After Effect Crazy #2

Just some more after effects practice I did over the Holiday to stop myself from stagnating, they consist of title intros, flare elements and some 3D practice. I did a lot which I won't bore you with sharing on here, let's just say particular has given me some good ideas for year 3 :)

Retro/Futuristic Title Intro

 
Planets Align

First week back

After much soul searching I have decided to transfer from 3D animation to moving image, after just the first week of attending the 3D classes I came to realisation that it was something I felt very little confidence and passion towards and believed I would never be motivated to push myself and excel within it. More than the just the programs being hard to pick up is the fact that I'm not the most artistically talented in terms of drawing and have little interest in modelling, I would not enjoy this side of it. I believe I have made the right choice as it is apparent now that I should do something I'm passionate about rather than just what I think is the most challenging.  I could work with others and maybe enjoy myself in the process instead of struggling and fighting with what I'm naturally good at.


What may have been...

I've Finally Got Um': Visual Essay Update!

I won't go into in-depth detail to how I came to the decision (that's what the essays for) but the pathway I've finally decided upon and which I am selecting for the 2nd years is...

My Four Practitioners:

1. Shingeru Miyamoto (Nintendo) - It wasn't a difficult selection, as the picture indicated Shingeru is a incredibly influential game designer and fits nicely in at the start of my essay, he represents my early discovery into the world of game animation. He's been creating pioneering, industry-shaping video games and hardware for nearly three decades. His contributions have been blatantly copied by competitors just as much as they've been applauded by players around the world. His resume includes greats such as: Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, F-Zero, Star Fox and Super Mario 64.

2. Phillip Dobson (Eurocom's Lead Environment Artist) - Another easy choice, Phillip (as the second name suggests) is a relation of mine, my cousin. He played a significant part in my aspiration of becoming an animator, we had the same eduction, family and environment growing up, My philosophy is: "If he made it, why not I?" He specialises in environments which is relevant as this is an area I am interested in also, the idea of creating a world in which people interact within is highly creative and almost 'god-like' to a degree, a occupation rarely found in other jobs. His resume includes: Spyro the Dragon, James Bond 007 Goldeneye, Harry Pottor and more.

3. Bruce Timm (DC Comic/Animated Universe) - This one took some more thinking about, but overall I believe Bruce to be the most influential figure to me, in terms of contributing to my early fascination and enjoyment of animated TV shows. He is responsible for personifying legendary comic book characters into animated worlds, his character designs truly do shape and represent the modern image we have of huge popular icon such as Batman and Superman. The fact that his animations are important enough to influence the more popular medium of film is a great achievement in it's own right. His resume includes; Flash Gordon, He-Man, Tiny Toons, Superman TAS, Batman TAS, Justice League, and various animated films. I would love to be able to design characters at his level.

4. Hayoa Miyazaki (Manga, Animator, Film Director) - A more modern discovery of mine rather than an early childhood inspiration this time, Miyazaki who has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films. His work visually and imaginatively is on a completely different level to anything else out there, the unique beauty of his animations display intelligent meaning on; nature, life and love. I truly believe that animation is special, that it has the power to take you to unimaginable places of magic, where the possibility's are endless and restrictions are non-existent. This is something that other media forms cannot achieve. His work is the best example I can think of that reinforces that idea, it represents animation as more than child's entertainment but as an art form. His resume includes: Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky, Ponyo and more

Recap: 2nd Year Student's and Pathway Choices!

This week has been information overload for me, I've been contemplating my pathway choice for months now, desperately searching for something to tilt me one way or the other... moving image, virtual environments, moving image, virtual environment, moving image, virtual environments e.c.t.

The deal is that I am passionate about both, different stages of my life have been dominated by the two at different times, for example I studied A-level film at college and watched/made film throughout my childhood, but in more recent years a big chunk of my aspirations and spare time has been dreaming about being involved in animation in someway, partly influenced by my increased interaction with games and animated films/shows.

It's a really tough decision, my life could go either way and I really want to make the right choice, I need to make a educated selection, so I'm trying to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages, another thing for me to recognize is that since I started University i have almost been daring myself to choose animation for a challenge and have found it more difficult but more interesting than the others, It's like a personal wrestling match between the two. My cousin has also made a successful career in the animation industry, so there's that as well.

So on Monday we got the the opportunity to listen and Q&A with second year students about there pathway choice, Another interesting matter I noticed was that I only took notes down from the animation speaker (that could say something in its self)

Notes:

Animation:

• Photoshop Crucial
• Do your visual essay in the medium your choosing
• Need some drawing skills
• Do more projects than just uni, enter competitions, challenge friends
• Time management and Pipelining
• Buy a powerful Desktop Computer
• Do a lot of independent research and practice
• Follow current practitioners and techniques
• A lot of hard work, up late at night, but rewarding 
• Don't have to work in groups 
• A lot of time spent in front of computer 
• Decent Pay

All in all it confirmed by thoughts that animation is going to be a hell of a lot of work, with high levels of passion and commitments required, no room for being lazy. I did note that I felt that I would be more confident going into film as its less intimidating and I have past experience in the area, also a plus was that your not on computers constantly.

In conclusion If i can get past the intimidation of VE and embrace that I will have to learn and learn, I'm positive I would find virtual environments enjoyable, I just need to decide if I've got what It takes. Will be confirming shortly.


Calum Whitehead's (Second year student) visual essay:



This has sparked a fair few ideas

Design Practice 2: Animation: Work Submission

My main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were:

To collect and portray a direct vision of visual styles, moods and personal interests that were inspirational to me in the past and present and reflect them into a current project. For the audience to reflect on my work and be able to find similarity’s to conventions of the horror genre, specifically through sound, lighting, props and overall mise en scene. For audiences to be drawn into a realistic environment and experience a consistently interesting journey, I wanted the viewer to feel almost mesmerized by the travelling motion of the 1st person perspective, picking up on fine details along the way. Creating a genuine 1st person perspective that would mimic that of a real life theme park ride, using camera movements to replicate emotions such as being shocked and then jumping backwards. Using the camera as tool to explore the different possibilities of a 3D world through experimentation with angles, rather than being restricting to a flat 2d world. My scare scenes were aimed at creating a spontaneous shock value by jumping out at the viewer, rather than trying to be to ‘scary’ I wanted to rely on ‘cheap thrills’. To create and eerie atmosphere by developing interesting light, I used the sun piercing down through trees to create realism and deviate away from say a generic 3 point light set up.

The methods I use to develop my ideas were: (brainstorming, , visual research, storyboards etc)

I harnessed existing haunted house rides and existing media for inspiration for the overall theme of the ride, analysing personal horror interests such as Gotham City, Dracula, Resident Evil & Tribal Cultures for lighting, composition and ideas helped construct a mood board to collaborate and future develop concepts and themes. Once I have my ideas together I pinpoint the main essence and start to sketch and storyboard possible props, action sequences, camera angles e.c.t to begin actually constructing my ideas. Once I am making the project I research different techniques and attain information through online tutorials and literature to produce desired effects or to solve particular problems, I may also look at relevant videos at this stage to further my project, such as live footage to replicate in my own work. I will also be collecting feedback, evaluating and refining in the future to develop my ideas even further and getting a higher quality outcome.

I took a risk by trying something new. (Explain):

I decided to experiment with a water reactor in 3DS max which was totally foreign to me and had not been covered in any of the university lectures. It could have gone so wrong as I had no idea how operate it and invested a lot of time developing something I was unsure about. I got the point where I was replying on this to be my main spectacle and was experiencing a lot of errors; luckily I found 1 tutorial out of 100 that fixed the problems I was having, So my risk taking did In the end pay off.

Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were:

Technical problems include: Planes became invisible when I applied bitmaps to them, could not get objects to float on top of my water reactor and had a lot of computer crashes. The main unexpected problem was time restrictions, even though I began this project early on in week one, the final product will not be available till the end of module presentation and my first version was completed to close to the deadline for my liking, I mainly blame the university computers, as leaving my work to render there for 30+ hours was unachievable.

The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were:

For the bitmap problem I decided on this occasion to consult an animation lecturer for a solution, rather than sacrificing hours looking for a solution myself that I couldn’t find on the internet, I made use of someone’s personal knowledge. To fix my objects floating on the water issue I began searching online forums for information about how to achieve my desired effect, eventually finding a useful video which solved my problem, I’m happy I chose this approach rather than starting over. To solve my crashing problem I had to first locate the problems at their source, choosing to investigate myself rather than blame the program, I found that through my own mistakes I had not lowered the iteration on some objects, which I later corrected. For my render problems I made the decision to use my home personal computer to render, It is a much more controlled environment to work in and I was able to finally complete my work after 4 failed render attempts at university

The things I have learnt from this particular project were: (Specific examples should be cited.)

That technology always has the possibility to be unreliable; I must take this into consideration for meeting deadlines in a possible future career. I learnt many useful tricks and skills in the 3DS program, I now feel a lot more confident and experience in virtual environments, before I would have had no knowledge on reactors, particles or even motion paths. That lighting plays a huge role in the way objects are perceived in 3DS max; It is similar to film in that notion. Finally that I need to do more research, I jumped into some areas of the project to fast, and problems could have been avoided by a few extra hours of researching.

Areas for improvement , If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently:

I plan to edit this submission for the DP2 presentation, what I will do differently between then and now is firstly arrange a feedback session where I can gather ideas for refinement and improvement, Alter the camera movement to make them far less violent and much more smooth, focus more on the scare scenes and make them flow much better with the mechanics of the ride, tamper with the speed of the ride, add an extra scare scene at the end and an intro scene at the start which enters the ride through an entrance. I would have tested the integrity of a computer before attempting to render to save heaps of time, concentrate more on the lighting and finally research specific areas more in-depth.

A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe:

An animated virtual walkthrough for a client where you can explore a building with accurate modelled spaces and props.

Design Practice 2: Animation: Development (3)

3rd person perspective of boat moving through water

Swamp Plant Life

Fire tourches, waves & bridge

I am in the final process of incorporating my created props and scare scenes into the mechanics of the ride, It's a slow process as I have to check between the perspective viewport and the camera viewport to confirm what the audience will actually see when rendered. I don't want my boat to go through walls or my underwater crocodiles to be visible before I want them, this would ruin the realism and shock values. I want the audience to feel as drawn into this environment as possible, letting them experience the journey spontaneously rather than picking up on errors.

Other interesting things to mention -

I have viewed real life footage from existing theme park rides to remind myself what a first person perspective would look and feel like on a ride, the view of a person would normally be constantly changing due to a mixture of involuntary head movement from the shaking of the cart to the voluntary movement of the person rotating there head to look at the scenery/action.

Through this research the camera in my ride is rarely static, to create an authentic experience I have my camera scanning the surrounding area from my cart to replicate what a real person would do, the audience gets to view props and scenery from different angles all the time rather than just straight on, this give them the opportunity to look at there surroundings in much more detail and overall creates a exiting 3D world to explore rather than being restricted to flat 2D . When action scenes kick in the camera will react accordingly, such as a jump backwards when shocked or a tilted view to normal to represent someone sitting up from being knocked down 

My lighting incorporates the horror genre by lowing the tint and by enabling strong shadows to create an eerie and tense atmosphere, instead of using a mixture of lights or using techniques such as the 3 point, I decided to go with the one dominant light to represent the sun. The sun is the main light source shining down through the canapes of the trees, creating strong rays of lights and shadows from the leafs.

I have added the cliche generic fog that every scary haunted swamp would be lost without. One thing i do need to watch out for is that my fog and lighting do not impede or overwhelm the detail of my objects, I need a good depth of field, for example I want the distance to be distorted and mysterious while keeping the closeup visible and realistic.

Example of how light pierces through the tree tops and how the depth of view is created by fog

Online Research Tutorials:

http://www.xedium3d.com/tutorials/wakes/
http://3drockstar.com/creating-realistic-fire-using-particles-in-3ds-max/
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/making-realistic-water-in-3ds-max/

Problems:

Solved by researching, The fix was to decrease certain iterations

- Shell modifier having to be applied to make planes visible with bitmaps on
- Having to decrease the segments on the water reactor to stop crashing
- Lowering the smooth iterations on my rocks to stop crashing
- Having to find suitable computers to render on for the 30+ hour rendering time

Design Practice 2: Animation: Development (2)

I have decided that my haunted ride will be slightly immersed from ground level in the water material, to adapt my cart to this I have decided to create a tribal boat which will move on top of the water. I have also now started applying bitmaps and materials to my props to make them look realistic, I had to choose suitable woods to blend in with my swamp/tribal area.
Collection of images below:

Transition between live footage and modeled, the tribal themed canoe

Finalised canoa with material added, bump map increases the age of the wood

Tiki Tiki hut with added wood materials, roof needs further work

Simple modeled tiki mask made form splines and bitmaps

I am also in the process of creating a space warp water section, I am able to create real life physics through the Havoc engine, My water detects the mass of and objects and produces the suitable waves when an objects impacts, It also detects wherever or not an objects mass will float in the density of the water. I'm quite confused to be honest but ultimatley I want my boat to float on top of the water across a path creating ripples as It moves.

Design Practice 2: Animation: Development (1)

I am currently working on tribal themed props and scare scenes for my haunted house ride, I have completed the track layout and motion for my my track through a mixture of motion paths and sweeping lines, I stuck to my previous sketches for the inspiration and for reference while modeling. I have learnt how to apply bitmap materials to 3D objects which will help drastically in making objects look realistic.
What I have Produced so far:

1st Tiki Tiki hut design, with hair and fur effect hay roof

1st design of spear, which will poke out of water

The virtual representation of my track layout

Design Practice 2: Animation: Inspiration and Brainstorming (Part 2)

 After researching I realise I want my theme to be a hybrid between zombie scare scenes and tribal props, with similar lighting to the old horror classics such as Dracula and Gotham city from batman. I can draw influence from the mine cart scene from Indiana Jones for my track layout. The below video is essentially the mix of culture and horror I want as my overall theme for the ride.

Resident Evil:

Below are some sketches for the cart, track layout and a scare scene:

Track layout with props and scare scenes

First design of cart, a mine style cart with rail like tracking

Scare scene #2, Crocodile emerging from water to attack the boat cart

Storyboard

Various designs for entrance

Design Practice 2: Animation: Inspiration and Brainstorming (Part 1)

Firstly I need to harness existing haunted house rides and existing media to construct the theme of my whole animation, This inspiration can be drawn from anything, from pirate and ninjas to ghosts and monsters, to get the ideas flowing I decided to examine visual styles of any films that seem relevant to me

The Dead Series

The dead series is a three part installment directed by George A. Romero, the whole series narrative revolves around a zombie Apocalypse, where re-animated corpses walk the earth and terrorise the remaining survivors. I am a huge fan of zombie films of any kind, they allure me with their themes of pandemonium, survival, excitement and even humour. Zombie films sometimes get bad press, as there are many that are low budget, poorly produced and uninspired, but if done right they present eerie moods and scares along with adventure. Because of my fandom I will be including aspects of different zombie films into my haunted house ride, I believe It will work perfectly as like the brief states "A few scares along the way, This is not usually met in a serious way but is more a mixture of silly a frightening" This is basically the basis for the majority of zombie films anyway.

 Ideas that are flowing around are inspiration from various media such as Indiana Jones, Dracula, Batman, Resident Evil games and tribal cultures, I have produced a mood board to collaberate these 
concepts and themes:

These also have some great idea's for track layouts and scare scenes:

Design Practice 2: Animation: Brief

It's a new years and with it brings a new design practice, I have progressed onto design practice 2. This module focuses on improving my skills and knowledge in a range of media, and ultimately influencing me to select a path to continue onto level 2. It's all about helping me realise the purpose of media and building up a portfolio. My first project is an animation one, I am to design, build and animate a amusement park haunted house ride, It must have the correct virtual space so that it would fit into the Waverly theatre, the aim is to provide the audience with a few scares and to draw from my own storyboards, ideas and sketches for influences, which can be anything I want.

I began setting up the structure of the Waverly theatre in 3DS max on Tuesday, we were enlightened to tools such as stretch and the custom line tool, this would allow me to create doors and windows where ever I desired and to free form a basic track to which my cart would move. The possibility's of the design are endless, I really don't have any concrete idea of my themes, concepts or scare scenes yet, but I will be drawing from existing media and haunted rides soon to start planning the layout and overall mood of my ride.

I'm already starting to think that this module will be a lot more hands on, requiring a lot more detail and substance to produce anything decent, here's to not falling behind and creating an excellent haunted house ride :)

Samuel Dobson

Design Practice 1: Animation: 2nd Edit

Here is my final 3DS max animation for the design practice 1 module, The main addition is the camera scan of the swords at the start and the plunging into water. I believe It adds a little adventure.

Design Practice 1: Animation: Work Submission

I have produced and rendered two stations idents, one with sound and one without. The one with sound may need some minor tweaking and I believe the quality is reduced because access to adobe premier, to add the foley was unavailable . There isn't much to discuss at this stage until I am requested or decide to refine and alter, I doubt major changes will be necessary to the shapes and models, more likely the colours, formats and camera angles will be an issue.

Here they are, in all their glory:

Design Practice 1: Animation: Analysis, Synthesis and Planning

Now I have the basic concepts and designs for my animation, but have made no solid judgements or sense of the development stage, I like to identify the implications of my inspirations and brainstorming before I continue with later processes. This allows me to learn further and avoid possible problems arising in the future. I  adapt any new ideas created by my analysis/synthesis at this point and usually incorporate them into my current project.

Analysis involves listing as many questions as you can think of regarding your project. The questions will vary from project to project but usually the majority of these questions are the same, whatever the project you are attempting. the Synthesis is the following section in the design process and is a list of answers. Quite simple really.

1) What software is most appropriate to use?
2) How long do I estimate to completion ?
3) What shapes and fonts are best and why?
4) What colours will I be adapting to my work ?
5) What is the main function of my animation?
6) What existing products were prime influences?
7) What are some good books, DVDs and useful information.
8) Where can I collect research material?
9) How long will my animation last?
10)What animation movements?

1) Well for this particular assignment, Auto desk 3DS has been assigned to us, and I understand that it's a highly rated piece of software, perfect for what I'm trying to achieve. The answer to this question would be more appropriate If I was doing an independent project, as I would have to deduce the best software for a project:

2) I estimate my completion date to be Saturday 23rd October 2010, I am basing this on the pace in which I'm learning the 3DS software, The practical sessions I have between the two date and the overall access I will have to learning materials and the software. This is my goal.

3) Through my brainstorming and Inspiration activity's I have decided up on the Fat Boy Slim font:

As It creates the required depth and energy I'm looking for, It also works well with 3DS effect 'squeeze'.
The shapes I have decided upon will be a cylinder for the swords, as I can use the 'extrude', 'beavel' and 'ident' tools to easily create swords. I will have two simple boxes as banners for my text:

 4) The colour scheme I'm planning is a yellow to black gradient for my banner boxes:

The swords will have a bronze material effect for the handles, a gloss metal effect for the blade and a gold material for the base. The text will be white. The background I'm attempting is similar to this gold cracked effect:

5) The main function of my animation is to keep audiences entertained in between shows while there watching a channel based on my life. It should be to the point, fast, easily identifiable and be interesting. The station indent should be what audiences instantly associate with the channel.

6) After many hours of thinking, I have came to the conclusion the my main influences would have to be a hybrid mix of these two videos:





7) There are several books recommended to us In the assignment briefs and student handbooks that could be used to further my knowledge, along with fellow students recommendations. YouTube and the Auto Desk website also harbours endless useful information :

• Learning Autodesk 3ds Max 2008
• Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality
• The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects

8) I can collect research material from the local boots library, through ebooks or privately purchase from the links above

9)  I am planning my animation to be between five and ten seconds in length, through my inspiration search, I realised that station indents are very spontaneous and do not aim to hold the audiences interest for long periods of time. The aim is get your message across and move on, hopefully leaving an image in the viewers mind.

10) I will be rotating and forwarding the banners/text, using the squeeze effect for the movement of the text and manipulating the pivot points of the two swords to stab onto screen and inter cross:

Now you can see how having this information is useful, I can future reference back to this section of the design process to help identify what my initial designs were, It also clears my mind of all the questions I was asking myself and paves a clear path for me to follow. I now have a plan to implement and will be progressing  to the research stage shortly.

Samuel Dobson

Design Practice 1: Animation: Inspiration and Brainstorming.

My first design process being inspiration, I decided to note down any visual styles of existing work that I enjoyed and could see potential in. These included thumbnails, drawings and videos. This helped extremely, as my creative juices were allowed to flow.

Now I had my inspiration I started to brainstorm any ideas I could incorporate into my animation. These included sketches, story boards and annotations, which helped identify colours, fonts, shapes and animation movement.

Samuel Dobson

Design Practice 1: Animation: Brief

My first design practice for the year is split up into three category's, interactive spaces, film and animation, each section lasts three weeks and then I advance to the next practice. I think the idea of this is to give me a taste of what each media form involves and ultimately help me decide what route I would like to take In my second year. The order in which I appear to be completing these practical assignments is:

• Animation 
• Film  
• Interactive Spaces

Which is good because the area I'm least interested in is last, after I've completed the three areas I need to round my work up into a presentation, which will show clearly everything I've done in a ten minute talk.
For my animation brief I got to play around with a piece of software called Auto Desk 3D Max, and was told that my project was to create a station ident for a channel based on my life, to keep audiences interest between shows. I viewed examples of station idents from BBC 2, ITV, CITV e.c.t, and I think I fully understand what is required of me.

Examples below:







Now knowing what I had to to do, I was introduced to the software I would be using to create my station ident, the software was Auto desk 3D max (Retail price = £3500, Students = Free) It is a platform for creating animation and has many wonderful features, I learnt how to apply a virtual plane for my animation to appear on, rotate/move shapes and text to key frames and also apply different effects to objects. The biggest lesson I learnt is to think of Auto Desk 3D as a virtual reality world where nothing really exists, It's up to you to make it realistic. Although I have only scratched the surface of this program I hope to be sufficient in using it in the near future, there's much to explore.

There's defiantly room for improvement :)

Samuel Dobson