Today I checked all the handin and submission areas on Blackboard to check if I had all my work ready so far for submission. I am glad that I did this as I noticed there was a few requirements that I hadn’t matched or reached yet. These consisted of certain file extensions such as converting into a .PDF or .mp4 or A3 for my poster for example. Once sifted through my work to convert these over to the right submission format I am glad I did this now and not on handin day as it gave me enough time to think about what I was doing. I can imagine if I was in a rush I would be more suceptible to mistakes and maybe handing in a piece of work wrong. Overall, I am really happy I did this now and got all of my work ready for submission!
Category: Making Of – Negotiated Project
Negotiated Project Evaluation
The Negotiated Project module has given me an insight into the animation industry way of working, along with this it has allowed me to test myself and learn the full production of an 3D animation movie.
Starting off right at the beginning brainstorming was the birth of everything created for this module. Coming up with different ideas and testing them against my skillset and capabilities allowed me to narrow down thoughts and pinpoint what I could create. Next came the initial designs where I visualised on paper what I wanted to create and my ideas towards the characters and scene.
The first presentation came with the mini pitch where I presented my idea to my course mates to see if anyone was interested in helping. Unfortunately for me no one from my year joined my group so I was left alone working on my idea. I had thoughts of joining another 3D group as I knew my workload would be high, but I decided against it as I wanted to see how far my idea could go.
My next developments came with re-creating my drawn visualisations onto the 3D software ‘Autodesk Maya’. This section was one of the hardest as I had to model and rig the characters I had though up. Nearly giving up again I powered through the character stage and managed to complete a working character. Creating my initial animatic with this composing of screenshots from within the software the scene and characters were very basic at this point.
Moving on I redeveloped my character to a higher standard as my skills in rigging had improved since the first edition. I created a much cleaner design and started to individualise the characters from each other. I also reached out to a sound design student to gather a music track and the effects for this animation.
Alongside this in the background I was constantly working on my audience facing project company called ‘Tier Z Creations’. This consisted of social media sites where I showed off sections of my work progression. This ran alongside my production bible where I filled in the relevant sections of design as I progressed forward.
After the Christmas Holidays there was another chance to present to the second-year animation students. I nearly brushed this off as I thought I could handle the work on my own from now. I decided against this in the end as I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to take. Thankfully, I did as 5 students joined me with the project.
From here I re-created my animatic and showed differed 3D production stages throughout so that the audience could see the progression. I came back to this later and added the title cards and some sound that I had received for my project.
Writing the briefs for the students was a new experience for me as I had never done this before. I set 2 of them off with a short animation task. 1 would help edit, another 1 would create the title cards for me and the final 1 student would assist in creating props for the scene.
They finished their work at different intervals, so I added their changes and updates once received, and once I had everything back it was time to animate the final piece.
I had to enter a super organised mindset for this next section as it required multiple Maya files and assets. I segregated my scenes from each other and set up the different Maya files ready to animate on. The environment on each of these scenes changed as the camera angles were different and certain props weren’t needed. This helped with the size management of the documents.
When animating an issue, I ran into a lot was that Maya crashed and I lost a good amount of my work and time, so I had to always remind myself and remember to save quite often to prevent this from happening.
Rendering took a long time but thankfully it all got done without any issues. Finally, editing the scene together with the different clips and title cards and music seemed quite easy in comparison to what I have been through with this module.
The teaser trailer was the final part to complete and this had all the titles that were provided by one of my second-year assistants, along with clips from the full animation. This task was carried out by another one of my second-year assistants. It was all brought together in a typical trailer format along with a section of the soundtrack for the animation. To change the audio a little so the audience could differentiate the trailer to the full animation I chose a section of it from the middle of the animation and slowed it down to about 60%-70% to change how the audio played. After exporting it and playing it back I feel as though it works well and captures the effect for the trailer which I was looking for.
This module has taught me so much and allowed me to build up my presentation skills alongside getting used to working with other years and courses within the University. Sticking to my plan and continuing to work on my project gave me a higher workload but it was all worth it once completed. The introduction to managing a group was an incredible experience and I am glad that interest was shown in my project.
Music For The Confounding Contest
Today I received the final music piece for my animation best on the test scenes and animatics that I had handed to my sound designer. I don’t have a strong grasp on how to use sound and they decided to remove sound effects as they felt it would distract the audience from the track and what was happening on screen. I agreed and the music was used to amplify the animation! I am really happy with how it turned out in the end and I am so glad that I reached out to a sound design artist at the University instead of trying to find royalty free works online, I feel as though it has boosted my project immensely!
Animating The Second Part Of Scene 2 For The Confounding Contest
Today I recieved the work back from my second years as it was the deadline day. I gathered all of the running loop animations I had ready for me and placed them all into a seperate folder titled ‘Runs’. With this folder I opened up my ready to go Maya scene which had all of the characters in their poses from the first part of the scene. From here I placed the running loop versions in their places. I made sure to extend the scene to 1000 frames as this section was going to be 40 seconds long.
From here I copied the running loops across the whole timeline so that the characters were constantly running throughout the whole section. I moved over to Zobbol and Zooma next and placed their keyframes around the course at different intervals as they were going to be running at a constant pace throughout. With those 2 finished I moved over to the main characters and started to place their keyframes accordingly.
Using my full animatic as guidance I added the specific camera angles and character interaction throughout the scene. I also added new shots which I thought would pick up the race well and effectively. My final addition onto this scene was a slow motion shot as the characters passed over the finish line in tandem. This amplified the effect of them finishing neck and neck and the effort that they were both putting in. Afterwards we see them run out of the stadium to where it meets onto my scene 3.
A little error during this work session was that Maya crashed again and I hadn’t saved in abotu 15 minutes so all of that work was lost and I had to recreate it. All this did was remind me that I needed to save often when animating large and long sequences within this software. Finally, I rendered the scene out and placed the individual shots into a Premiere file where the scene was made into a movie file.
Overall I am really happy with how this scene section turned out, I was dredding doing it as I knew it was going to be one of the hardest and most time consuming parts to carry out but thankfully I completed it with little to no errors occurring for me.
Animating Scene 3 For The Confounding Contest
Today I decided to animate my scene 3 for The Confounding Contest, this again was one of the easier scenes to accomplish. All it contained was a static camera and the 2 characters ‘Zang and Zito’ running off into the distance. I used one of my second years run cycle as reference and created character runs for these two. Using a loop format I was able to copy the keyframes over for a continuous movement across the ground once I had set the final resting place of the master control. This would create the illusion of them running away into the distance before disapearing into the fog. Finally, this scene lasted for 15 seconds as it allows for a realistic movement speed to reach the end of the custom environment I built without it all looking too fast.
I batch rendered the scene and placed it into a premiere file where I ordered ewach frame by name and then created a clip from them all which allowed my completed scene 3 to be played back nicely and in a good quality in which I desired.
Creating An Animatic With Sounds And Titles
Today I decided to update my animatic with all the new assets I had attained. These included the titles I had created for me from my second year helper along with some music that I had customly made for the animation. I used the previous full animatic video file as the base and implemented the ‘Tier Z Creations’ opening title just before the video atarted. I then moved over the sound which I had finished for me which was a section of the scene 1 and multiplied it once so that it covered the entirety of the first scene. Although this wasn’t the full music it was everything I had so far as my sound and music designer couldn’t work over the holidays. The animation ended and I implemented the credits card I had made for me also, this time I used the music clip slowed down so it covered the whole section of the credits.
The sound and music that was missing was going to be finished very soon so I wasn’t worried about not having it for the final piece but it was just a shame I couldn’t add it to this animatic.
I have uploaded this animatic and you can find it under this link here!
Updating The Confounding Contest Making Of Video
Today I decided to update the Making Of Video for my project with all the new and relevant information that I had completed through the production. The stages I decided to add were a section called: ‘Implementing Changes’, ‘Animating’ and ‘Editing and Sound’. With all of these new headings I beefed up the overall video more to about 7 minutes. The information contained talks about processes through editing a rendered sequence together, how I am animating the project and changes added due to the help from second years students. This information had fit in nicely to the video and has allowed for a great indepth and informative piece for any audience who are interested and want to see how The Confounding Contest was made!
Animating Scene 1 And The Beginning Of Scene 2 For The Confounding Contest
Today I came back to work from having a break where I was unsure what I could complete. I decided to carry out as much of the animation as I could, this consisted of the parts which weren’t going to be handed into me by the second years who were helping me with the run cycles. I planned earlier on that the whole of scene 1 and the beginning of scene 2 in preparation for the race had no runs within so that it is what I decided to spend my time on.
I started on with scene 1, this consisted of the same camera movements as I had done with my pre-visual but with the updated props and characters. I keyframed everything and brought the characters in not thinking anything about it other than scene 1 can be completed within 1 Maya file. Unfortunatley, the characters were insanely big on the scene and I couldn’t transform them without deforming the rig entirely. Firstly, I saved and paused at a point where the camera just missed seeing the characters. This was so I didn’t have to start the whole scene again and could just carry on from the point I had got up to. Copying the file and opening it again I was able to enlarge everything from there, the only tricky part was to match up the camera again perfectly or as close as I could with the previous shot. Once done I brought the characters in who were perfect size for the scene now and I was able to animate them in a loop doing different stretches and movements as the camera zoomed down on them from above.
For scene 2 I matched the camera and characters up with the previous shot in scene 1, I then moved the camera to be eye level with them all. I cut again to focus on one of the Zorbes then had the camera pan across them all to see how they were preparing. Once at the end it flicked back to the middle to focus on the red ‘Zang’ and the blue ‘Zito’. With these two in the middle of the frame I was able to act out their conflict in preparation to the race. I started with the direction they were facing so it matched up with how I wanted the timings to go. I then moved onto the arms then facial features. Before today I was always planning on having one imitate the other but I decided to go with one trying to wind up the other. I believe this was a much better way to trigger the conflict as it was more believable and it allowed for some interaction between them.
With this all done I saved the scene and moved over to prepare the next scenes for animating. I have scene 2-2 and scene 3 to prepare. Scene 2-2 was just the end of scene 2-1 so I moved the keyframes for that so they were all placed on 0 and had an empty timeline to work on. With scene 3 I just dragged the characters which were going to be involved and placed them at the exit of the arena as a placeholder for when I start to animate that final scene.
Next all I have to do for these completed scenes is batch render all of the seperate key frames and then bring together within Premiere to get the video of that selected scene and section. This will take a long time however as there is a lot of keyframes to render and each one takes about a minute to complete. I will also need to complete scene 2-2 and scene 3, I feel as though scene 2-2 will be one of the hardest to do as it contains a lot of new techniques within animating that I haven’t used before. I feel as though today had given me a strong checkpoint within my work to reach and allows my mind to relax now that I know what is left to complete!
Here is a production still which I took during my creation today and it is found in the preparation to the race found in scene 2. I have titled it ‘Anger Sparks’ and the image below matches its name perfectly!
Preparing A Feedback Sheet For My Assistants
Today I also prepared my feedback sheet for my assistants helping me on the project. This was so once they had finished I could just fill out the relevant information which was specialised about them and the work they had produced. Completing this short task has allowed me to feel a lot more ontop of my work and prepared for when the time comes to actually fill out these documents for my helpers. It contained what their role in the production was along with what they had to create for me. And then a section about the quality of what they had produced and how it could be improved along with some thanks for their help overall!
Updating My Media Facing Website And Social Sites
Today I spent my time working on updating my social media with more up to date work and updating my website with more pages and additional relevant information. It had been a while since I had last visited these and they were still at the quite early pre-production stages. I went over all the work I had done and picked out the most standing out pieces that would fit well onto my media sites. I added 2 new instagram posts one consisting of the posters and the other including environment building and characters. My websites new pages were all about behind the scenes I added my early animatic, animation tests, images and styles. These all fitted in well and managed to update my site to the most current work for any audience looking in. Finally, I added some template sections which are going to be updated once the work has been completed. I previewed my site on desktop and mobile and tweaked the relevant areas that had messed up during the switch.
I am really happy that I have done this as it allows for me to keep updated as a project for any audience looking in, after looking at what I have done now it isn’t that far away from the final animation piece!
Below are my Tier Z Creations links:
Animation Blog 