the bomb project

For this project we were set the task of producing a 10 second animation in 3-4 days for a new unit called the bomb project, on the day we started the project we were given the theme of ‘love is a verb’ and  told that we can work individually or in a group of up to 3 people, a majority of students had no restrictions on what they can produce the animation with, I decided to produce mine in PhotoShop, After Effects and PremierPro, while other produced theirs in 3D software or even hand drawn flipbooks, however some people were set the task of producing it in a certain medium to improve a previous unit.

For my animation I planned to have a cat hunting for food for its kitten out of love, and the mother cat would encounter a bird protecting her chicks out of her love for them.

I enjoyed this project because it tested me with the little time to work before the deadline , also with a recommendation from a friend I learned how to create more realistic blood effect.

lover is a verb

final fmp animation

evaluation

For my final major project I was set the task of choosing 3 themes from a list of 6 and develop them into a story, I then worked with one of my tutors as a client and decided what theme to develop into a animation for the end of year show.

My three ideas were evolution, destruction and time, for evolution I planned to make 1 animation using 4 short animations made in different mediums to different definitions of evolution, for destruction I planned to have an already destroyed man made environment that would slowly show how nature can destroy to grow, and my final idea was time where I planned to show a series of events in a short time using a ‘reverse’ time-lapse.

Originally I wanted to go with my evolution theme, however to various constraints I changed to my time theme, with this change of theme I will only produce one animation using one medium so it will be simpler and easer to produce, compared to 4 short animations using all sorts of materials and different software.

For my evolution theme I was inspired to show off what I have learnt while on this course, so I wanted to Produce a few short animation with different techniques that I’ve learnt over the past few years. For my time theme I was inspired by dog rehabilitation videos that show a dog recovering from being reduced from the streets and I wanted to make an emotional story related to this.

During production my animation changed from my evolution theme to my time theme due to various complications, firstly the tools in Adobe Flash refused to work, after checking the layers and settings I asked a tutor for help, after a while he was unable to help me for fix Flash, shortly after this Flash quit unexpectedly and this repeated a few times, furthermore I also had problems in Maya when I was going to re-design and develop my stop motion character in 3D, however when using the polygon primitives I was unable to edit any of the faces/edges/vertexes, after these problems I had a client meeting where I discussed these problems and the current status of my project and came to the conclusion of switching themes.

For this project I started making notes on my three chosen themes, evolution, destruction and time.

Next I started to develop these notes into characters and environments, however due to time restrictions i could only develop my evolution theme.

 

After talking with my client to change my theme I started on producing my assets for my time animation, these consisted of environments and character positions, to do this I started producing a rough design with a low opacity brush which I used to develop the outline, after  added a fill followed by details, and for environments I also added textures, finally I removed the rough design. Some environments were designed with multiple parts which could be moved or hidden in the scene, for example the rose in the graveyard and a door that opens (which is not included in the final animation).

For my evolution theme I was originally going to produce 4 short animations with different techniques, such as building a basic zoetrope, producing a claymation, 2D in Adobe Flash/PhotoShop and a 3D animation in Maya. However since changing my theme to time, due to time constraints and required software not working, I will now produce a 2D animation using Photoshop and AfterEffects/PremierPro, for this I will plan and make my environments, characters and other assets in PhotoShop and import them into AfterEffects/PremierPro before rendering the animation with Encoder.

From this project I have learnt; to plan with creativity but choose what I am capable of producing (such as planning with my evolution theme but choosing my time theme because it is more realistic with the given time limit and workload), when designing/developing a character I can draw individual parts repeatedly instead of drawing the entire character very time (such as what I did for my 2D evolution character, I started off with drawing the entire character, with the body and eyes and tail and ears, for a few times then moved onto individual parts, such as the Jackalope horns/antlers), and finally planning on how I produce my animation (when my tutor/client suggested starting with what I would find most difficult then working towards the easier parts to produce). These will help me in the future because I now know more about preproduction and planning/time management.

My client helped inspire me for my project by recommending things that are related to my theme that could help me, such as the Futurama episode where Fry finds the fossil of his old dog and the 1960’s movie The Time Machine. My client also helped me with giving feedback on my current work, such as what they like and what I can improve or change, also my client helped by recommending how I should produce my animation with what to animate first. These helped by providing another point of view on how use the time theme efficiently and how i could improve what I had done.

For my final animation I liked how I showed a sequence of events in reverse to create a story, and how I used little detail on the people, mainly their faces, to keep the dog as the main focus for the animation, furthermore I liked how I used the fade transition to show different moments in time that have been distorted because they are memories. However one aspect I did not like about my final animation is the anatomy of the characters, I feel like some body parts are the wrong proportions and the anatomy can even change or at times be incorrect, for example in some scenes the back of the dogs front leg is curved and during other scenes it can be very angular.

Overall for my final animation I believe it to be a success because I believe that I made a story that the audience can connect with, which is enhanced by the background music because it conveys a greater amount of emotion than just the animation alone.

character and environment developments

Originally for my evolution theme I started with researching different type of video games characters, from RPG games like Terraria and Dragon Quest, I decided to make a slime character but to make it different from other slimes I decided to mix it with an animal, originally I asked my friends for random animals and shortly after deciding on a rabbit one of my tutors suggested a Jackalope, from this suggestion I decided to make a rabbit slime evolve into a Jakalope slime. I started with sketching, in blue non-photo pencil, different size some bodies, and then adding key characteristics of rabbits onto the body, I then drew over these characters in a regular pencil to help define their overall design, after I designed characteristics of a Jackalope on another page, such as antlers, however if I could redo this I would add other Jackalope characteristics, such as wings and fangs, that some myths have but others don’t. Next I started on designing my stop motion character, for this I researched and sketched, in blue non-photo pencil, different cell types, such as immune cells, bacteria and fungi, after basic designs I started to make own own cells from mixing and matching different cell parts and exaggerating cell parts to make it look like that are growing/developing/evolving. After I started on my environment designs, I first researched other environments in 2D mobile games for inspiration, I decided to design a ‘evolution station’ where the background would be an old book or stone tablet, that would have runes on and sections/spaces for my characters to go like in some mobile games.

For my time theme I started with designing my environments, in Photoshop I set the page size and resolution to match a 1080p screen and set the background colour to grey, next I sketched with a low opacity brush the rough layout of the environment, next I refined each part on different layers, for example the walls or houses or clouds or doors, once I had the outlines I started to add colour proceed by textures and after I then removed the outlines, later on I decided to further develop some environments so that I could add some in-between frames when the character interacted with the environments as well as a border to emphasise that the scenes are a memory. Next I was going to design a Staffie character but a tutor recommended a Jack Russell, so I first gathered research on Jack Russells and different body positions, such as sitting down and walk cycles, after I done basic sketches with a low opacity brush followed by the refined outline, next I worked on the fill and spots for the dog, I decided to keep the outlines on the Jack Russell because it helps it stand out from the background, after I merged the layers so I could copy and paste my character onto the background which I would then save as a new file in another folder, I repeated this for all scenes and positions.

script/storyboard

Originally for my evolution theme I had a script, that was for all of the short animations, that had what the narrator said in time with the animation, these are the same quotes from the initial ideas/developments post, as well as transitions and camera movements, I believe that this script was effective because it outline what what said in each scene and what would happen between the scenes. However since changing my theme I no longer needed the evolution script, for my time project there was no speech or narration so I did not make a script.

For my evolution theme I did not have time to make a storyboard due to time constraints, from producing character and environment developments for four different short animations in different mediums, as I discussed with my tutor/client. However for my time  theme the animation is storyboard driven (similar to shows such as Bee and PuppyCat or Steven Universe) so I will animate to the storyboards, however I have removed some scenes because upon reviewing my own work I thought that the scenes did not fit in with the rest of the story.

Time FMP work in progress

 

Test footage for my final major project, currently no audio, I still need to add characters to other scenes and add an another character in some of these scenes.

client meetings

For my FMP I had to work with a client and would have meetings, we decided to have a meeting at the end of each week, here are the notes from those meetings;

Meting 1- (evolution) My client suggested that I start with what would be most difficult to animate, 3D, and work towards what would be easier to animate, zoetrope, this was done so that any problems I got were either difficult problems at the start of the project that I would have time to fix or minor problems that would be easy to fix during the simpler parts of my project. After I presented my work and we discussed what I have done that week, which was character designs for 2D and claymation. Next I was told to work on my storyboards and develop my characters for other parts of the animation, which were 3D and zoetrope.

Meeting 2- (evolution) I presented that weeks work and was told to create an animatic for my animation, planning out how each short animation would be, if I did not do this this it would be difficult later on to work to a story/actions/camera movements that I have not properly planned out.

Meeting 3- I talked about the complications of the evolution theme, software not working and tutors couldn’t help/fix the problems, these problems included the Adobe Flash tools refusing to work so the workspace stayed blank, also after a few minutes Flash quit unexpectedly, furthermore when trying to produce rough character re-designs in Maya I was unable to manipulate the faces and vertices of the basic polygons, also we talked about that the evolution theme would be too difficult to produce in the remaining weeks. After the discussion we deiced to with to my time theme, I was then told to make storyboards for my new theme and work towards 20 seconds of animation so that I would not be too far behind on my schedule.

Meeting 4- We talked about how my work was progressing for the past week and that I have done 7 seconds of animation, this included the final backgrounds, that have been completed, with my single main character, and that I still need to add 2 minor characters which are just arms, legs and a torso.

Meeting 5- all backgrounds/environments have been done but going to improve some backgrounds by adding some in-between frames to help the movements/transitions work/flow better and add a border to emphasise that the scenes are memories, currently making more assets (backgrounds and characters) in photoshop and then import them into PremierPro to be animated.

Initail ideas/developments

For my FMP I had to choose 3 themes from a list of 6 themes, the themes were; Evolution, Destruction, Culture, Identity, Time and Future. The themes that I chose were Evolution, Destruction and Time, after choosing these themes I had to develop them, I thought about what I could do that is related to the theme and how I would produce it, for example if it’s stopmotion or 2D. First I researched different definitions of the themes, after I made a rough story followed by character and environment ideas.

My first theme was Evolution, first i researched different definitions of evolution, these ranged from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to growing to maturity, after I researched different definitions i thought i would choose four and make a short animation based on the definition but in a different animation style, such as zoetrope, claymation, 2D, 3D. from this my plan was a follows;

Zoetrope – physically make a zoetrope of Charles Darwin giving a thumbs up with one of his quotes, “its not the strongest of a species that survives , nor the most intelligent that survives, but the one most adaptable to change”.

Claymation – use the lyrics of the animated series of evolution “when some alien cells starts to mutate and swell say hello to evolution”, and make with polymer clay a cell that divides and mutates different features, such as spikes.

2D – 8 bit game style characters being used to evolve into a stranger creature, with “however is many video games evolution can be a group of creatures fusing together to for a single stronger form” as narration.

3D – model and redesign my stop motion character in maya and develop him into his teen/adult form, with these I will reference Digimon with its “Digivolution”, with the definition of evolution “evolution can also be growing to maturity”.

Next I would design characters for each short animation, I researched Charles Darwin so that I could draw line art of him in photoshop to print off for the zoetrope, I next researched different types of cells and sketched and developed different designs, for 2D I designed  ‘Bunny slimes’ and  ‘Jackalope slimes’ based on several types of video games such as Terraria and Dragon Quest, for 3D I resumed my old designs and elaborated on them from feedback I received from my stop motion unit, and also designed an older version of it where he would metamorphosise from his from form into his teen/adult form.

My second idea was Destruction, with this I thought of showing an already destroyed town/city in ruins that would pan/zoom to some rubble where a plant would be ‘destroying’ the rubble to grow, my inspiration for this was another perspective, I chose to do this because nature can also be a destructive force.

My final idea was Time, for this i stared with researching things that showed the progression of a lot of events but in a short amount of time, such as the Futurama episode where Fry find the fossil of his dog Scruffy, and my tutor recommended the 1960’s film Time Machine, from these i though about doing a reverse time-lapse , with this i thought of a sad emotion story of a dog and its owner, from this i decided to start with the grave of the own with the dog next to it remembering, in reverse, of its time with its owner until the point where its owner took it in from the streets, and then back to the grave where a relative of the owner would take to dog home.

From these three ideas I chose Evolution, however of about  two weeks of development later I discussed with my client/tutor about changing my final idea due to various complications and how difficult it would be to animate in 4 weeks, I changed my final idea to Time what would be produced in Photoshop and PremierPro

final 3d animation