Just a few late things!

Scripts for anyone in my group who wants them. Remember to print them in Courier New :D

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MTV Idents

IDENT 1 - 'FLOWER'

EXT. PARK – DAY

A MONSTER enters the shot from the right on a lead; a person follows holding the lead but only their legs are visible. Monster 1 notices a flower and stops walking to sniff it.

The flower suddenly begins to change shape very rapidly. Monster 1 waves its arms in panic before losing its balance and falling over onto its back. The flower's petals rearrange into the MTV logo as it completes its transformation.

IDENT 2 - 'PIXILATION'

EXT. STREET – DAY

SCRAPING sounds can be heard initially. All 5 MONSTERS enter the shot from the right. They are in a line, all gripping the same lead, and are struggling to pull it. The monsters slowly disappear off screen to the left as they continue to pull the lead. The person appears being dragged on screen from the right with the lead tied onto them.

The person gets slowly dragged off screen to the left; they have another lead tied onto one of their legs. After the person has exited the shot to the right after the monsters, the MTV logo follows, being tied to the other end of the lead on the person's leg.

IDENT 3 – 'SING'

INT. MONSTER FLAT SITTING ROOM – EVENING

4 MONSTERS are sitting on the settee in a cosy flat whilst the 5th monster stands on the floor in front of them, performing a song. The monsters all seem happy and contented.

Their contentment doesn't last long when music from a neighbouring flat begins to boom through the wall, causing the entire flat to vibrate. The singing monster stops singing and all of them look visibly surprised and then irritated at the disturbance. The camera pans through the wall into the neighbouring flat.

INT. MTV FLAT BEDROOM – CONTINUOUS

The camera completes its pan through the wall. The MTV logo is sitting on a bed dancing to the music, facing a computer which is playing it. The MTV logo's flat is also vibrating with the sheer volume.

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PS.  I hate deadlines </3

Deadline for Da Groop

Hey, it's a blog post! And it's actually early, whey-ey!

So, me and my group have been working on our MTV idents and I think making good progress. Today Ashleigh helped me re-rig my character, and Dave helped to show me that IK-Splines aren't actually strange voodoo magic only practised by purple aliens in another galaxy. We humans can get them to work, too! Which I was quite chuffed about. Then later, once I'd gotten the hang of animating said IK-spline, Dave brought a friend in just as I was asking him why I had this odd... twisting problem with my character's IK-spline tail, which I'll show in a minute, and his friend, called M... M... Mr Awesome came and took about 2 minutes to do the dynamic motion thing I'd been trying for WEEKS to get right. Insane! He used Mocca IK I think, but it won't work on my computer and the tail of my character is as rigid as a plank o' wood again. Irony! Hopefully the copy Ashleigh has is still bendalicious.

So, here's the twisting problem I mentioned:



Yeah... that's odd. You'd think you could just rotate the mesh back to normal - trust me, I tried.

Oh and he's an animation of the MTV logo I made for one of the idents, where the monsters are disturbed by its loud music:



That's all I have to share for the moment... written work is calling me. Its call sounds like a highly unpleasant screech that makes my brain bleed but... the call must be answered! *epic exit*

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Jolly Doomsday!

Nah I'm just being pointlessly dramatic. Apart from my passport woes (trying to get this thing sorted out for our Berlin trip in April is an arse... I just hope it'll be ready soon) and trying to get back into the swing of things after an admittedly lazy Xbox-and-chocolate-fuelled Christmas holiday. Also, Woodlands Hall is doing its King Arthur Pantomime and I'm working a spotlight, so that's been eating up my time. And burning my fingers. Those spotlights get hot. D:

So much that needs doing... first things first. Our group project (the three MTV idents) is coming along fairly well. My little character's tail is still not the way I wanted it, but at this point it's probably better to cut my losses and just rig it normally so I can at least move it. Since he's not going to be onscreen for a long time it should be alright, but I'd still like to learn how to get the dynamic... tail... wiggle thing to work. I also asked if I could animate the MTV logo that is listening to music in one of the last idents, so that needs to be done by Monday.

For my personal project, I've been chopping down the story mercilessly. My last review made it quite clear that I was getting too ambitious again. Aaaand considering that, since I started, I've not finished a single animation for its deadline... bad habits are bad. So an overview of the changes I've made:

-There is no introduction to the villain, Varquer'eel, entering the forest or establishing his control over the cats
-Because of this lack of explanation, I've also cut out Varquer'eel's assassins (who would originally be shown chasing him into the forest)
-Okri does not meet Taln during the course of the animation
-Instead, she, Taln and Ralla'ool are shown to be traveling together
-I may include subtitles 'translating' the character's meows/squawks as was originally intended in earlier drafts

And as a rough outline, those are the changes. Okri, Taln and Ralla'ool would set up camp close to the forest where Varquer'eel is controlling his cats - they set their eyes on Ralla'ool while she sleeps, and though Okri chases them off and tries to lead the group on their way, a hungry Taln and Ralla'ool ignore her warnings and end up chasing a mouse into the forest and having to find their way back out again. On the way, Ralla'ool is finally captured, and the rest of the story remains fairly close to my earlier draft.

Today: Finish MTV Logo animation and UCAS stuff
Tomorrow: Watch the pantomime multiple times, burn myself on the spotlight, finish my character rig
Sunday: Finish up any outstanding areas of the MTV project/character, finalize a final final reviewed script for my main project.
Monday: Start compositing the MTV idents together

A Quick Update

Kind of significant since I didn't post on Friday.

So, on Friday we were sorted into our new groups and given our next group project. The idea is more or less the same - produce a short animation using live footage as a base to composite onto. This time though we have to make 3 10-second MTV idents. It's like 3 times more work than the last project, only not really since altogether we're only producing 30 seconds as opposed to one minute. So it's sort of half the work as last project. Only not really, because each ident needs its own script and storyboard and concept and they must work together and failure to complete them in time is FAILURE AT LIFE.

So, I've been grouped with Emma, Ashleigh, Lein and Zoe, and we've come up with some fairly fun little ident ideas. The storyboards for which you can see here! ( http://ashleighedmonds.blogspot.com/2011/12/storyboards-for-mtv-project.html ) It involves us each making a little monster/creature in 3D to composite into our live footage, and there may also be elements of 2D animation and perhaps even some 2.5D pictures to embellish the scenes.

Just gotten back to doing mine and had some of those mysterious randomly-striking and completely evil PC-Mac compatibility gremlins attack, so all my experimental texturing has had to go. But here's the basic mesh I managed to pillage:

Basic model (no NURBS):

3/4 viewish thing with HyperNURBS:

And a side view for good measure:

Yes, it is an egg with arms, legs and a tail. I was originally going to have very very simple blobs for arms and legs a la Pokemon (take a look at most of the newer Pokemon, actually. I think the artists forgot how to draw toes!) but although it looks cute on paper it kind of looked shoddy and half arsed in 3D. So I bulked up the arms and legs a tad and gave him thumbs for gripping the rope/lead as he does in one of the idents.

-Stopped typing blog, promptly forgot about it, then rediscovered it-

Done rigging my model now too, but it's borky in places... the arms spin around uncontrollably if I move them back too far and the tail has managed to twist all of its controllers the wrong way even though I aligned all the bones beforehand... typical Cinema 4D is typical.

B-Movies!

We finished all of our B-Movies today!  Yes, I know I have in no way mentioned the fact that we've been doing B-movies, and it probably goes without saying that there should have already been multiple posts detailing the descent into madness that IS B-movies, but don't worry!  It's finally time for the long-winded and uninteresting digital verbal diahorrea that is my blogging!

So this project gave us two weeks to produce a short film based on Hollywood B-movies from around the 1950s-1960s, if I'm remembering correctly.  Our group was a bit on the dodgy side though, if I have to be honest.  We initially started out with 4 members, but on the first day one member decided not to do the project for personal reasons and another member was absent.  So we had another person put into our group to try and bulk the numbers up.  Then one of our remaining original group members had to miss the final week of the project, while another member who had been absent for the initial concept returned and, honestly, communication between the four of us was iffy at best, though we got good work done when we worked together.  I think in the next project I'm going to try and take much better care to harrass my team for guidance regularly :D

It also left us a little behind on the other groups, I think, because concepts and bits and bobs that should have been finalised in the first week sort of seemed to carry over.  We spent a long time rubbing our chins over the details and I think this caused our final piece to seem a little rushed in places.  But overall I'm happy; it was nice to try something new.  Ross made some really creepy monsters that I was personally chuffed about because they're exactly what I like, and Lindsey did some badass sound design and editing.  Not to mention she did the write up, which is possibly the most boring section of the project altogether, so I took on the final script but haven't finished it yet.  (Bet you didn't see THAT coming, eh?!)  And she was the actor too... poor overworked Lindsey... sorry 'bout that. XD

So, our film short was originally going to be a full story but we decided to take the easy option and do a trailer instead.  It's supposed to be a fairly serious horror trailer, and here it is!



Now it's a bit choppy in places, yeah, but I have some ideas for possible edits I could do before final handin.   I'd like to try and see what the video looks like with rotoscoping and perhaps some manipulation of the monsters, perhaps changes to how they affect their environments.  Some more varied camera shots (close ups, anyone?) might also help to make it more dramatic.

The other groups I think did some excellent work!  I loved their animations so much, I jumped on our presentation computer on the sly and stole a copy of each group's animation.  I'm a big fan of awesome and sometimes I can't just let it slip me by, y'see.  I'll upload them a different time though, the internet is so slow it's taken ages just to load up my group's video.

Next week we have our presentations and another group project with a new group.  We have to produce 3 MTV idents that work with each other; they're going to be virtual 3D animation in a real environment... sounds interesting!

On a completely random last note, does anyone else think our monsters look like Endermen?

Hand In Reflection and a Week of Freedom!

Hello!

Well it's now Sunday following hand in.  I'm still a little concerned about the state of my work upon reflection, but not hugely so.  I mean, last year I handed in two modules and I was just absolutely sure I'd failed; I was so convinced I asked Dave ahead of time whether it would be okay to resit them.  And, wouldn't you know it, they were my strongest modules yet.  Strange how that works...

But the simple thing is, I forgot to hand in some things.  Like how about all my computer work screenshots and that... they weren't annotated very well but hey, I'd actually made some effort to record my progress and I completely forgot that entire section.  Wasted time but... I just hope my other written work was okay.  My written work is always, and has always been, pretty crappy.

Besides that, I couldn't get a print of Taln's character sheet in A3; I sent it off to the printer multiple times, got it accepted, paid for it, and yet it never actually emerged.  That or someone nabbed it accidentally.  All I got was a piddly A4 copy, and my other character sheet that was in full A3 never got mounted... *cough*IblameDave*cough*... But anyway!

I also have a few things that I handed in that because of my randomly spazzing email setup I was unable to post previously!  (That was what prompted the new blog)

So, without further ado, some of my work!



A line test I couldn't post earlier.  It shows my owl villain, Vorquan/Varquer'eel, being persued by two owl assassins.  I don't LIKE it, but I did it!

My expression sheet for Okri, my protagonist.  It hasn't actualy got ALL of the 25 expressions on there.  Two of them are missing, the 'Drunk' and 'Rage' expressions.  The drunk expression was a combination of not being able to get it right and because there's no way she could ever get drunk anyway; the Rage one I stuck in with 'Fierce' because well... there was no need for two different expressions for them.  Cats hiss when they're enraged and they hiss to look fierce.  And also when they're frightened too, but for communication's sake I just changed that one to a OAO type expression.  (And yes, that's meant to be an emote)

That aside, I don't think I actually have anything else work related to talk about other than the presentation I haven't started yet.  Just before, I had this really long winded backwards logic rant as to why I no longer needed to keep my blog entirely work-related, but I've forgotten it.

Hmm...

When Things Just Need Sorted...

Hello, I'm moving over to this blog now rather than my other one.  The multiple-google-account-thing was really causing me issues, so this should fix it!