Saturday 17 March 2012

Sugar Rush Sundays

I got 1 week and 2 days left till the dead line, Im trying to work as fast as possible. the idea of this animation is to show sweetness, energetic and colorful atmosphere in the animation because it relates well with the sound file. although it is a 5 second clip, I can animate alot in it. I think my idea is very ambitious, having loads of characters will be alot to animate but in the end it worked out fine. I needed lots of characters because of the sound clip, lots of sweet like characters cheering in the background. I have based my animation by looking at Katy Perry's Music video "California Girls" down below. I liked the softness and bright light colors which makes it look sweet. cute characters to attract and appeal to younger audiences.


Final Sugar Rush Animation : Improved Jumping stiffness of the bear and added "Sundays" in the end.



1st Animation: this animating went easy as I thought it be, it was very easy putting it all together when I got all assets ready and perfect to go. I showed this to some people and asked for feed back. There was much there is to change just improving to bear jump cycle a bit more because it looked very stiff, maybe correct the timing and add secondary action like the recoil of the jump. Other than that, I need to add "Sundays" in the end, I completely forgot to type it in. I was thinking of rotating the spiral lollipop but I think it would overtake your eyes from seeing the bears and the title. But that is something to test about.



This is My Improved bear jump cycle, I had a few more days to spare, why not improve it. I have improved the timing and make it look like it has gravity and gave it a recoil when landed on the floor to make it realistic.



Fireworks Test by using CC Particle Simulation 2. I never knew that I could make a firework in after effects before. I always thought, that would be in a different software or draw it manually but I'd be crazy if I did.



This is the Tutorial I have followed to make my firework effects.



This is a Preview Plan of my Animation ending for sugar rush. I have done this all in illustrator, I made some different designs of the gummy bears but wasnt happy about the results so I have improved it and this is my result. The layout of this design isnt final yet, It'll be later improved when I work on it in After effects. This design was Inspired from Katy Perry's Music Video "California girls" and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory. I liked the idea of having a castle made out of sweets and ice cream. I have designed my own castle and Im quite happy about it. 


Final Gummy Bear Design
 
Cupcake, Cookies, Biscuits and Donuts Design.
I designed the characters cute to target younger audiences so they will be interested in the animation. I have kept the design colors really light and soft to the eye.
 
More assets for the background animation

This is where I have based my design from

Street Food


Seeing I got a few more weeks left, I have chosen to work on the Street Food Brief. As always I make lots of ideas in my RVJ. at first it was quite hard to get the ideas right because of the sound file, it is so limited. I could animate people running or food running but the sound file has car engine sounds so I wont be able to use running. after spying round at peoples work, I have noticed that everyone seems to have delivery vans in their animation, So I thought of using Giant food transforming to vendors. The idea of using transforming came from my kino idea, I wanted to use it a bit more, but of course I wont be able to make a professional like Transformers the movie.Mine would be very cartoony because it would be very time consuming. I have kept my idea very simple, I just wanted to show the cars drove off and transforms.


This is my Final Animation for Street food. I have added in some squash and stretch and secondary action to make it believable that its parking and it doesnt look stiff.


 


This is my first draft, I showed it to me classmates and asked for feed back, only thing needs changing was that the vendors were too stiff when it parked, I'll quickly change it when I got time, after I finished another animation, turns out i got a week and a half, I can make another 1 if i focus well hard.



These are my transformation tests I've done, Ive sped it up later on in the actual animation to fit the timeslot


Pizza Vendor



Hotdog Vendor



Noodle Vendor



At first, my Idea of making this vendor transform is by modelling it in Maya, and transform it there, then import to after effects, but I didnt have much time to use maya, I wont be able to make another animation if I did. Doing it in after effects was easy and very effective. Making the noodles vendor was a bit tricky to transform, I had to tilt it so the main body of the vending machine comes out.

This is the background Ive designed in illustrator, I based this design from New York streets, with my own touch to it to make it cartoony. it kinda have this italian style to it. I find designing backgrounds like this very enjoyable, I like it when I design characters, backgrounds because thats what I am strongest at.


These are some reference photographs I've taken when I was in New York 2011. 







Check RVJ for More of my designs

Friday 16 March 2012

Kino

I have chosen to work on the Kino 10 Brief, I believe i have worked really hard on completing this animation. At first everyone have very same ideas of using cameras doing it 3D, I thought to my self that it would be time consuming for me to use 3D, and instead focus on 2D so I could get on with my other animations ASAP. After animating Kino, I looked for sound clips and edited  it and made my own drum beat by cutting clips and putting it together on a loop. I am quite impressed of myself that I was able to make a beat. I used free sound effects for the rest.


Final Kino10 Animation


I have shown the development/evolution of the cameras by quickly transforming the character as the screen distorts, this style is like a mix of battlefield 3 and transformers where the screen distorts. I have kept the background quite simple like looking into a tv with noise in the background. the ball is meant to be the "O" in Kino which the camera is running after and filming it.







These are some very helpful tutorials that helped me accomplish my animation. the tutorial is kinda hard to understand so it took quite a while to finish it. Had some difficulties with my laptop because it kept crashing every time I pre render and render. It took quite a while to finish render aswell because of some new effects used.







I found the grid effect quite very useful, I never knew I can make 1 very easily instead of going to photoshop and drawing it manually.







This is my first test render of my character run cycle






Character design:
We was told to design characters in illustrator separating each limbs in different layers so it would be easier to animate. after trying out a run cycle. I imidiately  thought of having this in my final piece and improved on it.


This is my first animation of Kino10, the battlefield 3 effect has inspired me to imitate it and make it my own because it suited for the kino project. I have made this animation by editing the word kino in photoshop and distorting it manually by cutting it and adding filter effects like noise and wind effect to make it look like its moving from left to right. after doing it frame by frame, I import it to after effects and added in an effect called artifact which makes it look even more distorted more noise and movement to it. To complete this animation, I added in a footage of a street in Birmingham which represents where Kino originated from.


Final Kino 10 Animation 2
With color corrections




Without color correction









Kino Battlefield 3 Effect with artifact







Kino Battlefield 3 Effect 
Without artifact







These are some images of my frame by frame editing in photoshop





Italian Month Animation

I have chosen to work on the Italian month brief just to warm up my animation skills, I wanted to quickly finish this animation so I would have more time animating the other briefs and start of the other modules.


Final Italian Month Animation

I have added in "Italian Month" at the end of the video to make it clear what it is about



This is My finished animation of Italian Month, I have found this animation quite a challenge because I have found difficulties animating the noodles which will be explained later, I took quite a long time just thinking of the right idea for me because my other ideas were very common, most people have the same ideas as I have, Finally I sticked  to this and I am quite happy about the result. I have kept my animation eye catching, not so much detail but keeps the eye moving which gives an appeal to the viewers.





This is a tomato I drew, it took ages for me to draw. I tested comparing this with a real photograph and animate it and doesnt make any much difference, so I have used photos for the rest which will save me some time. I was finding a way to use a repeater on an image like this, but turns out that it only work on text. So I had to go to photoshop and make a circle using the images.












This is one of the difficult stages I've encountered animating a noodle tracing an image. But finally I managed to do it, I had help from Keanu Jones, he teached me a simplier way to animate a noodle just by using repeater on text using "0000000's" and adjusting the tracking the space between letters so itll look like a straight line. I have learnt in class to use color overlay and bevel and emboss to color my text instead of going to photoshop and drawing it there which would take all of my time.



This is my first attempt to animate a noodle going round an image. It took me hours to complete, key framing every frame using puppet pin tool. it doesnt  even move the way I wanted it to and took me 3 goes to neaten it up.



This is just a simple animation test, learning how to use 3D on after effects, adding depth to show shadows, learning how to use illustrator files imported to after effects.

Business of Animation Module

New Module has began, New challenge.
Its quite a  lot of animations to be done in a short amount of time, but fear not, we are allowed to pick a few briefs and work as hard as much as u can to improve it.

My idea is to work on 2 to 3 animations so I can balance my work for this module and the other module because I am working with a client.

3 Small briefs
(5-15 second advertisement)

-Street food Month
-Sugar Rush Sundays
-Italian Month

3 Live Briefs
-SEGA, 20th aniversary of sports interactive
-BLKY, mobile inbox content design
-Kino10, promo 


More extra live projects in moodle.




These are some few examples Ron has showed us during class, unfortunately i wasn't there, I was working as a BCU Ambassador. I got these video links from class mates. These are Ron's  Animation work


Italian Month



Sugar Rush



Street Food


These are some few animation, inspirations, and some influences I might use.


I picked this Russian Dancing men animation because I like the artwork style, it is very simple, the use of 3 colours works really well. I studied graphic design in college and studied about Russian and Graphic designs and it is one of my favorite styles. the way they relate their messages are so straight forward and gets your attention. I can try imitate its style in my work later on



I liked this animation because of its characters, it is so simple to make. It is so eye striking which makes the audience find it very cute and memorable



These are some of my favorite info graphics... it is very clear and easy to understand. when making my animation, I have to make sure it gets the message across to the audience









This is a wonderful find by Andy Mo about motion graphics, thisll really help me think about my ideas, design, timing, dynamics, etc...