Great animation that I found on www.designyourway.net
Friday 7 October 2011
Monday 3 October 2011
Model & Rig Progress
Started working on my character in C4D, and I've now rigged it. All that needs doing is a lot of weight painting and then it'll be ready to go. I'll probably also add another waist controller so that it looks a little smoother. Still can't decide whether he should be high poly or low poly though.
Thursday 29 September 2011
Rendering Idea
I had an idea for the start of my animation. Just after the character has been born, I could basically record each frame being rendered, so I would have the finished rendered animation as 1 file, and as another, I'd have the recorded rendering process. I could then speed up the rendering animation and mix it in with the finished animation which could give some really mental, but quite interesting effects.
Sunday 25 September 2011
Anaglyph 3D Test - 25/09/11
I found a plugin by Nitro4D called Magic 3D, which creates a camera set up for rending your animations in Anaglyph 3D. I modelled up a quick basic character, rigged it and animated a basic run cycle so that I could see what it would look like and here's what the outcome was:
Obviously the anaglyph settings need to be altered a little more, but I think the effect looks pretty nice, even without 3D glasses. It adds a surreal feel to the animation. So anyway now I've got some basic ideas floating around in my head, I just need to get the character nailed.
My original character looked OK, however it wasn't as weird as I would have liked it to be. I think what I need to do is increase the length of the body, maybe shorten the legs and add some length onto the arms. I also can't decide how I'm going to do his face, whether it be animated in 3D using Pose Morph or just 2D Pose 2 Pose, and then placed on top of the head. I don't really need to think about that now anyway... It's something I can work on later on. Another thing is how I'm going to texture the character.. I think I want it to be shiny, high poly and very 3D looking, whereas the environment and other characters will look 2D, low poly, flat & dull. I'll probably need to do some more experimenting. Also it's probably going to mean rendering out 2 separate animations, 1 being environment and other characters, and the other being the main character, and then compositing the main character into the environment in After Effects.
I have loads of ideas, I just need to make sure I take note of them all so I don't forget stuff.
Saturday 24 September 2011
24/09/11
So after watching Newcastle thrash Blackburn 3-1, I had a little browse on Motionographer, and came across this really cool animation by Minivegas Studio:
Looks as though they might have just used the shatter deformer with triangulated polygons and then moved them around on a spline wrap deformer. I've messed around with stuff like this before and got some really interesting results. I'd love to incorporate stuff like this into my character animation.
Check out the Minivegas Studio website here:
Minivegas Studio
F5 Twitter Visualiser from minivegas on Vimeo.
Looks as though they might have just used the shatter deformer with triangulated polygons and then moved them around on a spline wrap deformer. I've messed around with stuff like this before and got some really interesting results. I'd love to incorporate stuff like this into my character animation.
Check out the Minivegas Studio website here:
Minivegas Studio
Friday 23 September 2011
Updates... 23/9/11
I've been looking at a few interviews from David O'Reilly;
Motionographer
Film Ireland
In these interviews he has mentioned a couple of people who have influenced his work. He says that he got the idea of animating animals from John Arne Sæterøy, who's character designs are very basic, yet somehow very likeable, as you can see below:
Another artist who influenced him was Ryoji Ikeda, who's work is all very distorted & pixelated. You can see straight away how similar his art work is to some of the effects added in David O'Reilly's animations.
Motionographer
Film Ireland
In these interviews he has mentioned a couple of people who have influenced his work. He says that he got the idea of animating animals from John Arne Sæterøy, who's character designs are very basic, yet somehow very likeable, as you can see below:
Another artist who influenced him was Ryoji Ikeda, who's work is all very distorted & pixelated. You can see straight away how similar his art work is to some of the effects added in David O'Reilly's animations.
Thursday 22 September 2011
David O'Reilly Interview
Found this great interview which gives a lot of insight into how David O'Reilly animates.
Friday 16 September 2011
David O'Reilly
I've been looking at a lot of work by David O'Reilly for some inspiration with my own animation. I love the style of his work. His character designs are very basic, yet the viewer still gets drawn in by them. I think this is down to the style in which he animates in. He doesn't focus so much on the look of the animation, but more on the feel of the animation. The distorted effects may seem very random, however if you look at Please Say Something, you start to realize that it's actually a very clever and easy way of getting the emotions and feelings of the character into the viewers mind. For example, when a character is confused, sad and angry, rather than your typical cartoon-like dark cloud over their head, he places a deformed jagged animation. If the character is crying, he replaces the actual tears with the word Tears. I think this gets the viewer thinking a lot more about what is going on. This is what I ultimately want from my animation. I want to get people thinking. Rather than telling the viewer what's going on, I want them to come to their own conclusions.
Monday 9 May 2011
Application Of Number
So I had a few problems originally with my Esting, and working on it in Real Flow. The liquid worked perfectly fine, but when importing it into Cinema 4D, I wasn't able to choose what time the liquid started animating at, meaning the liquid was always animating at frame 0, rather than frame 210. This was the reason that I ultimately decided to leave the Real Flow liquid, and create it in Cinema 4D using Metaballs.
When I submit the final animation into E4, I will have to render out the animation as 2 projects. The first project will be the first half of the animation, and the second will be when the liquid starts to animate. This will allow me to use Real Flow, and will give a much nicer effect when the egg splits open. I will then link both scenes together in After Effects.
The timing of the egg splitting, and the liquid emitting is crucial. If the timing is even slightly out, then the desired effect won't work.
Another issue I ran into when rendering out the final animation, was due to the project settings. They were set on 30FPS, rather than 25FPS, which meant that 250 frames was rendering out an 8 second animation, when I needed it to be 10 seconds. It was an easy fix, but it took me a long time to figure out the problem.. Time which could have been spent working in After Effects. I will know for next time though, so I've definitely learnt from this mistake.
When I submit the final animation into E4, I will have to render out the animation as 2 projects. The first project will be the first half of the animation, and the second will be when the liquid starts to animate. This will allow me to use Real Flow, and will give a much nicer effect when the egg splits open. I will then link both scenes together in After Effects.
The timing of the egg splitting, and the liquid emitting is crucial. If the timing is even slightly out, then the desired effect won't work.
Another issue I ran into when rendering out the final animation, was due to the project settings. They were set on 30FPS, rather than 25FPS, which meant that 250 frames was rendering out an 8 second animation, when I needed it to be 10 seconds. It was an easy fix, but it took me a long time to figure out the problem.. Time which could have been spent working in After Effects. I will know for next time though, so I've definitely learnt from this mistake.
E4 Estings Project - SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
I've found something that I'm really interested in with 3D animation. I originally started this course believing that I would most likely specialize in 2D, but after learning various pieces of software such as Cinema 4D, Real Flow, After Effects & Final Cut Pro, I've seen the possibilities that are available with doing 3D animation, and I feel I can experiment a lot more than when working in 2D. This is the main reason why my E4 project was all done in 3D, and I believe the final result was impressive for my first attempt at 3D animation.
Weaknesses:
My main weakness was that I often lost track of time, and ended up going back and forth with various ideas regularly. An example of this is the liquid I wanted to create for my Esting. I firstly looked into creating it in Cinema 4D, as it was something which I knew how to do, but I thought I had a lot of time, so decided to try something a little more advanced, and created the liquid in Real Flow. Because I had to learn a whole knew piece of software, it took quite a lot of valuable time up, and I ended up running into various problems which resulted in me going back to working in Cinema 4D. Although the time spent in Real Flow wasn't necessarily wasted, it had a huge impact on the quality of my final animation.
Opportunities
There are many opportunities available with doing this E4 Esting. I will gain publicity through posting the animation on various video sharing websites such as Youtube & Vimeo, and I will be able to submit the animation to the E4 website for their annual ident competition. My main target is to receive as much feedback as possible, because with that feedback, I will be able to improve on future projects.
Threats
The main threat I faced was running out of time. It took me 3 times to render out my animation to a standard that I was happy with, each render taking up to 4 hours to complete. This meant I didn't have much time at all to work on it in After Effects, which made the overall animation look slightly rushed.
I've found something that I'm really interested in with 3D animation. I originally started this course believing that I would most likely specialize in 2D, but after learning various pieces of software such as Cinema 4D, Real Flow, After Effects & Final Cut Pro, I've seen the possibilities that are available with doing 3D animation, and I feel I can experiment a lot more than when working in 2D. This is the main reason why my E4 project was all done in 3D, and I believe the final result was impressive for my first attempt at 3D animation.
Weaknesses:
My main weakness was that I often lost track of time, and ended up going back and forth with various ideas regularly. An example of this is the liquid I wanted to create for my Esting. I firstly looked into creating it in Cinema 4D, as it was something which I knew how to do, but I thought I had a lot of time, so decided to try something a little more advanced, and created the liquid in Real Flow. Because I had to learn a whole knew piece of software, it took quite a lot of valuable time up, and I ended up running into various problems which resulted in me going back to working in Cinema 4D. Although the time spent in Real Flow wasn't necessarily wasted, it had a huge impact on the quality of my final animation.
Opportunities
There are many opportunities available with doing this E4 Esting. I will gain publicity through posting the animation on various video sharing websites such as Youtube & Vimeo, and I will be able to submit the animation to the E4 website for their annual ident competition. My main target is to receive as much feedback as possible, because with that feedback, I will be able to improve on future projects.
Threats
The main threat I faced was running out of time. It took me 3 times to render out my animation to a standard that I was happy with, each render taking up to 4 hours to complete. This meant I didn't have much time at all to work on it in After Effects, which made the overall animation look slightly rushed.
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Some Development...
A little update showing some development I've made with my 3D character project...
Thursday 3 March 2011
Final Esting
After a lot of hard work, I finally finished my animation..
There will be some minor changes made before I submit it to the E4 competition, mainly with the liquid, but also with the static effects.
There will be some minor changes made before I submit it to the E4 competition, mainly with the liquid, but also with the static effects.
Monday 28 February 2011
Weeks Plan
Monday:
Finish animating scene & start tracking all footage.
Tuesday:
Start compositing scene onto footage.
Wednesday:
Put scenes into After Effects adding the lighting.
Thursday:
Render out project ready to put into Final Cut. Add sound, tweak final animation, render out.
Friday:
Hand in animation.
Finish animating scene & start tracking all footage.
Tuesday:
Start compositing scene onto footage.
Wednesday:
Put scenes into After Effects adding the lighting.
Thursday:
Render out project ready to put into Final Cut. Add sound, tweak final animation, render out.
Friday:
Hand in animation.
Monday 14 February 2011
Saturday 12 February 2011
Monday 7 February 2011
Week Plan: 7/2/11
Monday:
Add 5 examples to blog of idents.
Start writing proposal.
Turn proposal into powerpoint presentation.
Tuesday:
Present proposal to the class.
Wednesday:
Consider changes to be made from feedback.
Work on modeling the egg & decide on background.
Thursday:
Finish egg scene, and maybe start animating parts.
Add 5 examples to blog of idents.
Start writing proposal.
Turn proposal into powerpoint presentation.
Tuesday:
Present proposal to the class.
Wednesday:
Consider changes to be made from feedback.
Work on modeling the egg & decide on background.
Thursday:
Finish egg scene, and maybe start animating parts.
Monday 31 January 2011
31/01/2011 - Weeks Plan
Monday:
I'm going to look at various idents on different websites including E4 and MTV stingers.
I will refer to my breif for a list of useful websites which I can browse. From looking at other peoples work, I hope to gain some ideas for my own animation. I will research some professional animators and also look at some amateur animators work. I want to see what style if work is currently the most popular. I feel that I will probably be using Cinema 4D to create a lot of my work for this project, so I need to start looking at other animators that also use Cinema 4D. Aswell as this, I will look at other software that I could use to enhance my skills further, such as Adobe After Effects & Toon Boom Animate.
Tuesday:
I need to start thinking about how I am going to write up my proposal. Having a written proposal will also be a good foundation for me to starting animating from as I can look back at it throughout the project, making sure I do everything that I said I would.
For writing the proposal, I will look at the hand out which will help me through it stage by stage.
Wednesday:
I will start to turn my written proposal into a short Power Point presentation. I will need to think about how much information I can get across, without it being too confusing. It needs to be easy to follow, understand and also easy to look at. I will have to take all of these points into consideration. As with any Power Point presentation, it will be focusing not only on how to get your proposal across breifly, but also the visual aspects. It needs to be easy to follow visually.
Thursday:
Thursday will be soley dedicated to getting my storyboarding completed. I need to have my idea crystal clear in my head, so that it will be easy for me to storyboard. The storyboards will be breif and straight too the point. The animation will only be 10 seconds long, so I need to think about how much of the animation I will actually need to show through the storyboard. I will write up a few bullet points showing the main points of the animation. The most important parts will be the beginning, middle, and end, so I need to focus on these frames more than any other. Once I have these 3 frames done, I will do some inbetween frames to make the story more clear to the client, and of course, to myself. I will use the storyboard as a main referrence when animating my stinger.
Friday:
I think I will start getting some basic character design ideas down, ready for the next week when we start doing all of the artwork for the stinger.
I will also have a think about different techniques I will use, and various effects I can add to make my animation look better. I will look through lots of tutorials for Cinema 4D, in particular, modelling and animating a character, but also compositing my character into a real life background. Also I will have a look through different After Effects tutorials, and continue to look at professional animators work so I can collect some more ideas.
I'm going to look at various idents on different websites including E4 and MTV stingers.
I will refer to my breif for a list of useful websites which I can browse. From looking at other peoples work, I hope to gain some ideas for my own animation. I will research some professional animators and also look at some amateur animators work. I want to see what style if work is currently the most popular. I feel that I will probably be using Cinema 4D to create a lot of my work for this project, so I need to start looking at other animators that also use Cinema 4D. Aswell as this, I will look at other software that I could use to enhance my skills further, such as Adobe After Effects & Toon Boom Animate.
Tuesday:
I need to start thinking about how I am going to write up my proposal. Having a written proposal will also be a good foundation for me to starting animating from as I can look back at it throughout the project, making sure I do everything that I said I would.
For writing the proposal, I will look at the hand out which will help me through it stage by stage.
Wednesday:
I will start to turn my written proposal into a short Power Point presentation. I will need to think about how much information I can get across, without it being too confusing. It needs to be easy to follow, understand and also easy to look at. I will have to take all of these points into consideration. As with any Power Point presentation, it will be focusing not only on how to get your proposal across breifly, but also the visual aspects. It needs to be easy to follow visually.
Thursday:
Thursday will be soley dedicated to getting my storyboarding completed. I need to have my idea crystal clear in my head, so that it will be easy for me to storyboard. The storyboards will be breif and straight too the point. The animation will only be 10 seconds long, so I need to think about how much of the animation I will actually need to show through the storyboard. I will write up a few bullet points showing the main points of the animation. The most important parts will be the beginning, middle, and end, so I need to focus on these frames more than any other. Once I have these 3 frames done, I will do some inbetween frames to make the story more clear to the client, and of course, to myself. I will use the storyboard as a main referrence when animating my stinger.
Friday:
I think I will start getting some basic character design ideas down, ready for the next week when we start doing all of the artwork for the stinger.
I will also have a think about different techniques I will use, and various effects I can add to make my animation look better. I will look through lots of tutorials for Cinema 4D, in particular, modelling and animating a character, but also compositing my character into a real life background. Also I will have a look through different After Effects tutorials, and continue to look at professional animators work so I can collect some more ideas.
Friday 14 January 2011
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