Over the weekend I have been working with the dancing adding all the storytelling poses so the whole sequence now is readable and I have now sent this to my module tutor for feedback.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Thursday, 27 January 2011
WIP 5, Presenter Task Feedback
Today I received my feedback on my presenter task.
It is still too floaty. Especially the hand gestures still needs to be more snappy. Also, I need to watch the arcs, especially at the end when he swings the hand across his face. I also got a nice suggestion from a fellow student about the "five-thousand-dollars" part of the animation. Instead of making him show his fingers all 3 times both of the times he says the line make him only do 2 the first time he says it so it looks more variable. I will try and fix this as soon as I feel I have gotten far enough with the dancing animation which I have just started blocking out the storytelling poses for.
I know it might be late to start just now, unfortunate for me I had a bit of fever and headache on Wednesday so I was in no shape do to animation. "Animation is Concentration"
Luckily I have some good news, the deadline is now confirmed extended to the 14th of February. We have also been informed about the possibility to have Ed Hooks for one day (Tuesday 8th during Animex) where he will look at our animation and give feedback.
This is a great chance to get some useful feedback for both my presenter and the dance.
Even though the deadline is extended, I am still aiming to get the animation done by the original deadline on the 4th of February or latest on the 7th so I can enjoy Animex.
It is still too floaty. Especially the hand gestures still needs to be more snappy. Also, I need to watch the arcs, especially at the end when he swings the hand across his face. I also got a nice suggestion from a fellow student about the "five-thousand-dollars" part of the animation. Instead of making him show his fingers all 3 times both of the times he says the line make him only do 2 the first time he says it so it looks more variable. I will try and fix this as soon as I feel I have gotten far enough with the dancing animation which I have just started blocking out the storytelling poses for.
I know it might be late to start just now, unfortunate for me I had a bit of fever and headache on Wednesday so I was in no shape do to animation. "Animation is Concentration"
Luckily I have some good news, the deadline is now confirmed extended to the 14th of February. We have also been informed about the possibility to have Ed Hooks for one day (Tuesday 8th during Animex) where he will look at our animation and give feedback.
This is a great chance to get some useful feedback for both my presenter and the dance.
Even though the deadline is extended, I am still aiming to get the animation done by the original deadline on the 4th of February or latest on the 7th so I can enjoy Animex.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Dancing and Singing Task Decided
After looking over my options I have decided that I want to do my original idea after all and I have now filmed the reference with the help from my girlfriend as my dance partner. As I have promised my girlfriend that this video will not be published I can not show you the reference but I have a simple storyboard showing the basic idea that I had to start with before filming the reference:
In case you are lost, the audio track this storyboard is for is the "Cold Outside" one.
In case you are lost, the audio track this storyboard is for is the "Cold Outside" one.
Dancing and Singing Update
So, yesterday was an exciting day filming one could say. Me and my classmate spent quite a lot of time finding a location to film our reference as we both were looking for a "Street like" location where we can swing around a street light (pole).
Unfortunately it took quite some time and we were running out of daylight very quickly and the footage is still barely usable, so we will film more today at a different location when the sun is out.
Why a different location?
That's what I meant earlier by "exciting". As it turns out, our location was a primary school and without us knowing, we had trespassed and as we were about to leave we had been locked inside the courtyard. As the guard came to let us out we were then informed that it was a private property and we have trespassed. Lucky for us he did not involve the police and let us go.
Today in class I also got a preview of my classmate's dance and I realized he has taken a different turn with the whole scene which doesn't look anything close to my original idea to the dance, because of this I am very tempted to return to my original idea as I have got to admit that it attracts me a lot more than my new idea. Because of this, I will also film reference for this idea and then decide which one I'll go for.
Unfortunately it took quite some time and we were running out of daylight very quickly and the footage is still barely usable, so we will film more today at a different location when the sun is out.
Why a different location?
That's what I meant earlier by "exciting". As it turns out, our location was a primary school and without us knowing, we had trespassed and as we were about to leave we had been locked inside the courtyard. As the guard came to let us out we were then informed that it was a private property and we have trespassed. Lucky for us he did not involve the police and let us go.
Today in class I also got a preview of my classmate's dance and I realized he has taken a different turn with the whole scene which doesn't look anything close to my original idea to the dance, because of this I am very tempted to return to my original idea as I have got to admit that it attracts me a lot more than my new idea. Because of this, I will also film reference for this idea and then decide which one I'll go for.
Monday, 24 January 2011
WIP 5, Presenter Task
Since up until now I have not been able to get my camera to film my dancing reference I have spent the weekend working with my presenter animation as much as possible so I hopefully can focus all my effort on the dancing, once I have the reference footage to work with.
Now I have tried once again to make the animation more snappy as I mentioned previously and I have also tried to make the hand gestures a bit smaller or fewer. After the second time he says five-thousand-dollars, I let him leave his hand in the air and go straight to the pointing finger instead of him dropping the hand down to the desk and back up.
Also I have started a bit on the face, lip syncing the first 100 frames. So far it is only a lip sync and I still need to work with the mouth shapes to make it look more convincing.
I still feel it can be even better but I will wait to see what feedback I will receive from my class as it is easy to go blind on your own animation.
I have also heard rumor about the deadline being extended until the 14th of February. I sure hope this is the case as I feel I have fallen behind on the dancing task and it would be great to have the extra time for it. From what I have learned, Ed Hooks is also coming to Animex which would be a great opportunity to talk to him and get some feedback on the animation before handing it in.
Now it's time to get outside, pick up the camera and find a good location for filming my dancing reference with the help from my girlfriend as my dance partner.
Now I have tried once again to make the animation more snappy as I mentioned previously and I have also tried to make the hand gestures a bit smaller or fewer. After the second time he says five-thousand-dollars, I let him leave his hand in the air and go straight to the pointing finger instead of him dropping the hand down to the desk and back up.
Also I have started a bit on the face, lip syncing the first 100 frames. So far it is only a lip sync and I still need to work with the mouth shapes to make it look more convincing.
I still feel it can be even better but I will wait to see what feedback I will receive from my class as it is easy to go blind on your own animation.
I have also heard rumor about the deadline being extended until the 14th of February. I sure hope this is the case as I feel I have fallen behind on the dancing task and it would be great to have the extra time for it. From what I have learned, Ed Hooks is also coming to Animex which would be a great opportunity to talk to him and get some feedback on the animation before handing it in.
Now it's time to get outside, pick up the camera and find a good location for filming my dancing reference with the help from my girlfriend as my dance partner.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
WIP 4, Presenter Task, and ideas for my singing and dancing animation
Up until today I have managed to get through all the 500 frames to a splined version for show in the class for some feedback.
The main feedback I have received is about how floaty his hands are and especially when he goes "five-thousand-dollars" and I do absolutely agree on this and when I showed it I was not pleased with the result myself. It simply needs to be more snappy and that is what I will work with as well as the gestures.
I have also decided what song I want to animate to which is, "Baby it's cold outside" where my idea is to have a duet between two characters where one is kind of teasing the other by making it appear she is trying to leave the scene.
What I like about this idea is that it gives me the chance to try and animate two characters interacting with each others as well as trying to get some acting in the scene.
I have never tried anything of the sort before and I think it will be a great challenge that will help me increase my skills as an animator.
To my big surprise however, another classmate showed an animatic in the class today with the same idea, and I don't want to take the same approach so I have given it a second thought what to do with it.
I started looking through my music archive for inspiration and ideas to what I could use to come up with a different idea. I came over 4 songs which I chose and tried developing a scenario from:
Sting - English Man in New York
Jimmy Cliff - Hakuna Matata
Stevie Wonder - Village Ghetto Land
Stevie Wonder - Isn't She Lovely
Of these 4 choices, the last two by Stevie Wonder inspired me the most to some interesting scenes. Even though I did not start sketching for "Village Ghetto Land" I had an idea about a rich man suddenly finding himself in the ghetto and as he tries to leave, he gets dragged under the arm of a person from the area who takes him for a walk down the street to show him how bad the ghetto is with hope that the rich man will empathize with him to help everyone who is poor in the area.
I think this could be interesting but also quite sad and slow. Also I was kind of struggling coming up with some interesting choreography which is why I did not take this to the sketching/story boarding stage.
"Isn't She Lovely" is such a fun song to listen to with a lot of positive and uplifting mood and this inspired me the most. I started thinking about the idea of a woman walking passed a man in the street and he falls in love and starts following her from a distance singing and dancing in a kind of "musical style". I started sketching some storyboards and about half way through I realized "what am I doing???? This song isn't even about that, it's about a father's pride and love for his newborn daughter".
I liked the whole scene itself but it simply did not fit the song so I went back to my archive looking for more options. This time I came over the classic song by Bruce Channel "Hey Baby" and I realized this actually fits with my already planned scene. To better make the song fit the scene I changed the scene a little bit by making the guy actually follow the girl, trying to get her attention. I put the sketches along a timeline with the audio track and showed this animatic to my class for feedback on the idea:
The idea was welcomed by both the module tutor and the class so I have now booked a camera to film my reference video on the upcoming Monday.
The main feedback I have received is about how floaty his hands are and especially when he goes "five-thousand-dollars" and I do absolutely agree on this and when I showed it I was not pleased with the result myself. It simply needs to be more snappy and that is what I will work with as well as the gestures.
I have also decided what song I want to animate to which is, "Baby it's cold outside" where my idea is to have a duet between two characters where one is kind of teasing the other by making it appear she is trying to leave the scene.
What I like about this idea is that it gives me the chance to try and animate two characters interacting with each others as well as trying to get some acting in the scene.
I have never tried anything of the sort before and I think it will be a great challenge that will help me increase my skills as an animator.
To my big surprise however, another classmate showed an animatic in the class today with the same idea, and I don't want to take the same approach so I have given it a second thought what to do with it.
I started looking through my music archive for inspiration and ideas to what I could use to come up with a different idea. I came over 4 songs which I chose and tried developing a scenario from:
Sting - English Man in New York
Jimmy Cliff - Hakuna Matata
Stevie Wonder - Village Ghetto Land
Stevie Wonder - Isn't She Lovely
Of these 4 choices, the last two by Stevie Wonder inspired me the most to some interesting scenes. Even though I did not start sketching for "Village Ghetto Land" I had an idea about a rich man suddenly finding himself in the ghetto and as he tries to leave, he gets dragged under the arm of a person from the area who takes him for a walk down the street to show him how bad the ghetto is with hope that the rich man will empathize with him to help everyone who is poor in the area.
I think this could be interesting but also quite sad and slow. Also I was kind of struggling coming up with some interesting choreography which is why I did not take this to the sketching/story boarding stage.
"Isn't She Lovely" is such a fun song to listen to with a lot of positive and uplifting mood and this inspired me the most. I started thinking about the idea of a woman walking passed a man in the street and he falls in love and starts following her from a distance singing and dancing in a kind of "musical style". I started sketching some storyboards and about half way through I realized "what am I doing???? This song isn't even about that, it's about a father's pride and love for his newborn daughter".
I liked the whole scene itself but it simply did not fit the song so I went back to my archive looking for more options. This time I came over the classic song by Bruce Channel "Hey Baby" and I realized this actually fits with my already planned scene. To better make the song fit the scene I changed the scene a little bit by making the guy actually follow the girl, trying to get her attention. I put the sketches along a timeline with the audio track and showed this animatic to my class for feedback on the idea:
The idea was welcomed by both the module tutor and the class so I have now booked a camera to film my reference video on the upcoming Monday.
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
WIP 3 Presenter Task
As the animation is quite long I have decided to focus on the first 500 frames (the minimum of 20 seconds) to make these good and if there is time before the deadline, I will add the rest of the animation. So far I have taken the first 110 frames to the splining stage by adding breakdowns. Still nothing on the face though as I'm planning to add the facial animation in the end by using straight ahead animation.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
WIP 2 Presenter Animation Task
So here is an updated version of my storytelling poses blocked out:
Now I have added some more storytelling poses where I think it's necessary. I also received some feedback from my fellow student to change the "5000 dollars" pose a little by moving the hand a little to the side creating some negative space and improving the silhouette.
I have also added some poses to a secondary character. I do think the last pose of his does not work very well and I will try and work more with the rig on this. As you can see from the sketches I made, I want the character to kind of hide more behind the stand, but when I tried making such a pose close to the stand, the arms went through so I will still see what I can do to improve that pose. I've been thinking that it might look better if I gradually bring him down into that pose and make him "jump" a bit further down as the main character says "You're a dead man"
You might also have noticed that there still is no facial animation blocked out. During classes we have been told that it does improve the overall look of a block when showing it to a director in a studio setting and it sounds reasonable, but I have tried this before and it kind of just makes a mess in the keys for the face when I reach the stage were I will take the animation to the next step and I usually end up deleting facial animation. So for now I prefer to focus on the body first and then finish off with the face.
I might try to find a way in the future to block out the face as well but right now I don't feel ready for it and I'll stick with a method that works for me, working in layers.
Now I have added some more storytelling poses where I think it's necessary. I also received some feedback from my fellow student to change the "5000 dollars" pose a little by moving the hand a little to the side creating some negative space and improving the silhouette.
I have also added some poses to a secondary character. I do think the last pose of his does not work very well and I will try and work more with the rig on this. As you can see from the sketches I made, I want the character to kind of hide more behind the stand, but when I tried making such a pose close to the stand, the arms went through so I will still see what I can do to improve that pose. I've been thinking that it might look better if I gradually bring him down into that pose and make him "jump" a bit further down as the main character says "You're a dead man"
You might also have noticed that there still is no facial animation blocked out. During classes we have been told that it does improve the overall look of a block when showing it to a director in a studio setting and it sounds reasonable, but I have tried this before and it kind of just makes a mess in the keys for the face when I reach the stage were I will take the animation to the next step and I usually end up deleting facial animation. So for now I prefer to focus on the body first and then finish off with the face.
I might try to find a way in the future to block out the face as well but right now I don't feel ready for it and I'll stick with a method that works for me, working in layers.
Monday, 17 January 2011
WIP Presenter Animation Task
So now I have finished the first stage of the blocking, storytelling poses and this is the result:
Presenter Animation Task
Although I was given several options to choose from, I decided to find my own sound clip to animate to. So for this animation I have taken a sketch from Chris Rock were he talks about gun and bullet control.
The sketch can be seen here:
I have recorded this clip and edited it to both shorten it down and to make it fit my idea better.
I have planned to put my character in a election setting were he discusses the issue about weapons.
Even though Chris Rock definitely gives a great performance and is a great reference I will try to put my own touch to it. I'm sure Chris Rock will be of great reference when it comes to the facial animation.
I have also sketched down some thumbnail storyboards to illustrate my idea and help me in the blocking phase of my animation:
The sketch can be seen here:
I have recorded this clip and edited it to both shorten it down and to make it fit my idea better.
I have planned to put my character in a election setting were he discusses the issue about weapons.
Even though Chris Rock definitely gives a great performance and is a great reference I will try to put my own touch to it. I'm sure Chris Rock will be of great reference when it comes to the facial animation.
I have also sketched down some thumbnail storyboards to illustrate my idea and help me in the blocking phase of my animation:
Thursday, 13 January 2011
WIP 4 Lip Sync Task
I showed the animation to my tutor on Tuesday and got a suggestion to add some extra animation where I would give the character more thinking time in the beginning, building up to the character bursting out "Stop Breathing Down My Neck".
It was a very good suggestion indeed and it does improve the animation quite a bit I think.
So this is how the animation looks like now with the extra animation added to the clip:
I think by this point I will put this one on ice and focus on my two next tasks.
It was a very good suggestion indeed and it does improve the animation quite a bit I think.
So this is how the animation looks like now with the extra animation added to the clip:
I think by this point I will put this one on ice and focus on my two next tasks.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Sketching strangers while waiting
When I was going home to Norway for Christmas I had to wait quite a while in Amsterdam airport so while I was waiting I did some sketching of other people waiting and here are some of the sketches I did:
WIP 3 Lip Sync Task
So now I've received some more feedback on the animation and the lip sync is fine but the timing of the head is a little quick as it doesn't give the character time to think.
Personally I kind of like it the way it is because the clip starts in the middle of a scene where the character is already aware of the presence of someone else and doesn't need to think where it is coming from.
But after also receiving some feedback from my fellow student Jo Christian Figenschou I have tried to tone the exaggeration down even further as his feedback was related to this issue. The eyes were moving to quickly as well and I have tried to fix this as well and this is what I've got so far:
Hopefully, this will look good in other people's eyes as well and I can move on to my other tasks.
Personally I kind of like it the way it is because the clip starts in the middle of a scene where the character is already aware of the presence of someone else and doesn't need to think where it is coming from.
But after also receiving some feedback from my fellow student Jo Christian Figenschou I have tried to tone the exaggeration down even further as his feedback was related to this issue. The eyes were moving to quickly as well and I have tried to fix this as well and this is what I've got so far:
Hopefully, this will look good in other people's eyes as well and I can move on to my other tasks.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
WIP 2 Lip Sync Task
So now when I'm back in Middlesbrough I got straight on the animation to make those changes and I have tried to tone the animation down a bit and this is what I sent my tutor leader:
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