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: Showreel And Professional Engagement
Filling In The Gaps For My 11 Second Club Animation – A New Taste
I went back to the animation later in the day and implemented and filled in a lot more of the animation including some camera angles. I noticed however there were quite a few errors occuring now with the rig and it prevented me from carrying out a lot of the ideas I had planned for the animation. With this I decided to create what I could using the controllers I could and decided to make some changes.
I created the crisp packet that would act as the turning point to the story and designed the texture for it within Adobe Photoshop. This went through a few changes in order to apply the correct view and understanding to the audience that I had had when thinking of this plan.
Finally, I batch rendered then moved all of the shots together into premiere and added the soundtrack in before exporting and uploading the animation.
For now I am happy with these results and feel it has broadened my range as an animator now that I have some experience with lip syncing. This 11 Second Club brief has been a great test of my skills and given me another example of 3D work to showcase to my portfolio. I may go back later on in the month to touch up on parts and improve the overall look of the animation but I have this product down now and can focus on other pieces of work again!
I have uploaded the stages of this creation as a video and it can be found here!
I have uploaded the rendered out and sound included animation and it can be found here called A New Taste!
Adding Lip Syncing To The Characters In My 11 Second Club Animation
Today I decided to work on my 11 Second Club scene some more and added in the lup syncing postitions to match up to the audio clip. I feel this was a hard section to pass as I had never done lip syncing before. I only touched on the lips and jaw and didn’t experiment with the teeth or tongue. I am going to carry out the keyframes for the rest of the animation and then go back and refine parts in correspondance with what needs to be added. A restriction I have uncovered is that one of my rigs has broken and the head has become detached, this disables me from moving the body and head in specific ways. It is an unfortunate issue to come accross but I am going to try my best and work around it if possible!
I have uploaded this lip syncing session as a video and you can find it here!
Personal Showreel Assistance
Today I attended a lecture which gave a lot of guidance toward the end of year showreel. We were shown a lot of examples and told a lot of different tips toward the creation of it. We then got taken over to a Padlet page and got asked to post our top 3 pieces of work that we would upload onto our showreel so far. We were also asked to place them in order of when they would show so that the lecturers could have an idea of what type of animation medium and area of expertise we would be targeting.
Here is the link to the Padlet!
Adding And Posing Characters Onto My Island Scene
Today I spent my time iplementing the characters onto my scene, I used a free rig provided by 11 second club called Eleven. This rig was able to be customized so it looked different when multiplied on a scene. I spent my first bit of time changing the rigs apart from each other so that they looked different. I then scaled them down to size and started to pose them for frame 1 of the clip. The character with the red top is going to be voice 1 and the other voice 2. I am following the crisp packet idea for this animation and the next time I attempt this I will key pose the characters for the whole animation. With this it will allow for a great idea and sove hevay progress into the final animatable piece.
I have uploaded the processes of todays activities and you can find the video here!
Below is an angle of the two characters at the initial frame where you can see what they are both doing.
Advancements To My 11 Second Club Environment
Today I went back to the environment for my 11 second club competition and I added the relevant changes that I had thought of and idealised about yesterday. I started off with the HELP written in pebbles, I created a sphere and transformed it into a unique shape. I then used this as a base for the rest of the pebbles where I transformed the original slightly and rotated it around so it differentiated from the original. I brough them all together and scruffily placed them to spell out the word HELP. I gathered a pebble texture and bump map from the website I spoke about yesterday and applied it onto the geometry of the rocks.
From here I moved over to the boat wreckage. I used a cube and transformed it around to get the base shape of the boat. I then gathered a wooden plank texture for this and messed around with the UV’s for a while to create a realistic texture onto this prop. With that done I decided to add some wood splinters around the island and wreckage to deepen the atmoshpere for the scene.
Finally, using the props I had made before I started to create a firepit, this consisted of pebbles surrounding some of the wood splints from the boat. This was to create a real stranded effect where the characters lost on the island would have to use all they can to survive.
With all of this completed and added onto my scene I rendered it out to have a look at how my whole environment looked together. I really liked what I saw and was glad with how it turned out. With this I was unsure of what else to add, I will also need to create and design that crisp packed called shipwreck. For more additions to the scene however I have had thoughts of adding some undergrowth around the trees with maybe some coconuts and sea/land creatures like starfish or crabs, etc.. I am leaving the scene over the weekend but when I pick it up again next week I feel I will spend 1 more day adding more props and design then just refine everything if needed just so I don’t overload the scene as the animation will be just as much character based also. I am still needing to consider the design for the characters and how I am going to perform the idea I have had for this animation.
I have also recorded all of these processes I have spoke about above and uploaded a video of it here!
Below you can see the render visual of the whole scene together!
Starting To Create My Scene For The 11 Second Club March Competition
Today I started to create an environment for the 11 second club march competition. The theme is a 11 second audio clib about a shipwreck and getting off an island so I created my theme around that but with the story I have thought of there is going to be a twist within.
My story idea is basically these 2 characters on this island, 1 will be eating a packet of crisps called ‘Shipwreck’ with the audio clip playing the characters will portray what is being said and the turning point will be the packet of crisps as it will stand my animation out to any normal ideas to the audio clip.
I started by creating the island and adding a basic maya ocean shader onto the scene this allowed for the feel of a vast ocean with a single island in the middle where my characters will act. From here I carried out some renders to see how it all looked and once happy I moved onto the skydome. The ocean shader wasn’t compatible with the Arnold renderer so I had to switch to a Maya renderer and use a sphere as the skydome holder. With this all set up I applied the textures and images I applied to the scene to see how it all looked. Finally, for today I created a palm tree trunk and used a duplicated version of it as the base for the leaves. I then transformed a cuble into a small pointy shape to act as the individual leaves. I then placed these all over the leaf base and had an individual branch. I duplicated this over the tree and then grouped it all together. I then copied the tree a few times over the island to fill it up.
I gathered my textures from a texture free site called TextureHaven and my skydome texture from another free image site called HDRIHaven. These sites are purely donation based and provide amazing realistic images and textures for people to use on projects free of charge!
My next ideas for this scene will be to add a small boat wreckage to one of the sides and include the words help written with small rocks. Finally I will include a campfire to fill up the scene well and build some history into the atmosphere with this all done it will be time to move onto the characters but that will be for another day!
Below I have contained a render from the day 1 progress for the environment for this animation! Along with that I have recorded all the processses I have spoke about above and you can find this video here!
Attending A Presentation Sharing Industry Insights From Flow Creative
Today I attended a talk/presentation from Flow Creative with Karl Doran (Founder and Creative Director) and Jordan Painter (Lead Animator). They gave great insights into their company and the work which they produce. We got shown a lot of pre-production examples of work that they have produced and I saw that it was quite similar to the work that I am producing for my pre-production. This was good because it showed me that what I am doing now is really relevant to how I could be producting work in the future. After showcasing their work they went onto a presentation about what they look for when hiring and things to look out for with portfolios and cv’s, etc. They shared extremely useful information and allowed for me to gain a greater grasp at how industry or them in particular look for in students or anyone applying to their company. It was again similar to what I had been taught in University and it was great seeing what I have learnt during my time match up to what the industry professionals were actually saying. Finally, they did a short Q&A session at the end of their talk and it answered more precise and targetted questions the audience had toward what they were saying and showing.
Overall I am extremely glad I attended this presentation it has given me great insights into industry life and techniques for work and for my future within Animation!
I have contained links below to their work!
Creating My Third Year Showreel
Today I spent my time creating my third year showreel for my time at university. I brought all of my best work into an asset folder and started to compile them together as short clips within my showreel video. I started and ended with my best pieces to draw the audiences attention in and keep them amused until the end. This time around I didn’t use title cards along the way and only had the opening card and ending card explaining what each part was. I also used some royalty free music downloaded from Bensound which fitted with the theme of the showreel well. a I am really glad I created this and am happy with how it has turned out!
I have uploaded the showreel and it can be found under this link here!
My Creative Learning Journey Creation
Today I started the task of My Creative Learning Journey, this consists of 20 experiences that I have had during study or my time at University. I decided firstly to create a powerpoint document and have them all listed on there after a title card. I compiled my chosen 20 things onto seperate slides with some visuals to correspond with the heading. With that I finally decided to add some bullet points onto the slide as well in order to fill up the empty space a bit. These related to what I would say about the slide if I was having to present the document. I did this for every page and implemented a Microsoft automatic design onto it also to finish off. At the end of it all I am really happy with how it turned out.
I also created an information sheet which expanded on the bullet points and acted sort of like a script that I would read through when presenting. I had included my own thoughts about the topic and experiences that I had gone through.
Below I have contained a screenshot of my powerpoint document so you can get an idea of how it looks like finished!