Life and bee-boy!

14:20 0 Comments

Today I went to see Puss In Boots in 3D at the cinema with my Dad. Overall I thought it was brilliant! I concentrated on the animating throughout the film along with all the other animated films and shorts I watch. I always feel much more inspired, especially after watching The Adventures Of Tin Tin a few weeks ago, as I was more intrigued about the visualistion. Infact, all I seem to only watch nowadays are animated films, I love it!

Recently I downloaded the Bee-Boy free 3Ds Max rig, where I have been playing around animating with him, which has been fun! I haven't animated a 3D character yet and I really want to gain skills in this area of animation. Also, I have a project at University on a 'silent comedy' character animation. Therefore, I want to learn as much as possible for myself and the project.

Evaluation

07:31 0 Comments

For the project ‘Fantasy Olympics’ we were asked to design a thirty second, 2D promotional advert for a fantasy Olympic sport event. To do this we used Adobe After Effects.

Over the past nine weeks we learnt compositing using Adobe After Effects. I developed a lot of skills along the way as this was my first time compositing in After Effects. We were taught how to design, model, texture and also how to add lighting, cameras and experimenting with techniques for animating.

The main idea for my fantasy Olympic sport was aliens vs. humans on a race to the opponent’s planet using space boots for the Olympic year 56000. To start the project I designed my characters for the advert. When doing this I thought about the characters silhouettes, which can relate to the branding of the advert.  

To begin I designed and sketched my characters and scanned them into Adobe Photoshop. To finalise the character I drew over them in Photoshop to create a clean finish. I selected areas of the characters to separate the layers to be able to animate in After Effects. I also used the same method for the environment.

When setting up a new composition I imported all my layers, copied and arranged them into the composition.  I started using the position tool to start animating my images which I then went on to using the puppet tool and the opacity tool to animate. From browsing on the internet, I learnt how to add in a particle world effect which enabled me to create the shooting star effect from the two planets.  

I had never used After Effects before although I thought I picked it up quite well because of previously and currently using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash. Where I noticed After Effects was slightly a combine of the two.

What I found difficult about the program was at first finding where all the tools were situated to be able to animate. I think it would be great to have a valued skill in compositing.  I still need to learn a lot more about compositing. Therefore I am going to practice over Christmas so I can carry out projects a lot more fluently.

What I became aware of is that you can export your animations through After Effects rather than using Adobe Premiere Pro. I really do not like to work in Premiere Pro and as a result I thought using After Effects to finalise my work would be better for me to expand my work and I would also be able to composit my work further and add sounds which means I can export it a lot more easily and stress-free. I will most likely use After Effects in all my projects now, which will help me out a great deal.

Overall, I wasn’t sure about the program at first but when I got use to it I really enjoyed the whole process of producing my Olympic Fantasy advert. I managed to learn the program myself and I also helped others with their own work too. On the whole I learnt a lot from this project and it has given the incentive to learn more.

Fantasy Olympics

15:26 0 Comments

Inspiration...

04:43 0 Comments

I'm really inspired by these digitial images below which are created by different cg artists. I would love to produce work like this. They also give me some ideas for my character designs for my next animation project...



Jason Baldwin Software: Maya



Fabricio Moraes Software: 3ds max, Photoshop



Luis Arizaga Rico Software: 3ds max, mental ray, Photoshop



AE 'Fantasy Olympics'

15:19 0 Comments

Working on the after effects project is going ok. However it is taking a little longer to complete because I'm not very confident in the program.
Over Christmas I'm going to work on compositing in after effects so I can work more fluently in the program.

Visualisation Project

15:06 0 Comments

For the 'Still Life' project, we are asked to design, model and render four still life images in 3Ds Max. Below I have put together a mood board of some images that relate to my idea for this project...
























My main idea is close ups of mantelpieces and the ornaments on them. My designs for this would be different mantelpieces, old to modern. I was also thinking I could add a photo frame onto each separate render of a certain person growing up. For this I could use photographs of someone in my family. I thought this would show an inspiring narrative side to my designs and the outcome would be really effective.

For this I will undertake my own primary research where I will take photographs of existing mantelpieces and textures. This will help me with some inspiration so I can start sketching and designing my own models.

AE.....

13:43 0 Comments

My two new characters that I have changed, I prefer these much better....