Summary

Summary of the Year:

With Hand in complete, there really is no rest for the wicked. I still have to tweak the introduction and produce some images for the end credits of Heroes 1.0. There is also the matter of business cards and a showreel. So i'm still a very busy boy. Luckily there is no other submissions to interfere now, and I should be able to cruise onwards steadily.

The experience has been good and I have had the privilege or working with some lovely people in two very strong films. I really enjoyed my time working on the visual development side of the films, I find it interesting and equally fulfilling. Though I doubt I will ever find myself animating in 2D as unfortunately I feel it may be a little too stressful for me. It has yet again been a year of finding myself and learning my strengths and weaknesses. For me I realized that I strongly want to pursue a career in visual development, whether it's story-boarding, or concept/character design in games or film/tv I can hand on heart say I don't mind. I also realized that my biggest weakness has been time management this year, in main regard for not scheduling for problems/illness/snow etc or not having a decent contingency plan.

All the groups I worked with this year have been amazing, both in terms of feedback and organization. I admire Kofi for keeping his creative vision with Heroes 1.0. especially during the time when the tutors was unhappy with the designs which he had chosen. Staying consistent is really professional and what makes a project a joy to work on. In comparison the Raven Project perhaps could have learnt from this example, we were still making amendments to the script and process til half way through the final term. However Sophie's dedication to the project is truly inspiring and her ability to direct all different types of workers is incredible. Her approach to more independent workers such as Clym and I has been wonderful and her support has been permanently available. The Raven Project has been truly a labour of love and her passion for their story is contagious.

This year I feel I have grown as a person, I have learnt so much and I am thankful for all the opportunities handed to me. If I could go back and change anything, I think an ambitious part of me regrets not having the balls to pursue my initial film concept. It wasn't a huge job, and I probably could have saved myself from the daunting and some times stressful multi-tasking. That being said, I loved both of the films I worked on and have great admiration for everybody involved in both films. It really was a great insight into the production of Animation, and I honestly cannot wait to start my career in the field (and go prematurely bald from stress).

Folders Completed

Well it actually ended up taking all night... which in all honesty I really didn't expect. It's one of the processes when you literally find yourself grabbing one file and suddenly realizing that there is several files related to that file, which should be in the folders with it.

Beurgh!

Any whoo!

It's completed now and everything is handed in. The Files came to around 5 gb in the end, which I was shocked about, luckily I bought myself some 4.3gb discs the week before with the folder in mind. I was able to compress them and bung them all on one disc.

Shot 6 composited

The final shot Composited and uploaded. BAM!

I'm not sure if im entirely happy with this composite, though it will have to do for hand in, as I now have to continue putting my folders together. I think maybe it could do with some additional light as the background just seems flat to me. I am also unsure if i am happy with the positioning of the heads at the top of the scene. Something that I expect I will have to talk to Sophie about.

For Now however I have to composite all the separate shots into one movie, and get it ready for my folders.

Shot 5 Composited + Step by Step

So It's a day before hand-in and everything is a big crazy rush. I am nearly finished with the final shot composite, and then I have to sort out my folders and burn them to disk ready for hand in. Here we have Shot 5 completed, one of my best compositions I think. There is also camtasia video of the process to go along with it.

As you can see from the video below, I added a time stretch to the animation, so as to get added exposure to the frames in a more even fashion. I think it was effective. Compositing in 2d is quite similar to working 3d in the sense that you still work in layers.

Shot 004 Composited

The portrait shot, which you have already seen, I've tweaked the speed a little but I doubt this will be the final edit, as with shot one, we still want to play with the shot before final show. I added a focus blur to the corners as the frame comes closer. I did this by duplicating the frame animation, creating a blur effect in AE and then creating a feathered mask of the blurred animation. I think it proved quite effective, even if subtle.

Shot 3 Composited

Heres Shot 003 all done and dusted.

I really like how this shot came out, as you can see I fixed the dodgy animation on the first bump. I just feel that the shot although incredibly simple, is really nicely effective. I added the unfocused buildings in the foreground last minute, without them it seemed as thought the tower existed to far away and secluded, which obviously isn't true.

Shot 002 Composited.

Shot to all finished, the great thing about this shot is that it can be sped up easily if Sophie feels the intro is getting long. I really like this shot, it reminds me of some of the flying dinosaurs from the flint stones.

Shot 001 Composited

So heres the Hi Def Composite of Shot 001, it took absolutely ages to upload to YouTube, and I've got the other 6 in the works. Literally have had them uploading for about 6-7 hours. Note to self, don't upload huge files to you tube.

Composited in After Effects, we wanted to go with a childrens book sort of style, simples shapes etc... This isn't the final edit of the shot, but this is what will be handed in for submission.

Camtasia Test 003 and Toon Boom

For my 3rd Camtasia test I thought I would actually do something useful. I decided to post the process of rendering out a toon boom shot so that your animation is an alpha and can be imported backgroundless into software such as After Effects or Final Cut.

I hope it makes sense, I discovered today that there is the option to add audio and record yourself whilst doing the tutorial. I have taken the liberty of abandoning this idea as my voice is horrific.

Enjoy

Camtasia Test 002

Another Camtasia test, this time whilst creating a background for the Charles I shot.

I've been playing with the focus and zoom tools, which enable you to zoom in on certain aspects of the screen. It's a great tool especially when working on something like photo shop and you want to give people a clear view of the tools used when working, and how you go about utilizing them.

Camtasia

Yeah I finally found me a copy of camtasia, and it's pretty fun/wonderful/a little confusing.

It's a recording software, where you can capture your screen and (hopefully) show your process etc... It also enables you to edit together your performance and cut out the mistakes (There are many).

So I had a little play, which can be seen below, just some silliness, getting to grips with the software and editing etc...

So far so good, the software is easy to use and has a nice simple interface. 10/10

UPDATE

I've been a very busy boy, and as deadline are looming it's about time I posted a little update to show where I am at.

I am still working on the Animations for the Raven Project, and working on compositing all my shots together piece by piece. A lot of what i'm doing currently consists of colour correction and positioning in After Effects. Here is a sneak preview of the Introduction so Far.

I kept the sound on, so you can gauge how much is left to do, and after showing sophie I have some more tweaks to make to this part of the intro. We want to see if we can perhaps make it seem faster by having the building pop up before moving, like a book. We also want to experiment more with the way the portrait falls.

I am still working on finding a copy of camtasia as I want to post process shots of how I composite the shots. I also want to use it to perhaps show some processes in toon boom.

Charles Test

A quick test for the shot of king charles I and his decree. Obviously it way too fast, so I am going to have to look into adding more frames to the animation of at least exposing them more to slow the piece down. Baring in mind that Sophie wants snappy animation, to keep the pace of the piece.

I have been thinking about perhaps learning to use a program called Camtasia, in order to better show my process of animation and compositing for my technical folders etc...

Just something more to look into.

Raven Hop Animation

Another Animation Test, this time for the final scene, where the ravens hop in unison to their quarters. I really like the movement in this animation, though I got incredibly confused with the crown. I think my best bet may be to complete the general hop animation, and then move on to the crown as secondary animation.

The idea is to have the crown suspend in the air when the raven meets it's peak height, and drop back down when the raven prepares for his next bounce.

Animation Tests

Here is the inked and coloured profile flight.

Although previously worried about the inks of this animation, it turns out i was threating for no reason. Yes it did look strane in some of the frames, but once the animation itself is moving, you barley notice it. I am especially proud of the fluidity of the movement. Animation is not my strength, hence why it is not my specialism, but I am quite proud of this piece.

Animation Tests

Again, i've had a practice with wing movements for the Raven, this time from a profile. It was really complicated to show the wing in the foreground as foreshortening is one of my weaknesses as an artist.

Still using block colour helps and I like the outcome, regardless of it being brief. If you are watching from the actual .mov I recommended looping the file. Now I just have to look at inking the animation. I'm worried about this as I predict the foreshortening will look strange in inks.

Animation Tests

I finally got round to inking and colouring my first animation test and god damn was it a long process. I literally took each frame into photoshop and inked with the pen tool. I then added simple flat colours to each frame. The reason for taking the animation into photoshop was that I tried inking in toon boom and the actual lines smooth themselves out too much to stay faithful to the original animation. It was very frustrating and something I have to look into correcting in the future as, going back and forth from toon boom to PS is just irritating.

Animation Tests

A animation test for the first shot of the raven project.

It was really a test just to see how to draw up the wings. Thank god for youtube and to all those people that have a thing for filming birds in slow motion. I like the results, so now I just have to look into inking the animation, colouring the animation and creating some follow through for the tail feathers.

Toon Boom

I got it, you want it?

Heroes Posters Complete

I ran a little late with these as I probably spent longer on them than I should have. Kofi didn't seem to mind however as they came out really nicely. I'm quite proud of them. It was a challenge to come up with an adult character in the same style as the boy, but some how comic book it.

Never the less, I am still happy with the designs and the variation in the colours of the posters. Now they are in Kofi's faithful hands for mapping on to his modeled posters for the bedroom of the Kid.

Buildings

Ive FINALLY finished drawing up the buildings primarily for the fly through. It took me days, nay weeks. I am however so stoked with the results. Hopefully this post is pretty self explanatory. Created in Photoshop with home made textures (Thank god for unfinished kitchen extensions).

Big Ben
The London Eye
St Pauls

The Globe Theatre
The Tower of London

Collapse Test

I've recently completed a lot of the building images for the Raven Introduction. So I thought I'd have a quick go a the Tower collapse test. Here are my results.

I'm not happy with the shake after the first tower drop, it needs to be smoother. But still not bad for an initial test.

EDIT: Showed the test to sophie, whom loves the pop up card approach to the animation. She also agrees with the first tower fall not looking right and suggests toning down the movement in the first shake.

Heroes 1.0. Update

Hey Hey,

Kofi has asked me to develop a superhero and create some posters to be dotted around the room for the short. They however have to be completed quickly as he wants to begin rendering in a week. This should be accomplishable as one of my all time passions is creating and drawing super heroes.

I'll keep you posted.

Portrait Shot Composition

So I played about with the Portrait show, rendered it out as an alpha and imported to After Affects.

I created the back wall in PhotoShop, and played with some After Effects particle dynamics to create the dust. The compositing was really quite fun, and after completing the one shot, I feel like I can start to visualize the end result.

Portrait Test

The first shot I wanted to really work on was the Portrait drop shot, In the animatic the shot itself was just a swing and drop which looked unprofessional but was fine for the animatic. Instead I decided it would be good practice to try and incorporate 3d into my 2d introduction. First I had to model my portrait.

I started by creating the portrait itself, using the same style as the animatic. Then I went forward to model the frame, keeping it simple. I then experimented briefly with materials finally deciding on a Anistropic with edits to the ambient and reflectivity. And finally to create a hand drawn effect I added a toon outline shader. However the setting were too clumsy and it just wasn't floating my boat.
Instead I played with lighting starting with an atmospheric light and lowering the intensity. This gave the desired cartoony effect but completely drained the reflectivity and shine of the frame. So again I lowered the intensity, and added some Area lights.

Below is a play blast of the frame dropping, I shall move on to composition tests when im fully happy with the animation.

EDIT: Played about with the speed of the piece. Still a little too slow.

Raven Design

In order to do the introduction for the Raven project I need to come up with a simple design for the Raven itself. I came up with the above design using simple geometric shapes and linework for the feet. The crown is to be added for the final shot as per requested by Sophie. It represents how the ravens are kept and treated as if they are royalty.

Animation Tests

With my work for Heroes seemingly completed I decided that it was time to get started on the Introduction for the Ravens. I wanted to see how effectively I could create a fly through in 2d. I also had to take into consideration that the route used in the Introduction may have to portray the thames.

Here is the initial Fly through test. I think it works surprisingly well using only 3d image planes and position animation in After Effects. Using After Effects would also allow me to easily composite the 2d animated bird over the top.

Above is a brief water test created in After Effects, using an array of effects, but mainly just blurs and masking. I think it is effective, and could be used in the final cut, however using this technique raises the render time to an incredible amount.

More Heroes Concepts

As mentioned in earlier posts the initial concept for the boy in Heroes 1.0. didn't go down so well with Mike, so I decided to play around with the design further and looked at taking it down a more stylised approach.

I tried to experiment with as many looks and styles as possible, whilst sticking to the original character brief/description given to me by Kofi.
However I think that Kofi still wanted to use the last design, as he didn't want the character to be too stylised.
He did however mention If we were to take any of these design forward it would be the design in the middle above. I like the design however it is not my favourite. It reminds me of the designs from the Moomins.
My Favourite 3 would be the ones above, and I really think that they would have worked well in the film. They remind me of some of the designs In my Art of Incredibles book the centre boy looking quite like the character dash.

EDIT: As predicted Kofi felt strongly about the original design and has decided to use that one. His reasons were because he liked the traditional approach, and that the modeling was too far gone to merit changing the design at this late stage.

Animatic Uploaded!

The Animatic for Heroes 1.0. that was shown at formative, Kofi threw it together and the images are all by me. I really loved how it turnt out and I think that the narrative is really nicely paced. It was a really nice script to work with and Kofi gave me a lot of freedom with shots and developing how I think the story should be told. Feedback from the formative was also positive, and with encouragement from Mike my fears of the boards being too rough, were dispersed.

During the formative however, the concept for the boy was not so positively met. Mike found the design too generic and wanted to see something more stylized. As this is not my project, I really don't have much of an opinion as to how stylized the character should be, and my initial feeling was that Kofi did not agree. However I agreed to draw up some more designs to see where I could take the character.

StoryBoarding for Heroes 1.0

Kofi recently asked me if I could complete some storyboards for Heroes 1.0. so that he could create an Animatic for the formative assessment. Obviously with my Artistic folder being void f any storyboards, I jumped at the opportunity.

Kofi wanted each board as an individual file, so as to make it easier for him to composite them for the animatic. This however leaves me with 50 odd separate images, and a life time of uploading should i choose to post them all. Instead I'll see if i can grab a link for the Animatic.


The images posted are just a few frames of the animatic, and are really quite rough. However, I really liked the outcome and would like to thank Kofi for the opportunity to improve and expand my Artistic Folder.

Update

With another formative lurking, it was time to create some concepts for the Raven Project introduction. After further talks with Sophie, we wanted the first shot to involve a fly through of a 1600's london, set at the time of the decree mentioned in the introduction.

Abover are some quick illustrations of King Charles I and Elizabeth I. Charles is mentioned due to him actually finalising the decree, that 6 Ravens should stay at the tower. Lizzie however will be used for the portrait shot.
A concept of the Millennium Bridge or the now 16th century bridge on South Bank.
St Pauls and the globe theatre.
The Savoy, chosen to represent for the strand, and a 16th century Taxi.
...And finally the London Eye and Gherkin.

I like these concepts, one of my main goals was to keep the building recognizable, yet still stylised and old obviously. In the 16th century everything was mainly crafted with wood, I do however worry that if we change the colour of the eye, it ma just look like a ferris wheel. I shall put it to the group and see what they think.

Another Heroes Concept

After a week of trial and error, I finally came up with this design. I really liked the outcome, simple with a classic disney-eque style, in my opinion he looks like a solid 5 yr old. Kofi agreed, and really liked the button up PJ's as they look outstandingly juvenile. I am happy with the concept, though I think I could have taken it further with a little more time, sadly modeling needed to begin and I was cut short.

Heroes 1.0

Kofi came to me and asked that I complete some character concepts for his short Heroes 1.0. Unfortunately he didn't have a lot of time as his previous concept wasn't fitting the style he wanted for his film. Without this time, I wasn't really able to complete any decent concepts, and instead jumped straight into a final design, something that I really dislike doing.

EDIT: Kofi unfortunately didn't like the concept, although he thought it was closer to the style that he wanted, the boy looked too old. He has given me another week to try my hand at another design.

Moar work for the Ravens.

As you are aware, i mentioned briefly that I was completing the introduction to the Raven Project. Here is a brief animatic of the Idea that I had.

Sophie liked the Idea and told me to run with it. Although she wants something done with the ending, a small animation of Charles 1 or the Ravens.

EDIT: Sophie threw some audio on the file for me, So I've updated the video.

Raven Model Turn Around

I created a brief turnaround for my showreel. I'm still really happy with the results. Previously I created turnarounds by setting up a camera in maya and animating a rotation on the character. This time I did it by creating a nurbs circle and parenting the camera to it. I then animated the circle for a perfect 360.

Raven Complete

Finally finished the feathers, and quickly added some proper materials to them, in an attempt to see how realistic I could make them using basic Maya materials. I played around with a Blinn changing the reflectivity and ambient colours and got this (quite wonderful, in my opinion) look.

EDIT: Sadly Sophie has decided to go along with Clym's Model as it seems the rig he was working on will not fit my model and is beyond editing. I am still however glad for the oppurtunity and for the addition to my Modeling portfolio.

Feathers Round three

So after completeing the feather method on the wings, it was time to try it out on the body.
I started by creating a row of 5 feathers and then using the animation technique provided by Daffy in the previous videos. It seemed to work alright, however a lot more key framing was involved in order to stop the feathers breaking into each other and the base mesh.
As you can see, there is some over lapping happening, but I have to admit, I'm still quite happy with the result.
Now to move on to the more complex part of the head. I'm not going to lie, even with the animation cheat, this was still tricky and the mesh on top is actually quite complex and getting the feathers to look as if they are sitting smoothly on top of the head has been quite tricky. Though I think this part may be unavoidable and I realise however tricky, the results for this method are completely satisfying.
I think I shall be continuing with this method to create my bird for the Raven Project, as the final outcome looks quite realistic. Along with textures I fail to see why this model couldn't look photo realistic.

I am very glad we had the chance to research our hurdles before we came to them, this means that I can go ahead confidently with the model and know that there is a way to achieve the outcome that I and the others want.

Feathers Round two

So I have tested the feather method provided by Daffy in the videos posted previously. The method works exceedingly well on the wings and the Animation cheat works nicely here. However I still have reservations when it comes to the rest of the body, but only time will tell.

The reference sheet was also helpful, especially the included diagrams of the different parts of the wings.
As you can see I have colour coded different areas, so that they will be easier to texture and incorperate into the rig. However He's starting to look like a Rainbow Raven.
Continuing using the same method for different parts of the wing. Still working Nicely, seems like it may be a full proof method for creating feathers.
And finally a finished wing. Seems that this method works quite nice, so now to try it on the body. I really like the effect this method give in renders, and now i'm really starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this model.

Feathers Round One

Before I start with the feathers, Daffy in his video showed us a reference page he had put together outlining all the bits and pieces he had collected about ducks. In those images he had references and diagrams as to where the feather should be and how they are placed. I have tried to do the same thing and here is the result.

Daffy Duck pt 2

Sophie managed to get us some footage from her meet with daffy. It's a very nice insight and gives us more ground to work towards, especially in creating the feathers. Unfortunately there isn't a cheat where I can apply some Maya hair and have lovely feathers, I have to create them using polygon planes and place them on the model.

It's really inspiring stuff, and the finished effect with all the trippy render layers included is absolutely beautiful. There are also those incredible cheats using animation to adjust the feathers and place them for you, which makes me feel so much better about making them individually. So now theres nothing left to do, but stop avoiding it, and getting on with it.

Snow = Fail

There has been a sudden turn in the weather and I am stuck in Swanley with 2 1/2 foot of snow. Sadly this means trains or buses are not running through my area and I cannot make the meet with Daffy.

Edit

Clym is also stuck in Sidcup, however Sophie shall be going ahead to the meet with Daffy.

Daffy Duck

Feathers.

Yes feathers, I have put off researching the how-to's on Maya as I know that this is going to be the real test when creating this model.

I found this thread on CG talk which discussed the subject and some possible answers.

I also found this tutorial, which unfortunately went straight over my head.

LUCKILY Sophie and her inside industry knowledge/contacts has set up a meeting with her friend Daffy. Daffy has worked on an advertisement which included a number of CGI photo realistic birds, and can tell us how the models were achieved. Myself, Sophie and Clym shall be attending the meet, and I'm hoping he will be able to stop my head spinning.

SUCCESS!!!

The secret was all in the specular mapping. By adjusting and creating a specular map on the Iris, i was able to edit how light reacts to the Iris and bring back some of the warmth to the eye AND make it beam even more.
As you can see, now the eye really pops out of the model, and the brightness adds in my opinion quite a cheeky side to the model.
A mid-shot including the eye, and below the wire frame for the eye. You can see the shape of the nurb sphere eyeball, including the Iris, the highlighted shape is the pupil.
I am very happy with the outcome from this tutorial, and I am so glad it went on to cover specular mapping. I feel like I have learnt quite a bit about textures and the hypershade editor in maya because of it.

Eyes finished.

After completing the Iris texture, Screen cap above. I could move on with the tutorial and planar map the Iris and apply the texture. The results are below, and I have to admit that i was pretty upset that the render/maya and kind of washed out the texture. I was aiming for beaming eyes, somewhat owl like.
The Eye on it's own.
The eye placed in the model.
The tutorial then goes on the show you how to add a pupil, which is nice as my renders keep showing the back wall of the eye ball and it looks odd. I will now have to play about with the Iris settings I think and see what I can achieve. Hopefully I can bring back some of the warm in the eye.

EYES!!!

The Eye tutorial featured on the Gnomon Website is seems to be pretty good. I can't believe I havn't seen it before. Though it takes a while, the finish is stunning and there is a depth to the model that cannot be achieved through a simple texture. Also the tutorial offers the chance of Pupil Dilation animation as the Iris is formed from a torus which can be changed in shape.
The tutorial basically takes you through creating a realistic eye using a Nurb sphere. You have to edit the sphere using Isopalms to give it the realistic bulge at the front of the eye. It then talks you through editing the materials to create a lovely wet shine to the eyeball, and using transparency mapping so that you can make the Iris torus below, visible.
As I am creating the eye for a Raven however, I had to deviate a tiny bit from the tutorial, instead looking at the formation of a birds eye. There weren't too many differences, mainly just the size and coverage of the eye by the Iris. All that had to be adjusted were the size of the torus and it's placement. I also had to adjust the transparency map, just a little.
Though It is not yet finished, I am pretty happy with the results. I am now working on a texture for the Iris, so that I may continue with the tutorial. Sneak peak below.