Animation Development

The Words 

I created the words for my animation with the text object combined with the extrude tool to make them a 3D object. To animate the words “Wellness” and “Illness” I changed their position and size through out the timeline so they could squash and stretch when they jumped and were landed on.

Health Care Centre 

The building was simply made from a cube with a brick material applied to it. The

windows and the door were also made with the cube object while the door knob was made from a sphere. Finally the plus above the door was made from two cubes that were stretched and then crossed over each other. 

Medication 

The bottle of pills and their lids were made from the cylinder object with the lids just placed on top of the bottle. The labels on the bottles were made with the plane object that I bent outwards so they could wrap around the object. Finally the pills were created from the pill object which was already the shape I needed.

The Railway

The tracks were also made with cubes. The wood in the middle started from a cube which I flattened down and the metal that connects it together I stretched as long as the tracks needed to be. I only created part of the track and then I duplicated that as a group object adding it at the end of the track until it was the length I needed it to be.

Final Animatic

This is my detailed animatic for the live brief project where I had the task of creating a visual for a speech written by the NHS.

Live Brief Project Animation from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

This has being my best project so far because I have learnt a lot and I have found a creative process that I can work with. At the start of the project I received feedback to do some research on the use of camera shots as at the time I was struggling to present my vision. At the same time I decided to do research on storyboards as well because the storyboards I was producing were hard to follow. After committing this research I finished my storyboard that showed the camera angles I was going to use which helped me hugely when making the animation. During the production of my animation I modelled a mine cart and this process taught me a lot about modelling in 3D and it was something I really enjoyed. Overall I am really happy with this outcome and its development, it has changed my approach to a project and revealed a creative process that makes me confident at what I do.

Mine Cart Experiment

I have a couple of ideas for my project that gives me the task of creating a animation for the speech "More Than a Pill" by the NHS. Both ideas I have involve a mine cart: the first idea uses the mine cart as the main object that travels through time while around it the term "wellbeing" evolves from medication and physical health to a more focus around mental health and people co-operating with each other, eventually the mine cart becomes a more modern use of transportation. My second idea is to use the mine cart for a small part of the animation that mentions how people need to work together, where the mine cart picks people up as it passes them. Another Idea I have decided to stick with is to use the mine cart as a simple reason to move the camera through my scene. I feel my animation will lack content panning the camera across an empty space to get to the next scene so I will use the mine cart that camera can focus on until it reaches the next main scene.

My animation will be in 3D using the software Cinema 4D. I have done research on mine carts looking at images of mine carts in real life and animated mine carts other people have used in their projects.

I used the images as references to come up with my own style and design for a mine cart. After studying the images above I came up with three different ideas and sketches below.

The mine cart represents the incident that happened in Wales between the 1920s and 1944 that signifies what the NHS stand for today. I also wanted it to represent a mine cart adults would have seen in cartoons during their child hood but also entertaining for the younger generation today. Because of this I chose the wood and steel hybrid mine cart as it would be something you find in a wacky children's cartoon and at the same time looks old fashioned.

The next step was to redraw my sketch on a computer so I could use a JPEG reference within Cinema 4D which helps with shaping and sizing the model during the modelling stage.

Now with the final sketch of the front and side view of my mine cart I had the task of applying them to plane objects in Cinema 4D as materials. This would allow me to position the drawings along the correct axis in a 3D environment so I could use them as a reference.

My references were now in place and I could start modelling. I used a cube as the main object for the mine cart and then I used the 4 corners of the face that was underneath the cube to inner extrude a leg for the frame underneath the mine cart.

Next I started to experiment with some materials to apply to my mine cart. The bolts on the frame of the cart I wanted to be a light steel colour but for them to look slightly worn, so I applied a slight reflection to them as then the bolts look scraped and lost their shine. The rest of the mine cart I wanted a darker colour aiming towards iron and again I applied a slight reflection to show it has being worn. The wooden material in the middle I kept changing because I wasn't satisfied with the appearance of the texture but I know I wanted it to be a lighter tone. Inside of the mine cart I used a different tone of wood a darker colour because I wanted to emphasise on the lack of light that the inside wouldn't get.

After I had an idea of what materials I wanted, I made the wheels for my mine cart and lined the focus point with the middle of the objects so when they rotate to roll they stay in one spot.  Finally to finish the model I used multiple spheres and the Boole object to create a bulb that sits in iron casing that acts as the mine carts headlights. The spheres inside the case I applied a yellow material to that makes use of the glow feature so it acts as a light.

My mine cart model is now complete and I wanted to experiment with it moving on a rail road. I created the rail tracks and sat the mine cart at the end before sliding it to the other end of the tracks on the timeline while also rotating each wheel to give it the illusion the wheels were moving the cart.

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.

Magic Light Experiment

This experiment is based on a scene in my idea for the live brief project. In the speech from my brief Natalie says "I am saying that we have the power to support each other to live well" so I had the idea of a person passing a beam of magic light between three other people that represents the 'power' that people use to support each other.

Research and Reference

My style for the idea is similar to a video game render so I looked in to how spells are presented and used in video games. Skyrim is a RPG that was released in 2011 for the PS3 and XBOX 360 and I studied some of the many materials, lighting and textures they used for the spells from the players inventory.

I wanted a light blue colour for my magic beam but I wanted the reference to focus and represent a light source so I chose the spell 'Candle light' because I thought it best fit my idea visually so I used it as my reference.

Experimenting with Materials in Cinema 4D

I started in Cinema 4D with a floor and wall in the background and light hanging above this is so you can see the scene in the render. I then used a basic sphere so I had something to apply my material to, so I could see what it would look like. I chose a sphere because I needed to see my object as a ball of light to accurately calculate the glow and the distance of the glow.  In the materials manager I focused on the colour, the glow, the reflectance, the luminance and the transparency to get to the material I have below.

Making the animation

I started by adding 4 figures to my scene which will act like place holders for my characters during the experiment. Next I resized the ball of light and its position in front of the main figure and then moved its position slightly throughout the timeline, this will simulate that the magic power is building up before blasting towards the other figures. Next I applied the light material to the main figure to show that he is infected or contains the power. Then I created another three spheres, applied the material to each of them and then reshaped them to be long and thin enough to reach between the main figure and the other figures. Finally on the timeline at the right moment I hide the spheres until they need to appear and then I made them grow very quickly to simulate that the magic light is coming from the main figures to hit the other figures. Then after the figures were hit I also applied the material to them to show that they were now infected or contained the power.

   

My Chosen Brief (Live Brief Project)

This studio project sees us choosing a brief to develop ideas for from the list of briefs on the YCN's student awards website and another list on the royal college of art (RCA) website.

After looking through both websites of briefs I have decided to go with the brief called 'Motion Picture' on the RCA website. The brief wants me to choose one speech between two and then make a animation to create a visualisation that goes with it. I have chosen the speech made for the NHS that is designed to make people think about the definition of 'health'. 


NHS's Speech

My first impression and initial ideas after reading the speech for the first time was I wanted to include a scene where people are gathering more people to create a community and show them helping each other, mainly because the points Nathalie make resolve heavily around people coming together to support each other.

Wales between 1920 - 1944

In the 1920s depression hit Wales resulting in wages being cut and mines closing. Before the NHS, health care was aimed at families who were wealthy and were living in the upper class of society and because of the wage cuts people in the lower class couldn't afford any health care. The majority of people in the lower class society worked in the mines a huge cause for illness and sickness for workers but now because of wage cuts they couldn't afford the medical attention they needed. In 1944 the minister of health Aneurin Bevan saw that something must be done as he also worked in the mines before being elected into parliament so he forced through legalisation to provide health care for people in citizenship instead of their class and wealth.  

This was one of the first signs of what the NHS stands for today and I would like to represent this as a mine cart in my final animation.

What Style? (Live Brief Project)

Feedback: You need to start looking into different styles of animation you are interested in and decide on one you want to approach. During your projects you can tweak the details in the style to suit it to the brief. You can also use the research and chosen style to put into the development of the project. 

I am interested in a particular 3D style and I want to experiment with it in my projects to develop my own style similar to this one. 

The 3D style I am interested in is a part of the toon and sketches styles, A realistic style to some extent but can over exaggerate using bright colours. My chosen style falls in-between the line of realistic photograph animations and cartoony animations this is the style video games tend to use.