I have sketched out my first storyboard. It was the first idea that came in to my head.
My commercial idea was to create a popup style animation. The idea was to use an italian resturaunt menu and use it as a prop. The story starts off with a menu which is then being open by two hands. When the menu is open a vesp will popup. Then the menu is closed again. Following the given audio for the commercial, the menu will open up again and pop out cbt certificate along with vespa acsessories. Then the menu will close again and be opened up as a laptop revealing the food networks logo and the website address.
I will continue my project by setting up a draft of my commercial idea.
I have decided to change my storyboard because i have been looking for tutorials to gain inspiration and i have come across on for after effects.
I have sketched out my first storyboard. It was the first idea that came in to my head.
My commercial idea was to create a popup style animation. The idea was to use an italian resturaunt menu and use it as a prop. The story starts off with a menu which is then being open by two hands. When the menu is open a vesp will popup. Then the menu is closed again. Following the given audio for the commercial, the menu will open up again and pop out cbt certificate along with vespa acsessories. Then the menu will close again and be opened up as a laptop revealing the food networks logo and the website address.
I will continue my project by setting up a draft of my commercial idea.
I have started a new module which is called Business Animation. We wwere all given a brief which was about creating commercials for a ‘food network’ company. The breif contained a list of threee different commercial ideas which gave a little description about what they are. The list was:
Italian Month
Sugar Rush Sundays
Street Food.
‘ I have chosen to do Italian month which is going to be 15 seconds long. An audio clip has been given to the class by Ron (the tutor) which we are required to put into the commercial. I already have a few ideas which could go into the commercial but Ron explained that we should never go with our first idea. So I will give it two days and look for inspiration aswell to put into my storyboard. We are required to provide a story board for next weeks lesson.
I have also decided to create a commercial for Sugar Rush which will be 5 seconds long. An audio clip has been given to include in our animation.
I have decided to change my storyboard idea because i have come across a tutorial which has given me a new idea. It is an after effects tutorial which uses the plugin newton.
I really like the layout of the sample animation previewed in this tutorial so i have decided to use a similar layout for my italian month animation. I like the usage of movement for the buntings giving the effect of being hung by a rope.
I have also sketched up a storyboard showing what my layout would look like.
The commerical will start off with a green red white striped background. After a 1/2 second the arcan, colloseum and the leaning tower will enter into the fram from the sides. I will be using the same technique as used in t tutorial. The 2 buntings will follow on both top corners and will hang as if they are being moved bu a rope forward and backwards. A few pizzas and baguettes will popup from behind the buildings and stay there. The italian month title will appear from both sides of the scrren and the slide back out after a second.
A vespa will enter eventually being followed by CBT certificate and some vespa accesories. The vespa will drive forwards leaving the screen along with other vespa accessories. The food network logo will slide in along with the comapny website. The pizzas and bagutetes will start to bounce up and down until the commercial finishes.
This is the layout I have chosen for my animation. This was previewed in the newton tutorial.
I have put together a moodboard and a sample of the layout i will be using for my animation. I am very happy with the look of it and will start to animate it.
I have create all my props for my commercial in photoshop. this task has really helped improve my photoshop skills with learing how to manipulate images and add textures to get the right look.
I had trouble creating the buntings in photoshop e.g. thecurved rope. I then opened up illustrator to see if it has any features that would help me. Fortunately, Illustrator had a ready made curve shape to use. This really helped me out, i will start to use illustrator more often now and learn new techniques which could make my animation easier in the future.
I have tried installing Newton on my computer but it requires me to pay for the license. Also, the demo version will not run on my laptop despite many attempts. I will have to look for another way to animate my Italian Month commercial in the way I want to.
I have been researching and have been told that there are other ways to gain the rope hanging effect with out having to use Newton. After lots of experimenting I have found that if i turn the bunting layer into a 3D layer then I can manage to acheive the rope hanging effect.
I have finally finished my first commercial and I am very happy with it. I was very dissapointed at first when i could not download Newton onto my laptop and thought that i wll not be able to animate the way i intented to but after alot of research i have discovered a way to create the effect I needed to make. I am also happy that after this project i have become more confident in using photoshop and discovered illustrator. I will be looking forward to using more of these softwares and improve my skills further.
We have been given a new assignment which involves researching about Digbeth including the Custard factory and the River Reas area. We have also been given an oppertunity to callobarate with Landscape Architech students and capture the signature essence of Digbeth. We are required to explore the whole of Digbeth and understand its two sides (old and new) which has attracted alot of artists around England.
Our research will help us come up with a narrative storyline and result in an animation which will represent Digbeths vibrant community and sense of culture.
Primary Research:
The start of our research consisted of going straight into Digbeth and exploring it’s streets and the canals that run through it. We had to take our own camera to take some snapshots of what we thought represented Digbeth. We managed to capturre a good image of what Digbeth is and interpret it as how we see it.
We explored the Digbeth are in depth and took images of what we found intresting. My impression of Digbeth was that it seems as arun-down, neglected and unattractive, the undesirable area just behind the gleaming new Bull Ring. However, although gritty, it is full of character and visually exciting, most notably for the contrasts juxtaposed within it.
We captured Digbeth’s raw contrasts, character and unconventional beauty and a constantly changing place being appropriated and brought back to life.
Further Research of Digbeth
An illustration of custrad factory made for a childrens book.
Digbeth map
StoryBoard Ideas
I have been doing a lot of research online and found that Digbeths history sets back to the 7th century where it was settled upon by Beorma, founder of Birmingham (Anglo-Saxon for Beorma’s Home). I found this very intresting and really started to wonder what Digbeth would have been like during that period.
I also came across the blog of a grafitti artist who has done some work in Digbeth http://asonearts.com/about/. He was influenced by the Anglo saxon roots in Digbeth to do one of his art pieces.
I was also quite intrested in the green man that is is forty feet high and made from live willow and hawthornas well as fossils and snail shells. Then sculpture is designed to change with the seasons. It mainly represents rebirth and growth. I felt that we cold use the green man in our animation, possibly coming to life?
After reading more into the History of Digbeth and paying visits to the area, I felt that we could shed some light upon its history which may possibly come to life during the night. We thought we could create a sort of spooky animation from which the history comes to life and starts to haunt the people of Digbeth.
I also found this quote on the crown pub website which i thought could contribute to our story idea.
The Old Crown’s history is unusual. In many ways it has survived when many other buildings have not. It was described in Tudor times as a ‘A Maison House of Timbar’ by John Leyland (a contemporary historian). This inn has history in every room and is reputed to be haunted by two ghosts.
– Excerpts from The Old Crown 1368: A Brief History.
Brainstorm
StoryBoard
In the end we decided to change the storyboard as we did not know how to complete the script and not enough research to back it up.
We did some more research online and came across THE BIG CITY PLAN.
The City plan talks about how they want to use its historic roots as a foundation for growing its established creative businesses and
developing a vibrant urban community with entertainment, living and cultural opportunities. By embracing the existing building fabric and delivering a high quality, exciting, and safe public realm Digbeth will become a flourishing creative and cultural hub for the city.
They want to support its authentic gritty character and turn it into a positive thing.
New Idea
After reading more about the big city plan and how it wants to support its currrunt building structure and just renew it, we decided to use REBIRTH as the theme of our animation. We really like this idea and think that it represents Digbeth well as it is known for it being constantly changed and brought back to life.
After our tutorial with the tutor, we began to look for imagery that represented Digbeth. Luckily, we already had the green man in mind since he represents rebirth and growth.
We looked at a few animations that represent Rebirth.
The animation shows imagery of rain and how it gives birth and life and as a result a plant is being sprouted.
A phoenix bird also represents rebirth as it rises from its own ashes. We decided to add a phoenix in our animation aswell.
New StoryBoard
Found these images off flikr website, the owner said we could use them for our animation =). We could use these for the intro of the landscape.
These are some tutorials I used to help create some tests for the animation after effects.
I was not able to upload my other tests because my computer is too slow to use youtube but will soon try. I will just show them during my presentation.
I have created a few mood boards which represent the theme of the animation.
Texture samples:
The rest of the materials i used were from within maya e.g. Lambert, Chrome and phong.
StoryBoard:
So we were told that we need to create our story boards in illustrater or photoshop. To be honest i have no experience in either but i still managed to put a little story board together. Its not pretty good but then again its better than nothing.
Unfortunatly, the blog wont let me upload anymore of the storyboard images. I have tried at three different computers. I will just print and stick the storyboard in my sketch book instead.
Also, when i try to place to images side by side on this blog, the whole allignment messes up so i can only insert one image on one line only.
Tests:
This is a little test i did for the scene where the ball is flying through space and hits the comet. I wanted to see it from a far view.
Well the space scene looks pretty amazing and the best thing about it is that it was so easy to make! But the duration of it is taking too long and because of this maya was not able to render the whole space scene. I will have to reduce the size and length of the space scene.
Final Animation:
YAAAAY, I have finally uploaded it. Overall Im pretty happy with it although there are alot of improvments that can be made.
I made a mistake by not rendering the animation from maya as PAL, so when i tried to change it to PAL through adobe premiere pro, it appears a bit zoomed in. This causes the animation to lose out the view of the full scene. However i will be burning both versions of my animation to disk.
This is the PAL version, you can see it is more zoomed in compared to the first video. I wish i could render the whole thing again right now but i have no time. But maybe in the near future i can create some space and re render the whole animation.
I have learnt so much from this project wich i thought would be very difficult to even try. Yet there is still so much that needs to be learnt.
Im also a bit gutted about the space character which i spent alot of time on modelling. I could not find a solution on on how to prevent its armor from deforming when the skeleton is manipulated. I was happy with the skeleton as it was manipulated very well. I could try another way e.g. through component editor. I can change the weight of every body piece through the component editor > smooth skin. I just wish i could use the space suit to move about more in the animation.
I guess after this project i will have enough time on my hands to improve my skills in maya. I should try to create a simpler character that does not require the need of skin weight, see how it goes and then create a skeleton for the space suit.
These are some videos that have inspired me to and have given me an idea for my animation.
I love how the ball begins to travel so far and would like to create something based on this.
I have been thinking about how the ball should start to roll away, so i decided i could use my space character and a croquet mallet.
Animation Idea:
So the idea for my animation is that the space character will be plaing a game of croquet, hit the ball the wrong way causing it to travel very far but eventually fall back and go through the hoop. Since im using a spacesuit i will base the animation in space on a rocky planet.
I was looking at old cartoon network videos and viewed one where a piano falls from above and crushes a text. I wanted to do something like this in my animation so since it will be taking place in space i thought i could use an asteroid or comet instead.
I have also been looking into videos on how to play croquet in order to understand what will be involved and what equipment shall be used and where will it be placed.
I started of by creating the floor for the landscape. I used a mars texture as material and i am quite happy with the result. I did use bump mapping but it came out too rough in render view so i took it off.
I started shaping the walls by selecting their faces. I decided to close off the whole landscape and create four different walls.
I really like the look of the landscape in this video game so i tried to use this as reference for creating the planet landscape.
the wall looks so much better when smoothed out. I also used the geometry sculpt tool to create some creases into the wall and give it a better shape.
I wanted to add a bunch of stars in the sky so it wont look to plain. I also made a small planet which will appear in the distance durin gthe animation. I used the paint tool > visor > galactic to create the stars. I think the stars are the most easiest things i have done so far.
I placed the space suit in the scene in order to get the sizes right from both sides. The space suit was too big so i had to scale it down and increase the size in the planet.
Render view of the landscape. Im pretty happy with the size, colour and placement of all the rocks. It still needs some lighting though.
Croquet Set:
In order to create the croquet set i need to measure it all up along side the space character.
For the intro, i wanted the animate the camera moving through a galaxy. I quickly set up a galaxy using the paint tool for stars and a few planets.
This is the galaxy which i made. U cant really tell if there are any stars but only in render view.
Since i made a character i decided to create a skeleton for it so i can move it about. This is my first time and it wont be easy but i could do with the practice. I will follow some tutorials online to help.
The skeleton set up is going good so far but the tutorial which i was watching did not have the next part. This made me a bit confused when viewing another tutorial so i decided to redo the skeleton from scratch by following the new tutorial.
This tutorial is so much better, it explains and make things simpler.
I created cubes made out of curves and then placed the on top of the wrist. then i joined them together using point constraint. This make movement much more easy rather than having to click on each joint.
With the curve box I am able to improve the hand orientation. It applies a real skeleton example when moving the joints.
I wanted to try and move the fingers individually so to help me with that i set up some driven keys. When i would select on the curve box, each finger attribute shows up. This was done by going to modify > add attribute and then entering in values for the fingers positions.
I am so pleased with the the skelton, i just hope it works when i bind it with the space suit.
So theres bad news is that (above image) i have bind the skeleton and the spacesuit. But when i move a joint, the body part which is the hard armor begins to deform.
i later read online that i need to apply weight to the skin. I followed a tutorial on VTC using paint weight tool. After apllying the weight to the body parts, it still managed to deform. I even painted the armor internally and it still did not work.
I am just so sttressed and gutted now. Im still going to include the spacesuit in my animation since i worked very hard on it.
sweetmusic20 