Responsive - finalising design

 I brought my design into the template, and realised I hadn't done enough imagery for the back cover, so I went back to continue the backgroud design.

 I did want the exact font used for the oranginal books, butdue to copy right, I thought I'd find one simlar. I looked for a font, and couldn't really find one I liked. So I went back to my research for look for an infulence.

I found this image, and loved that a ransom note, punk looking style was used and thought it realsy worked.

 I picked 3 fonts to use, because I've been taugh that to use more than one font in a design, make it look overcrouded and confusing, so I picked 3 that went well with the style of the book.

I did this for the Authours name also, and kept any other text as one font. and I think it works. after playing around with postitioning the text, I'm happy with how it looks.

I was unsure whether the colour needed to be changed for the blurb, but I asked for feedback and those I asked said they could read it fine, so I kept it white.

I really enjoyed this brief, it was just something I wanted to spend a day on, and to just primarily focus on this one task for the entire day. I work to a tight scedual, working fast but putting a lot of effot into in so I would be happy in sending it it and presenting it.

Responsive - designing

I know this image is probably used quite often, but I plan to design it in a way that'll hopefully change it into something unique. 

Keeping it simple by using the main colours of  orange, balck and white, I hope adds to the look I'm going for. I picked a brush that had texture, so I could try and create a grafitied look. The brush I chose is almost chalky or dirty, empashing the rough look and theme of the story and suggesting he's a dirty violent guy. 

I added a lots of black in some places, to create shaddow which suggests darkness and mystery. I worked further on it, but, in some places I didn't like how I'd done the shaddow, so i went back to get rid of the thinner black lines and I increased the brush size and reduced the opasity, and worked from there, building the colour up if I needed, just so that in blended nicely and not stuck out from the design.

I felt like there needed to be more on the background so I faintly added some cogs so that it was a constitant design, not just an image placed on a solid background.

I'm happy with my design now, I guess it is quite simple in the fact that it's nott incredibly busy, it's only the brush style that makes it look like there's a lots in that space. 

Notice the eye, I coloured it orange becuase I think the bold eyelashes attract you in enough, without there needing to be an extra colour, which I think would not make it look good.

Now I just need to take it into photoshop and add the text and make sure it fits to style of the book and what the company want and fits with the template given in the brief.

Responsive - moodpboard and research

I looked at existing covers for A Clockwaork Orange, to see what has already been done. I could also see here what other people of the same brief are doing, so I need to make mine more eye carching than my competetors.

Key things I've noticed, is the colour scheme or orange white and black, and I think I will stick to these colours as I beleve this is what people assosiate the book with.

Things that have been used alot is Alex's eye and hat, and the theme of cogs. 

I did have in mind to stay simple, but I think the key imagery has been used a lot and for me to make a simple design it wouldn't be unique.

I also watched the film again, this time taking notes as I watched to help me find other key imagery and important sections from the story that may have not often been used in book cover.

In the film Alex sings singing in the rain, and I had an idea for a cover, but then this part was improvised by the actor and not in the book, so it wouldn't make sence to continue with the idea.

I also liked the wall in his apartment block, it's graffitied and just fits with the whole gang and volience thing.

As well as researching into the book, I look at winners of last years competition for the adult fiction novel. I'm not familiar with this book but looking at previous covers I've noticed, similar fonts are used similar digitaly hand drawn looking illustrations are used, but the colour scheme changes as orange has previously been used a lot, but very little in these chosen covers. So I think that for me, text is important, and because a clock work orange has a unique text style, I may continue with this and use a similar style so it's recognisable.

So now I'd like to create something that looks untidy in a way, a bit sketchy and rough.

Responsive - Analysising Penguin brief

For my next, smaller brief, I'd picked the Penguin brief as I was attracted to one of the books listed in particular and I had previously enjoyed designing book coves for a project back in college.

Looking though the brief, I now need to identify what it's asking me to do and how I am going to solve it. 

• What problem(s) are identified by the brief? The company wants you to create a cover illustration for one, or all of the books listed.   
• What is the brief asking you to do about it/them? It's asking me to design a cover that's imaginative,neyencatching and includes the type given..
• Who is the audience? I have chosen to do a cover for A Clockwork Orange, as this is an adult fiction novel, the audience will be those who enjoy reading this genre. But the brief spesifically want to attract to the modern audience.
• How will the message be delivered? I will try to create a cover that is eye catching and avoids the cliches of previous covers. 
• Can you foresee any problems in responding to the brief? A problem that may happen is that the cover still needs to recognisable, but also unique, and to avoid the cliche, eye, and clock work cogs, etc, may still need to be used. 

3D animation - cost

Animation cost a lot to do, for materials, animators and technology, but with computer generated animation, I presume the amount of technology would be incredably costly, for software, hight quality textures and the amount of electricity used. 
As it stated on Animation World Magazine 'There are limitations however, to modeling in three dimensions. While it is relatively easy to redraw a 2D character model, it can sometimes be more difficult to radically change a digital model'  which could cause other problems, from experience, if I wanted to change one movement, it wouldn't flow nice to the next key frame, so I would spend even more time fixing in the problem, in 2d you've maybe just ave to re draw a frame or two and you'd be back on track but in 3d, it effects a lot of things to change one little thing.. 

3D animation - technology

3D animation is becoming more and more popular, but you can only create what the software allows you do. 

I know that when I was crating my character in Maya, and came to animating, I couldn't really create what I wanted in my head, the program had limitations as to what you can do, and depending on how mach you know about the software also limits you. 

The pre production and render time also takes up a huge amount of time. In 2D after you have designed your character and backgrounds yu can normally start animating, but with 3D you have prepare your model, textures, and environments, and because all these files will be high quality, and you'll have extra things like lighting, the render time will be massive. especially for a film from Pixar for example.

3D animation - Environments

With 3d animation, you can create one environment and then you literally have a world you can travel though on a screen. 

Compare these two clips from The Incredibles and Snow White, in the 3d animated film we can follow Dash through the forest we can see the leaves being pushed aside making it realistic as he's effecting everything he passes. 

In Snow White, because it's 2d we have more of a still environment, there are a few bits where she gets tangled in the branches, and the camera follows her though, but mostly it's just a couple of layers as someone would have had to draw the movement of her reacting with the trees etc frame by frame and change perspective if the camera would have followed behind her like it does with Dash.

But the advantage of computer is that you can chose and pic where the camera goes, you're not just suck with a set background to work with.

3D animation - effects

With the use of animation, you can build and add effects to a live action film to make things realist, without destroying say, New York for example in an action movie. 

In this clip from Marvel's Avengers Assemble, animation plays a huge part to make it feel genuine. 

First off we have The Hulk, the fact that he looks realistic (but not your uncanny valley realistic) the use of him being animated means he can be The Hulk, strong, big and green, and not be an average sized actor like in the 1978 tv series, it's not how he appears in the comics, but now with computer effect, he's really starting to get there.

We also have the use of green screen, where they can be in a studio and add in the backgound to make it believable that he is on top of that building. 

All of the lazers and crumbling building, the fact that these can be added in by computer, probably saves a lot of money, and they don't have to physically destroy anything, which is good. 

3D animation - Uncanny Valley

I recently watch The Polar Express, as we had be told about uncanny valley, and I understand what is meant by is.  

There's a fine point where something is made to resemble an actual human being but because it's so life like, but not quite a living breathing human, we find it extreamly uncomfortable. An example of this in animation are The Polar Express, and when I was watching it, although it was pretty good, there was just something off putting about the characters, like they were missing something, it wasn't appealing to me.

And I read that ways to avoid being in the section of uncanny valley, is to play with proportions. Avatar for example, their faces, you can tell it's Jake Sully, but it's not off putting because as an Avatar, his body is longer, ears are higher, nose is flatter, it's appealing because it's not made to look exactly like a human, but made to look realistic along with live action.

Maya tutorial - Turn around

 I wasn't able to paint the weights on my tutorial character, but I did manage to pose it.

I used an image of myself I thought would be an interesting pose, and thought as we had to present our turn around on a plinth of some sort, the fence would work nicely.

I had to use the outline to select the controlers and therefore select the child controlers, so that it would move correctly. 

I wanted my character on top of the fence so moved it up, but it's jaw did now move with it, so I undid my action so the chracter was back in it's original place, and moved the fence insted, this worked okay. and you wouldn't know anything was wrong with it. 

I also quickly changed the colour of the clothes to match the ones I'm wearing. 

I think for me with Maya, I'm better at some things that others. in both my tutorial and main character I struggled at the same point of grouping the joints and controls. I think this was because it's still new to me, and it was a lot of head work for me to do, and even though I had the video guides to help me through, wich was really great, sometimes I needed someone to sit with me and go though things with me slower and where I could ask questions and understand clearer. But Mat and Ciara helped me alot where I needed help so I understood mainly where I was going wrong.

With this charcter, I've done a turn around for submission, but if you were to open it in Maya, you'd see where I got confused and tried to remember what i was told from when I got stuck with the brother charcter, but I think I just made an even more mess with it as I tried to correct it. But atleast I could pose it, and produce a turn around. 

Telling tales - sound and text

To finalised out animation, we wanted to add sound and text. We played around with different fonts within premier, but wanted something more fun fair is, so we went online to get a free font, and edited it in photoshop to get the same colours that are used in the animation. 

We also went to record some sound effects to see how they would work with our animation, personally I like the animation as a silent film, with music but no spoken dialect or sound effects. I think if we were to have speech, the sound effects would work, but because we don't, to me it doesn't fit. 

Maya tutorial - controller hierarchy and connecting.

I had to get on with my animation so put the tutorial character to the side, so that's why I'm coming back to it now to complete it. 

Picking up from where i left off I needed to put the controlers into a hierarchy and connect the mesh to the rig. 

 I connected all the controllers to their parents, followed the guided step by step. and it matches us with Mat's.   

But at the same point with my brother character, when I connected the contolers to the joints, it flipped. I remebered from when this happened before I ticked the option 'maintain offest' and then it still didn't work properly.

When I select the shoulder control for example, the child controllers are not effected. I have to selecet the group in the outliner for it act how it should. I continued anyway.

I'll have to ask for help again but I only have 2 days left untill the deadline, and me and Ciara both want to put our animation halfs together and sort out the music and finalise it. 

Last time doing this section took me half a day or so. so hopefully I can get it done, and create a posed turn around for submission.

Telling tales - my final half

I've completed my half of the animation, overall I'm pleased with it. I think it tells the story and I can't wait to combine it with Ciara's half. 

There are a few things that would had made it better, like for the brothers legs to move, but that was down to me really not understanding how to rig etc (both in the tutorial character and this character). I did however enjoy the process up to that, of creating the mesh and colouring him, I understood that fully and more so when I came creating my character. 

I was disapointed that the sky images i created hasn't renderd out in my half. but the dark sky still looks good with the lights (stars) Ciara put it. However I hope there it's a noticeable change when we put the two halfs together. 

I want to add text at the end, either 'round 2' or some credits, as there is nothing in the stall for them to play, and i think some text to cover that area might make that less noticable, as the audience would be reading the text.

I also enjoyed animating, and I think working for reference videos is extreemly important. it's important to get the pose correct, the timing correct, so that it flows nicely. I liked it because it's a lot like stop motion where you have a 3d character to work with and can simple drag it into place, something you can't do with stop motion however is play around with the key frames by going back, tweaking it a bit, spaceing out the key frames, previewing it there and then. So some aspects of it I really enjoyed doing, but sitting at the computer majority of the time, wasn't for me, maybe I didn't take enough breaks sometimes, so I prefer stop motion in that sense that it doesn't make me feel ill.

But over all, I learnt so much and felt like I know Maya a lot better as it scared me at first. In the work place I know I'd purely be creating the mesh or animating, as that's what I preferred to do the most.

Telling tales - animating

Final scene. This section was fairly quick to do, it shows the girl pointing to the next stall and the camera moving towards it.

I was justing going to have the girl in the frame, pointing over to the stall, but I though for her brother to turn and look too, would make it clearer that she's challenging him to round 2. 

I wanted the camera to travel in between the two characters as the both turned to look. 

At first the characters turned too quickly, especially the brother, so I moved all the actions along the timeline, to make the action happen a little later, and spaced out some actions to make them slower. 
the camera also travels through the brothers arms, but because I cannot animate his legs, to make him step to the side. I had to position him to the right slightly so he is stood out of the way of the cameras path.  

It's looking a lot better now, the camera flows between the characters nicely, and the characters speed isn't too fast.

As it zooms into the stall I think we should either have 'round 2' text or credits just to finish off the animation. This is something I have ask Ciara's opinion on. But it's probably something we'll look at on Monday when we put our animation halfs together.

Telling tales - animating

I have 11 seconds left to do and desided to split this up into 6 seconds and 5 seconds. For the first section of 5 seconds, I have the girl celebrating as she has got the ball through the hoop first try.In the story board we have the brother looking shocked, but as I've been doing the animation, I know the only way to make him express emotion is by head and arm movent. so a close up shot of him looking shock wouln't work. 

I combined the 3 sections in the storyboard, to have a wide shot of the girl celebrating and the brother's reaction, happing at the same time. But I soon learnt that I didn't have any more actions for the brother to do after he looks at his sister, with out him reapeating himself too much or just standing still, so I decided to split the scene into two section, with different camera angles.

I first of all got the girls dance right, this took me a lot of thinking about, and reference videos to do. Her arms would look wierd, they're rotate the wrong way when playing back, I couldn't get the timings right, so much was going wrong. Maya then crashed on me, and I lots 2 hours of work. but I saw this as an opportunity to go back the next day and start over with the dance, and lucky i had some playblast to work from.

I had orignailly cut the scene into 2 second and 4 seconds but this didn't cut nicely so I picked a frame where I thought it would (frame 60), did a playblast video to check it worked, I thought it did so I was then able to render out the two parts.

Telling Tales - animating

To Work out how to begin doing the slow motion throw. I looked back at the brothers throw and noted down the pose every 10 frames. The trow is aprox 2 second long, and I I have 9 seconds for this scene, some of which she will be preparing to throw and the ball traveling through the hoop. 
I times the frame number by 3 which means the trow (up to when the ball is just released) will last 150 frames, 6 seconds. 

I used the same reference video to create this throw but just spaced out the frames so that it was longer. 

When I was animating though, for some reason here arm would loop even though the key frames were set where it should have just moved across smoothly. 

It took me and Ciara a while to get this sorted, shifting key fames about, deleting some, adding some. we didn't know what the problem was, but when managed to fix it somehow.  

I changed the camera movement from going zooming through the hoop first, to zooming through, last. I thought it would be a lot clearer and nicer for the camera to follow the ball as she won the game. 

It took me a while to get the ball to match up with the hand, I did this by adding lots of frames in the right position, and also getting the camera to follow behind the ball, I did this through moving the camera further away from the girl, and slowing the movement down. I also made sur the the ball had a nice curve as it went through the hoop and then bounced off the stall to the ground, how it would realistically.

I don't like that you can't set the skeleton into position, here I rotated the joints so that she is holding the ball, but when rendered out the hand is flat. It really brings the animation down because she looks like the ball is just stuck to her hand. 




Ciara also noticed, that my sky in the rendered out videos is black. Not the background I had made which is blue with stars. For some reason, I can;t get the backgound to render out, Ciara said to put it as a surface shader, but it still ddidn't render out, I tired on another computer to do this but still couldn't, which is odd because me and Ciara both have the same files for mapping, but for me it won't render out.   

Green screen induction

In this session, we were taught how to get rid of the background of the images sequence we took last lesson.

I found this process quite easy to follow, and have enjoyed the induction.

To firstly get rid of the background, I used the tool 'key light' where you can select the colour you want to make invisible and it will try to select similar tones. you can use the 'clip black' and 'clip white' to adjust the range and make sure you have as little invisiblity on your subject as possible.

I then masked out the rest of the image I didn't want, carefully using the pen tool to go round the rocks. There is a section on the rock that has disappeared slightly, this is due to the blue lighting from the tv used last session, so it has effected the model.

 

 I the got a high quality background and put it into my composition. I put it in the corner to cover the rocks already in the image, and I think it looks good!

To take things further I wanted the model to look like it was in the water, and to do this I shrunk it down a little, flipped it, and use a seccond mask to get rid a a section of the model so that it would give the effect of being in the water.

I had to remember to subtract this, other wise it just reveal what you previously go rid off.

 

 

 

Telling tales - animating

In the next part of the animation I have the girl reaching for the ball and throwing it and catching it. I decided to do this in parts, one because I wanted to camera angles, and two becasue I wanted to get them both done that day, so didn't want the render time to be massive.

I spent the morning doing the first second of reaching. I did this from the girls point of view becuase I wanted a new interesting camera angle.

I put the playblast vidio with the other two scenes to see if it looked good, and I was happy with it. but when it came to rendering, the last few frames came out black. I thought I could maybe get away with what I had, but this was too fast, so I went back, adjusted the camera, as I thought it might be too close to the girl's head, and rendered again.




When I re rendered it this time it was fine, not sure what went wrong, but I got the images I needed.

I then got on with the second part of my scene 3, where the girl it throwing the ball in the air. I need add quite a few frames to make sure the ball was in her hand when needed. and used a refence video of me to make sure I got the timings right. Here it looks quite slow, so I decided to put the ball higher up so it fall quicker.
I also made sure her eyes and head were looking tin the right direction, and used different perspective points to help me get the ball and hand in the right posistion so it created a nice flowing movement. 




I now need to make the brother move in someway, I think I may get him to look bored and un interested in what  she's doing. 

again, I need to work on my timing, he moves too fast. I can fix this by deleting some frames and/or space them out. 

Telling tales - animating

noticed the character was a different map from Ciaras, just needed the right file.

Mat suggested that to make it clearer have something to knock over, for example coconut  or bottle, but as Ciara has already rendered out 20 odd seconds of her animation, it's d unfair to get her to change each scene.

For the next scene, we have the girl getting fed up with the brothers' poor attepts at throwing the ball and failing to get it though the hoop, that she pushes him out the way.

We filmed some reference videos, to help me with this interaction.

My character however, cannot move hist legs so I will have to just have her push his upper body back, and see how that looks without him actually stepping back and reacting like Ciara does in the vid. In the playblast here, I decided there needed to be more exageration, to make it clear what's happening.

I exaggerated his reaction, by making him look down at her hand and bringing his chest back to empasize he is being pushed, I then made him fold his arms to make him look unhappy about the sitiation. I showed this to Ciara and she was happy with it, she did think that the brother was wrapping his arms around the girl, but I showed her a playbast without the skeletons and she said it made more sence to her that he was folding his arms

Telling tales - animating

Because I struggled a bit with where to start in my first scene and then again with me seccond, I made sure I had a clear storyboard I can follow with enough notes to assist me through the process. 

I talked over my next scene with Ciara and we both liked the idea of a slow motion throw when it's the girls turn. this will be to exagerate her powerful through, and to make it clear that she gets it through the hoop. Going back to the scene in Despicable Me, I like the slow motion bit in there where the camera follows the ball, and I'd like to have a go at creating something like this.

This is what i have to hand now, it's got clear timings and I drew out a the different key stages of each scene so I know what to create, where to start, where to finish, so hopefully I should now beable to follow this perfectly.

Telling Tales - animating

I had a problem with Ciaras character as the right shoulder wouldn't move, we quickly fixed this though, by importing the character again into the scene and everything seems to be working fine. 

Beacuse I need more practice with timing, I calucualted the speed of which I wanted the girl to be tapping her hand, I wanted it to look as though when coming back towards her it would tap quicker. So I thought about the frames and for a smooth 1 second tap I'd set the hand out at 1fps, back in at 12fps and out again at 24fps. but becasue I wanted at quick tap, I se it to had out at 1fps, in at 6fps and then back out for 18 frames, and this worked nice. I've got a slow outward action and a quick inward. I need to keep rememberin ght e less frames the quicker the action.

 I them moved on to the eyes and head, making sur the characters were looking the right way.

I soon discovered that they eyes on my character dont move, so with him I just had to move his head to get him to be looking at the hoop.

Telling tales - final crit

I showed the animation I had created so far to my peers, they really liked how vibrant the characters and environment was and that it was a good start.

Things mentioned to make this work better were that, he could pause longer at the point of letting the ball go, to emphasise the action. All the bit at the end where he sighs and reaches for the next ball could be slower.

I took this feedback on board and with asking about how to animate better in maya and how to play blast and render out, my animation is looking a lot better.

I didn't pause too much on the throw as the action continues round for him to stand up. And I noticed that the ball looks as though it goes though the hoop so I adjusted this so that is clear that he misses.

I'm happier with the animation I have done now, it's near enough the right speed and I've also delayed the bit at the end where he sighs, because it was pointed out that this was too fast and unclear.

This was my animation before any feedback and help with using the program.

This is my animation after. 

Responsive - final outcome

These are my final outcomes of my quilled illustations for the short story 'Rhythm Hit' by Jean-Luc Bouchard

I really enjoyed the process of this, working to a set brief but working in a medium I enjoy working in. it was also great to beable to get feedback from both the company and the author as I think it's really important to communicate with them so you produce what they want.

telling tales - animating

I asked for some help, and Mat replied saying that to make it easier I should group the controls and create a button so it selects everything for when I set my frames.

This made things easier but I was still having difficulties, I've screen shotted my poses to show that when I play my animation the movements change. I'm not sure why this is so I will have to ask.

I created some sweeping camera angles that I like, but as I can't render anything out so I've just recorded the screen to show what I've done for the crit tomorrow, and hopefully I'll get feedback that can help me improve my animation.

I've got the hang of posing my character, I might need to go over the weigting again as there are some creases in some poses. But my main focus for the next 2 weeks is to concentrate on animating.

Telling tales - begining to animate

Firstly I printed Ciara's storyboard out and we went over more about what was happening. I added notes and tried to work out better timings and camera angles for my half of the animation, so I clearly understood what I was doing before I started. 

to help me animate I film myself throwing a ball, to get the motion and key frames to get the characters into the right possition.
I can pose the character, however when it comes to animate, I don't know what I'm doing. I've followed the steps, of moving the character into position, setting the frame with the controls still selected and then repeat.

For some reason when I play the scene, it changes from what I set, here I set the arm to a straight out position, when he's just letting go of the ball, but when playing it, his fore arm is tight against his upperarm?

I'm continuously trying to go back over this and fix it, but I get the same result, and it's not how I want it.
Also I cannot render out my scene as it says there's nothing to render?