Christmas

Merry Christmas Campers! What a Crimbo day it was, uncle and aunt round, food to feed the five thousand and don't forget the wine :) Boxing Day, literally has become, probably for many others the day where noone cooks, just continue with what they left from christmas lunch. i can't look another turkey in the face again, well until next year. To top it all off folks, we have mountains of mince pies (not complaining) yet to be eaten, this is when i wish my mum hadn't gone mad when she saw a 50% off sign. But tis the season to be jolly (and tipsy mind you) and so i end this seasonal update with a Happy New Year to all and see you soon!

Animation Principles: Finalised animated sequence

222 frames, makes up to 18 seconds- so far, so good. To finish said piece off i want to create a bigger splash with the puddle sequence, only because the water doesn't react properly to the force thats hitting it (the gremlin). Another segment i want to work on is the actual ending, because after the puddle, you don't see the character to show he is still alive, i want to end with him falling from the top of the screen, back to where he previously stood. For the boulder sequence, i wanted to pay homage to the Indiana Jones film franchise, hence why in the sequence we see the Gremlin wearing an Indiana- style hat, whilst being chased by the boulder. It was here i thought physically shaking the frames manually would create a sense of approaching danger (the boulder), so in the finalised version, the ground shakes, the Gremlin reacts to the movement, then the boulder 'bounds' into view.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:12

Having the character created and a short sequence in mind, this is the sequence broken down into key frames only. My main aim in this was to show extreme and subtle emotions coming from the character and hopefully this shows it.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:11

The finalised Gremlin walk

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:11

Linking to the previous blog, this is a characterized "run" when the Gremlin runs away from the boulder. I kept the body still, because i wanted to focus more or less on the feet and the movement of the hands and ears as they flap about. I got this idea from watching an episode of "Ed,Edd'n'Eddy", where the character's run consists of the legs moving rapidly whilst the arms are left to either dangle or flap about in the wind.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:10

Gremlin "crawl" created on Flash. After talking with fellow classmates, i noticed that the head in the previous walk cycles had no motion (only if i had redrawn the frames) and so making the walk look unnatural. I also wanted to see how the body's shaped would react to the "unusual" movement that the Gremlin is creating. This also effects the mouth, stretching and squashing ever so slightly gives the mouth a sense of "leadership" within the cycle. Overall, this shal be the final 1st walk cycle we see this little guy create, as i have 2 more cycles to work on.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:9

A much more characterised walk for the "Gremlin" creature. I moved the ears only slightly, to convey movement in the head, and the hair moves more fluently with the leg/arm motion.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:8

This is how i want the final "Gremlin" to look, rough walk cycle padded out but still i feel the ears have too much movement and are distracting from the actual walk.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:7

A more detailed version of the "Gremlin" that was originally created on Flash. After seeing that the previous walk cycle had a "limp" due to there not being feet, i wanted to show movement in the feet. With this sequence, i concentrated on the movement of the hair and ears too much and so the ears seem to have a life of their own. Also, i feel the arms have no life in them, the arc movement that we were taught seems lost as the arms just resemble sticks at the side of the body- shall try again! 

Digital Skills: Rough outline of storyboard #3 Rough Animatic:

Completed on Flash, i wanted to get a rough outline of the overall film.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:6

Once again, being me, i have redesigned the "Moose" character after watching "Gremlins" and so he is no longer a Moose, but a Gremlin. This is the walk cycle of the character, completed on Flash (my first proper animation on Flash too) and i am proud to have this character finally as my CHOSEN design.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:5

Another sequence showing "Moose", here we see him encounter a balloon, popping his ear drums in the process which ends with him getting upset and angry. The purpose of this is to put the character through extreme emotions.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:4

This is two designs of the Moose character, showing the difference in height and overall design, also a rough walk cycle for each.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:3

Another "Moose" tester.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:2

Being harsh on one's self but after viewing my character known as "Nude", i don't like him in terms of design and structure. So it's good bye to him and hello to "Moose". He was thought of when i watched an  episode of Nickalodeon's "Invader Zim", i like how the character's head is 5 times bigger than the body and the limbs consist of stumps for arms and legs.

Animation Principles: Walk sequence and interacting with objects/scenarios:1

So, for our new brief we have to create a character with it's own walk cycle and have it interact with 3 of these, either a balloon, football, boulder, puddle etc. For my sequence i chose balloon, boulder and puddle. The idea for the film is so we test the character in the situations and show this through body language and facial expression, portraying a variety of emotions.

My sequence is this:

Guy walks along, finds a balloon, tries blowing it up but can't. He gets in a strop and stomps off, only later to have a boulder land on his body due to his excessive stomping. After hoisting himself out from underneath said boulder, he continues his journey only to come across a puddle, which he falls through.

With this in mind, i now must design my character!

This is Nude, he is a Nudist, hence why the big "N" on his chest. He is roughly based of the characters from the Pixar short film "Night and Day". I did not want a difficult character to animate, and nor did i want the responsability of trying to animate clothing- so that is why i kept him "naked".

This sequence is just to test how our little hero here would react to a falling boulder (using a boulder as it will be appearing in the later finished film). After months of testing how my characters show emotion (see previous blogs), i hope this character captivates all that i have learnt and tested.

Digital Skills: Rough outline of storyboard #2

Dave cannot understand why weird stuff starts happening in his paradise, until he falls upon a chicken (Dave's favourite animal), clucking away but then turns into a demonic hen. Scene completely changes to a room filled with Waitrose items, all whispering "Dave" but then the mad hen enters screen again and Dave wakes up. The idea fro the dream sequence is for it to be done in first person, as if the audience IS Dave and we see what he's seeing in his dream.

Digital Skills: Rough outline of storyboard

Rough outline of the storyboard for our brief in Digital Skills #1:

The story is Dave (the guy i am partners with) works at Waitrose, so instantly i began with the idea of him falling asleep at the till.
This is the story: Dave is at work, yawning and moaning, longing for excitement- so he falls asleep. Suddenly he wakes up and he is greeted with the beautiful landscape of New Zealand, it is paradise, blue sky, vibrant green meadows and vast mountains far as the eye can see. I chose New Zealand because it is a fond memory of Dave's. Drifting into view is a hot air balloon, but it's not quite as it seems because the balloon ha sa face on it, Dave's face. Among this surreal sight are a flock of flying hands ( Dave is a Monty Python fan, so i thought a homage to Terry Gilliam's cut out style animation is needed).

Storyboard continues on the next blog.

character test #3

Another tester for the lip sync exercise, just experimenting with movement in the face (hence why these characters have more head than body).

Acting Workshop #1 24/10/2011

Okay, so today was our first acting workshop with the charming Rob, to begin with, as an ice breaker we stood in a circle and threw balls at eachother (literally). To make this sound less inappropiate, the aim "of the game" was to throw a ball at a person (not next to you) whilst saying their name. We did this quite well, until Rob decided that 16 balls was more of a challenge- he was right.

After this we were asked to walk around the room whilst told what we were walking on e.g rocks, ice, sand. I think this was challengnig, mainly because we had to vision ourselves at these places, but ofcourse being animators, imagining things comes naturally to us.

The main part of the day that i found entertaining and yet challenging was the "Human Puppet" task, where 3-4 people are in control of the chosen "puppet's" limbs. Overall, i was excited to do this day and look forward to next weeks!

character test #2 (colour)

The same character, just adding colour to help me see what works, this short sequence is also to determine what movements (mouth/body) work well with the figure.

Character tests for Lip Sync

This small anarchic character has been created for our Lip Sync exercise. I have added big eyes to help express what the character is feeling whilst going "wild". The voice i will be putting to him is one that was already chosen for us, a short sequence from Looney Tunes "Shoot the Duck" sketch, starring Daffy Duck. Having Daffy's voice helps me to visualize how my "creation" will speak and move and hopefully become an individual character.

Walk Cycle

After the Ball Bounce and my numerous little seperate pieces, we now arrive at the Walk Cycle. I mainly found keeping the arms moving direct to the legs, whilst not stretching the neck joint too much. I will be attempting another walk cycle, now that i have an idea of what key frames should be used and etc. My only main problem with this sequence is theres a gap from frame 1 to frame 12, where it should link beautifully and should seem timeless, i have had no such luck. My character unfortunately has a small imaginary ditch it walks down so the ending doesn't coinside with the beginning.

Dog

This experiment was to see if i could retain a character's shape, only because in the Sneeze sequence, i lost size and shape of the figure completely.

Sneeze

This was purely an experiment on the technique of "Squash and Stretch", how a character can change shape and size but yet retain it's characteristics. This sequence i am proud to post as it is an early example of character movement. There has been characters before in previous sequence but this one is a main example of the technique.

One more bounce

This be a bounce sequence, purely concentrating on the bounce. I have never done a bounce sequence before so was nervous, yet after all it's only a ball, how hard can it be to move? Quite hard.
After mapping out how to move the ball, using key frames to mark the main points of the ball's journey across the screen, i then captured it on Dragon. As i was capturing the frames, i noticed the camera was having trouble picking up the images i had drawn, so it became blurry, I wrestled with the camera until i thought i could use this blurriness to it's full potential. As you will see, hopefully, is that the blurred frames coinside with the normal frames and together give the sequence a softer look, especially when  the ball hits the ground and bounces back up.

Ball bounce.... again

Once again, i am bouncing balls, but am thrilled to be doing it. In this short sequence we see a ball bouncing into shot, and is quite quickly destroyed by a passing UFO. With this particular sequence i wanted to show depth and tone so i added shading on the ball and a little on the UFO. Originally, when completed on Dragon, i thought it was too quick, the audience doesn't get to see the full effect of the Squash and Stretch motion from the ball nor do they see the UFO and all its 'spacey' glory. But then, i realised that it was shot at 24 fps (frames per second), when it should be in 12, so i quickly changed it and here you are.

Bouncing ball

So, this is a finished ball bounce sequence i did, using Dragon on the lovely Macs. I originally had this sequence completed at 28-29 frames but cut down purely because i thought it didn't need the added frames. The small character you see on screen is, if you pardon the pun "getting the ball rolling" as very quickly he is removed and his eyes demostrate a more comic ball bounce, but i felt they are the best ball bounces i have created so far. 

Bouncing ball

Ok, so my name is Nick Ives and i am trying not make a mess of my blog. Above is the rough outline of the "Bouncing Ball" sequence where, quite easy to understand, we had to bounce a ball. Automatically i was fearing the worse, as any amateur animator would but kept my nerve and carried on. We were shown the famous "Luxo Jr" Pixar film, where the genius that is John Lassater created a character out of an everyday object. So this got me thinking, yes it is a bouncing ball, yes it would be effected by gravity and yes would have to seem fluent. But out of all this, a character could be created.


Due to a problem with a file error, completely my fault as i am still learning how to use Macs- my bouncing ball sequence is not loading up, but will have it shortly.