Sword Slide Test Finished!

Problems That Occurred:
I wanted to have the sword go into the shadows under the flag, and wasn't sure how to do this. Mel helped me, and suggested putting a mask there. I changed the colour and size of it, and changed the opacity so the mask blended in more with the background

Then there was the problem of placing a shadow under the sword. I thought about placing a mask under it, but then I realized that I had to key frame it every frame the sword moved. Instead I found a better way of doing this. I added an effect to the sword called "drop shadow" and changed the colour, angle and opacity to perfect it.

After Effects Tutorial by yours truly!

Here's a little vid I did on Livestream, it's me messing about on After Effects. I explain some of the tools I learnt to use in the program. (my friends start talking to me during this, I apologize on their behalf!)

To do list!

Probably a bit difficult to read, but here's a little to do list I did earlier. A lot of this is for submission. I'm getting there!

Compositing - How I have progressed with this area of production

Compositing is a rather alien film making technique to me, but I have wanted to try and learn how to use the program properly. I'm very good at doing technical stuff, but when I first went on After Effects last year, I knew it was something I was capable of doing. However, Since I have been busy doing other stuff like Storyboarding and Animating, I haven't had a lot of time to practice. This has meant that I have to begin relearning everything straight away.

I started looking for some nice examples of compositing in films, and the first film I thought about was Ravensbourne's student film "SPLAY", which can be found here:

http://www.rave.ac.uk/showcase/student-work-showcase/animation-showcase/splay-animation-showcase/

The students that did this film really wanted to focus a lot on subtle animation and compositing. There's some nice bokeh effects used in this to really add some atmosphere to this barren environment. The lighting is well adjusted, so that the characters are the focus. After Effects lighting must have been included after the render passes.

So yeh I'm going to do a little vid of how I use After Effects, and then show it in the next post I do.

Emma, over and out

The Deep - My animated scenes composited!

My scenes are looking pretty neat now! Mel has composited shots 7, 8 and 14. Unfortunately, I've been unable to post them up on here, but you can see them on my submission disc, and on Mel's Blog. Here's Mel's Blog:

http://majorfilm.blogspot.com/

27 AGAIN but with a difference

Lots of improvements and problems I came across trying to finish this.

It took a lot of patience doing the end, which I thought was going to be easy. I had to move the camera individually with the boy as he swam upwards. Very annoying. And then when I went back to finish the polaroid (tricky - required subtler motion) and then checked the whole animation, I lost the simming upwards part! I had to redo it. No idea why. I have a feeling I may have forgotten to save. DAMN IT EMMA

Anyway, I redid it, this time moving the whole kid body rather then individual parts like last time, which caused less complications. I also animated his eyes, eyebrows and head a bit more.

All in all frustrating. I've also had a cold with many headaches which has made this all the more tedious and painful. Finished this quite late, which means I have a lot of other stuff to do that is going to stress me a bit.

Will let you know how everything pans out later.
Am going to do my E+E report now. yay.

Birds finished!

It is finished! HOHOHO

Yeh this is pretty cool looking now. I worked hard to try and get this looking pretty good quality. I had to alter one of the birds a bit because he was looking a bit off. He didn't ease into a flight very well at the end. I had to remove a couple of frames so that it ran smoother.

The colours were chosen so that the birds would stand out in front of the yellowish tower. I also had to simplify the desing a bit, so that it was quicker to finish.

If I were to go back to this, I would probably add a bit more character to them, but as this is a very quick shot and we have a lot of other stuff to do, I'm going to leave it like this for now.

Reworking Birds in Toon Boom

I'm kinda all over the place when it comes to Smitten Haha! I tend to zip from one thing to another. I'm going back to my first assignment I did for Matt which is the bird flying scene. I'm going to go into detail and hopefully finish this for good.

Here's a pic of how Matt would like the birds to be similar to. Found on google

Shot 27 onwards finally finished - Shots sent to render

I think my final shot is now finished. I had to alter a few bits to get it like this, though. I think I overcomplicated matters by not blocking what the body does before the hands, head, shoulders etc. I also had to change the end, because I lazily animated him swimming straight up, without twisting around to go behind him. I quickly altered that. Didn't want to labour too long on this near the end, because the lads wanted to have all the files for rendering.

I think I have finished the animation side of things for The Deep, thank goodness. This means my attention can revert to other more pressing matters, like Animating for Smitten, Getting all my work together for submission, and completing everything for E+E

Shot 8 Adjustments

Just added a little more detail to the animation in this shot. I added some wave effects to the flippers. I made sure the flippers straightened out when he kicks, and when he brings his legs back to kick again, the wave effect occurs. I also included the camera in here properly now, and I animated the arm movement too. I rotated the hips to exaggerate the motion.

Thumbs 4 Mel - Shot 3

Mel is working on shot 3 of The Deep. She is animating the part where The Kid is starting his journey to the underwater ice cave. He walks across jetty and climbs into Sub. Mel has been told to imagine a ladder going down the hatch of the Sub.

Its a tricky shot to animate, so I decided to draw out my interpretation of what he should do. It was tricky. He is holding a camera too, to make matters more complicated!

I decided he should swing his right leg into the door, and then position his other leg in the door after.

Today's To-do list of DOOM

Okay I am aware of my lack of scheduling lately, and I think I need a little more organization for the last 2 weeks, so I am going to write up a list of stuff to do in the next 3 days.

• E+E Posters - Adjust Mel's version, and have a go at doing a new logo for the group
• E+E Blog - Health and Safety post
• E+E 1000 word report
• The Deep shot 27onwards completion for render - finish MONDAY
• The Deep animatic - complete my personal storyboards in Final Cut, for marking
• Smitten - Bird shot completion
• Smitten - Sword Clash
• Smitten - Sword Spin - adjust handle (not priority)
• Animation submission - arrange folders (Concept, Technical and Animation) for marking (See Dan)

E+E deadline is on Friday, so a lot of this stuff I will get done Tuesday/Wednesday.

Lots to do!

Final Degree Show Logo

Tada!

I added a little orange in the letters in the end, because orange is blue's complimentary colour, and it helps make the letters stand out more.

People seem to like it, so we'll see if it gets chosen :D

Playblasting again again - Nearly there...

I've added a lot more detailed animation here. I've animated the mouth, and I've pretty much done the toughest part, which was the gathering of the Polaroids. The only parts that need doing now is the bit where he swims away, and properly going back and animating the eyebrows.

Problems - The polaroids were a bit of a pain. I had to try and stack them in the camera. I put their visibility on zero when the camera hatch closes, which helps. For some reason one of the polaroids was shrinking so I altered that so it doesn't shrink anymore.
The rig is still a little tricky. If you turn the wrists or meddle with the knees too much, the twist a lot. However, I'm an adaptable person, so I've just worked around it.
I forgot to mention that in the storyboards, Kid changes to a kneeling position instead of sitting on his bottom the whole time. It was a lot more straightforward to have in staying in one place, espesh considering how difficult the knees are to manipulate.
Kid's arms aren't very long, so I had to make sure his arms didn't stretch too much. To begin with, the camera kept going through his body, so I altered the position and angle of it so it looked more natural.

I think the bit at the end is going to need a few pauses, because it is a little too quick. That shouldn't be too difficult to alter. I also noticed that the head snaps too quickly near the end as he gathers the last two polaroids in to the camera. I've changed that bit already and it looks much better.

Playblasting again - more expressions, and hand animation

Vast improvements occurring, though I think he is blinking to much, particularly when he sees the eel. I need to remove some of the blinks, or turn them into half blinks. I made sure the hand that is supporting his weight at the beginning shifts a bit, and is palm adjusts as he pushes himself up. I haven't played around with his eyebrows much here, so that could be something to include.

Him grabbing the photos is generally a pain in the bum to animate, but I need to get that done soon

Will try and do a bit more tonight, and then hand in what I've done to Ben and Andy, it's running a bit late, but I should have the rest completely finished by tomorrow evening :/

Another vid, this time it's a BIG one - The Deep Livestream

Livestreaming! I cut out a few irrelevant bits, but you here my train of thought here.

Had a few twisted wrist issues. Mainly animating hands

Here's a playblast of the shot so far, without the part where he picks up photos

I think his arms are flapping around a bit too much after the "SHOCK" bit, and I have also worked out that his head is going to get in the way when he grabs the photos. I think I might move the polaroid photos closer to him so it's within his grasp

Emma's brave attempt to upload some more videos - The Deep shot 27

I think I might be breaking the internet uploading all these vids, but it is for the good of animation!

Here are some various playblasts that I couldn't upload for a while because Blogger was being a douche. You can see the development process going on here. The last blast shows how I've blocked out the body at the end. The arms look weird because they are not animated properly yet