#AX2002

[leadsuniblog]

due to poor time management the final segment of the loop was submitted unfinished. The ambitious vortex segment took a bit longer to do while I was behind on another project. The Bauhaus art style I researched was implemented into this animation, as the minimalistic and abstract nature of the void filled with doors seemed fitting.

#ax2002 #Dooors #groupPJT #animation

[yoonichi]

The Dollmaker - Storyboard

For The Dollmaker I want it to be filled with atmosphere so, I’ve done a quick storyboard to get the concept on paper and I think I might add some frames that are very atmospheric like rain falling in puddles. I feel like this will keep the overall felling of the story very consistent and help meet the two minute mark.

#Year2 #AX2002 #ShortFilm #TheDollmaker #Storyboard

[petersanimation]

2 Minute Final Film

Here is my final 2 minute film overall I’m quite pleased with how this turned out considering this was my first attempt at doing a full project in 3D while I do think there is a lot of room for improvement such as: 

Animation could have been more smoothed out, however due to deadlines and decided the best approach to make sure this is done on time was to prioritise areas of the animation over other and for this I decided the best time to focus on more was the Lake scene as this takes up most of the film.

Models and Rigging improvements while the models I think are good with a few tweaks that are needed the rigging is something I feel like I could have spent more time planning as I soon found myself restricted mainly with the fingers only being able to curl each finger and unable to move them side-to-side.

If I had the time I would have liked to have added some depth of field within I had tried to achieve this within Maya however, I only decided to try this once all the cameras where set up and unfortunately the maya cameras depth of field doesn't work.

On the effects side I am pleased with how the fire turned out which is done in maya as I thought this was the easiest way for me to in the fire accurately but I did the snow in after effect  

Sound on the other hand I think works with some sound effects that could have done with a better sample I also decided to not have any background music as I thought the sound of the wind was good enough for what was happening on screen and its also because I had no idea what to type of music I could have used.

#ax2002

[cgoodin]

Deadline for my 2 minute film

Today is the deadline for my 2 minute film. I have finally finished everything to get it done and I have submitted it into fast folders. The only thing is that I am hoping for it to be good. Mario had told me that there is a 10 second lee-way and I thought that it was just a figure of speech. I didn’t know that it had to be precisely 2 minutes. My film is 2 minutes long, but I accidentally left in 19 seconds. That is the part that I am frightened of.

#Dasher #Deadline #Semester 2 #2019 #2 minute film #AX2002 #Animation #Uclan

[jagj-uniwork]

this is the second stage of my animation, i went back and slowed down the ship and added a few more scenes of the main character walking through the town. i would like to re do one of the walk cycles due to the MC looking like she is limping

#ax2002

[griffin550]

Evaluation Short Film

During this project I set out to create a short film based on Dungeons and Dragons which is a tabletop roleplaying game that I highly enjoy and wanted to impliment some of my ideas into an animation, I origionally set out to create a rogue who would steal gold from a dragon’s lair before running away as the dragon catches him to, a ranger with the intent on stealing a magical crystal enters a dragons lair, realising the crystal animates the dragon construct when he touches it and must fight.

I found this project to be rather difficult, mainly due to me not being used to creating longer films and being very unsatisfied with my animatics and scripts, as I felt most of the scenes and compositions where uninspired and didn’t work well, for example I origionally had it that the ranger would stumble into the dragon lair by falling into the cave and this part would take up 30 seconds of the film, then 30 seconds finding this crystal and I didn’t find the pacing was working for me as it would be 30 seconds or less where the ranger finds the dragon and then must fight it and kill it.

I did find however this project showed me once I set out to finish a lengthy film that I can achieve it quicker than I anticipated, after finding an animatic and storyboard I enjoyed, the animation took less time than I realised it would, I could have spent more time animating if I just got through the pre-production phase sooner but all the projects made it difficult to focus. I eventually made my short film and enjoy what I made, I think I created a successful piece of animation that is better than most of what I have created in the past, it has an interesting and easy to follow story and only has one or two things pacing or story wise I wish I had time to fix, mainly relating to the exploding arrows needing some sort of demonstration before suddenly being able to do it.

I found this project taught me how to quickly put together a lengthy film, and that I need to focus more on sorting the pre-production phase quicker. I think it has a lot to do with my inspiration being low due as I struggled to form ideas that worked well or ideas I liked in the first place, so next project I plan to do far more research to help my ideas better visually as it’s important for me to visualise my work as it helps me enjoy the work more, and can demonstrate if the idea works well or not. I also found this project taught me how to put together a longer film together through making smaller scenes of 5-10 seconds long and then putting them together in after effects and such, and how simple light effects in after effects can create powerful visual scenes like the dragon’s breath weapon being charged up.

#ax2002 #Short Film

[erwilson-uclan]

Dimensions Project: Evaluation

I found the project fun, but also rather difficult at times. This was my class’ first time working together as a group, and we definitely encountered some difficulties and hurdles along the way.

We had multiple meetings about character design, storyline, how the animation would loop, and general group animation questions. A good number of students joined into the conversation, and within a few weeks, we had a solid storyline and ideas for our own animations. However, I found it rather difficult to encourage certain members of the group to interact and speak up. In addition to this, a number of key animators dropped out of the project, and I decided that I would put myself forward to pick up the work they had contributed before they left; which lead onto myself also taking on a leadership role. I made a large effort to include people who hadn’t spoken up during meetings, including: personally messaging them via Teams, contacting them via our class Discord server, and asking them questions during meetings they were present at. I created the master character design sheet, sourced and worked closely with a voice actor, and encourage my classmates to contribute to the project.

Though I found it difficult to connect with those who did not seem willing to contribute, I have learned a number of leadership and project manager skills from this project. I am much more confident in speaking aloud to a room of people, and have learned the necessary steps to ensure a project runs smoothly and is organised well. These are skills I am certain I will be putting to use in all of my future projects and job opportunities.

My animation is set in space, which I chose so I could have an opportunity to animate the strange physics which occur in a zero-gravity environment. Also, since the style I was referencing was a Steven Universe-like one, I wanted to mimic and source inspiration from the beautiful backgrounds in space that the show presents. I’m very proud of my animation because of this, as well as the fact I was able to successfully experiment with more dynamic shots and actions in the animation.

I stepped out of my comfort zone in many areas of this project, and picked up new skills in both project leading and animation. I will be sure to use these skills in future projects, and ensure they succeed as this one has.

#ax2002 #dimensions

[sophieanne2611]

As our lessons had started up again this week. We had to do another warm up activity which was fun to do. We had to merge 2 creatures together into 1 and animate them for a second. To do this our tutor got up a random animal generator and we had to choose 2 out of the 3 animals to animate. So mine were a Giant clam and a Poison Dart Frog or a Fram. It was quite fun and interesting activity to do.

#AX2002

[gavin-moscrop]

Dimensions Group Project 01

We were tasked with creating a group animation depicting a character going through various dimensions whilst maintaining continuity. We settled on the idea of a single character named Chuck travelling through doors with his Bag of Knobs, door knobs that would react with or create doors to the different dimensions.  We tried many ideas designing Chuck, below is a sheet of character designs I threw together.

The orange haired character was liked by the rest of the group so they took aspects of that design and continued on. Whilst discussing what the character would have I drew up a concept image which became the basis for the characters main design.

One of my class members, Erin, then created the master character design sheet for the group to use.

#AX2002 #animation #artwork

[yoonichi]

Dimensions - Storyboard

Due to my ideas behind the Catopus character I thought a chase scene would be the option to go with. The idea was gong to be that Chuck stumbles into the dimension and comes across a strange but cute creature, he confronts the creature explaining his predicament in hopes he could find help. The Catopus is taken back by the strange being stood in front of them. The Catopus dislikes Chuck’s presence and the chase starts.

The original storyboard was a quick sketch of stick figures showing the basics of the concept. In this I’ve put multiple of the Catopus creatures, I was thinking that the conversation between the two characters would start to form a crowd of the inhabitants and Chuck is chased out by an angry mob.

I ended up doing another storyboard to add more detail in and ended up playing around with it which ended up making it more like a comic strip.

After the comic strip I needed to re-do a storyboard and decided to add time stamps to make it easier to time my animation. Unfortunately, for some reason I completely forgot about this storyboard. I don’t know how but, it happened. Either way, I’ll be doing this again and try to actually remember doing it as I feel it would be extremely helpful and would actually make me commit to putting in more interesting shots.

#Year2 #AX2002 #GroupProject #Dimensions #Storyboard

[petersanimation]

Here is an update on the current hair grooming process and a change in plans as I have been having trouble turning these into geometry and I unfortunately have no idea why so I have decided to instead of wasting more time and trying to figure this out I will move forward using the Xgen hair unfortunately I this will cause my render time to go up and I will have to recalculate how long it will take to render everything.   

#ax2002

[cgoodin]

I have made another short soundtrack. This one is short and it was for a scene that may need it.

#Soundtrack #Update #Dasher #Semester 2 #2019 #2 minute film #Sound Booth #AX2002 #Animation #Uclan

[jagj-uniwork]

thos was the first stage of my animation. i was testing the speed of the ship and experimenting how fast i want it to come on screen.

#ax2002

[griffin550]

This is a video from Zee Bashew, a YouTuber who makes Dungeons and Dragons animated videos to inform players and dungeon masters of how the game works, and some stories. I like the visual style of his content and found myself referring to his and others content to help me when animating my final film.

#ax2002 #Short Film

[erwilson-uclan]

2 Min Short Film: Complete

Once the pre-production was complete, I began work on the animation. For this project, I decided to animates in 3s rather than 2s. I made this decision for a number of reasons: it would save time so I would be able to reach the deadline, it would allow me to experiment with more complex actions and poses, and I really like how animations that are in lower framerates look and wanted to try it for myself. Overall, I am very, very happy with how it turned out, and I acheived the effect I was looking for.

I created some moodboards and references for the backgrounds, putting all of my inspirations for the project in one place. Since I chose to animate 2 scenes of the short film in different styles with different characters and colour schemes, I created some reference sheets for myself, which proved extremely helpful for the project.

Once the animation and colouring was complete, I worked on the backgrounds. For specific shots, I created singular backgrounds, but for the most part, I created one large, detailed backgrounds, and zoomed in on different sections in order to keep consistency and colour schemes the same. For the library, I used desaturated browns to reflect the dead and abandoned state of the library. Boxes, books, and cobwebs are scattered around, giving context clues to how long the place has been broken for. In the medieval backgrounds, I used a colour scheme of greens and oranges to mirror the similar colours used in actual medieval paintings. Many of them are washed out and desaturated, so I added that effect to my work. Finally, for the caveman backgrounds, I used a textured brush to give the effect of stone. The section where I animated in the caveman style looks like it has been animated on rock and stone walls, which is where almost all caveman art has been found.

The voice acting was done by a friend of mine, Ash, who goes by ‘They Killed Carmine!’ on YouTube. We met through animation and they were very eager to provide the voice for Bones. Bones is a very androgynous character, and I feel that Ash’s voice talents fit them perfectly. I found all of the royalty free sound effects on freesound.org, zapsplat.com, and mixkit.co.

Overall, I am very happy with the animation. It is the longest thing I have ever animated alone, and the final outcome looks and sounds better than I imagined at the beginning of the project. I have learned a number of skills and improved ones I already had, and I am very proud of the outcome.

#ax2002 #short film

[hopefulbagelboi]

Group Project Update

It should be mentioned that I was up for being final editor for this project, but once working from home became mandatory I was unable to do that with the setup I had. However, once I was kindly loaned a university laptop I was able to edit once more, and let the class know on Teams that I would gladly be an editor should the chosen editor need some help.

I was the editor for the class storyboards/ animatics, putting all the sequences together to give everyone a rough idea about how the final film would look. From there that edit was used to make continuity decisions. I was open about sharing my chosen sound effects too in case anyone needed some but was struggling to find them.

My storyboard changed further after some discussion with Pete, trimming out as much as I could so that not too much happens in 30 seconds. The same scene plays out mostly, below is the script:

I hadn’t planned on having any dialogue but after a quick discussion with Bee I decided to put a little bit in so that my piece wouldn’t seem like the odd one out in comparison to the others.

(^ We discussed the changes over Messenger, but this is me crediting Bee for her help towards my dialogue)

Since Harry was having little luck with finding voice actors for Vasyl and Skip I opted to help out by putting out ads for both characters on Casting Call Club. I only received auditions for Skip but I assured the group I would pay for the actor out of my own pocket, whilst the starting price was $5, I ended up paying him $20 simply because he was patient and beyond helpful. Below is a collection of proof that I helped out.

I also offered the use of my microphone and opted to get my roommate to record some lines should we need a safety net in case no voice actors were found. Not only this but I searched on other sites for ways to gain voice actors, one was Fiverr. I managed to find a few professional voice actors there and kept them in mind as yet another safety net.

I made sure to communicate with the class each time a change was made on Casting Call, the class having been voting on which voices they liked best. We settled on voice 5, who asked to be credited as Ryan Wichael, and he cooperated brilliantly when asked to do several takes.

Harry and Bee found voice actors for Vasyl, I take no credit there.

Below is my most recent storyboard that used to base the animation off of. Two main changes where Skip coming through the portal first, after discussing with Harry about who he sends through his portal first. That and the pigeon exiting last instead of first, after discussing with Alex and seeing his storyboard where the pigeon is in fact behind Vasyl and Skip. The multitool isn’t hit out of Vasyl’s hand either as this was confusing to some people.

#AX2002 #Group project