Backgrounds
While Nicole modeled the main elements of the room, I worked on some smaller props to clutter the space. To help Nicole with the backgrounds I offered to model some of the smaller props, I was given the party hat, plate, cup and the corkboard. I used my concept art of the props as reference and Nicole’s arcade machine to make sure the models followed the style of our animation. I also referenced the style guide as it had a section about beveling the edges which will make all the models look consistent.
Nicole’s Style guide for props My Prop concept art
3D Background Props
After showing Nicole my models and her approving them, I moved onto UV unwrapping and texturing them. None of the models were hard to UV unwrap as they were mostly basic shapes, I kept seams to the back and made sure the UVs were orientated correctly. I used Substance Painter to texture them, the texturing was very quick as we agreed on using flat colours to make the models look flat and cartoony like the concept art.
Textured Props
Since the wall looked empty, as all the props were for the tables, I illustrated some posters of the characters, Gumball and Lollipop are in the animation however I thought it would be fun to add some of the other characters that were cut during the idea phase of the project.
These are my models rendered with the toon shader in Blender.
(Nicole’s table and chairs)
(Nicole’s render)
Scheduling
To keep ourselves organised and be able to see how far the other person is as well as tracking my own progress, we created an Excel sheet with all the scenes we had to complete listed. All the stages of animation are across the top as well as a feedback section. We discussed what would be the best method of splitting the workload and agreed that I will take scenes that mainly have Lollipop in them, and Nicole will take Gumballs scenes. We divided the remaining scenes between each other evenly so we both have the same amount of work.
Rough Animation
Nicole created a full rough cut of the animation using the storyboards. Nicole presented the rough to me and the tutors; we suggested adjusting the timing as the pacing was too fast. She went back and slowed the pacing which helped the animation to flow better as you could take in what was going on. Once we were happy with the rough, we got to work on flushing out the movements.
(Nicole’s rough animation)
While we worked on the rough pass, we would periodically show Mike our work and receive feedback, we would then go back and adjust the scenes using the feedback as a guide. At the beginning a lot of the feedback was the same; more stretch, more follow through and timing issues. As we continued to work in this style and got the hang of stretching the characters the number of adjustments lessened to small tweaks rather than full movement adjustments.
Scene 8-13 version 1
The arms look weird, they don’t follow the flow of the movement, the movement should be following his hands as that is where the weight is. Also, the body stops at a weird place, he should continue to fall forward more. (referring to the one in the middle)
Scene 8-13 version 2
Scene 16-17 version 1
The body needs to flow with the movement, he is too still. The arm stops and changes direction mid action making the movement stiff and awkward.
Scene 16-17 version 2
Scene 31B version 1
There needs to be more exaggeration and follow through, the character looks stiff as his back does not arch enough.
Scene 31B version 2
Secondary Animation
The secondary animation phase consisted of smoothing out previous animations, making sure the proportions are correct and adding the thicker arms. Both Nicole and I knew this phase would take us the longest as we wanted to focus on making sure all the movements flowed and stretched correctly. Focusing our time on this phase helped us in the long run as the line art and colour pass was much faster as we did not have to worry about the tweaking any small issues with the movements. Just like the rough animation phase, we talked to Mike weekly to receive feedback about our animations, there were a lot less adjustments to make compared to the previous phase.
Scene 22 version 1
The timing is a little fast, hold the final frame when they strike their poses. When the character is in the background they should move, nothing major, just move them a little as it looks weird that they are so still.
Scene 22 version 2
Scene 24 version 1
The hands are the wrong way around, the thumbs should be on top of the plate. He looks as if he is presenting the cake rather than rushing to grab it, speed up the movement.
Scene 24 version 2
Scene 26 version 1
The kid only has one arm and is still, if he is happy make him sway or bob around. His reaction to the cake hitting him is stiff, make him swing back.
Scene 26 version 2
After completing all my scenes, I talked with Nicole about changing some of my earlier scenes as I no longer thought they were my best work, and they would look awkward in the final film. Nicole agreed so I went back and change scene 7, this was the pipeline test I had completed at the beginning of the project but after looking back the movements felt stiff and did not match up with the next scene, so after talking with Nicole about how we should change it, we decided to have Gumball juggle happily, then the camera pulls away to follow Lollipop, Gumball looks on with confusion. This change helps lead into the next scene where Gumball realises it is a new robot and becomes jealous.
Scene 7 Old
Scene 7 New
I also went back to scene 10 as I was not happy with the result of the scene, Gumball throwing the ballas and falling look jittery. This scene is also supposed to be Lollipop’s big entrance, but he does not move around as much as I would like. After another discussion with Nicole, I changed Lollipop’s entrance to a tornado spin across the screen, Gumball no longer falls to his knees, and I fixed the ball throwing animation.
Scene 10 Old
Scene 10 New
Once all the secondary animation was complete, Nicole compiled all the scenes together and we showed it to the tutors for feedback. The main issues were that the pacing was too fast, the most important scenes should be held on screen longer, so the audience have time to register what happened. Scene 8-9 is a little confusing as there is a close up of one robot then another close up of the other robot’s button being clicked, the scenes imply they are the same robot.
(Nicole’s edited the compilation, I added the music)
The pacing issue would be amended in the editing stage. Scene 8-9 was fixed by us shuffling around the order of the shots, close up of Gumball’s eye, then long shot of Lollipop, then close up button press.
Scene 8-9 fixed
Lineart and Colour
Due to me going back to improve two of the earlier scenes, this put me behind schedule, so Nicole took some of my scenes to add the lineart and colour.
To keep the animation consistent, we used the same colour, pen size and outline brush. Most of my secondary animation were decently clean, which meant I only had to clean up some of my lines rather than fully lineart it all, this made the line art stage a bit faster. I also had already added the thickened arms in the secondary pass, so that was already done. Colour was a lot quicker that I thought, since our characters used flat colour we were able to use just the paint bucket tool to fill in the colours. To try and avoid missing spots I added a bright colour behind the line. Since Nicole finished her scenes, she took the scenes I was not working on at that minute to speed up the process.
Scene 26 Lineart
Scene 26 Colour
Scene 31 Lineart
Scene 31 Colour
Scene 34 Lineart
Scene 34 Colour
Reflection
Overall, this stage was a little more stressful for me as the deadline was fast approaching and I fell behind but thankfully after communicating my concerns to Nicole she was able to help me get back on track by taking so of my line art and colour. After looking at all the coloured scenes I can’t wait to see the animation compiled.