last modelling session

Once our casts were fully dried we added the expanding foam. It came in a two part mixture which is mixed in a 2:1 ratio. it has to be stirred very quickly with a decent amount of force as it start going off almost instantly. Once you'd stirred it for around 10 seconds it was poured into the foot holes of the cast and swirled around. First time I did this I hadn't mixed it vigorously enough meaning the texture of the foam was not quite right, I also didn't use quite enough hence there being no legs below.

I enjoyed the workshop and definitely learned a lot about sculpting/model making however it is not a branch of animation I'm particularly interesting in I'm glad I got the opportunity to experiment with it but it's not something I'm itching to continue

casting and sculpting our models

The next session we started to sculpt our characters out of plasticine on top of the armatures we'd built the previous week. We used a selection of sculpting tools which were far more effective than using finger. This process took a long time and I'm sure there are many different sculpting techniques to learn which would require a lot of practice. We then scored a faint line down the side of the model to mark the mid point of it. This was for the next step. we got a large piece of clay rolled it so it came up to the halfway line then cut out a slot for our model. We then cleaned up the edges so no plaster could go in.we added four clay walls to this to stop plaster escaping the sides. Its important the walls are strong/think enough to withstand the weight of the plaster. Don then showed us how to mix plaster however I was already familiar with the process it is pretty simple. We then filled our casts with plaster making sure to tap the bubbles to the top. 

We repeated the same process for the other side of the model to get the whole cast after the first lot of plaster had tried which takes 24hrs to properly dry out. A lot of time was spent waiting for the plaster to dry the foam we were going to use at the final stage sticks to wet plaster. 

making model in maya

After the steep learning curve of learning the basics of modelling on maya this was a lot easier/quicker the second time round. I decided to model a plush toy of an adventure time character BMO. Overall I enjoyed the task much more than I thought I would, I found making the truck very frustrating but once I had a better grip on using the basics of maya this task was a lot more enjoyable. I felt it was my choice of object was a good one but I probably could have picked something more challenging, I think trying to model something more difficult over summer would be a good way to try and build my skills.

This was the progress half way through the model. One problem I had was trying to get shapes with bends in them which were the limbs and mouth. I tried to do it myself with online tutorials but it did not quite work but after some help I was able to add them in. Below is the finished piece I decided to add some grass texture for fun. 

Simple maya animations.

After learning the basics of maya modelling we moved onto the basic of animating in maya. I felt this was less of a steep learning curve than when we started modelling as the inputs/controls were easier to use than ones we used for modelling but this is probably because the animations we did were very simple.
Actually moving things in maya was not too difficult it was getting the motion to be move believable that was the more challenging part. I quickly realised the graph editor was the greatest ally for this similar to the one in after effects for editing the easing between key frames. This allowed movement that looked real for things like the pendulum. I felt the hardest of the animation tasks given to use was the overlapping motion. This however like the others just required some careful tweaking on the graph editor to make it look right.
Overall I felt the animating was not too bad however the interface of maya is such a new thing to me that its definitely something I should keep practicing over summer so I do not forget what I have learnt. I think with even the simple skills we've been given in maya I could try create simple but interesting effects over summer.

model making

The model making workshop was very enjoyable and I felt I learnt a lot. There were some skills I was aware of before we started this from previous sculpture projects during foundation but there was lots I didn't know. We started by bringing in a design for a character, I used one of my old doodles "hobo-wizard". The design was relatively simplistic so I was hoping it wouldn't be to difficult to sculpt but it could have been simpler. We took our designs and draw them again but in a position where there arms and legs were spread open as we needed to cast then in this position. It was important we marked out where the joints would be as we had to take it into account during the next section. The next part was making the wire armature for the inside of the model. You can buy professional ones which have incredible balance and proper joints but these are very expensive. We made a much more cost effective version using wire and electrical clamps. We cut one long piece and formed a loop to make the head and body and the 4 smaller pieces to make the arms and legs. These were held together with the screw clamps which were very fiddly, it was good to keep them slightly tightened for adjustments. We then set the armatures in place so only the points that were joint would move, we stuck miliput a clayesque epoxy to set these points and the head, we also put nuts in the feet so they could be screwed to a base. 

final crit feedback

The final crit was a good opportunity to properly show my finish piece to the class. It makes a big difference showing everyone your work formally on a big screen compared to showing clips on a monitor. Doing this allows a large group of people to properly evaluate the animation. I found the final crit very useful I was given a few points that would clean up my animation which I plan to implement before the final deadline as they shouldn't be too hard.
The movement of the horse didn't look quite right looked like it was coming towards the camera, some of the layers in scene were not scaled up quite right. These should be easy fixes, however one problem was that the title at the end is not up for long enough which I may be able to rectify with careful editing but I'm unsure until I test. The other problem was that the horns at the end did not seem quite obvious enough since they are a big part of the final transition so I will try and brighten the surroundings up in photoshop. Other than the few point the animation seemed well received obviously if I could go back and do it again there would be many things I would change but I'm happy with this outcome and how much I've learnt.

Editing video & audio

The final stage of the animation is one that I feel can get looked over quite easily especially when putting it all together in after effects. I knew that it was important to have the music sync up with the changes of scene and what was happening on camera. I therefore decided to use premiere as its designed for that purpose unlike after effects. I spent a while trying to cut the video correctly and tinkering with the transitions so it all flowed how I'd originally envisioned it to. I rendered out what I thought was the final copy but after watching properly full screen I tweaked it a little further to make the finished piece.

video pre edit

The original track I'd wanted to use did not quite fit the animation. The intro sequence was the part I was after but it was not long enough and the ending of it was not conclusive enough. I therefore decided to chop the song up in logic so it would cater perfectly to my needs. I looped part of the start and also added a bit onto the end. This took a bit of time as I wanted the changes I'd made to feel seamless as its something that would be very noticeable if it was wrong.

choosing a typeface

I didn't factor in a font during my preproduction phase as up until recently I found the subject rather dull however when I was finishing the project off I finally realised how important it is to have a suitable type for the animation. I was unsure what I wanted to use at first so I browsed a large amount of fonts online to get a rough idea what I wanted. The font used in the title of the original comic would not have suited thing animation but I liked that it looked a bit scrappy and wanted to replicate that. A lot of the fonts I found that applied this effect well were tool large and bold which would not have fit this animation. I ended up settling on one sleeker text from online. The text in its raw form did not quite suit the visual aesthetic of the animation as the edges where far too defined it stuck in the frame too much. To rectify this problem I decided to trace the original text with the brush I used for the rest of the animation. This created a much nicer final font that suited the animation better. After this I applied some of the text effect techniques I learnt over ppp with some masking to remove the text nicely.

creating a church

After creating a house in after effects in 3D I moved onto the slightly more challenging creating the top half of a church. I  figured after create the house with relative ease the church would not be too hard to make. This was unfortunately not the case and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Creating the 2D assets was fine however putting them together was a lot more difficult. Because i wasn't just moving on the triangles on one axis like putting together a cube it meant rotating very difficult. I realised you were unable to rotate the actual anchor point its self so once you rotate (or orientate) 45° in one direction you are unable to do the same on a different axis. After hours trying to figure out how to move the triangles together I had to move the anchor point so it was right at the bottom then I used the rotate tool on the axis I wanted to move the triangles into place. Like a lot of problems I've had to face in after effects its mainly been down to not knowing how to do a certain process which is the same for this. The building of the 3D structure is relatively simple and if I did it again I could probably do so in 5 minuets but first time round took a lot longer.

Using masks in after effects.

After taking inspiration from the title sequence for Marco Polo I wanted to have a growing and shrinking effect in my animation where it looked like some scenes were being made as the viewer watched them. I figured the best way to do this without having to drawing out a stupid amount of frames would be to use masks in after effects. I used the masks to delete bits or add in layers during the video and after playing around with the feathering could create some nice effects. I first masks on the rolling road shot. I thought it would a good effect to try and utilise, below was just a test I found there was lots to tweak the masks with such as feathering to get what I wanted out of the scene.

Changing a scene

One of my scenes I knew would be challenging to do but it wasn't until I actually tried to animate it that I was a bit over ambitious with it. The scene was a character hitting the frame with his gun, however I'd plan to do with all the movement with layers in after effects because of the shading style of the animation it meant that I couldn't draw each frame separately as it would look too messy. I tried doing some tests with the basic structure in after effects however it just looked wrong and at this point I figured out it would work. I decided to change the motion of the entire scene. I kept the same framing of the composition but changed the overall movement. I decided to make the character stomp on the camera as I thought the motion would have a similar effect on the viewer but would be much easier to set up. I tested it out in after effects and I liked the motion so I went and finished the whole scene

effective character shadows pain

For one of my shots I wanted sweet tooth looking over the graves of his parents. I could have had just a silhouette of the character in the foreground but this would have disrupted the overall composition. I therefore decided to have just the shadow of the character moving across the graves. The only dilemma I had with this was getting the shadow of the character without having the actual layer visible. I could have just drawn it on as a separate layer but I wanted the shadow to move like a time lapse. I ended up spending a long time trying to position the silhouette layer so it was not visible but the shadow was. I did do this eventually after a lot of tinkering with the position and the light settings. To my ultimate irritation I later on figured out that you could turn off the the layer to only show the shadow in the layer properties which would have saved a lot of time. At least I learnt this existed though making the mistake so I will know how to do it if I need to again.

animating a rolling road shot with trees

The next shot I started working on was a moving shot going down a road. I wanted to have trees moving past the camera with some parallax. I thought this shot would be relatively simple to do however I ran into problems fairly quickly with it. Before I tested it I thought lots separate layers moving at different speeds would work well to get parallax however the final result was rather disastrous. 

The trees moving too fast in conjunction with the foreground so it looks like the trees aren't attached to the floor. I needed to redo the scene composition completely to fix this problem. I made the road in the back ground a separate layer and made the foreground the same as the trees so there wasn't the same movement as the first attempt. I also carried out a lot of the motion using a camera rather than moving the layers them selves as this kept the overall composition whole whilst also providing parallax.

Crit and Presenting

We all had to present our pre production work to the class to get feedback on our initial ideas before we actually started animating. There were a few of my ideas I was unsure about so this was a very useful opportunity. The overall feedback was relatively positive, there were just a few points that needed refining or more added too. The first was the running time of the animatic, one of the scenes with a man butting the screen with a gun was held on screen for too long so another scenery shot was needed. Although this was more work it was the right decision as it interrupted the flow of the entire composition. My storyboards also lacked style, they had the shots summed up but were simple sketches so I needed to refine and set my visual style for the project. After those my project was given the go ahead so I could start working on animating.

After effects lighting and shadow test.

I had originally planned to draw all the shadows coming from the trees but I realised these would not move very nicely or easily with the camera motion. We were shown lights in after effects in our tutorial so I thought it could work quite well for this animation. It was here that I learned that the shadows work really well if the 3D layers were put together with a good distance between each other. I also found that moving a light meant I could get moving dynamic shadows that made the scene feel more animated. I will definitely being using lights a lot more through out this animation.

Further 3D layer experimentation

For the first scene I wanted a side ways 45º pan which required the house in the centre to be a 3D object. I was very unsure how to do this at the
start other than I new I'd be able to position 2d layers together like putting together a box. I was however concerned with everything lining up. This is where maya came in. I created the house as a simple polygon in maya then made a uv map of it so it was flattened out as a 2D plan of the original. I could then reassemble this in after effects. The result was in real life only half a house but created the illusion to the camera that the whole thing was there and in 3D. This method also allowed me to keep the style of the 3D objects in line with the rest of the animation.

Testing brushes and 3D layers

I was originally going to draw this animation in pencil or some form of physical media however I thought it would be a good idea to try a bit of "painting" in photoshop as I had not really done much with this. I hadn't really used many photoshop brushes other than the standard stock ones and did not realise that the selection available. I used a lot of online tutorials surrounding brushes and attempted to make my own pencil brush however I found the best results with one of the stock brushes in photoshop. I did learn a lot about the brush settings whilst making my own brush which meant I could tweak the stock brushes to the exact look I wanted them to give. I also used this first scene to put an after effect tutorial on 3D layers to use. I hadn't done much with after effects 3D layers but I wanted to get believable parallax in my shots and this was the best tool for it. For this first shot I just tried to move a camera through the layers, this process laid the foundation for the rest of the project.