Flash Project Animatic

My animatic for my Flash project. This isn't exactly how I would have wanted, and as you'll read below, I came across a few problems and didn't have the time to rectify them. As you can see I have done the camera shots, a few expressions with the eyes and eyebrows, wing movement and added the dialogue. I would have liked to have added more movement and some different lip synching just to more clearly show what I'm going for, but you'll see this in my animation. The dialogue is me reading from a rough script I wrote. I may make one or two changes but overall that is what will be said in my animation. Obviously for the animation I will have proper voice acting and not me talking in a cheap mic with bad quality haha. I intended from the start to make my animation funny, and hopefully you find it raises one or two slight laughs! I have a stupidly funny sense of humour, so it may just be me who finds it amusing though! There are many animations which are very simple, but what makes them is the story and how it's all put together. And that is the path I am heading towards. :)

UPDATE
I had a few problems with my animatic :( I don't know, maybe I've just over done it lately and made myself overly tired or something, I don't know. Yesterday I literally worked 12 straight hours on projects and stuff so maybe that's it. But I just can't seem to get it to work properly, and I need to hand it in by tonight.

The general jist is that the shots shown in the animatic will be in my final animation, and there will be lip synching and reactions (such as when the one character says "ewwwwwwwwwwwww") using different eye and eyebrow symbols. I will be using camera movement as well, in the beginning (it will focus on the character to the right and zoom out to the whole screen) and at the end (where it will zoom in on them and sort of pass them to focus on the buildings in the backgrounds). There won't be that much body movement with the characters, with mostly just them moving their wings. Most of the time their eyes will be focused on each other, but at the start the character to the right will be looking down. I hope to make up the lack of movement with the animation of the eyes. I also plan to have the clouds slowly move across the sky, just to add that extra detail. And regarding the sound, I will use the same script but with better voice acting and quality, and by further adding background noise (by going into town and recording birds and the wind and passers by, etc)

Flash Project Pre-Production 3

This is my finished background and two characters. Pretty much all ready to animate, but I have to start on the animatic, storyboard and touch up and finalize my script first. You've probably noticed that my background is different to the one that I intented to use at the beginning. I pretty much just had a change of heart. I felt the original background was boring and didn't have much going on, and I really wanted some simple foilage and the chance to add some blur effects, which I wouldn't have been able to with the old one. Hopefully you agree that this new background is much better and more effective. As there only going to be three shots in total (the one shown and the other two close ups of the characters) I feel this background will complement that also. By this I mean with my old design, the close up shot would just have in my opinion a boring background of roof tiles. And this would be the same for both characters. While for this background, the backgrounds for the close ups will be different for both characters, and also I can still have the clouds animated. Anyways, I hope you like! :D

UPDATE

Changed the colour of the tree trunk and gave it a linear fill style. Thought it would improve it slightly.



UPDATE

Here are my other two close up shots :)

Flash Project Pre-Production 2

I'm now starting on my animatic, and so far have began making one of my pigeon characters. I thought the easiest way to do this was to import a saved PNG of the early design of the character, so then I could trace over the top of it on a new layer in Flash. Just thought I'd show you what I'm doing so far! :)

UPDATE

Here I have just finished creating the parts of this character, and have now coloured and symbolized them. All simple stuff, but I want to show my processes anyway.

UPDATE

And here are my now two completed characters, both all symbolized and each symbol on their own layer.

UPDATE

These are revised versions of my two characters. I've changed the colours to have a linear colour look, as pigeons have different shades of greys and whites on their feathers, so I thought it would suit them well.

If possible, please can I have some feedback on which of the two colour variations I should go with. :)

Maya Modelling

Really enjoying this project so far. About a month back we had to take pictures for reference for modelling, and I chose my kitchen, as I thought it would be a great choice with the angle and the shapes on offer. (I will upload my photo when I find it!) And today I've began to model the kitchen units, washing machine and bin (obviously they aren't completed yet) First time modelling and I have to say I'm pleased with what I've done so far.
UPDATE

Here's my photo reference!

My loverly kitchen haha!

Flash Project Pre-Production

These are my character designs for my Flash project. From the get go when I read the brief and saw the theme was "My life at Falmouth", one thing popped to mind: pigeons! Few weeks ago I had a very funny encounter with pigeons, so I that's why they popped to mind. I'd also thought they would be fun to design and create in Flash, and possibly pose a challenge when animating them!

So above are my designs for the pigeons. I wanted a cartoony look to them, and to look like pigeons...but also not to, if you know what I mean haha. I think my favourite is the bottom right. Once coloured in greys and whites, it should look like a pigeon...but I like the fact that it isn't EXACTLY like one. Because I'm going to have two of them in my animation, I will differentiate them by subtle colour changes and possibly change the size of one slightly.

I have inked my two favourite designs (I know they aren't that great, still getting used to my tablet!) and shown colours which I will be using. Below them are my two set designs. I want them on a ledge talking whilst people walk beneath them. I think having the people adds more detail and I can also then add recorded voices and crowds.

These are my basic designs, and once I have chosen which pigeon design I want, I will then ink it again (but better) and add colour, which will then be my final design which I will use when I create them in Flash. Can't wait! :D

This is my turnaround! Decided to go with this design in the end as I thought it was overall a better design and is more of the look I wanted from the beginning. Next thing I'm going to do is ink the character (this time much better...hopefully!) and add colour. That will then be my final finished character, which I will then make in Flash!

This is my basic finished designs for my two pigeon characters. I didn't want to differentiate them to much, because I wanted to get the idea across that pigeons can look all the same haha. But obviously I had to change them slightly, so I decided just to have one slightly thinner and taller, and with a lighter coat. His hair is also different, as is his position of the eyes, as I made them a little closer.

I wanted the designs to have sort of a rough, somewhat childish style to them (as if they look hand drawn) and this is what I want, and will carry on into photoshop. Overall I'm pretty happy with the results. Of course I would have liked them to be slightly better in quality, but as I've stated, I'm still practising with my tablet, and trying to find the perfect set-up for me in photoshop, which I haven't quite managed yet! :)

This is just a rough idea on how my animation will look and what my background will be. I've decided to have them on a pipe near a roof of a building, and I've messily just displayed what sort of colours will be used and to mark out the window, tiled roof, brickwork etc. Still don't know whether or not I shall add passers-by underneath. Depends on how much time I'll have. I'd definitely try to add them if I can and if it goes well. I might decided later on that it may not be suitable or something. I'll add the final environment once I have done it, but I do know what I want for it.

Well, I've had a couple of fun days doing this! Can't wait to put it all into Flash and start animating!

Photoshop Sketch

My first ever drawing using a graphics tablet in Photoshop. I just wanted to draw a simple human figure, and as you can see from the screenshot, I began with a skeleton and then moved onto sketching the basic figure on a new layer. Once I done that, I started inking. This is all I've done so far, and will continue on it by adding more detail (such as the face) and adding colour, and will upload the finished drawing.

It is my first drawing using a tablet, so excuse the fact that it isn't the best drawing in the world. This is purely just getting used to the tablet. I do need time and practice, which I am doing at the moment. I spent most of today just doodling on Photoshop, and overall this one took about 10-15 minutes. I absolutely love drawing this way now, and will keep on drawing with my tablet and hopefully get better and better! :)

Maya Lighting

Experimenting with lighting and shadows in Maya. Found this very fun, and possibly a route I could venture towards. I learned and am now familiar with the different types of lighting, including spot lights, ambient lights and directional lights. Before this I was already aware of things like materials such as Blinn and Lambert. I also practised with the penumbras and drop offs with shadows, which determines how hard or soft you want the shadows to be .

There are two types of shadow in CGI
 - Shadow maps (very fast, more of a projection than a shadow, complicated)
 - Raytraced shadows (mental ray, easy, high render times)

The two images above just show how lighting affects the different materials assigned to the four objects. I am aware that there isn't any shadows (which I'm unsure why, because they should be there; will check back with that later!) bounce light or transparent shadows, unfortunately I just didn't have the time to include them. But overall, I very much look forward to more lighting in the future...very fun! :)

After Effects Smiley!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03R3dnUPQEc

New Wolf Flash Character

 

This is a revised version of the wolf I posted on here before. I've made quite a few changes, including giving him legs and a new tail. I gave him legs for the simple answer of making him easier to animate when he walks, and to overall make it look better when he does. As I had stated, I wasn't too happy with the original tail, so I've given him a new one. I'm still not fully happy, because I wanted it shaggy, to help differentiate him from a dog. The other subtle changes were that I changed the arm in the background so when he walks it can swing and look fairly realistic, and because of that I had to give it claws, because beforehand there wasn't any need to because the arm was hidden. I also made the head bigger to give him a more cuteness factor. Overall I definitely think it's better than the first, and I can see me giving him a few more changes in the future before I begin to animate him. I may make a very short animation with him in it, and include a few more characters.

Flash Wolf

Just fairly quickly made this wolf today in the spare time I had. He's fully symbolised and ready to animate, with movable arms, feet, head, nose, tail, eyes and both ears. I really enjoy creating cartoon style characters in Flash, especially ones with a cuteness factor, so I suppose you could see a character like this in a short childrens animation. He's not fully finished as I only had a little time to make him and I'm not fully happy with the tail. But I just thought I'd post him on here anyway.

This has to be one of my favourite game trailers. Absolutely stunning. I'm a fan of the games, and when I saw this I was litterally blown away. This is definitely something I would want to do in the future. What gets me especially is at the end when the two foes clash. It just gives me the chills. Love it! :D

Maya Leaf

 

This week I learned in Maya lighting and texturing, how to get materials and objects to react to light and shadows/shading and rendering. This leaf (from what I can remember) was created by using a nurbs plane and inserting three images of the leaf  (including one for bump mapping) where the colour and transparency is in the attribute layer. And then ticking the box in attribute editor called chromatic abberation. Obviously there is a lot more to it than that, but I was simply learning and still need to learn. And that is what I can remember at the moment off by heart! But overall I feel I did well and am very much getting the hang of Maya now, and will go over this again to really make it sink in. :)

Life Drawing 8

 

 

This was the same task last week, but instead we had a male model, so the lighting was slightly different due to the body, mainly around the muscles on the arms. Again, I found this enjoyable, and also easier because it wasn't now new to me. I'm fairly happy with it, especially since after all I'm still learning and practicing, and still adjusting to life drawing.

I HAVE A GRAPHICS TABLET! YAY!

Well, I FINALLY got myself a graphics tablet! :D Don't know how on earth I survived without one now haha! I just can't put it down. Since I got it I've been drawing constantly in Photoshop, Flash, Sketchbook, anything like that. I've already become used to it, and now it just feels very natural. Will be very much using it now for future projects and looking forward to doing so. Now if you'll excuse me, me and my graphics tablet have to get back to work! :)

Flash Characters

Just generally messing around on Flash and creating characters. Just made a couple of simple characters and thought I'd post them on here. Didn't take that long to make, and they're fairly simple. I'll make more soon with more detail and with bodies. I love Flash :D

Life Drawing 7

 

For this we used white chalk on black paper and highlight the light on the figure, without trying to draw the outline. I found this very enjoyable and somewhat easier for me, and I liked the fact that you had to look specifically for light and how much there was.

Adobe After Effects

This was my first assigned task in After Effects. Simply put, all we had to do was have two objects/pictures come into contact and bounce off each other. As with Flash, I've used After Effects for many years now but not to animate. Rather I used it to create lightning and other special effects, so it was sort of new to me. But I was familiar with the set-up and how it worked. And again as with Flash, I seem to get on with it very well and look forward to projects set using it.

(Sorry again that it's so long - only lasts around 4-5 seconds)

Lip Syncing

This was our first task in flash using lip syncing. I've sort of had experience with this before so it wasn't new to me. I've used Flash for many years now and really enjoy using it. I feel the project which will eventually be set using Flash will be no problem at all.

(sorry about the quality!)

Life Drawing 6

These are from three different life drawing sessions, one of being just quick one to two minute poses and the others around fifteen each. I experimented with a different chalk/charcoal just to see how my drawings came out.

Back for a new term!

Hello again! Has been a while right? Sorry about that, I had no computer over the holidays and now finally I have bought one! I resorted to mostly laziness of gaming and movie watching, which is always fun! Funnily enough, I played Fable 3 (which was one of the games showcased at Bradford Animation Festival) and I felt I knew the game more because of that, and because I saw how it was made with animation. And when I saw one of the animated fighting sequences I was like "YEAH, I SAW HOW THEY MADE THAT!" Was a very good game overall.

Well, todays the day I start my new term at University! Would like to look back and say I very much enjoyed what I have done so far, but I still need to learn and will need to improve on things! Just looked at the new timetable and there is a 3D Modeling/Environments lesson now up on there! This has really got me excited as 3D modelling is what I want to do!

Anyways, now that I'm back I can start blogging again! So look out for more posts! And if you can please comment or message me. I'd really like to know how I am doing. Thanks!