawings!
-Eagle gets splatted; Not started quite yet, but it shouldn't be too hard because of the speed the character moves at.
-Nid and Ratatosk settle; Because it's more or less a reverse of the opening scene, except this time with Ratatosk sitting beside Nidhogg, I don't see any problems.
So completion is roughly 4/8, so half way there. I can't be sure whether I'll be able to finish this, and I have to remember not to forget about the sound design.
Plan for this week:
-Monday: Already passed, I finished two scenes (Rat receiving and throwing rock)
-Tuesday: Make sure all the necessary scenes have their animation finalized, if possible begin on lining and colouring as many as possible.
-Wednesday: Ensure sound design is complete; all sounds collected and all research adequately presented. If I finish early, continue with animation work.
-Thursday: Render scenes, apply final edits and ensure all paperwork is absolutely finished
-Friday: Any final preparations before hand in
It's not going to finish itself. Wish me luck!
The animation itself has been shortened. In the animatic I made, the Eagle would give Ratatosk a rock which he would throw at Nidhogg, then in retaliation Nidhogg would give Ratatosk a rock to throw at the Eagle. Upon having a stone thrown at it, the Eagle then gives Ratatosk a second rock to throw at Nidhogg, and the second time around Nidhogg retaliates by hurling a boulder (reason No. 53 for Why You Don't Mess With a Dragon). However in the animation I've decided to cut out the second phase of rock-throwing entirely. Now, The Eagle gives Ratatosk a rock to throw at Nidhogg, and Nidhogg has a quick revenge when he up and hurls his boulder immediately.
With that taken into consideration, I'm probably almost halfway through. The areas that are currently more or less finished are
-The opening scene; camera pans through a forest following wisps, zooms in on a sleeping Nidhogg and then pans up the Yggdrasil tree to reveal the Eagle and Ratatosk sitting up in the branches, looking down. -- I've ran into issues with animating the characters in this scene in Cinema 4D, as they are separate planes from their background and when they move, Cinema 4D automatically resizes the images to fit in their plane. Which means the characters just won't stay still or in proportion. Wobble wobble. I think I can fix this if I recreate the images with their own background plane in Adobe Photoshop, but I'm going to look into fixes in Cinema 4D before I resort to that. I'm anticipating the same problems with a lot of my other scenes, so it's important that I find a fix quickly.
-Ratatosk is given a rock; a scene I made entirely in Adobe Photoshop because the angle is impossible in the main Cinema 4D scene model. It shows Ratatosk sitting, and he flicks his ear back towards the viewer; the Eagle's foot, acting as a hand, extends from behind the camera to hand Ratatosk a stone. Since the characters and their backgrounds aren't seperated, I don't see myself running into any problems when it comes to rendering this scene.
-Ratatosk throws the rock; he jumps down to the base beside the sleeping Nidhogg and hurls the stone; Nidhogg glares at him so he points upwards towards the Eagle. I was considering also having a shot of the Eagle laughing, to make it clearer to the viewer what Ratatosk means when he's pointing (the Eagle is the baddie and not him) but since it's not hugely important to the story I'll see if I have time to slot it in at the end of the week.
Scenes that are still in progress are as follows:
-Nidhogg picks up the boulder; Because of the differences in the scene layout between the animatic and the final, this shot is both more tricky and less tricky at the same time. Good news is that falling water is much easier to animate than crumbling earth, but it's slightly less obvious than the original version (which is one of the reasons I inserted the boulder into the scene where it originally was not there).
-Rat gets splatted; Nidhogg tries to hand the boulder to Ratatosk, but ends up squishing him. I haven't focused on this scene too much because, depending on how things go, I might snip it entirely.
-Nidhogg throws the boulder; Subject to constant resketching because an upward shot of a dragon throwing a giant rock is tricky to make look right. Luckily it's a quick shot though. Less drawings!
-Eagle gets splatted; Not started quite yet, but it shouldn't be too hard because of the speed the character moves at.
-Nid and Ratatosk settle; Because it's more or less a reverse of the opening scene, except this time with Ratatosk sitting beside Nidhogg, I don't see any problems.
So completion is roughly 4/8, so half way there. I can't be sure whether I'll be able to finish this, and I have to remember not to forget about the sound design.
Plan for this week:
-Monday: Already passed, I finished two scenes (Rat receiving and throwing rock)
-Tuesday: Make sure all the necessary scenes have their animation finalized, if possible begin on lining and colouring as many as possible.
-Wednesday: Ensure sound design is complete; all sounds collected and all research adequately presented. If I finish early, continue with animation work.
-Thursday: Render scenes, apply final edits and ensure all paperwork is absolutely finished
-Friday: Any final preparations before hand in
It's not going to finish itself. Wish me luck!
Monday, 13 December 2010
Last Week Before Christmas
Wow, it's going to be busy.
Just last week we were introduced to a programme called Garageband, a music/sound creation and editing programme. I have to say, I really like it, it's a lot of fun. Unfortunately though it's a Mac-only programme. What a disappointment... not only that, but after doing some research it also turned out that there's no real comparable programme for PC; the closest I could find was called Mixcraft, and though it was reasonably cheap it just doesn't quite match up to Garageband feature-wise. (Also, while Garageband has over a hundred possible digital instruments, Mixcraft only has eight).
So now I'm pondering over getting myself a new keyboard that I can use with Audacity - I have one, but it's so old that the computer doesn't recognize it.
Timetable for the Week:
Monday:
9:00am-1:00pm - Tutorials and Sketchbook annotation
1:00pm-3:00pm - Garageband, sound production
4:00pm-onwards - Adobe Photoshop; Finish tweaks to scene and character mockups
Tuesday:
9:00am-1:00pm - Adobe Photoshop, Animation artwork
1:00pm-4:00pm - Retest character mockups and scene tweaks in Cinema 4D
Wednesday:
9:00am-3:00pm - Garageband, sound production
4:00pm-onwards - Adobe Photoshop, Animation artwork
Just last week we were introduced to a programme called Garageband, a music/sound creation and editing programme. I have to say, I really like it, it's a lot of fun. Unfortunately though it's a Mac-only programme. What a disappointment... not only that, but after doing some research it also turned out that there's no real comparable programme for PC; the closest I could find was called Mixcraft, and though it was reasonably cheap it just doesn't quite match up to Garageband feature-wise. (Also, while Garageband has over a hundred possible digital instruments, Mixcraft only has eight).
So now I'm pondering over getting myself a new keyboard that I can use with Audacity - I have one, but it's so old that the computer doesn't recognize it.
Timetable for the Week:
Monday:
9:00am-1:00pm - Tutorials and Sketchbook annotation
1:00pm-3:00pm - Garageband, sound production
4:00pm-onwards - Adobe Photoshop; Finish tweaks to scene and character mockups
Tuesday:
9:00am-1:00pm - Adobe Photoshop, Animation artwork
1:00pm-4:00pm - Retest character mockups and scene tweaks in Cinema 4D
Wednesday:
9:00am-3:00pm - Garageband, sound production
4:00pm-onwards - Adobe Photoshop, Animation artwork
Monday, 6 December 2010
Sound Design
It's another rather sleepy and very icy Monday, and today we're due to start on sound design for our animations. While I am really excited about trying something new, I'm concerned about the state of the animation itself. I was really pining to get on Cinema 4D (I was intending to on Friday, but the college closed very early due to the weather) and start putting my main scene together, just to make sure it's all going to work the way I'm hoping it will.
While I was drawing out the frames for my Eagle and Ratatosk, I had to estimate as closely as possible where they were going to be on which branch of Yggdrasil - harder than it sounds, because they're not perched on a flat plane, so they need to be drawn in such a way that they look like they're sitting on the branch (which will actually be layered behind them) and not sort of floating around it. Said branch is also included with the tree's base trunk layer and sits behind a big clump of leaves, so I'm going to have to get creative with the camera and pan underneath the leaf layer without it feeling... weird. And I am well aware that it could turn out looking VERY weird.
I spent about a day and a half on Ratatosk's animation, and closer to three days solid on the Eagle's, but it looks acceptably decent, I hope. So if at all possible, later today after we've been let go I'll hop onto Cinema 4D and just see if I can get a feel for how things are going to work. Once that's out of the way at least I'll know exactly what I'm going for.
While I was drawing out the frames for my Eagle and Ratatosk, I had to estimate as closely as possible where they were going to be on which branch of Yggdrasil - harder than it sounds, because they're not perched on a flat plane, so they need to be drawn in such a way that they look like they're sitting on the branch (which will actually be layered behind them) and not sort of floating around it. Said branch is also included with the tree's base trunk layer and sits behind a big clump of leaves, so I'm going to have to get creative with the camera and pan underneath the leaf layer without it feeling... weird. And I am well aware that it could turn out looking VERY weird.
I spent about a day and a half on Ratatosk's animation, and closer to three days solid on the Eagle's, but it looks acceptably decent, I hope. So if at all possible, later today after we've been let go I'll hop onto Cinema 4D and just see if I can get a feel for how things are going to work. Once that's out of the way at least I'll know exactly what I'm going for.
Monday, 29 November 2010
Drowning in Assets...
We're supposed to be over half way through the creation of the artwork for our cutout animation. That statement right there makes me cringe. I feel like I've been working like a horse but I only have what is essentially one picture to show for it. How does this take so long? I've been using free textures and everything. Bah.
The bright side is, it's the main background for the animation and according to Paul I can just reuse it (Sudo 3D is apparently very canny for letting you do that - so the scenes where the camera is supposed to pan up the tree at various angles won't need to be redrawn like they would in normal cutout animation). Will likely save me a lot of time. So now I can focus on the characters themselves, which should be much faster.
I also still have a lot of research that wants sorting out, but that'll have to be done at the same time. What a pain.
Timetable for this week:
Monday: Assets and/or research
Tuesday: Assets and/or research
Wednesday: Assets and/or research
Thursday: Assets and/or research
Friday: Assets and/or research
Saturday: Assets and/or research
Sunday: Assets and/or research
Aaaah... the delight of a varied week. I really have nothing else I can achieve if I'm going to be spending all my time doing more artwork... and I'm quite sure I will spend ALL week on artwork. So redraw and texture chopped up versions of characters. That should keep me busy enough. And if I have time to spare, I'll finish up my research on cutout (pretty it up basically) and get my artist research again.
Now, we've been looking at more animations and though there are 15 in total, of those I can find I only really like this one:
It's 'Learn Self Defence' by Chris Harding. Mostly I liked it for its humour and that it was very easy to follow the simple narrative, it wasn't overpowering. It just strikes a nice balance between being interesting but not so interesting it becomes confusing.
For comparison, 'Mr.Wizard - The Legend of Speed' was very expressive, but I completely lost what was meant to be going on midway through because the whole thing became too busy and chaotic. Which was probably exactly what the animators were going for, but it didn't really work for me.
Saiman Chow's 'Oggo' sort of managed to tell a story without being overpoweringly chaotic as well, though I attribute that mostly to the fact that the characters are very simple by design. I don't know if it was entirely intentional, but I think Oggo works because it still obeys the principle of staging whereas Mr.Wizard... doesn't so much.
On a side note, I ran into this animation for the Olympics 2008 while I was searching:
I really liked this one. The characters sort of had a Gorillaz-esque appeal which made them expressive but almost flawed while doing it, which is just something I find makes characters likeable. The animation is really nice too - it sort of has the clean look of cutout but the fluidity of traditional animation.
Kinda makes me wonder whether it's cleverly drawn traditional or if they used mixed media for it?
The bright side is, it's the main background for the animation and according to Paul I can just reuse it (Sudo 3D is apparently very canny for letting you do that - so the scenes where the camera is supposed to pan up the tree at various angles won't need to be redrawn like they would in normal cutout animation). Will likely save me a lot of time. So now I can focus on the characters themselves, which should be much faster.
I also still have a lot of research that wants sorting out, but that'll have to be done at the same time. What a pain.
Timetable for this week:
Monday: Assets and/or research
Tuesday: Assets and/or research
Wednesday: Assets and/or research
Thursday: Assets and/or research
Friday: Assets and/or research
Saturday: Assets and/or research
Sunday: Assets and/or research
Aaaah... the delight of a varied week. I really have nothing else I can achieve if I'm going to be spending all my time doing more artwork... and I'm quite sure I will spend ALL week on artwork. So redraw and texture chopped up versions of characters. That should keep me busy enough. And if I have time to spare, I'll finish up my research on cutout (pretty it up basically) and get my artist research again.
Now, we've been looking at more animations and though there are 15 in total, of those I can find I only really like this one:
It's 'Learn Self Defence' by Chris Harding. Mostly I liked it for its humour and that it was very easy to follow the simple narrative, it wasn't overpowering. It just strikes a nice balance between being interesting but not so interesting it becomes confusing.
For comparison, 'Mr.Wizard - The Legend of Speed' was very expressive, but I completely lost what was meant to be going on midway through because the whole thing became too busy and chaotic. Which was probably exactly what the animators were going for, but it didn't really work for me.
Saiman Chow's 'Oggo' sort of managed to tell a story without being overpoweringly chaotic as well, though I attribute that mostly to the fact that the characters are very simple by design. I don't know if it was entirely intentional, but I think Oggo works because it still obeys the principle of staging whereas Mr.Wizard... doesn't so much.
On a side note, I ran into this animation for the Olympics 2008 while I was searching:
BBC OLYMPICS ©2008 Passion Pictures from Stephane coedel on Vimeo.
I really liked this one. The characters sort of had a Gorillaz-esque appeal which made them expressive but almost flawed while doing it, which is just something I find makes characters likeable. The animation is really nice too - it sort of has the clean look of cutout but the fluidity of traditional animation.
Kinda makes me wonder whether it's cleverly drawn traditional or if they used mixed media for it?
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