1930's MTV Ident

This is an MTV Ident I created in my spare time. I wanted to have a go at making an old fashioned style animation, whilst also keeping my compositing practice up to scratch. I found the stock video footage online, and comped the 3D animation into it via Cinema 4D. I then colour corrected in After Effects, and added sound using Sony Vegas.

KOG4D

This is a quick compositing test scene I made a while back now but forgot all about it. I think it's quite nice so thought I'd post it up here. The compositing was done in Cinema 4D, and the colour correction was done in Photoshop.

Animation Stills

Here are some screenshots of further progress with my animation. 

Picture 1 is a still from the "at work" scene. The light has a red tint on it to reflect the feeling of stress. Further colour correction will be added in After Effects.

Picture 2 is from the hospital scene at the start of the animation. The bright colours help represent a clean and hygienic environment.

Picture 3 is a still from the scene where boy meets girl so to speak. This is where their love for each other is shown by them both sitting on the bench watching the sun set. 

Picture 4 is the graveyard scene where the main character goes to lay flowers down by his wife's gravestone. The colours will be darkened in After Effects and rain will be added in order to give the scene a depressing feeling.

Picture 5 is the nursery scene. This scene is the first that introduces both boy and girl together, only here they are children playing. The bright colours help make it look like a playful environment.

The final picture is at school. This is the 2nd scene that the girl appears in, and in it, she is caught in-between boy and bully. This is where she starts to show sympathy towards "boy" and starts to take notice of him. The colours are dull because school is boring.

MTV Ident

Here's an MTV Ident me and Ross made as part of our work related project.
The animation took around about 6 hours in total to complete. We wanted to go for something that looked great but was still fairly simple to create so that we could manage our time better.

The first stage was finding a good background to work with, and Ross came across this great image which has a lot of perspective and depth, making it easier to composite 3D objects within the scene.

Next we set up the lighting and ran some basic compositing tests using a cube as a reference. 

We came up with the idea of having the MTV logo come in from over the top of the buildings as it gives quite a dramatic impact and introduction to the logo. However we also wanted the sky to move across slowly, so that the still image looked more alive. This meant we had to remove the sky in Photoshop, and replace it with a green screen for further editing in After Effects. Once the main animation was completed which was done through using Nitro 4D's plugin Thrausi: http://nitro4d.com/blog/donationware/thrausi/, we then thought it would look cool if there were parts lying on the floor such as rubble and bricks that floated off the ground as the MTV logo came in, which gave it quite a supernatural feel. This was a struggle to achieve because we had to figure out an easy way of lifting each object off the floor without doing it manually. The best way to do this was through using dynamics, and to give it more intensity, we used the "Vibrate" tag in order to add a slight vibration to each of the objects as they lift up. 

The next stage was all done in After Effects. We started off by keying out the green screen, and placing the sky in behind the logo's pieces. Next we did some basic colour correction through altering the curves attributes on an adjustment layer, and adding a vignette to give a little more depth to the scene. We played around with the hue on the sky so that it matched the rest of the scene, and then added some simple camera shakes. Finally we imported the rendered animation into Final Cut for adding the sound track (Hybrid Minds - Summer Rain), and syncing it with the logo's movements. 

I personally had already attempted an MTV Ident previous to this using similar techniques so I had an idea of how I thought it could look, and the direction we could take it in, as well as knowing our limits for what we should and shouldn't do. Ross was on the same wave length as I, so working along side him was very easy for both of us. 

3 Little Pigs

After experimenting quite a bit with different styles of work in Cinema 4D through my main short animation, I decided to make a slightly abstract wallpaper of a hill scene. I find a very nice way of lighting a scene is through using luminance textures only have an object light to create shadows. It gives quite a nice primitive, yet high quality 3D look. 

SWOT Analysis

List of skills:

Software:

Cinema 4D -
I feel that I am very comfortable using Cinema 4D. I have a lot of knowledge in regards to modeling, animating, compositing, rendering, texturing, lighting and general usage of Cinema 4D's tools. I also have some experience with using Xpresso.

Real Flow -
I would class myself as a novice user of Real Flow. I know how to create various forms of liquid through watching online tutorials, however I'm still stuck on a basic set of tools, and haven't yet explored other techniques and methods.

Photoshop -
I'd say that my skill level with Photoshop would be near a professional standard. I've been using it for around 7 years now, so I'm very comfortable with all of their tools, and can create lots of various types of work such as logos, icons, buttons, website templates, vectors, posters, advertisements, digital paintings, and also use Photoshop for still image colour correction, vectoring, typography, and general photo editing.

After Effects -
I'm fairly confident with the interface of After Effects, as it's quite similar to other Adobe software products, however there's still a lot I need to learn. I can do basic editing and overlay effects.

PFTrack -
PFTrack is a fairly straight forward program to use once you know how. I feel that I can easily track any given footage providing that the quality is HD, and export it into any needed software.

Final Cut Pro -
I've only been using Final Cut for a couple of years now, however I picked it up quite quickly and would say my skill levels are adept. I can do basic video editing techniques, as well as being able to use various overlay and transition effects.

Adobe Illustrator -
As I'm very familiar with Photoshops pen tool, Illustrator was quite easy to get used to for me. Some of the controls and tools are used a bit differently, however they're pretty basic, and vectoring is very easy for me. I'd say that I'm moderate with Illustrator.

Z-Brush -
I haven't been using Z Brush all that long, but it's quite an easy tool to use for me because of my knowledge with Cinema 4D. There's still a lot for me to learn within this program, however I do have the basics nailed down and would class my self as a moderate user.

List of traits:
A few traits I've picked up include being confident with various bits of software, being flexible with techniques (not shying away from tasks that may seem too difficult at first), being realistic in regards to time management, prioritising the order of work development.

SMART Targets

Week 1:

Continue developing character environments, (apartment, school, hospital, rooftop, etc..).
Hopefully 80% of environments should be finished by the end of this week.
Also complete texturing of scenes and start thinking about how the character will interact with each of them.

Computer Desk Scene

Here's a preview of the computer desk scene that I've been working on. I tried to keep to using primitive shapes as much as possible. Keeping it as basic and as low poly as possible will allow for quicker animating and rendering. I also took the still into Photoshop for some colour correction tests.

Artificial Paradise, Inc

Great animation that I found on www.designyourway.net

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. 

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.

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. 

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:

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

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.

David O'Reilly Interview

Found this great interview which gives a lot of insight into how David O'Reilly animates.

David O'Reilly

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.

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.

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.

Some Development...

A little update showing some development I've made with my 3D character project...