This week the assignments got changed up a bit. Each day we practiced something different, animating video game actions. Video game actions are meant to be fast and responsive in real-time. For each new day, we worked on a new type of animation. The first was based on a "superhero" jump and landing. We were to adapt a reference into something one would find as an attack or jump or something of the like in a video games. The second quick motion video game animation was based on a reference we found in a video demonstration. This was based around the concept of limiting blocked poses. This meant having a just a few poses to invoke the idea of a real action. We experimented with A, B, and C poses from the example. This all takes place within 24 frames, give or take a few.
For this big story project, we got to create a short one minute story animatic from the ground up. There were many steps to get from start to finish. The process went from brainstorming and conceptualization, to outlining and beat boards, to scripting, then storyboards, and finally the animatic.
My project is titled Daredevil Ball. It tells the story of Red, a rubber ball who has a goal of going to the moon. They are going to make many attempts which include a trampoline, a jetpack, and a seesaw, and finds that there is a big challenge ahead of them.
This is the final one minute long animatic for the project. This was, in my opinion, one of the easiest tasks to accomplish. The biggest problem was syncing up the audio and video, but otherwise, operating with the storyboards in Premiere was simple. In addition, any edits that needed to take place outside of the video were manageable.
This is the slideshow of storyboards put together to demonstrate and present the semi-complete project. Later down the line, more in-between shots were added to transition into the animatic. The toughest part here was making sure the storyboards lined up,m and the designated timespans of each shot fit. For the most part, I believe I was able to keep all of my original shots, and just had to expand and add on more to convey the story. I didn't have to cut any out and the closest to such was simply altering shots to fit suggestions.
The script was another piece of the assignment that came pretty easy. Expanding upon the beat boards and outlining the story as a whole. It was fun to flesh out certain parts, even if this was only to be a minute long. Visualizing came pretty easy, so sharpening it down to the right script size wasn't too tough. Of course, later down the line there would be alterations to the script when the storyboards came along, but luckily the basic premise was kept consistent.
The first stage of the story project was forming an initial idea, and making loglines, a general summary, and a beat sheet. This was a decent next step in creating the story. While the brainstorming phase went on, overall conceptualization of this story was fairly simple. Knowing a beginning and end came along fast, which put most of the emphasis on developing the middle scenes.
Throughout the project, I would say there were only a few minor bumps in the road. Nothing was too much a challenge over the course of creating and priming the project. The biggest problem I encountered was the aforementioned organization of shots and timespans of each. A lot of shots shifted around and changed timing from one part to the next. It was about determining whether a shot was too short or lingered too long. Later on for the animatic with in-between shots, it was also a bit challenging to fit everything on top of the original shots. Another related minor task was finding and syncing proper audio clips in the animatic. I used a mix of background sounds and ambiance that I had on hand and found in the lab database.
Friday, April 7, 2017
Tiger Walk
Week 9
This past week, the new project was animating a Tiger walking. This was something quite new but also familiar as the next step in animating things other than bipeds. In this assignment, we are learning to work with more joints, and more segments in order to make a natural walk cycle. Throughout the week, we practiced the typical process of blocking out poses and adjusting based upon reference. The next step is splining and forming overlap to further progress with a proper walk cycle. The main focus was taking the reference and visualizing what goes where, then learning hos it translates to animation.
