Stop Motion

In this process and production session we focused on stop motion using a webcam, a clamp stand and software called Dragon Frame which specialises in stop motion animation.

In a small group we used a small doll of a vampire to animate with and the first thing we did was experiment with the doll walking to get a feel and a idea of the distance the doll should move for every frame.




After we felt we got the timing right for our movement we moved on to experimenting with the doll falling and how this would look like in stop motion.







Next we wanted to try something different so we had the idea to experiment with facial expressions in stop motion. We used a number of drawings and stuck them to a stuffed basketball to create a character who appeared to go through the changing of feeling.

Finally we decided that we wanted to join the two together (the doll and the basketball) and have them interact with each other so we made the doll roll the basketball off the table.




What Did I learn?

The main aspect I learnt during this session was the software itself that we used for stop motion. I never knew about dragon frame before but now I am familiar with it and I think it is a pretty good program for this type of animation. Along the way we discussed stop motion as a profession and the technique professionals use using a green screen to get rid of props and equipment that they don't want in their movie.

Lip Synch in After Effects

This process and production session saw us using After Effects to create a system that easily applies different mouth and eyes shapes to a character to create a quick, accurate lip synch animation.

Preparation

The preparation for this session was already done for us and we used the work for After Effects but in the future the first thing to do is to create a character in Illustrator with their eyes and mouth on separate layers.

Setting up to animate

I started by opening After Effects and importing the Illustrator file of the character. I then opened the composition with all the layers for the mouth and made each mouth shape layer a second long before making them sequence layers (they don't overlap each other). I repeated this process with the eyes composition and then put both the eyes and mouth composition under one main composition.

After this I selected the mouth and eyes compositions and enabled time remapping which leads me to create a null layer and then I applied two slider controls for that layer, one for the eyes and one for the mouth. When this was done I matched each number on the slider with a layer from the compositions so for example the 2nd layer in the mouth composition was the shape of the mouth making a "E/I" shape so I applied that layer to the number 2 in the slider. I also did this for the other slider with the eyes composition. Even though the numbers on the sliders were now linked to the layers in each composition when you move the slider it didn't change the mouth or eyes shape on the character in the main view port, so to activate the sliders I had to click on the pick whip symbol next to the time remap effect on both compositions and drag my cursor to each of the sliders. Doing this creates an expression for the time remaps that allows the sliders to change the shapes in the main view port.

Animating

The After Effect's document is now set up to animate specifically lip synching. All I did now was analyse a audio file with speech and I put in markers on where I think the shape of the mouth changes. Then in After Effects I use these markers and my notes to select a mouth shape using the slider to quickly choose the right one for each frame.
  




What Did I learn?

During this session I learnt and realised that I can set up a basic system using After Effects to animate more quickly in the future. I learnt how to use time remapping and I learnt what it is used for, using a combination of the slider and time remapping I can quickly select and use layers to animate. 

After Effects Puppet Animation

In this session we concentrated on character animation in Adobe After Effects and experimented with different tools and techniques to set up a quick easy method to animate characters. We looked at making a 2D character walk from imported layers made in Illustrator. 

2D Walk Animation

The first thing I needed to do was to import the Illustrator file and make sure that each layer in the file were separate to each other, the reason for this was so I could move the layers individually within After Effects. It looked like this.

The next step is really important and crucial to making the body parts moving realistically. There is a tool called the pan behind tool and what this does is moves a symbol on each body part that is known as the central pivot which is what the object rotates around. Of course the central pivot is in the middle of all the objects so I had to move them in to the right place and the right place is where we would find a joint on a real body, e.g. the arms joint is at the top where the shoulder meets so this is where the central pivot will go.

After this I dragged each body part together to form the complete character  and then in the layer manager I made the body the parent layer for the other layers so now when I move the body the other layers will follow.

Using the walk sequence reference I rotated the left and right arm in to the correct position on the specific frames so when my character walks his arms will be swinging forwards then backwards. Next I needed to get the character to start bouncing up and down to create some realism to the movement so again on the right frames I slightly move the character up and then down.

Finally I needed to move the legs but it isn't as easy as rotating them into position because of the angle the foot and knee are in during the movement. So to enable more control over the legs I used the puppet tool which allows me to attach points to specific parts of the leg which I can then drag to move the knee or foot without moving the while leg. So now, on the right frames using my reference I rotated the leg but then also moved the knee and foot to create more fluidity in the movement.

What Did I Learn?

In the past I had a slight understanding on how to make a character in Illustrator and then animating in it After Effects but I didn't know the specifics to do it properly. I knew I needed to create each body part of my character in separate layers to import to After Effects but I didn't know about the pan behind tool to change the central pivot to make a character move properly. I also didn't understand how to use the puppet tool properly and that it is used to move more specific parts of a body part. Now however I am well aware of these tools and how to create and animate a character using Illustrator and After Effects. 

Curriculum Vitae

A CV is unique to an individual. There are rules to writing a CV but there is no wrong way to do it.

A CV should show your key characteristics because it is the thing people are looking for.

Characteristics

Name + contact details 

• Name
• Address 
• Mobile number 
• Email (Uni and personal) 
• Web page (Portfolio location) 
• Age
• DoB 
• Status (if single put this on, if not, don’t)

Education 

• Most recent result first (University of Huddersfield’s course, give date of graduation, GCSE only grades in english and maths), 6th Form/College (Only the courses not the grade).

• Skills: Computer literacy (Cinema 4D), Driving Licence etc.

• Work Experience - Short, couple of lines to show you are willing to work and you understand how working works.

• Hobbies and Interests - Keep this very brief, it shows that you have depth personally than just a plain person who needs money.

Referees 

The people who give you references from education and work backgrounds and you need to include this information about them.

• Name 
• Company 
• Position
• Address
• Telephone
• Email 
• Work Reference 
• academic reference 

Only use a maximum of 3 references and let the referee know you have used them.

What I Learnt and Summary

This lecture was about the basics of writing a CV including a brief explanation for giving each of the characteristics to employees. Before this lecture I understood what a CV was and knew what obvious information goes on a CV but I didn't know some of the other less obvious information that went on one. Now however I can use the information I have learnt to write my own successful CV.

Character Rigging

In this process and production session we looked at character rigging in Cinema 4D. Character rigging is basically a process that animates 3D models by using a built skeleton that can be controlled and moved using a feature called controllers that then is applied to the 3D model.


Building a Character Rig

The first step was to know how to build a character rig so to keep it really simple we built a rig just for a arm using a cylinder.

I started by adding a cylinder to my scene and then changed its shape and size to make it easy to work with. I went into the side view and then selected the joint tool and then I clicked in the centre of the cylinder at the top, in the middle and at the bottom. I now have created three joints for my arm the top is the shoulder, the bottom is the wrist and the middle is where the arm would bend at the elbow. The next step is to bind the arm with the joints so the movement of the joints also move the arm, to do this I selected the three joints and the cylinder and then went into the character features to click bind. Now I needed to make the cylinder bend like an arm does so I selected the first joint and the last joint and then in the character menu I clicked 'Create IK chain' so now the shape bends in the middle.

 

Loop Video: http://www.youtube.com/v/FS7RoenbwTA?version=3&loop=1&playlist=FS7RoenbwTA

The next step was to learn how to use the auto rigging feature in cinema 4D which is the easiest recommended way to build a character rig. We used a character mesh of the hulk so we could apply our built skeleton to a model. The first thing I did was go into the character menu and select character to bring up the tools of making a skeleton. Next I clicked build and selected the 'advanced biped' template and then clicked 'root' which is the start to a long tree of components that makes my skeleton. Now I build out starting with the spine so I click 'Spine (FK)' which gives me the option to create legs so I command click on the legs to create the right and the left leg at the same time. I then move on to the arms doing the same to create a left and right arm and then I command click on the 'thumb' and then the fingers four times which creates the left and right hand on top of the arms. After doing this I potentially have a complete skeleton.

Adjusting The Rig

Now I have a complete skeleton but its not lined up with my character model so the next step is to tediously move and match up the components with the right body parts on the model. This part of the character rig reminds me of dot to dot because each dot that makes up the skeleton has a name like left shoulder or right knee and it is just the case of moving them to the right position on the model. After I was happy with my skeleton and model alined up I clicked the bind tab in the character object menu and dragged and dropped the hulk mesh from the object menu into bind the space which connected the skeleton to my model.

Using The Character Rig To Animate

The final step now after having a character rig connected and in line with my model is to use the controllers of the skeleton to move each limb (which also affects the model) to create a pose for the frames in the timeline which played back will make my hulk model walk as the frames will be  displayed consecutively changing the pose of the hulk quickly creating the illusion that he is moving.

After clicking the animate tab in the character object menu white squares will appear around the model which are the controllers for each of the limbs of the model allowing me to move them freely. I simply click and drag these white squares to move the limbs but I preferred to move the attributes of the limbs instead because I found there are more options for example for the feet there were multiple options like 'heel lift' and 'ankle' so I could accurately move each part of the limb. After putting my hulk in the required poses on specific frames I made him walk.  

Loop Video: http://www.youtube.com/v/NRr3kv4P1yk?version=3&loop=1&playlist=NRr3kv4P1yk


What did I learn?

This session was another really helpful one for me because I feel confident now to animate a 3D model I create and have a basic understanding and knowledge on how to do it. Character rigging at first sight looks really complicated but it is simple enough after spending sometime with it.

Contracts in a Firm

In a company there are two types of contracts:

Client Side - A contract between you and who you are delivering for.

Employee Side - Contract between you and the people you hire.

Client Side

Duty of Contract

• Supply what the client is asking for (Give the client a format they are asking for e.g. animation or design).

• What does the client really ask for (Think about the concept and give the client an idea they are going to love.) 

• Ensure parameters are put in place (Make sure a system works for you and your client).

Duty of Care

• To look after the client and his concerns (Show that you really care about what the client is asking for and his vision). 

• Understand what the clients business is (You should have a clear understanding about who the client is and what their aim is as a business because this helps with the client realising that you are committed to his ideas). 

• Broader understanding of the economic environment. 

Employee Side

There is a lot of employment legislation but the main aim is to protect the employees from unfair actions and practices.

Duty of Care 

• Mental and physical care (To ensure staff are happy and consent with coming to work and are not bullied or harmed by other employers).

• Safe working environment (Staff need to be working in a healthy comfortable environment, e.g. comfortable chairs and heating).

• Procedures to resolve issues (Reasonable ways to solve any falling out between staff and problems that may persist with the job itself that make everyone happy).

• Clear job understanding (Understanding staff roles is crucial to helping them with their work when they might lose their way).

Employment Terminology 

• Sacked - You have been bad. stolen something. Thrown out of the firm.

• Dismissed - Neutral and depends on context. You have being let go on neither good or bad terms but that depends on the reason.

• Probation - Period of time you need to serve before you are permanent and have employment rights. Normally 1 year.

• Released - The firm has no further use for you so you are let go but leaving the job isn't seen as your fault.

• Redundant - A company can’t hold on to you because they might be going bankrupt or another factor could be affecting the business. This is normally seen as a good thing because you gain a statutory pay off.

• Resigned - You leave the job out of your free will.

Remedies

Problems arise that breach the contact so how do you deal with the situation.

    

A. Talk through the problem to understand the issue to then make a plan to solve the issue. This works most of the time.

B. Take the problem through a legal procedure (court) to solve it.

What Did I Learn and Summary

This lecture was about understanding the use for contracts and why they are needed within a company. Before the lecture I knew what a contract was but I didn't know what the specific rules were between employee and employer, but I now know what those rules are and that they are used to prevent people taking advantage of one another in the work place. I have also learnt the different situations that occur for someone to leave a job and what they are called. 

Finance Sheets

A finance sheets is simply a piece of paper that people can use to keep track of payments within a company or project. 

Project Costs

Keep a separate finance sheet for projects because this will be used to add up the total cost the client will have to pay for a finished project. Below are examples of costs within a project.

• Design - Which consists of things like: paper, pens, pencils, rubbers, ink, travelling to the client, photography etc.

• Production - Presenting the finished design to the public.

• Staff Time - People need paying who were involved with the development of the project.

• Total Costs - All the costs above are shown as a total amount.

• Clients Total - This will be the overall amount that the client owns to the company.

Company Financials

A company needs to keep financial sheets to track all the expenses that happens within the company. Below are examples of things that company will have to pay for.

• General Liability insurances - Protects when people sue the company for injury.

• Professional Indemnity Insurance - Protects companies getting sued because their designs have injured someone or does something it wasn’t advertised for.

• Company services like phone lines and broadband.

• Staff costs.

• Building repairs.

• Equipment Depreciation - Replacing equipment when it breaks like computers and printers. 

• Loan Interest.

• Total costs - Only for the company not the projects they do.

Staff Costs

A company will have to plan and track what they pay their staff so they can ensure they can keep paying a consistent amount for them without going bankrupt.

• Pension - Money people can retire on. It is in everyones payment even if it is 1 or 2% that adds up over the years.

• Gross Pay - The amount of money the staff get from their salary after tax and other deductions.

• National Insurance - An amount that is deducted from employers pay that entitles them to certain benefits.

Cash Flow

Keeping track of all the money coming out of the company and coming in. Below are examples of the total costs the company need to keep track of.

• Staff Costs - Overall payment towards people working there.

• Projects Cost - Overall payment towards the cost for projects the company gets involved in.

• Total Costs - Overall cost for the company (total money coming out).

• Project Income - Overall project income from multiple projects in that month.

• Other Income - Overall income from other clients.

• Total Income - Overall amount coming in to the company.

• Income Less Costs (Profit/Lost) - The overall profit or loss of money.

What Did I Learn and Summary

This lecture was to inform us about finance sheets and how helpful and vital they can be towards the process of organisation that allows people to stay on top of finances. I have learnt that finance sheets are more important than I thought and companies need to pay attention to this information to avoid sudden bankruptcy. Another thing I learnt that the most common means of companies going bankrupt is the lack of attention to cash flow because companies find themselves paying money out here and there expecting a payment from another specific job they do that might not happen or go wrong. 

Storyboard (Live Brief Project)

Old Storyboard

This is the storyboard for my first idea but after speaking with one of my tutors I decided I needed to do some research to come up with a more feasible idea and at the same time I needed to think about camera angles and shots of the scene. This storyboard was drawn as if it was going to be made as a 2D animation which was not my intention as I wanted to make a 3D animation.

Feedback: If you want to do 3D you will need to think about camera angles and shots and use them to tell the story you want to tell.

I will be analysing a storyboard from a popular video game so I can understand the techniques video game animators use to help them tell a story or help them plan to tell a story before animating. I will also be analysing some public information animations that I find are similar to my project brief. I hope to learn from these storyboards and videos to  be able to use different camera shots and techniques to show different camera movements. Another point I will be looking at is all the aspects within the animations that tell the story, example depending on the story what do they show first? is it a close up or a wide shot? what is the last thing they show you and why? After learning this I will apply it to my ideas and storyboards to tell a story.

Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception Game Trailer (Research)

This is a brief storyboard for the trailer of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception which came out on the Playstation 3 developed by Naughty Dog in 2011. First of all what I can see from a glance overview of the storyboard is a simple one line description under every frame that describes the camera movement, what is in the scene and/or what a character is doing in a scene. From this I can understand that not a lot of detail is needed for these frames just a short description that lets the animator know exactly what needs to happen in the scene.

Next are the red arrows used in the storyboard these help explain the one line descriptions with movements, for example "the camera dollies right past the land rover" there is a red arrow in the frame that points in the direction the camera should move in the animation. An example that shows an action is moving in a scene is the "figure reaches into frame and grabs gun from sand"where the red arrow points down from a angle showing where the arm will come from and its direction. The red arrows are a very simple but very strong sign that represents the movement in the scene.

The drawings in the frames are very well sketched and clear to anyone even if they haven't seen the finished trailer. Through practice my drawing in time will improve but at the moment if my sketches are clear enough I won't have to worry too much on their execution.




This is the reveal trailer for the storyboard I refer to above and as it is a reveal trailer the animation chooses to slowly show more of the main characters surroundings to create an interest and suspense of the story and the game's title. 

The beginning of the trailer starts with the camera drifting across a table of artefacts, clues and maps just like the storyboard described. This is a part of the slow reveal because it generates a lot of questions first of all fans of the Uncharted series would have been curious about if this is the next Uncharted game because the title of the game isn't revealed until near the end but the artefacts next to the guns suggests to gamers that its the sign of the character Nathan Drake and his adventures. People who aren't familiar wight he Uncharted series will be asking themselves a ton of questions at this point, What game is this? How do the artefacts and maps tie into the story? There is a map of Arabia so what does Arabia have to do with anything? What is the threat to the potential characters in this game if they need to have guns? All these questions are created from the first 30 seconds of the animation and the animators have barely revealed anything about their game yet, this is very important to maintaining a audience making people wanting to know more. The shot itself was intentionally supposed to be a close up so all the items on the table can be identified meaning they have significance towards the story. Alternatively Naughty Dog could have done a wide shot of the table showing items of the table that could be recognised as maps and artefacts but not showing any of the detail and this wouldn't have given the audience much to go on and wouldn't be able to ask questions which overall would make them lose interest.

The next scene we get is a close up of someones legs walking in a desert with hints of fire burning so now we wonder even more about what is going on and who this person is walking through the desert. The next shot is a wide shot of the whole character walking from a shadow out into the sun so we can make out that it is Nathan Drake we are seeing but now we are wondering what is making this giant shadow out in the middle of the desert? And why is Nathan Drake out there? This wide shot is used to reveal more of the surrounding area to give us more questions to ask but our view of the situation is still limited. Next we get a close up of Nathan Drake which shows us like the other Uncharted games that this is yet again out main character because he is the camera's main focus. Then the shot changes yet again but now the camera's main focus is a AK47 assault rifle that is sticking out of the sand which tells us that our main character has some type of enemy, during the same shot Nathan pulls the assault rifle from the sand but we see that a hand of a corpse still has grasp on the weapon while they are buried under the sand and this suggests that the main character was in some kind of battle. Now the surrounding has opened up to us bit more but we still don't have a complete overview of the situation as a whole.

The next two shots put everything into the fray. We see Nathan walking away from the camera with his assault rifle walking up a sand dune and at the same time the camera pans right until it reveals a destroyed car. This technique of slowly panning the camera in to view of the car is very good in the sense of keeping the curiosity and suspense for the audience until the very last second, it has being doing this slow reveal all video and even when it comes to the scene it still continues to keep us on the edge of our seat. Finally we get the grand reveal and starts with a close up of Nathan and behind him there is a glimpse of a huge wreck then we get a shot from behind Nathan so we can see what he sees which is the open desert stretching for miles, he starts walking while the camera zooms out to an extreme wide shot of Nathan where we can see a huge plane wreck surrounded by wrecked cars. At last we can see Nathan's situation where he is stranded in a desert because he was involved in a fight that took down the plane (his transport) that was also for some reason transporting military vehicles.

The analisis of this trailer shows how important the planning of camera shots and movements are for telling a story. Without the camera shots and movements I described the audience wouldn't understand that Nathan Drake would be the main character because without any close ups of him and one continuous camera angle would suggest that he is a side character. Another thing that would be unclear is the importance of the open ended desert and wrecked vehicles to the game's story because it wouldn't have been hidden and then revealed at the end which shows that it has a major impact and instead it would have been visible from the very beginning allowing it not to have any significance.  

 Joe and Petunia - Coast Guard Public Information Animation 

 


This is a public awareness video published in 1968 which explains what a person must do if they see someone at risk in the ocean. The animation is fairly simple in the sense of it stays in one place so the animator could save a lot of time by only having a couple of environments to draw. I should definitely take this into consideration and try to tell a story with as little scenes as I can to ensure I can finish my animation in good time. The story the video tells is also simple but effective, it simply shows a couple sat on a cliff enjoying the seaside and watching the sea to spot a man on a sailing boat struggling with the rough waves. The couple think that the man is having fun in the waves and mistake his scream for help as a hello, but thanks to the binoculars they realise that they need to call the coast guard. To set the scene at the start of the animation the video shows the man in his boat struggling in the sea and then it zooms in to the cliffs behind him where we see the couple sat on the cliff, the reason the camera zooms in to the cliff instead of a simple cut transition is because the zoom makes it clear where the couple are from the sailors position while a straight cut would have possibly confused viewers. When the characters look through the binoculars we see a shot of the sailing boat close up but through the shape of the binoculars themselves, this is a good technique to use because it helps us see what the character sees allowing us to understand why they perceive the situation as they do. While the couple talk through the video there is only one time we get a close up of one of the characters and it is Joe when he is specifically shouting at the sailor. There could be a number of reasons why the animator chose do this. The first could be that this part of the video is really important so the animator wanted to make this more obvious, another reason could be that the animator found what Joe shouts funny so they want a close up to emphasise this, or they wanted to make it obvious that Joe was now communicating with the sailor. Personally I think the animator was making it clear that Joe was communicating with the sailor because the next shot is the a close up of the sailor replying. When I plan my animations I also need to think about what I want to make obvious in a shot depending on what I want my story to be about.        

Storyboard

This is my final storyboard for this project. After researching in to storyboards from one of my favourite video games, analysing the reveal trailer from the game and also analysing the shots used in a public information commercial I came up with my own creative process for a storyboard and one I can confidently work with. The style of the storyboard is heavily inspired by the storyboard use in Uncharted 3 but I found it really easy to follow and I could understand the direction of the animators vision. Also the storyboard is very simple but at the same time gives you all the information you need to animate in a clear format.