Lifting tower - Animation

The final animation of the Lifting Tower. I did the second half of the final animation based on the rough animation.

Lifting tower - Storyboards

As we decided to use my storyboards, I refined them digitally, to test out the projection effect with black background. It demonstrate the aesthetic direction of the animation as well, giving an overview of how the animation will look like at the end. It lasts around 8 seconds.

I handed this to Dan for him to do the rough animation, and I will be doing the second half of the clean up/colouring of the final projection animation.

Lifting tower - First Crit

As we have planned, each of us produced a storyboard based on our ideas, the following storyboard is what I produced, which is also what we decided to use at the last. What I did as well was using the template given to produce a preview of the projection. Based on the theme and previous creative designs for the Christmas, I made a simple colour panel that we are likely going to be using, considering the final projection effect, the colours would be more desaturated than it is now, as dark colour might not show in projections on the wall.

Lifting tower - initial ideas

As the lifting tower project has been briefed, we decided to form a group of 3 to work on the animation, as a part of the extended brief. Firstly I went on for a research of a brief history of the lifting tower, view and got inspired by the animation made in previous year. We planned to make a story board by each of us, and chose the best one to animate.Based on what Jimmy suggested, I would also like to make color panels for the storyboards while it is one of the most important element to decide before start making the animation.

Loopdeloop - October - Final outcome

Due to the time consuming of the challenge, I decided to use Photoshop for this animation, and do further experiments with TV paint in the main animation for the extended project.

In order to get the style I want for this short loop, I experimented with the brushes in Photoshop, where I found one of the basic pencil tool fitted perfectly. So I then altered the thickness and settings for the pencil in order to create different textures which can be matched together but differs the cat and the plant in the loop.

I would like to explore with the brushes and the settings for different textures, which helps both with making animation and producing character design sheet, concept art etc. The next step and one of the main purpose for me of the brief is to learn TV paint and to improve character dynamics.

Here is the final outcome of the animation, which I have submitted to the loopdeloop challenge at the end of the October.

Loopdeloop - October - Pre-production

For the initial concept, I want to express the theme with a scene of the character staring at something he/she loves, to present love with expressions. I did some simple character concepts of a human and a cat. I want the loop related to the theme as close as possible, therefore I decided on the cat because of the stereotype that cats like eating fishes.

After deciding on the character, I refined him in Photoshop and did a storyboard which defines the narrative. During the consideration of the story, I wanted to link the start and the end to make a reasonable loop, therefore the outcome is as follows, short and simple.

Character Design Challenge - October

The theme of the month of CDC is devil and demons. I went for a brief research, got inspired and done a few sketches with pencil, I chose the following one in order to practice the ability of conveying message through the facial expression, and to practice paiting the texture of skin. I continued to work on the character design digitally in photoshop, here are the screenshots, the final outcome and the published work in the challenge page.

Animated documentary: Week 16

During the week I refined the animation, finishing up . I did the additional SFX for the animation in Premiere with sound effects from several resources, considering the depth and the suitable atmosphere. Such as the different kinds of rolling of the wheels where the woven machine is spinning and the movement of the carriage, with similar kind of sounds but tiny difference. I did the SFX in three steps which was adding the atmosphere sounds first, secondly the appropriate effects such as obtaining cocoons from the tree, and finally the edited background music through out the animation. When choosing the music, I was looking for a nearly muted and not distracting audio that works with the voice of the narrator. Chinese flute was what I came up with and started looking for them on varies online sources. The audio I finally decided on and we agreed appears as in the final animation, which I edited it in Adobe Audio again to fit the length and to emphasis the narrator near the ending part.

So finishing up the project I made the DVD screener for our demonstration DVD pack, where we chose the highlight scene of the silk goddess with the woven machine and silk. Though due some printing issue the colour of the final outcome of the printed screener, the contrast level changed and the colour varied a little. But we are pleased with the final outcome of the DVD.

Finally the last step before rendering the animation, I did the the ending sequence with the credit. I decided to use one of the backgrounds with the sun boiling and shift slightly as the credit part, and went back to add the LCA logo to the title sequence as the brief indicated as well.

So here is the final animation I rendered from the final Premiere composition, in H.264 and MP4 format, but compressed to upload to the blog. The HD version could be found in the submission folder. We were happy with the final outcome and I will burn it onto the DVD with cover and screener we produced.

Animated documentary: Week 15

Stepping into the post-production of the animation, I edit the audio track that Bash's dad recorded in Adobe Audio, separating the audio by the script, adding spaces or delete any that is too long. I then edited them by Premiere where I replaced the animatic bits by bits with the final animation, put them in appropriate places. So at the stage we need to test out and add any sound effect to create the atmosphere during the following week, and to gather the animations we did individually in Premiere to finish up the animation.

I also did some frame by frame animation at 6 frames per secs for the threads on the silk woven machine, where the silk goddess make silk from the cocoons she obtained from the leaves. I decided to do it digitally as the water color assets are not transparent whereas I could make the effect by choosing appropriate brush in Photoshop. I tested a few brushes and end up using this one as it demonstrate the texture of threads effectively.

Animated documentary: Week 14

The week was a production week where I kept producing the remaining assets that is needed for the animation, and kept animating. I used the same assets of the hand for each scenes containing the zoomed in hand, and composited the assets for the trader that I did with the background Rey produced. Simultaneously I did tests for the water color backgrounds and assets to see if the texture fits, and decided to use a pencil outline in fore scenes where using water color without pencil outlines for any further scenes to create depth and highlight the main movements.

Here are some stills from the animation I did:

Animated documentary: Week 13

This is a production week focusing on animating the animation, mostly the scene where the progress of the silk goddess feeding the silk worm and woven from the cocoons she obtained. I used After Effect for the animation compositing the assets that I did in previous weeks to form the final animations. Here are some comparisons between the animatic to the animation in progress.

More assets for the silk goddess with different poses to be animated in different scenes:

OUAN503:End of Module Evaluation

I think this is a module with a large flexibility as the set briefs are not specified, therefore it gives freedom to us especially helped to shape our individual directions, to give us a chance to practice skills that we have passion in and would probably do in the future. I enjoyed the module a lot as we can choose our own set of briefs and respond to it, and on the other hand, in the collaborative brief part, I am able to practice my skill of communication, collaboration, and organisation.

The set of briefs I chose are mostly character design challenges as I responded to 3 character-design challenge among all briefs that I have responded, which is also what I am most interested in doing. The submission of the first one I did back in February was late, where I did not take a screenshot as well, therefore I did not miss any of the other deadlines to prevent late submissions happening. The other three briefs are all animation briefs, with the 11 seconds club challenge being the main project for the studio brief 1. I did three of them in three different styles and methods, traditional animation papers, digital compositing and assets in After effects, in order to test that which one works for me the best, and to gain experiences for all of the skills. In conclusion, I think I have made the right choices of briefs to respond to, I had chances to practice different skills both digitally and with traditional methods. What I could have improved is to respond to more briefs that covers more skill range, and to manage time more efficiently to prevent the situation of not submitting stuff on time. I wrote short evaluations for each of the animation or character design I did, and I found that it is a great way of keeping up to date, to give the project a proper finish and to look back seeing the improvement that could be applied to it.

The second part of this module, is the first time that I work with other individuals of other courses beside the collaborative team in the other animation brief. At the first we were asked to present our skill set with four images composited together on a sheet of A3 art board, and to choose a brief on either D&AD or YCN. I was firstly considering between quite a lot of briefs as I can find my individual roles to contribute in all of them. But eventually decided on two briefs to present on the interests’ sheet. Both briefs require animation skill, which is the role that I can possibly take. Finally, I decided to respond to the brief set by Hasbro, to create a new board game facing teenagers aged 16-26. The biggest problem that we all faced was the communication between us as we are from different courses, and we did not arranged enough seminars to discuss the progress of each of us, therefore it lagged the speed of me to complete the final presentation video. Another improvement is that I could have do more research of the background of the game company to produce minor details to the game itself to embrace the culture of the game industry. Eventually we gave it a nice finish and submitted the video along the design boards in time, overall I am pleased with the final outcome, it demonstrates the role and the concept of the appearance of the card game, which on the other hand, I like the idea as it is an engaging game, and a resolution to the life spam of card games, with constantly produced booster packs.

To conclude the process of this module, I have responded to several briefs both individually and collaboratively, I kept my blogs up to date to record the process I went through and gave myself evaluations for the purpose of reducing problems and pushing the quality of works higher for future references. There is still a huge space for me to improve myself, such as on self-management on all sorts of aspects, and the importance of communication especially being an individual with vital roles working in a creative group, that if the team members can work efficiently with the right directions after an agreement approved by all of us. But in general, the module has given me a very helpful guidance to my self-interests and clarification of the roles that I could be taking in a team.

Hasbro: Individual Contributions

Individual briefs: Art boards

Project Report

Animated documentary: Week 12

I will be doing the backgrounds and other assets for the animation and animate the assets. I studied the references such as the texture of the cocoons, the racks and the silk worms, and did watercolor tests for the final assets that I will be making. And for the backgrounds, I referred back to the mood boards that I did before we started the rough storyboards and animatic. So here are some of the watercolor backgrounds and assets that I did on paper which I scanned them in and cut out in Photoshop for further edit. For the woven machine I made 3 set of the spinning wheel for the frame by frame animation movements of it that I can animate afterwards.

11 seconds club: April-submitting the animation

I made a front cover for the animation to submit it with the film. This is a screenshot of my entry to the April's 11 seconds club challenge and another one of the confirmation E-mail that the challenge send to me.

11 seconds club: April-final animation

Here is the final animation for this month's challenge.

Animated documentary: Week 11

As the feedback to the assets that Rey designed did not demonstrate a match of style to the watercolor assets that I did for the silk goddess, We decided that I would redo the assets for all of the characters within the animation, which are the traders, the animals, and the transports. So I used the same style that I have drawn the main character to applied them on the other characters, and created the below assets which we cut them out in Photoshop. For the further animating process I will be rigging then in After Effect with puppet tools, which produce the effect that we wanted for the story happened within the book. 

So here are the assets I scanned and the outcome of cutting out: