Minor Project: Celaction Character Performance

Overview

After recreating a character for the first part of this module, I then have to put the character into Photoshop to cut up elements ready for CelAction animation. To create the animation in the software it helped me to think about making those 2D paper puppets with split pin joints.

A few notable animations in created in CelAction are Peppa Pig, Charlie & Lola, Mr Bean (animated series) and many others. 

Log

20th October - I made a list of all the artwork i might need and noted that it might be helpful to traditionally animate to see if I had missed any replacement shapes. Replacement shapes are used to actually animate in CelAction, for example to turn the head you would need to draw the front as the main element then 3/4  to the side as replacement shapes, and change them when needed. 

22nd October - I refined my list of elements to the parts that I needed for the animation --in hindsight this was a bad move as it restricted my animation towards the end, if I had made more than I needed I could of made the animation smoother. 

I also noted hotkeys for CelActions to speed up the rigging and animation process. 

25th October - I will be putting everything in to CelAction on Monday (26th) to animate and find out what I have missed.

29th October - After rigging my character, it became apparent that there would be gaps in the joints when the character moved. I made some patches for under the joints so the limbs moved seamlessly. Another option is to take out the line art completely.-- If i were to do the project again I probably would do this.

My character redesign.

I had also missed some replacement shapes for the feet and the head, so I

make those in Photoshop and added them to the rigged character.

31st October - I have learnt a lot from this though although the project isn't currently where I would like it to be at, I am still making steady progress for my deadline on the 9th November, I have been doing replacement shapes today .

31st Oct- 3rd Nov- I continued to animate the scenes. 

5th November - I tried to add "Limber" to the tail of my character. Limber is a tool that is use to make something move in a different way, through stretching and an manipulating through using nodes rather than rotating a limb from a joint without having to 'redraw replacement shapes.

I also figured out that when adding limber the character would have to be replaced. I learnt of Replacement Actor Wizard, which is a tool that lets you put a different character in the animated characters place. When the character was replaced the tail didn't show up but I found out if you clicked on each individual node and pressed "V" it would become visible, that was luck really. 

6th November - I started to rig my second character for the next scene.

"I have been sat at my desk  for over 6 hours and procrastinated a bit, i feel the software is beating me. But i think i have figured it out mostly. If I were to do this project again, after a short break of course, i think i would fair a whole lot better I manage to get a walk cycle down today, it is far from perfect but I have learnt a great deal." 

I also made a layered background for the characters and added it to that animation.

7th October - "I have nearly finished the animation today, both sequences. I will try upload my new storyboard later as well as my previous. I have to simplify it a lot due to restrictions of my skill in the software. I was in university today trying to change out a tail I made with limber, I thought it would work petty well in the tail, but it didn't look great. If I had more time maybe I could make it look better, I'll try it out again in a couple of weeks anyway. So I was replacing the tail today to just a normal element just to bob up and down no proper animation really, I would make an animation cycle with replacement shapes but time and skill restrict me currently. Alas the tail didn't work after 4 solid hours of trying to attach and replace a tail I have called it a day."

"after a number of attempts replacing my character by creating numerous actors and replacement shapes, the best outcome with a tail was a mess, also the limbs were not attached, meaning i would have to go through 500 frames reattaching them- but the tail was no where in sight, i tried pressing "V" on the tail element but nothing showed up, there must be a way to solve it, but with limited time and knowledge I think is it best I leave it as it is. In the end limber didn't really work for it and hindered my project probably again due to lack of knowledge."

Conclusion:

This project over my years at uni has been the trickiest, as I am not a digital animator. I have done the entire project digitally to kind of throw me in at the deep end and force me to learn things, needless to say it has been pretty stressful for me. However I have learnt a great deal and I will try it again, I would really like to learn more about CelAction and other digital methods of animating. I am planning to do a small side project of my own in a digital medium in the next few weeks.

Minor Project #2

Character Redesign

For this project we get a design that a child has created and we have to make it animatable, without losing the qualities of what the child put in. We do all the usual stuff that goes into our animations (turn-arounds, storyboards, action/expression sheets) the difference for me this time is that it will be animated using Celaction. I am not familiar with this software yet, but just think "Peppa Pig" type animation.

For an example in the industry of how this process works, here is a concept design of Sully & Mike form Monsters Inc. (Please if you know how to credit for the art, let me know. I can't find it anywhere) .
As you can see from the sketch they have all the basic similarities to Sully & Mike as we know them, they are the bare bones they they were created from, loads of other designs were made but this sketch hold the fundemental likelyness of the pair. That is what I am trying to accomplish with my project, take one design and make it in to animation with out straying too much from the original.

Here is my breakdown for the week!

1. Decide on the sound clip and  drawing , start re interpreting  the drawing into your own unique style bearing in mind any opportunities for character development  and replacement shapes
2. Start putting together your sound-clip on the bar chart  and planning out  rough ideas of performance on your dope sheet Video referencing.
3. Start working on  expressions and acting poses (rough) to interpret your characters performance to produce completed  turn around postures refine and complete characters

Next week (starting 12th October) 

1. Artwork ideas for  possible replacement shapes .. expressions facial changes appendages etc….
2. Produce a storyboard and an animatic with the sound.

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So this post is a little late, I have been working furiously on this project for the past week. I have done nearly everything for the first week and have started the second week as planned !! There are just a few areas that need neatening up for the finished project but so far I'm on target!

Here are a few things that I have been working on! 

TL: My original design, TR: My design broken down and explored.

BL: The original drawing annotated. BR: Compilation of a few rough sketches, expressions, storyboards and action sheets.

I also decided I needed a 3D model, which i made from Plasticine, to help me with drawing proportions.

Currently I am working on my storyboards, backgrounds and soon, animatic. 

I will be making the final versions of everything this week too I have until Sunday 18th!

Advertisements & Story-boarding. #1

The Brief 

For this project we were asked to take apart a 30 second advertisement and storyboard, pretty simple. We are also asked to make an animatic of the avert too, an animatic is a simply animated sequence with sound, that shows key shots and facial expressions.

The second part of this project is taking 1 page of the TMNT script and producing a storyboard to using your own initiative and creativity. This is pretty easy for me too, being as I haven't seen the TMNT film yet I have 0% knowledge on what actually happens so it won't be influenced.

Research

To the right is an example of Iain McCraig's Storyboarding, he did quite a bit on Star Wars: phantom menace. His examples are very good. There is also a very helpful book on the star wars storyboarding process available on amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Wars-Storyboards-J-W-

I do know a little about storyboarding already, due studying it on my media course in sixth form and my first year at uni on the film course (which I left).
Storyboards are basically a direction for the camera movement to tell a story, low angels imply something strong and high angles- something weak, there is an awful lot of storytelling in storyboarding, because it is the first visual on what the story will actually look like.

Here are some helpful sites about the importance of storyboarding and what it can accomplish:
http://lacyboggs.com/how-to-storyboard-your-content-marketing-success

Storyboarding basics:
http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/starttofinish-storyboarding/

The Process

For the TMNT Storyboard I first started by choosing a section of the script and analysing it, then i did a rough draft of what I though everything should look like, then I went on to do the final storyboard, but eventually ran out of time. For future reference I think i did it too big (I did it on A3 paper) considering the amount of time i had left to finish the project, this was a bad move.

For the advert I chose the "John West, Man vs. Bear" commercial. I watched it through a couple of times and drew key changes as they happened, then went back to find things that i missed. This was all roughly thumbnailed then turned into a draft storyboard and then the final storyboard.
I then did an animatic of this in rough, put it together in a program called "flipbook" then watched it back to see if i missed anything, the bits I missed I added in to the final animatic which I will put together in Adobe Premier instead.

My thoughts

This project stressed me quite a bit, it is project you need to take your time with. Alas I haven't had time, due to my job and my job hunt (I needed a better job).
If I have learnt anything from this project it is that time management is crucial. So far I am not happy with my work because I know I can do better, it is rushed and not thought through very well. The TMNT is far from industry standard. It matters that I know what I have done wrong so I can change it for next time. I also know what I can do which is why I know how terrible it is, I just need to prove I can. In terms of the advert one, I enjoyed this a lot more. I feel the out come was better because I didn't over complicate things.