Third Year Beginnings.

I was tempted to name this post "The Final Countdown" or something equally as corny, but nobody wants to start the year off with a terrible pun, (unless you're my Dad, then it's standard practice).

So, yes, third year, the beginning of the end and yet it feels like my University experience has just started... (Obviously this post already appears to be filled with clichés and all that jazz). After a lovely (albeit very geeky, but not very productive) summer, I'm back and ready to work my ass off. Currently this has involved acquiring a large wall chart and marking all the important (and scary) hand-in dates for Final Major Projects & Dissertations, it also has days marked off for when I need to update my blog... The plan is to update it at least every other Tuesday, so we'll see how successful that is. Days are also marked off for when I need to attempt to do academic reading for said dissertation. For those of you who wonder exactly what a pile of dissertation research is looks like, it's currently a little something like this:

Rather intimidating, yes? Especially when I tell you that the yellow folder is filled with photocopies and printouts of essays and book chapters as well. Eep.

However, on a slightly better note, this term will be spent developing our ideas for final films ready to pitch (in front of all three years of Animation, the tutors and a panel of industry professionals... although perhaps this is just as intimidating as the dissertation) and, hopefully, get selected to be put into production.

After spending the first half of the summer fretting because I had a complete lack of any creative ideas, I had inspiration hit me while I was on a train (somehow trains appear to be good for my creativity, in the past I've had a couple of ideas for other projects suddenly come to me while train travelling). Being paranoid about the possibility of potentially having to stand on a six hour train journey (Falmouth really isn't the most easily accessible place), I always book a seat reservation. And someone, it doesn't matter how empty the carriage is, will always pick to sit in my seat. Always. It annoys me so much. And then I thought, well, why couldn't I make this into an animated film? Obviously not just about a train seat, but why not ask people about all the random little things that specifically annoy them or they really hate? I could run around with a sound recorder and ask people the same question (a la Creature Comforts), then take their responses and turn them into an animated sequence.

Everyone I ask will have different opinions, so I want to replicate that with a range of different animation styles. In my Foundation year for our first 'Time and Image' workshop we had to create two images of ourselves and animate from one to the other, then we had to take our last image and animate it to the next person's first, it was really effective and despite everyone having created very different images, the piece worked as a whole. Sadly, I do not have the original video of everyone's work, but I have the section that I created, which you can watch below. I want to do the same for this project, animate all the 'phrases' separately, then take the last frame from one and animate it to the first of the next. I also want the film to have a kind of spontaneous feel, like the 'Lightbulb Boy' animation I did at the end of last year, each bit was really different, but it all flowed together.

After telling Andy and Derek and a few of my classmates my idea, it was suggested that instead of doing just things people disliked, that I include their likes/loves. So, currently I am in the process of juggling between the ideas of creating two separate films, a "Love" film and a "Hate" film, or making a completely combined one.

My idea is a relatively simple one, but I feel that if it is picked, it will have a much higher chance of getting completed than an a 5 minute long scripted idea. Working so closely (well, practically as a third year myself - I even got a 'medal' for "Wannabe 3rd Year" in our 'award' ceremony at the end of term last year) on Barista, I know that even with the best intentions and time management, it is not always possible to get everything done in time. Hopefully, by having an idea that works in segments, even if a section is not working, it can be scrapped and work without it. Even if I only worked with two other people on the entire thing, if we created five 10 second segements each, that would equate to a two and a half minute film to hand in.

Some inspiration:

http://www.postsecret.com/

And I leave you with a screenshot of the fruits of about an hour's work on Maya achieved (I've attempted to make something in order for a little test sequence I'm planning...):

Second Year Madness...

So I start back this week, as a scary second year *gasp*, we had our introduction session yesterday and have ADVANCED MAYA SKILLS tonight.

That probably would have terrified me a year ago, but this year, I'm actually quite looking forward to it. It's optional, but I plan to go to as many as I can before my mind becomes over-saturated with polygonal crazies.

I'm also going to attempt to model this:

It's my Dad's 1970 Karmann Ghia (called Audrey). I must be a masochist. Hopefully I'll have modelled it by his birthday (July 10th... giving me a pretty lengthy ammount of time, and most likely sanity, to try and achieve it).

I'm putting my "Summer" animation on the back burner for now, I really would like to finish it, but my Uni work is going to come first (plus I've temporarily run out of ideas... hopefully christmas will bring some more inspiration for it).

*insert witty post title here*

This is going to be a mammoth update. You have been warned.

First week back, and it's already as manic as the end of last term. We've already been set three major projects and have optional 3D sessions on a Friday, which for now I'm going to persevere with (I was really pleased, we briefly dipped our toes into the waters of rigging, and to my suprise, it actually made sense. It so far seems much more logicical in terms of thinking, which is perhaps why my brain can handle what we've done so far. However, this is only the beginning, and if I get in over my head I'll abandon ship - did you see what I did with that metaphor there? Yeah...)

The first project we've been set, we had a choice of two briefs: to create a title sequence for an internet program, ("Formation", which is essentially 28 Days Later, but with flies...), being made by the collaboration of students from different Cornish Colleges/Schools/Universities; or to create an animation of any length using the script "What, What, What, What, What".
I've chosen to be a part of the only group to do the title sequence, along with Jake and Rozi. In our brainstorming session, Rozi put forward the idea of the title sequence being styled in a similar cut-out style of the opening titles of the film "Catch Me If You Can". I think it's the idea of working to this style that made me decide to pursue this brief, I've wanted to try this style for quite a while, and now with this brief and feeling more confident about Flash I can finally get round to it. The videos below are of the "Catch Me If You Can" titles and the opening sequence for "Casino Royale" (which I've always loved) display the kind of style we're aiming/basing it on:




Our first storyboard (click for larger view):


Second:



All 3 of us are creating silhouettes of people to use, Rozi wants to create the lab and Jake is creating the bit with the apple (I think), I'm on fly duty and created a (very) basic animation test on Flash to get the wing movements, I realise the legs need to move aswell, but thought it wasn't too bad for a first attempt:



The second project is another Sketchbook project from Kathy, devising a "game" each week to base our sketches on. I'm not suer how that'll go. I really need to buy a another new sketchbook for, because I've already started to fill the one I bought with ideas for Derek's project.

The third project is the one I'm most excited about and have already started to create lots of characters and began to visualise the locations in my head. I'm going to use the Sims, like I did for the background project, to help get the buildings how I want them to look (I epically fail at trying to create a building from scratch) and draw them from the angles I want. I don't want to give too much away, but I drew up four characters yesterday, then, as I was starting to feel sleepy I had sudden inspiration (it doesn't happen alot, but when it does, it's normally pretty good) to write a really long description about one of the locations I drew a rough sketch for. We have to create a production bible for an underground Mafia style animation ("Animal Firm"), we can choose to make it for children or for a more adult audience, and create sketches of characters and locations they would associate in. Like I said, I don't want to give too much away, however, I will put up my pictures I'm using for reference and leave you to guess.
(Click for a mahoosive view).

Aaaand that's it. If you read this far, congratulations for having extreme patience, or have nothing better to do.

Maya 3D Room Environment

So, I've finished and handed in my Maya project. It's been a bit of bitch and times, but it's finally completed. I realise now that I should've blogged as I went along to document my progress, but I've spent so much of my time working on it this week (and playing Heavy Rain...AWESOME). Luckily, I have over a dozen renders that have documented my progress. I still consider myself to be pretty crap at Maya (and when Georg sees my texturing I'm sure he'll probably agree...), but I'm pleased I've actually managed to create something AND texture it AND the final result looks pretty good.

So, from the beginning, my rough plan, based loosely upon my background project interior I changed it from a bedroom to a sitting/living room, purely because I had far more ideas about what I could put into the room (and the fact that I thought it would be easier to model a sofa than a bed).

First baby steps into Maya, with a very basic sofa:

The sofa is probably the object that has undergone the most transformation. I had lots of ideas on what to fill the room with, (close competitors were a fish bowl and fruit bowl) but I decided on making a bookcase and a coffee table as my main bits of furniture. Things like the canvas 'painting' and the rug were made up as I went along.

The first lights went up on the window-wall, but I actually enjoyed myself(!) when it came to making the standing lamp, I love the shadows it casts.


I really got into the swing of modelling objects (despite their basic-ness) I'm pretty pleased that they actually look lifelike(ish). A little close-up of my TV (with static white noise!) and bookcase (which I didn't realise had super shiny reflective books till it came to near the end...)

Wallpaper texture, also shows the full shape of the room and the ceiling was quite possibly the most annoying thing to get right:


I couldn't get the rug to look right, and when I tried to get to texture the floor the rug was stuck to it, so it got deleted, with the intention of returning, but I liked the reflections left on the floor by the table, so it was never put back in. The floor was also super-reflective when I first put the texture on it.

Aaaand, the final thing:

With a pretty occulent render (that Olly wanted me to do...), it makes the sofa look pretty cool:

New Term. New Projects. New Software.

This new term is already turning out to be pretty sic. We've got some crazy new projects (including working with Broadcasting students to produce graphics for their TV show [i'm scared shitless about that one], an Animation Background project and in the future we're being set Modelling projects in Maya and Flash projects.); new Software (After Effects [which after the first session doesn't seem as horribly scary as I thought, except it kept crashing...] and Flash [which I'm pretty stoked about]); and learning to do new things like Modelling on Maya. It's going to be awesome.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon installing upgrades for my computer in order to install Flash, which took forever. While I was doing that, I handwrote out this blog update to type up and began work on my new sketchbook/background project for Kathy (and cleaned my bathroom, on a saturday night, how unbeliavbly wild University life is). But today i've successfully managed to install it, so I'll most likely be spending my free time practising getting to grips with it. (Unlike Maya & AE, Flash looks a lot more easy to use, and it's small enough that my computer can handle it... hopefully.) I've wanted to learn Flash for a long time, but had never managed to get my hands on a copy or be taught any of the controls before now. I hope that now I've got my own copy, uit means I'll be able to do some animation of my own when I get home. At Christmas I only had Animation paper, and a combination of being ill, working nearly everyday and having a distinct lack of ideas and Rostrum Camera meant I did nada on the work front. I also like the idea of Flash being Vector based and related to Photoshop, (I think this is perhaps why I feel a little more confident in learning it), it'll also give me a chance to improve my graphics tablet skills.

I'm looking forward to the background project alot more than the animal-head one (sorry Kathy). The backgrounds have to be the weirdest sizes I've come across, it's a size called 12 Field (which, incase you're wondering the exact measurements, which you're probably not, are 267 x 330mm), which is a little annoying because it's slightly larger than A4 (a nice comfortable size), and means i've had to crack out my mahoosive A2 sketchbook in order to work at the correct size. I'm glad though, because you can't work on A4 forever and the larger size means I can add more detail within the drawings.

I'm already feeling a bit more confident with Maya (which is a relief, although i'm still terrfied of going anywhere near the graph editor), our first CGI environments tutorial/session with Georg was on tuesday and I was very pleased because I actually understood it all. It'll still be a long time before I'll be able to create anything decent on it, if I thought my computer could handle it, I'd install Maya on it to practice,though it may buckle under the weight of Flash, we shall see....

Walk This Way... [sorry]

Once again, the reason for lack of updates is down to the epic FAIL of the internet connection at Glasney View. I wrote this update on the 3rd of December and have only just been able to upload it!

We had to take the walk cycle a step further, by having to animate our own walks! We got filmed walking along: a normal walk and a silly one and were told we had to animate one (or both of them) in 2D and 3D. I chose to do my normal walk (my silly walk wasn’t silly at all, it was supposed to be a sad walk, but i’m a terrible actress – I did drama in Year 12 for one of my AS-levels but was cringe worthy awful when it came to the physical acting side of it!).



I actually found this task easier to do on Maya (SHOCK) than I did drawing it – but I think this is because I tried to get my figure looking as life-like (or at least as human-like and in proportion) as I could. I originally started with the head just being a bald circle but it looked very strange, especially when I decided to draw my trousers and shoes a bit of detail, so I added the hair and profile which were a bit of a nightmare trying to get looking right.



I did two versions of my 2D walk, but I prefer the rough version in blue pencil to the one with clean lines, the blue figure looks like it has more weight and character to it, so this was the one I submitted for marking. If you spot a face appear on the right hand side you’re not going mad! As it was only meant to be a rough version I practised drawing my profile on frame 5, so a face appears for the briefest second (well, one 24th of a second to factually correct, haha). I would’ve scrubbed it off but I quite liked it and didn’t get a chance to scan it before I shot it all on the line tester. I still need to shoot the other one!



We also had life drawing this week, and after a few weeks off from it I was quite rusty. This wasn’t helped by the fact we had a new model, so it was the first time I’d drawn a woman as well. I couldn’t get the proportions right for quite a while, I kept giving Jane a really small torso compared to her really long legs and large upper body, but I was quite pleased with the final drawing I did- I was even brave enough to attempt to draw her facial features! I’ll upload a post with lots of life drawing pictures at some point in the (hopefully) not too distant future!

dire need to update...

2D
Some days are far more productive than others, and thankfully today was one of them! I drew out all my frames for the 2D Animation today (36 of them, I was really going for it), but didn’t manage to shoot them on the line tester yet, so there’s no video till I go back in tomorrow (which is Halloween – awesome! And also a Saturday, so hopefully the studio will be pretty quiet and I’ll get to use it). The 2D brief this week was to animate a big and a little Cubey, and an interaction between the two of them, using the new methods we’ve learnt this week: anticipation and overlap. I won’t give away what happens in it, I’ll post the video as soon as I remember too, but I’ve put up my scrappy little plan for it with this update.



3D
I’m actually managing to succeed (slightly) in getting Maya to do what I want. (This is probably because I’m choosing pretty simple things that I’ll actually have a chance at getting right). I prefer the 2D Cubey to the crazy 3D one, although it’s fun trying to get him into all these physically impossible positions that want to try to break (the “un-breakable”) Maya.



I like how broad our project briefs are too, by just being given a simple task (our project brief for 3D this week was described by Georg as having to “animate Cubey and a Ball”) it allows everyone to come up with their own ideas and makes everything unique (It also means that some of the class, *here’s looking at you Dan Emmerson* go off and create really crazy complex stuff in Maya that makes me want to cry because their skills are so epic).


Life Drawing
I haven’t spoken about life drawing at all, so I feel it’s time to break the silence on the subject! The human figure has always been my favourite thing to draw, simply because there are so many people around all the time (unless you’re hiding out in your room writing your blog updates). At school we drew a man called Nigel (who was given the affectionate original nickname of “Naked Nige”, was completely hairless and also looked a bit like my old I.T. teacher!), and now we have a man called David (he has no nickname as of yet... at least to my knowledge anyway). I’ve never drawn a female life model though, which is strange because (from my experience) when most people think or talk about life-drawing they tend to assume it’s with a female model and are always a little bit shocked when you say it’s with a man. Which is stupid really, as it’s a 50/50 chance anyway!

Jump to it...

I wrestled Maya. It was bitter and intense and there were heavy losses on both sides (well, loss of sanity on my side, not much on Maya’s). Everyone else seems to have been able to do pretty epic stuff with their Cubeys, making him do crazy acrobatics and jumping through fire rings (I kid you not). My Cubey, well he jumps, that’s we got told to do, that’s all he does do. And just that was a bitch to try and get right, so I’m glad I didn’t try to do anything crazy or fancy at this point in time. Hopefully in the future.

bouncy, bouncy, ooh such a good time...

I’ve had to give links to my videos because blogger has gone lame and not liked them for some strange reason.


2D

Our 2D project this week focused on using Squash and Stretch, and the time old classic of bouncing balls, personally I think mine’s a little slow, I probably should have shot it at 24fps instead of 12.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHI9R8FGMEY

We also had to animate a little character called “Cubey”, so we could not only practise the Squash and Stretch technique, but to practise with the Secondary Animation of his Antennae.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v2vbeX29WI

3D

It’s a miracle! I managed to do something on Maya (after much umming and ahhing and cursing at the screen), we had to animate two bouncing balls of different weights, so I did a normal(ish) one and a super bouncy one! It was pretty fun when I got the hang of it, but now we have to animate the Cubey character in 3D this week. Eep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7CQbFRc3vs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwrTkz5KCc

(kudos to you if you understood the boosh reference in the title)