As mentioned in the previous post , I needed to change one of my ident into something that would fit in better with the other 2. So I came up with a new idea that uses the same base as the zoom ident, meaning that it would zoom through different sceneries "using" the logo . The difference about this is that the scenery would be focus more on nature and animals rather than culture like the other one, so then we would have one of each variety in our set. With this idea, it would fit in very well with the other two, while also lessen the work load I have to do because theres only one scenes that would utilised traditional animation , while the rest can be done with After Effects. The scenery I came up with was the savannah, the arctic , jungle , ocean , and 2 additional ending scenes. I feel that with that we have alot of opportunity to play around with different spectrum of colour , enabling our ident to be more vivid and eye-capturing. Also using some of my timing knowledge from working on the the other ident that is similar, I can relative figure out how I should pace the scenes, as well as adjusting the size of the canvas to fit the video frame perfectly.
Here are some finished scenes ready for animation :
Based on a natgeo photographic work
The blend of painted texture and the flat imagery really compliment each other very well, as well as the fact that I'm very happy with colour choices for these
Today's crit was very useful for my ident production. For this I've prepared 1 animatic for the bunny animation and 2 full-fledge 2 idents for the other 2 ideas. In general , it was a very positive reaction, complementing me on the quality of each idents. However ,one notable opinion from our tutor Matt was that the rabbit animation although is favourite, doesn't tie in very well with the other two and suggest altering it in someway that would create a more unified set. This is pretty understandable as I set out with creating individual idents in my , with each of them can be adapted into their own set. So my course is now changing the ideas for the rabbit to something more similar to ident 2 , where I plays around with the zoom through each scenes. That hopefully would create a more cohesive set. Other crits was about the cuts of each scenes in the 2 idents being a little bit too fast. But personally , It is the best I can fit them while still keeping to the original vision, so I probably won't be making to much of a change on that. Other than that, I'm really proud of what I have made here, especially considering that it is only the 1st week of work ( the 2 full -idents just needs some polishing for the models in it and will be good to go). And with the changing of the rabbit to a more similar design , it also means I don't have to invest a lot of time in creating a piece of tradition animation so , it would be more efficient.
**need fixing, in ident2 , when it zooms in to another scenes, there are gaps appearing around the frame of the scene so that needs to be enlarged
Finally got around to some actual animation on Maya today , and I have to say It is way more straight forward than I imagined it would be, even if its only simple keyframing animation. Now I can see why CGI animation is considered cheaper than traditional animation. The total it took me to animate 3 scenes would be around the same as doing it on a digital 2 animation software, but looks much smoother and better, and that just motion-wise, imagine have texture and background inputted in at a click of the button. The most difficult part again , was trying to understand all the functions of the software, especially the space-time graph , but once I got the hang of it , the graph is an extremely efficient and powerful tool to play around with. I also find transferring some of my 2D skills like the animation principles into a 3D environment very easy. However , I have a feeling that won't be the case for more complex animation like an actual character. But serves to say , this has better view on 3D animation
After some scouring on the internet about national geographic photos , I just came across this picture that would fit in very well as a scenery for my "human culture" ident. The lighting , the atmosphere , everything just makes for a very lovely piece of scenery , and it really portrays the beauty of culture, as well as having something that can be link to the national geographic logo, that being the lanterns with their rectangular shape. So with that in mind , I quickly compile a piece of illustration that plays around with this idea:
I have to say I really like this, even as a still image, my idea for animating was to have the person toss the lantern up in the sky, that way I think it will serves as lovely ending for the whole zoom sequence, and also add some actual traditional animation into the mix, creating an add that is more diverse, (optional of course). Here's a little gif of what it would look like, kinda like a rough animatic :
For the other idents, the idea is quite clear already , its just the matter of producing it . For the rabbit ident, the environment I want to set it in is kinda like the transition of winter and spring , the period where all the animals are coming out of hibernation and the sun is shining on the snow, creating almost a glitter effects, so it gives that sense of warmth even among all the snow. Colour palette should be yellow and white for highlights , and multi shades of lavender and purples for the shade
After some deeper looks into what makes up the National geographic identity, it became clear that it is more than just a educational channel but is multi-branch non-profit organisation that has dedicated itself to the study and conservation of science, culture, nature and history. In fact, The National geographic society is the largest of its kind, comprising of multiple media identities which includes the National geographic channel and The Natgeo magazine. Being one of the largest if not The largest educational channels ,along with Discovery and History channel, it serves as one of the largest platform for providing the public with scientific and cultural knowledge, while also celebrates/react to current world events, in that sense, it is one of the most time-worthy channel on television in my mind. So , playing along that line, the indents I want to produce for it has to carry this spirit of curiosity, discovery and building society. It should also provide a wide range of topics that demonstrate the varieties that is shown in the channel , ranging from wild life documentaries to shows about the a certain sport or person. ( of course, it doesn't need to provide EVERYTHING, considering it is only 10 seconds and 3 of them have to be dedicated to showing the logo) , but having a bit of diversity would definitely go a long way.)
These thoughts then resulted in some rough ideas that I've conjured in the forms of very quick sketches and storyboards:
This idea was the first to to come up and plays along the idea of human interaction with the environment , which includes scenes of building cities , producing renewable energy , mountain climbing , so it covers technological development , adventure and also send a nice message about the conservation of nature. The idea was to chain each scenes and having the camera move across it in away that in the end reveals itself to be a diorama of every scenes which combine together creates the logo of the channel, which I think is really cool!
2nd idea celebrates more of the cultural development of society, with the rectangle shape of the logo being the centre point of each scenes that connects the together , via a camera zoom / pan that is similar to this :
The final idea was is a very simple , short and sweets that portrays nature through the means of rabbit in snow, which I feel completes the full spectrum of varieties:
Finally I have touched on the subject of 3D modelling , although on a very basic level. For the most part, I have to admit it was not as complex as I've imagined. That said though , it is still very very confusing at times, particularly on the point of looking for the modelling tools and understand all the functions it. However, the truck modelling exercise really serves it purpose well giving me a fundamental knowledge of maya modelling tool, which would help a lot when I did my own flying saucer. In that sense, it is very typical Adobe, being extremely clunky and confusing on the surface but shows it values after some use time. Although my modelling is still restricted to very simple objects and shapes, I'm more confident in actually practicing it now, and hoping to be able to create more complex render like a hand or something. I'm also very interested in learning about texture and colour rendering, as I really enjoy doing those post production stuffs like that. That said however, I don't think I would return to 3D as a main practice, as my roots in 2D has already gone very deep, plus my main interest is in the area of preproduction like concepts design and storyboarding , which would be more 2D-focused. However it was still a very enjoyable experience
Among the options we had for the new module, I decided to go with the task of creating 3 indents for The National geographic channel. Reason for this was that in contrary to the typical belief of artists wanting to "break free" and do there own thing, I like having a specific goal in mind and limitations that can keep me focus on the main topic. This first and foremost is the most practical form of practices, as it set me up for the reality of an animation career where clients usually will have requirements that needed to met. Secondly , as mentioned above, it makes the production of the piece more focused and effective , creating a solid base that I can build my ideas from, as well as helping me to focus on developing that idea fully without jumping off on random branches. Perhaps you can say that I am a bit uptight on that end since artist are suppose to be as "creative" as possible , otherwise we might as well be replaced with some sort of programs or machines, but I feel that having limitations like these, especially as small as the brief detailed. helps to rein in the urge to go overboard with your concepts ( a problem that I acknowledge myself as having) that would cost time and money in a real world situation, hence it is the most logical option for me. Also as a bonus fact, I'm deeply interested in world culture, history and science, and channels like Natgeo , Discovery and the history channel are something that I enjoy and support very much, so it would be awesome to produce something for the channel that can invokes the human spirit in studying and exploring the world , or just appreciating the natural beauty of it.
Finally, the end of the module has come for me with the final full coloured animation with audio and background included. The process of producing the background was very streamlined , thanks to my experience in digital painting and illustration, along with the fact that most of the details in the background has already been planned out within the storyboard. I have to say though it is probably because I'm so comfortable with doing it that the background came out way cleaner than the animation lines, so it makes the sketchy lines stand out a bit. On the bright side though, I'm very proud of the lighting work done in each scenes, giving it a real sense of atmosphere to the background.
Also another fun thing to do was to add moving camera in After Effects for some scenes , in particular Scene 2 where I utilised the 3D function of the camera to make the focus of the camera changes as the scene progress. It added so much more dimension to the movement and the feel of the scene as a whole. Other than that , putting the different clips together , along with syncing the audio was very easy , as the previous layouts that had been used for the animatic and the lined animation gave a very solid base to work from.
As for the crit , there was very well-received by both my peers and the tutors. On suggestion from Martin was to put a bit more emphasis on the fly at the final scenes, and which is honest what I had intended to do . However, after seeing how long the animation already is and the pacing within it, I've determined that adding any more to it would be either over the limit of the 25 seconds or it would make the pacing out of balanced with too many cuts. Another suggestion was to increase the vibrancy of the colour for the fly swatter each time it swings.
In general though , I'm very happy with the final animation and this module as a whole and I'm extremely proud of the progress I've made.
As part of the OUAN405 module , we had to produce a 10-sec-long animation using the pixelation technique. It was quite interesting to say the least , being my real first experience at producing stop-motion animation, which is an area that honestly never really interested me. My train of thought for making was pretty much similar to making any type of animation , being story board -> animation, without having to do all the pre-production stuffs like character design or animatic, since Im working with live actor. Another important fact was that this was purely an experiment on movement in pixelation , therefore there wasn't really a need for a narrative, which make the process much much more easy to work with since I literally just have to do straight-ahead shots , changing the movement as I see fit. Also , many of the difficulties in conventional animation like the 12 principles are also secondary, hence another hinderance avoided. All that was left was a very straight forward and easy process of shooting the pictures. I did however , had a general idea of what I wanted to film, being the people doing the frog swim on the floor there by highlighting what pixelation can actually do rather than just do regular motions. Stemming from that , I did shots where people would be spinning on the floor and even a little tribute to the Dragon Ball fusion transformation. Working with my classmate proves very well as they were extremely cooperative and even suggested ideas and scenes, which I would return the favour in their own animation. After finishing all the pictures, I was planning on importing it into Premier , but the sheer amount of the frames ( around 300 ? ) put me off from that idea , so I used an online service to compile it for me instead : gifmaker.com. They'd take all of the frames in and automatically put it in a sequence for me , with only the frame rate needed to be adjusted manually. Audio however was done in Premier, which I'm very happy with the choices really. Overall , a very fun experience working on this , which serves as a really nice first attempt at another genre that is not 2D for me.!
The entirety of this week was dedicated to completing the colours for my animation, which I have to say has been a massive pain in the butt , pardon my French. I started out with cleaning up my line work , focusing on the close-up scenes of the face and hand since those are the one that are most prone to sketchy lines. After that it was a painstaking process of putting in the base colour for all my animation. My logic was I was going to do all of the base colour on one animation timeline layer, then on top of it another layer set in Multiply mode used for shading , which is the way I use for my illustration. The problem with this was I essentially have to do the entire animation twice again , one which mean in total over 900 individual layers counting the line art, which is a lot ! However I feel that it was the best way and the most efficient way and still do now as I've managed to finish all of it in 1 week of work. The end result looks very good, although personally , after the background has been added in , I'd like more overlays and lighting applied to the final piece, just to give it more atmosphere. However, I'm very please with what I've done in the given time! Now, on to the backgrounds, which should be very quick and easy to do
