Creative Networks Ident

To help improve my skills I decided to take part in a quick competition. The brief was to create a small ten second ident for Creative Networks which would play in front of video presentations that they use. The deadline was very close when I started the competition, however I had an idea coming into it and I knew it would not take long to complete.

I took part in this brief as I thought it would interesting to work on animation that isn't about characters. I also wanted to work more on my After effects skills and this competition would provide a good opportunity to do so.

I created the initial animation using Flash. As I am used to working in Flash often this didn't take too long to do. I had been watching tutorials on how Flash's SWF files can interact with After effects and I thought that using Vectors would be useful for upscaling the footage to 1080p. The animation took about a day to complete.

I created SWF's showing each individual asset then imported them into After effects. By continually rasterising the assets I was able to maintain a clear image when upscaled to double size. I was going to render this out as it was, however, when the logo moved backwards there was an odd graphical glitch due to the motion tweens that I used.

After many attempts to fix it I eventually opted to create a PNG sequence in the Flash file. This would give me less freedom to change things in editing but eliminated the graphical glitches present.

Once I had rendered the image sequence out in After effects I put the file into Final cut for some final adjustments. I added some music to the composition and a fade out at the end of the footage. The music I added I don't think suited very well with the brief but I struggled to find anything more suitable for the ident.

While the competition specified that the footage be sent by email, my footage exceeded the size limit to be sent, so I instead uploaded it to Vimeo. i have yet to receive anything back from the hosts however I feel this was a useful experience for me and a good test of my skills.

Alien Animated

Here are the animations that I am going to use for the Alien turn table.

Unfortunately due to time constraints I could only create some simple animation for the turn table.

Animation part 3

FOr the final part of my animation, Tabitha will look through and open the sliding door, walk through and look down to a broken ALBUS. This scene is the one that I am most happiest with. Her movements look a lot more natural this scene and I finally got the hang of manipulating her dress.

I am not too happy with the way she holds onto the rails. Or rather how she doesn't hold onto the rails, hopefully this is something I can polish up at a later date. There is a lot of time at the end of the scene as I planned for different camera angles at this point.

With all the animation done on my part all we have to do is wait for Alex to finish his animation, then we can start putting together using Unity.

Animation part 2

I had to split the animation between her carrying the box in and putting it down due the parent constraint, but I feel this is a good split anyway. In this scene Tabitha puts the box down, spots Surveillance bot and he runs through the door way.

Synchronising the box with her hand was rather difficult to do and I feel that it is one segment that doesn't lok very good. However I feel that it works good enough for the scene. Surveillance bot looking around was also quite a chore as I didn't have much control with the IK handles. In hindsight I probably should of kept the joints with standard constraints.

While walking cycles are difficult, running cycles turned out to be even more difficult. This is probably the part I am most upset with as I feel it looks too amateurish. However, considering it is my first attempt, It looks okay. I have to remember that I shouldn't expect pixar levels of quality straight away.

Animation part 1

The environment, Tabitha, Albus and Surveillance bot are now all completed. We can now begin the animation process. We have decided to split the animation work in half. I will animate the first half  and Alex will animate the second half. All while Sophie works on the textures.

The first part of animation I did was her going through the door and carrying the box. To help with the animation process I parent constrained the box to her main controller. This would mean I would have to start a new scene for when she puts the box down.

I had some difficulty with her going through the door, as well as controlling the dress, hopefully I will get better with this in future scenes.

Returning from a long Summer.

After a long summer holiday, I have finally returned for my second year of College. While I havn't been as production as I would of preferred during the holidays I have done a fair few things.

5th Stage

The start of my holidays began very busily, as I was in the middle of creating my novice round animation for NATA. My open round animation Paradox Pandemonium focused a lot on humour and dialogue. Not wanting to appear like a one trick pony to the judges, I went for a more serious animation. Originally the characters were going to be more realistic, however I knew the competition i was facing was tough and I didn't want to work out of my comfort zone. Instead I opted for a more simple design, to allow easier animation and hopefully to stand out more to the judges.

Unfortunately I hadn't used my time well during the tournament and ended up working up to the deadline for forty hours straight. With a few scenes cut I managed to get my animation 5th Stage completed. I managed to get a total score of 81.3 out of 100, while my opponent got a mighty 91.3, knocking me out of the tournament. While I was quite disappointed to be out so early, I was in a way glad to be free of NATA as it was taking up the vast majority of time. Not to mention I would of been lying if I said I didn't expect the outcome!

Click for animated

Click for animated

After the tournament I spent a long time relaxing. The hectic timeline of NATA had taken its toll on me. However I also spent time drawing and animating little gifs to keep myself practiced. I continue to put up a lot of work on my Tumblr page, though admittedly not at the rate of which I used to update it with.

New computer  

I also got a whole new computer! After the monitor broke on my old computer I thought it was time to finally get a new one, especially considering I have had the old one for roughly 8 or so years. I also got a new tablet  as my old one was not suited for wide screen use. I'm very happy with the new set up, it's certainly faster a less problematic than the old one!

I've been playing a lot of games over summer, specifically I have been heavily getting into Rouge-likes such as Dungeons of Dredmor and FTL: Faster Than Light.

Dungeon Of Dredmor

FTL: Faster Than Light

Rogue-likes are characterized by there randomised scenarios and their often brutally difficult gameplay. The idea is to die frequently throughout multiple playthroughs and slowly learn the patterns in the game. Each time events or items are randomised so each time you play it is a new scenario. I have been sinking a lot of time into these games as they are exceptionally addictive and very satisfying when you finally get luck on your side!

And of course, I have been making silly videos over summer. But I sincerely doubt that will ever stop happeneing! c:

PPP conclusion

Elephant in the Room

The theme for the next round has been revealed as 'The Elephant in The Room'. This is an interesting theme as I can take it in multiple directions. I could take it literally, using an elephant, or I could take it metaphorically, going with the idiom and having someone ignoring a blatant truth.

I personally think that the literal method is a little too lazy and obvious, but directly going with the idiom is also a little too obvious.

This theme seems to lean well with comedy and dialogue, so I would like to go against this. This will help me stand out amongst the judges.

I will have to think about this theme carefully, especially with such a difficult opponent that I have for this round.

I Got Through!

I got through to the novice round in NATA!

This is very exciting! I genuinely didn't think I would get through to the next round so I am really surprised!

32 animators have all been placed into brackets to start the tournament proper. Unfortunately I have been placed with a very tough opponent for the first round. 'Vie Rickend' Came second in the judges choices for open rounds and also produced the highest ranking animation in the tournament. The odds are not in my favor it would seem.


However this doesn't mean I am giving up. I am going to try my best to get through to the next round, having such a tough opponent has inspired me produce a really good animation for the next round.

Paradox Pandemonium

I have finished my  animation for NATA. Paradox Pandemonium!

I finished it with two days to spare from the deadline. Though things didn't go quite as planned during the making of it. I skipped out on a couple of days as I was burned out, so I had to make up time at the last minute by waking up early and spending my entire day working on the animation.

I also had to cut some scenes out of the animation, as I feared I wouldn't be able to finish it on time with them. Despite this, I feel I have done well for an animation created in under 25 days.

If I get through the Open round (which I think is unlikely) I will most definitely do some things differently. I would make my next animation less verbose and have more of a focus on movement, as it is an animation tournament after all. I would also make it a bit shorter, as it took almost all my time to create a 3 and a half minute animation. Making something shorter would mean I have more time to relax and more time to focus on the quality of the animation.

We will soon found out the results and see if I have gotten through to the Novice round!

NATA Animatic

This is the rough animatic for my NATA animation, which I have named 'Paradox Pandemonium'. Unfortunately it glitches out at the end and the sound quality isn't very good but it identifies what I want to show well enough.

Although it is rough it allows me to identify timings and the positions for the animation. I have worked out I need to roughly do 14 seconds of animation a day, taking away days I am working on college work. It is going to be difficult but I am sure I'll be able to do it.

NATA

I have decided to enter the Newgrounds Annual Tournament of Animation (NATA).

I saw the original post for it on Newgrounds and decided to enter on a whim. While I don't think I have very good chances in even entering the Open round, I think it will be good practice for my animation skills and good dicipline for working to a deadline.

The deadline for the Open round is May the 10th and the theme for this round is 'Discovering Time Travel'. I have already thought of an idea and will begin working on it straight away.

Space Stallions

When making and watcing animation, I personally prefer 2-D animation, though I may be biased form my experience with 2-d animation and only starting 3-D animation recently.

Recently I found an animation which blends 2-D and 3-D animation very well. A cartoon made by The Animation Workshop called 'Space Stallions'

Much like the animations from Harry Partridge, this pays homage to the Saturday morning cartoons of the 80's. It uses 3-D for the characters with a cel-shaded look and 2-D graphics for the special effects. The combination works surprising well and doesn't seem jarring as I'd expect it to be.

The animation is very high quality and smooth and the aesthetic is pitch perfect with the 80's cartoons it is trying to emulate. This shows that 2-D and 3-D animation can be combined with success.

Animating the toy

Finally it was time to animate my toy. I decided to animate my toy in separate scenes, which would allow me to change cameras quite easily and ensure that a single file wouldn't get too big.

First I animated a walk cycle, I tried doing it in how I explained it in the storyboard, however this proved to be problematic.

This walk cycle was too cumbersome and slow for the scene I wanted to portray. I decided to make a new walk cycle that was more of a shuffle and could be faster.

This walk was much cleaner and faster, which would suit the small toy well. I decided I would keep the style of walk for the big toy as it was needed for the last scene to work.

Most of my animations would be the walk cycle plus starting and stopping, so I could re use this animation a lot. I used the infinity tool in the first scene of my animation to make an infinite walk cycle.

For the bigger toy I used some squash and stretch for his footsteps, to make him seem more heavier. I used the same thing for when the small toy jumps into the big toys foot.

I decided that when the big toy falls over that the scenery should jump up, to show just how heavy the big toy was. I made a small test animation to see how this would look.

The hills would need to be a lot smoother but I thought that it would be good to put into the final animation.

During the final parts of the animation I did start to rush a bit, as I needed time for the animation to render out and I was under pressure from other work, I felt like I could of done the ending better if I had more time.

With all the Maya work done for my animation I made some quick title cards using flash.

Storyboards and Animatic

It was time that I produced a storyboard for my animation, I needed to make sure I kept it simple enough so I could animate it easily.

 

I produced a rough storyboard in my sketchbook,  A small toy will walk into the scene, then a large toy will walk into the scene, the big toy will walk forward but the small toy will run underneath his foot and knock him, causing him to fall over. A simple animation that I could produce with my skill level.

   I then produced a cleaner version on photoshop, I made the background a rolling vista of link hills to fit with my character design.

Finally I produced an animatic to help me figure out the timings for my animation.

BarfQuestion

I wanted to try and find some animators which worked with a more traditional style, I remembered an animator which both works almost exclusively in hand drawn animation and I am a big fan of: BarfQuesiton

BarfQuestion's animation use almost childlike drawings drawn with pencil crayon, every frame is redrawn to have a constant wobble to it, even the backgrounds. I can only imagine how long each animation takes to draw out, especially since there are no layers to help with individual character animation and background animation.

I really like BarfQuestion's animation, combining simple drawings with a weird creations, all animated by hand. It shows his skill as an animator that all his animations are smooth and enjoyable to watch.

I should remember that any animation can be high quality and doesn't require computer equipment to reach its full potential.

Stop motion

When I think of stop motion, I immediately think of clay animation, however there are in fact many forms of stop motion animation and all of them differ quite a lot.

Strata cut animation for example involves taking cuts from a block of clay and talking an image of each one, producing an animation. It produces a very unique look and is something that is rarely seen these days.

Pixilation is where a stop motion animation is created using photographs, this can allow the movement of inanimate objects and make things seem a lot faster than they are, such as in the brilliant Wizard of Speed and Time.

Le Paysagiste, Jacques DROUIN, 1976 by shortanimatedworld

Pinscreen animation is something that is rarely seen. Animation is created by altering the points of tiny pins, creating an image. This must take an incredible amount of time to do and gives the animation a surreal quality about it.

Graphic animation uses cut outs and hand drawn images moved around by hand to create an animation. Obvious examples are the animations of Terry Gilliam from Monty Python and South Park. While the animation is very simple, it still offers appealing characters.

Object animation uses things such as action figures, lego or any object to animate something. The best example is The White Stripes music video 'Fell in Love with a Girl', which is one of my favorite music videos of all time.

All of these animations are stop motion and all of them offer a unique style. I will have to make sure I look into more into these other methods of stop motion and not just clay animation.

Motion Guides

Today we learnt about motion guides and how they can be used for our animations. Motion guides are very easy to create and allow complex movements to be created quite quickly. For the exercise we used the same truck we modelled before.

To create a motion guide, all you have to do is draw a line in the top view, this line would automatically round the corners for where you pointed, ensuring a smooth movement. It is then as simple as attaching the truck model to the motion guide and setitg how long the animation takes.

It is also important to set up the correct axis for the motion guide, as the truck might move to the side or reverse if wrongly inputted.

Motion guides are perfect when using a mode of a car. I will personally not be using motion guides as I do not need such complex movements in my animation. Still, it is a useful skill to know  and I may use it for future modules.

Cyriak

Recently we attended a talk by the animator Cyriak, which I found as an excellent opportunity to look into his work.

Cyriak is a 2-D animator who primarily uses aftereffects and photos for his animations. Almost all of his animations involve manipulated photos and grotesque transformations. I personally think that Cyriak's animation is brilliantly bizarre and fantastically produced.

One of the main themes of Cyriak's animations is cycles, often his animations involve large complex movements that loop seamlessly together. This must take excellent timing to keep in sync, especially when combined with other cycles, like in the video above.

 will not be producing something so complicated as this, but I will make sure to take into consideration the timings of my scenes and how they play out with over movements.

Pendulums

We have been practicing more with Maya, using more principles of animation in our sessions. We have been using pendulums to showcase this.

In this animation we practiced slow in and slow out. The speed of the pendulum shouldn't be constant throughout the animation and should slow town when it reaches the top of it's arc.

In this animation we utilized overlapping action, the top of the pendulum and the bottom of the pendulum are not going at the exact same rate, which shows or more fluid and realistic animation.

Finally, we practiced using Follow through. Unlike the other pendulums, this one moved in a straight line and came to an abrupt stop. The bottom of the pendulum would not stop instantly with the top. Instead it would carry on for a little while and swing. Using this principles of animation I can create much more dynamic and interesting animations.