Animation Production: Visual Style/ Character Design

None of the following is final. This is just me throwing out ideas for the way in which our animated short could look. We need to move things forward on the character design/ visual style side of things.

Possible changes to our story.

Character Design for Chief in Oil Pastel, Pencil and Pen sketches.

Animation Production: Animatic 1st Draft

Georg too a look at our storyboard this morning with myself and Jack. The amin things he mentioned were; giving the opening shot a few more seconds so the audiences eyes have a little more time to focus and i think, given that it is a close up, i think that is a good call.

One thing i discussed with the team was standardisation. When we began to storybard in flash and began to hear files we soon realised we had all been working in different versions.
File Format: Quicktime
Encoding: H.264
Frame rate: 25fpf

We have been working on the animatic this week and finalising some of the storyboard shots at the same time.

feedback
where we go from here

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In Andy's Animation Production lecture he went over the importance of the Animatic. The animatic does not have one specific purpose, this is why it is so important. It is to convey the feel of the film, help work out timing, fix continuity errors, test scratch track/ sound design, layout and staging, and is often used in industry as a way of pitching/ presenting an idea. He showed us the animatic of an digital 2D animated short called 'Hey Bully followed by the final piece. Andy also gave us a 'camera shot cheat sheet' handout, that had an illustration and description of commonly used shots in filming. I knew most of them anyway and had use the same if not similar description in out script before storyboarding.



Moving things Forward:

Kirstianne Wells:
Present possible colour palettes in whatever medium
Begin color script from storyboards: http://tinyurl.com/7z7uhyw
Begin to create texture library on dropbox
Work with Omari to develop birds eyes overview of entire environment, for camera placements/ backgrounds etc.

Jack Donoghue:
Present development of characters
Look into sculptural qualities hw characters work in 3d space
work with kirsty to decide on visual style; character, props, etc.
poses and expression sheet;
http://napalmnacey.deviantart.com/art/25-Essential-Expressions-55523083

Omari:
finish storyboards >> get regular feedback from team
Animatic >>get regular feedback from team
Begin production bible in indesign (see dropbox for details)

All:
practice drawing children if you have spear time.
meeting monday at 11am in spoons just to go over work to show for thursdays presentation.

Animation Production: Toon/ Hyper Shader

Post Production: Nuke Difference Mapping

Add caption

Post Production: VFX

In our Animation Technologies lecture Georg mentioned the university would be getting a Motion Capture space in the Performance centre. Apparently there is a space in the middle of the building called 'The Void' (cool name) and a company that works with Pinewood will be using it but we will have access to it too. It woud be great if we could work on some of their project if they need a hand too.

 Visual Effects Project: 

I had two ideas for me VFX pathway project. One was to do a hover-board like in back to the future but  more sci-fi. To do it I would simply record someone on a skateboard and 'paint it out', then I would model a hover-board and perfectly motion track the real boards movement so i can replace it with the model. See the two videos below to get a better idea of what I mean. It would be cool to mak the board look more sci-fi as well add some fire/ heat haze coming from the bottom of the board.

The other ideas was to do a much more practical VFX shot. I could be something like modelling, texturing, lighting and mach moving a realistic car into a scene. This would be a much more practical shot and would probably push my skills more than the hover-board project, as fun as that would be.

Animation Production: Design for Animation

 Era & Nationality: 

Where: Mid-West Native America
When: 1800's
Cultural Inlfuences: Native American Cherokee Tribe
Visual Style: Isotope-esque,

sketches for the look of 'Chief'

Out story follows Dakota of the Cherokee Tribe in 1806

Our inspiration for color and visual style. Notice the simple depiction of the trees.

Toon shader and bump map test

Toon shader and bump map test

Notice the simple representation of the Tipi huts. 

 Research & Reference: 

Sreeenshot from Last of The Mohicans

Screenshot from Pocahontas

By Milt Kahl 

Rigging: Fingers

Like I said in an earlier post I am still trying to get my head around rigging. It is a technical process but I just need more practice. I am more concerned about learning to rigg than I am compositing in NUKE and texturing in MARI for my Animation Production project.

Digital Animation Course Representative

Me and Lauren are both Course Representatives for Digital Animation and have been so since our first year. One of the main things we want to get as soon as possible if not by next academic year.

It seems there a lot of of people that need to be contacted if this would take and place and also feels like is a lot of smoke and mirrors as a result. We will arrange a meeting with security, porters, the dean, students, Andy, Georg and Tremough Campus Services (TCS) if needs be.  The interesting thing is that they are worries about cost. They just spent millions on the A.I.R building, Exchange Building and Innovation centre. Can't spare change for the Digital Animation course. The fact that this has been left to student to pull together it a bit of a piss take but I will put it on me CV as one of my achievements as Course Representative along with Lauren.

I should be able to send the e-mail to out lecturers by Monday 21st Nov and send it to Mike Wilson and Julian Rodruigez by Wednesday 23rd Nov. Mike did tell me not to expect things to happen quickly but I don't think he know how hard I am prepare to push. My friend Viet Do says at Bournemouth, where George use to teach, they have 24hr studio and pretty much laughed at Falmouth for not having one.

Identity Problem
Outline several solutions/ what we want
Breakdown of how we achieve
the next steps; meetings, pilot test, etc.
Benefits for students, staff, course, media centre, university
health and safety, legal, busses/ travel, cost (vs funs raisers),
Possible questions they may ask; other courses want access,
List of courses in UK, EU that have 24hr studio
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Petition signed by all student and staff,
support from Film, illutstration students (collaborations)
Letters from Course leaders

Animation Production: Story Boards

Below is the storyboard art for our animation production. Some of shots still need to be added ad others taken away as we realise better ways of telling the story and simplifying with less shots. As you can see I am working in greyscale. We need to move to the animatic very soon as only have few weeks left.

 The Storyboard: 

Post Production/ VFX: Nuke Compositing Luma Key

Keymix node does not premiltiply image and keeps it intact unlike merge node.

Today we went over sky replacement in NukeX. The idea is pretty start forward I just need to spend some more time with it.