Our lecturer wasn’t able to attend this week like the others however, he looked at our work online discord and wrote feedback on each of our work and progress for this week. For me, I focused on redoing the character sheets from Aodhan’s feedback last week so I went online and researched and looked at other examples of character sheets to help improve my own and go for straight normal poses. I looked at this video below, to aid me to draw proper character sheets which included adding lines for the structure like the head, main body and legs to demonstrate the height and appearance of characters with turnarounds to see the whole character as a fictional character with a 2D appearance but almost real like a 3D object.Β
After the boy and his father were completed and redone the proper way, I brought them together to show off the height difference between the both since the boy is half the height of a wooden door and the father is an inch less then a door.Β
This made me realise where I went wrong with the first two character design sheets and how I could make better character designs for the future when creating fictional characters for my own or the business. Meanwhile I was collecting sounds that would be considered for our main project whereas Sarah was having problems with our animatic which I obliged to take the middle and final part to complete around Christmas after having our dissertations done beforehand.
This week was my tutorial talk and last meeting with Ryan to look at my progress on my dissertation of my coursework. I showed him the changes that were made which included the title which was shortened and the change of structure with the sections changed around but remained the same topic throughout. Both were great and Yuan already checked the introduction and first section while I showed my progress on the second section involving techniques and tools for hybrid animation. When he reviewed the second section there were some points that needed fixing like why these techniques are important or more great with more full stops, avoid repetitive words, highlight the techniques on why and use different phases with short sentences.Β
The last few paragraphs were all good as it progressed very well along the way towards the end of the section involving techniques being used and why it’s important. I also have to watch out for the wordcount (5000 words) and that every caption will be also added in for the dissertation and polish my sentences when I go back to proofread them so adding words like real or alive for effect. So that the techniques are effective and important and add phrases like weight, flow and humanity. I will take this week to fix up section 2 and rap on section 3 or 4 for the next two weeks before I have my last talk with Yuan, before the submission of our dissertations.Β
In the morning session we had Dan Wilson for our third and final week which had no exercises for after effects this time. He showed us some of his work in his previous years and his final year project, with ways how he had accomplished this in after effects and answered some our questions like good software to use like TV paint for animating in 3’s when our making your character run and Cartoon Saloon is a great place to work at.Β
Group Tutorial talk with Aodhan
For this week I had designed two character sheets for my characters which is the boy and the father, updating the last time from the pre production presentation. I also created a sound list for the ambient (background) sounds and the speaking roles that would be included between the characters. Aodhan made some points on the character designs for the boy it’s poses, each side shown, extra details added in, the fingers, shoulder lines, back of head hair, strips from pyjamas and neck. The father is exactly the same with, arms being to long, make the canvas bigger, the hat at the back, being flat and basic, clear neck and collar and arms by their sides with no direct poses.
My goal this week was to look more at the character design sheets to aid me in the process of the designing sheets and help me to look how to draw men and what techniques I could learn from it to make an improvement to what I have done. Afterwards continue with collecting sounds the discord channel with Sarah on our main animatic becoming my main task this week and the next.
There was no tutorial for me this week but I still went in to do some work for my sections and balance it with my major project work to get my final designs done before moving onto sound. Using Yuan’s advice I went back on the dissertation and fixed the intro and the first section which had minor mistakes that were quickly clean and concise before moving onto the next section before next Thursday’s one to one talk.
This week we started the morning with Dan Wilson on After Effects with the volcano effect for the first session and learning new techniques on after effects with layers, colours and the effects of it making it look animated. It was a fun activity and gave me ideas for our hybrid animation for our main project this session which I introduced the idea to my group after the morning session as were aiming to use Blender for both the 3D and 2D. Below is the picture of the volcano that Dan sent us in photoshop, and the next one shows the camera angle and layers we learnt about which I haven’t known about using tools that are new to me and finally made a video of it for this exercise.Β
The afternoon session was our tutorial time with Aodhan, for my progress was the fixing of the final design of character sheets which I almost done and my next target goal was for making a list of sound that will be used for the project which I would help Sarah when she is redoing the animatic so we could input the sound to match with the scene. Aodhan made some pointers on my w.i.p.s of the final designs and the scare o meter which I did for the boy’s face from 0% to 100%. For the boy for his final design he told me to watch out for the arms, so they are both the same length and are done and coloured this week before next Tuesday. This talk gave me time to make sure I wouldn’t be doing what I had done for the pre production week so I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.Β
Just had my one to one tutorial talk with Yuan for how much progress I’ve done for my dissertation and what needs fixing so I’m on the right direction. First was the title, it was too long as I have to keep it brief and avoid repetitive language as it must be short and concise. For the introduction it must be spit into two for balance as one paragraph is the context of hybrid animation and examples like movies and tv shows that would be included within the coursework and the other I will analyse for this dissertation with no first person like me, I or you within the dissertation including the conclusion.
Section 1 – Make sure to add ‘FiguresΒ 1,2,3β¦etc’ before the image when taking a good look at the photo before moving on. I also needed to change the structure of the dissertation from 2D/3D, techniques, the impacts and Sony’s Spiderman with the conclusion with no first person pronouns. I also need to watch out for repetitive language and the middle section/main body should include arguments to answer the question.Β
There was a 2D workshop this morning with Dan Wilson who showed us his works with circles and animating shapes on after effects. Some tasks were easy but had lots of controls, tools to follow and he did speak fast during the first half of the lecture which was hard to follow.Β
The second half of our session had our lecturers during our tutorial talks wit Aodhan. I showed Aodhan my intro for the first part of the storyboard since I couldn’t squeeze it in for the pre – production. I also showed of my gestures of the boy (more than for final design sheets) which Aodhan thought they were really good since I explored the facial expressions of the boy and asked me to do a scare o meter to show the boy’s sacred face from 0% to 100% from having a heart attack.Β
For this month were focusing on experimenting and recognizing the art style of our project with the hybrid animation and both 2D and 3D art styles that will perfectly match in sync. Here is the gestures I done this week including the storyboard intro. From the gestures I fully understand what I would have to when redoing the boy on the character sheet to avoid it looking flat and stiff to the viewer.
This week our group had presented our Pre – Production Presentation of our short film ‘Is Somebody out there?’ to show off the progress we had done to 7 weeks. Sarah and I spoke for our presentation with Dylan clicking the screen to the next slide. We briefly recapped our finished plot which Sarah wrote, the style and other animations were taking inspiration from and other short films to fit the horror genre of our short film and the style of animation we are going for which is hybrid animation of 2D and 3D animation.
I had talked about the character designs of the boy, the father and the creature each represented by a specific shape with colour schemes and inspirations and research from other characters that fit our characters personality. Dylan worked on the layout and environment of the cabin on the rooms hallways and doors of the environment and the 3D previs of it on Maya.Β
We also did an asset list of what it would be included for our short film like significant prop assets, furniture, the environment outside and finally what will be in 2D and 3D. (I did a 3D model of a pumpkin or simply known as a jack o lantern. I shown my research on jump scares and building up suspense which we are going for 2 suspense scenes and 3 jump scares for short film for this time.Β
Sarah had shown off the first 2D animatic in her style to show what we are aiming for and how to greatly improve our animatic/previs. We then showed our storyboards which I had created to fit the art style we are going for which includes the middle and ending parts. We then mentioned the software’s we will be using for the project and finally redid our schedule of the timeline of what we should be doing.Β
Lecturers Review on project
Overall good and a bit better to the pitch presentation from October with some things covered compared to the last presentation. First was us finding someone or selecting music for our sound design which we did not add into the film, the pacing of the short film as what will be quick paced and what bits will be slow, the pipeline of our production and finishing off with our pre – production stage. Also some references they mentioned with die hard in the elevator scene and smiling friends for reference for our main project to look at. With our storyboards I had made, they had some comments on some scenes an specific moments with the camera angles for third person, zooming out instead of rotating and some scenes needed fixing. They also said to include gestures for the boy and the dad when it comes to line of action and to improve drawings of the character design sheets. They also made comment on Sarah’s animatic which did not match the style of the storyboard itself.Β
After the talks I wrote down notes from the presentation on what I should focus and what needs improvements. So talking with the group and our roles on fixing, I focused on the intro of the storyboard and gestures of the boy, Dylan with the environment and picking colour schemes of the project the layout of the cabin and Sarah starting the experimentation stage for the production.Β
I had no tutorial talk this week but I took this time to finish my Intro and First section of the dissertation coursework before my next talk with my lecturer Yuan since my major project team have finished with our pre – production presentation to focus more on dissertations due for December.Β
We were briefly recapped on blogs and especially our reflective blogs for this semester’s major project which should cover our research, artistry, techniques/planning and we’ve used communication between team mates. For our major project we have to focus on our idea, pre production, production, post production and our portfolio pages.Β
This really gave me a new insight to my blog and what should be changed and added onto it. That I should always add my opinions on the lesson on what I have learnt, what the lecturers had explained in our lessons and evidence on what we have done for our projects/lessons. It gave time to reflect and go to my previous posts to make sure everything is clear and concise for my major project and essay.Β
For our pre-production stages and before having our presentation for week 7 I took the time to model a pumpkin for our major project being the 3D element for our environment outside the cabin. Here the link to the reference I used to help me model a 3D jack o’ lantern.
Following the videos guide was a bit hard sense I had to remember certain controls and keys while modelling and it was very fast to follow. But I was able to follow it and model the pumpkin and fix the UV of the pumpkin to showcase for next weeks presentation on pre – production.Β
Here is the result.
I also took time to create character design sheets for the father and son with references I had collected from other multimedia shows and movies to build the characters and work on the middle and ending part of the storyboard this week to experiment with camera angles and use the layout of the cabin which my teammate Dylan had modelled for the proper layout of the cabin.Β
Took a lot of time for the storyboards and experimenting different camera angles and perspective which my lecturer Aodhan talked about the story and to make it feel less comedic.Β
