Notes

Just 3 more days until everything needs to be handed in, I'v still got a lot left to do but I will get it done so not stressing too much which is nice.

Getting all the documentation into a template and making sure everything looks nice has taking longer than I thought it would but at least it looks good. There are some really nice A4 display folios in office works that really suit the feel of the animation, I'd love to get them but there pretty expensive so not sure weather to get them or not.

I'm slightly behind on organizing to rent cameras from lemac over the holidays, I should have called them last week or this but I'm just concentrating on getting everything handed in first.
I'm yet to map out the dance fully with Pip, I should have taken into account her minimal availability when organizing this at the start of the year but luckily I can catch up over the holidays.

Overall I'm slightly behind where I would like to be however I think the storyboards are the only aspect of the project I have pushed out quickly sacrificing quality so I'm very relieved to be mostly happy with my work and commitment so far.

Model Sheets

Completed my model sheets and the comparison sheet.

I didn't turn the monster onto his complete side as in the animation he only turns to his side at greatest as the angle shown above.

I found doing the expression sheet a little confusing with how much body movement to include as the monsters body is basically his face as well. So although it does help to convey emotion I kept the body positions to pretty minimal. The expressions seem to be a bit lacking on paper, the still images are not as capable as the animated monster is of conveying emotion. Also another way I have found of helping convey emotion through the monster is varying the amount and speed of the turbulent displacement. Having the monster eyes flare up looks great.

 I found getting expression into the hands pretty fun and as I now have the project compositions all set up it is relatively quick to do them although getting my hand and fingers into the most easily readable positions (thinking of them in silhouette  has really helped) is a bit tricky. I can foresee myself re-filming the synchronized hand and Pip dance scene a lot to get it right.

I did a comparison sheet for the assessment though for this particular character I don't think I will find it very useful as the monster's size and shape is constantly changing.

Layout

Completed my 4 layout images, I'm very happy with how it is looking so far. Green screen footage of Pip will be replacing the girl shown here and the parts of the strings tied around her limbs will be either blue material or paint on Pip so I can key it out and replace it with the same white/green tinge as the animated strings I will be doing in flash.

Shot 10 test

Creating a shot from the film for jacks class (scene 01 shot 10). Im fairly happy with how it is going. The monsters body needs a little bit of refining but is basically there. I still need to add in his hands and I've toned down the turbulent displacment effect on his eyes so they are capable of showing emotion so I need to edit the shape of the eyes in flash and substitute that back into the after effects file. I also need to add pip and background.

Review of Project

Problem Solving when Animating the Monster

Firstly I broke him down into 3 separate elements so I could approach each element individually:

·      Body

·      Eyes

·      Hands

I attempted to plan the process of creating the smoky, non-solid form of the monster on paper only to come up with very time consuming solutions, I spent a whole day on this which was way too long.

Got help from Jack in class and he worked out a standout solution on a still image, the Turbulent Displacement (TD) effect in After Effects.

Using the TD effect I then animated a movement of the monster in flash and substituted the sequence for the previously used still image to test it. This then posed me with a new problem, any movement of an image with the TD effect applied would undesirably greatly increase the TD effect.

After attempting to find different solutions I concluded there wasn’t a way around this and as the TD was a stand out solution I was happy with it.

The process of testing each solution helped me understand the effect more and come up with a technique of animating the monster in between moving holds to reap the benefits of the impressive TD effect whilst minimising the undesired increases of it.

Darren when helping me animate the eyes created a node control for a still image of the eyes with the TD effect applied and using 3d space in After Effects I could control the eyes in depth, rotation, position and scale extremely easily. This would have been a very quick and easy solution to animating the eyes however it did make them look a bit 2d for my liking.

I tested animating the eyes in flash and substituting the animated sequence with the still image but like the body it again created the increased TD effect.

I took the TD effect of the eyes off which gave me the additional option of creating an emotion through the eyes which would have been otherwise unreadable through the TD however for the overall look I opted to remain with the TD effect applied.

Finally I settled on the option of animating the depth, rotation and position in After Effects rather than flash to avoid the increased TD effect however as animating the scale in After Effects also gave them a more 2d look when scaling (like the node control) I will do it with a flash sequence.

I explored two options when creating the monsters hands. Firstly I filmed and rotoscoped. The inconsistency of shape when rotoscoping left the hands looking a bit more blubbery rather than smoky.

The second test I painted my hands black and arms white and keyed out using luminous to great effect. I was really pleased with the result. It took away the blobby inconsistency and looked great with the TD applied. Painting my hands and keying the footage was also a lot faster than rotoscoping.  

Keeping Productivity Rolling

Looking at the project from an analytic point of view and keeping myself from becoming attached to any aspect of it other than its core has constantly helped me make time saving decisions.  Replacing the first scene with only a short sound intro was a smart decision.

Also forcing myself to a target of 80% of what I’m happy with has been hard but has kept me on schedule and stoped me from getting bogged down in detail and falling behind.

Organisation & Working with People

I found that I needed to be extremely organised when working with other people. Being clear and able to produce a vision of what I wanted has been very important.

Including no unnecessary detail when supplying other with information to work from is essential as is foreseeing scheduling issues. I missed out on getting a storyboard artist I wanted as she was booked out before I got onto her.

Providing people with a hardcopy in addition to a digital copy seemed to get people thinking and more likely to work on the project. Also in hindsight having a calendar and setting clear due dates when assigning work would have helped.

Overall though I am very happy with how it has gone, getting people to work on concept art has giving me ideas I would have otherwise not thought of and having a make-up artist and dancer are talents I am far from possessing. Having the teachers on hand and if stuck leaving a problem until class to work through it quickly has been invaluable.

Other beneficial Points

This is already way over the word limit so I’m just going to point out the other factors if this project I found to help me out the most

·      Having a Budget

·      Allocating time to tasks and keeping to schedule

·      Getting input from friends, family and teachers

·      Making the process of creating the film as fun as possible

Model Sheets Again

Got some feedback about the model sheets today from Jack and Darren. Going to add in some hands once I film again and Jack thought the evil-happy look might be better in just shades of green so I'l have a stab at that.

Model Sheets

Completing the model sheets at the moment, got these 2 done and I am about half way through the action sheet.
3/4 Model Sheet

Expression Sheet

I think the expression sheet comes across as a bit lacking, the turbulent displacement effect alters the shape of the eyes beyond being a shape capable of conveying emotion. I have tested what the monster looks like with out the effect on the eyes and it does convey a lot more emotion but overall I like the look with the effect on them better. I think when the monster is seen in motion with Pip and in specific body posses it will pull it all together.