Cinematic Production - Character Animation 10

Week 13 - Day 1

SIT REP! I drew a different version for shot 03 to make the spirit creature remain sleeping but not static. Tea also told me that the jellyfish isn't so much swimming as it is just floating so yay! I've only watched a couple of jellyfish videos as opposed to a plethora of them. XD In the end, I made the jellyfish "yawn" instead. Here's a rough version of it.

I tried to export it as a gif from flash but it came out real ugleh so I went back to exporting it as a video and converting it into a gif via photoshop. Yay for doing things the long way but at least this way works and I actually know how to do it. Working harder as opposed to smarter...-_____-

As you can see, I didn't really bother doing anything to the top of the jellyfish because the creature is going to be blocking it anyway. I also tried to animate the paws moving a little bit on top of the jellyfish but it looked like it was going a weird jittery dance so I took it back out. It's possible my brush size is probably too big...

Now, to play with the timing of shot 05...If all goes well I can just go straight into clean up with shot 03 by the end of today and then move on to shot 05. I reckon I can probably finish the entire animation for my shots by the end of this week or middle of next week then I can move on and help Tea with clean ups for the main spirit creature. I'll need to update the schedule again but I'll leave that for Friday.

We're chugging along!

Cinematic Production - Character Animation 09

Week 12 - Day 4

(Sings) Ohhh, where have the weeks gone??

Anyway, so Tea and I have been talking about our animations for the group project, or more specifically, shot 03 where the main spirit creature is swooping across the screen right to left. I made a short animation following it with my little spirit creature turning its head towards the other but she pointed out that maybe the movement is too big, as in, it might draw the audience's attention away from the main focus of the whole shot. IT'S A REALLY GOOD POINT. We both decided to table the shot for now and then compare it later once she's done with a roughed-up version of the same shot.

If I'm going back to the original idea of the spirit creature just sleeping and bobbing along with the jellyfish then the only things I'll need to animate is the jellyfish itself, the flames of the spirit creature and the swish of the tail. Gotta keep it simple but not static, at the very least~ Oscar also brought up a good point that the flames of the creature could "breathe" with it. I'm not sure how I'm gonna do that but it sounds gooooood~

Anyway, here's a horrible gif version of shot 03. I slowed down the timing just to make it look clearer.

(The original video file was friggin' 100mbs but this gif version is only 300kbs. Like, what the eff? HOW WORK?!)

Also, here's a gif preview of shot 04 with the spirit creature cleaning itself. It's pretty rough but good enough for now, I guess. I'll show this to the group and see what they say about it later~

Hamish thinks the animation is going a bit too fast and I agree with him. I'll definitely slow it down in the end because we still don't want the focus to go away from the main creature coming into the shot but at least I've got the roughs down, so PHEW!!

Cinematic Production - Compositions 03

Week 11 - Day 5

Okay, so after a few more of Keat's suggestion HERE IS THE UPDATED VERSION OF SHOT 10.

The only things left to fix on this will be the timing (going way too fast...) and also the ending. Dane and Keat suggested a black and white glitch look and to zoom in right ONTO THE FACE, which will add quite a large creep factor to the final frames before we cut back into the live-action shot. But this is the animatic done, the changes can be made in the actual animation instead so WOOT! WE CAN START ANIMATING EVERYTHING NOW, HUZZAH!!! HALLELUJAH!!

This is Dane's quick edit along with Keat's suggestions~

I can also dedicate more time to do Fraser's stuff now, too. X___X PHEW!

Cinematic Production - Compositions 02

Week 11 - Day 4

Okay, so...I did actually finish most of what I needed to do last night but I messed up the timing on shots 08 and 09 and it zoomed by way too fast. I told myself I'd fix it in the morning...I crashed so hard...

Anyway, here are the fixed up animations, slowed down to fit the animatic, more or less.

It's pretty rough and the island doesn't totally match up with what our final look will be but it's good enough as a placeholder for the time being. The main part of the composition is done which includes different angles of the original shots and even a dutch tilt! Yay! Now, as for shot 10...

I tried to play with the secondary movement of the tail and Tea thinks it looks good SO I AM HAPPY WITH THIS. It's rough as all heck and I gave up putting details like the feet and the skeletal bones done after the second frame since they're not the main focus. And I'd rather not have to redraw those things if the movement isn't even finalized. X___X I can't believe I almost did a noob move. Whoops.

Anyways, this is my shots done and dusted. I hope to be able to merge them into the final animatic along with Tea's and Adrian's finished shots later on as well. We should be all done by today!!

Cinematic Production - Compositions 01

Week 11 - Day 3

So...it turns out that our animatic is still NOT QUITE THERE YET. Dane and Keat offered us some suggestions on how to get the compositions to look a lot better with regards to the spirit world. Since it's such an open world we might as well take advantage and give as many awesome shots as possible, right? RIGHT! So, we have 10 shots in the spirit world in total and we've split it off between Tea, Adrian and myself. Adrian is handling shot 01 as well as shot, 05, 06 and 07. Tea is taking care of shots 02, 03 and 04, which leaves the rest to me. I threw up some rough ideas for shot 8 and 9 since 10 is mostly just the creature animation which I'll throw up a gif of later.

Shots 8.1 and 9.3 were well received by Adrian and Tea with just a minor adjustment of including more wires for shot 08. We gotta expose the underbelly, man. Show them how this world really ticks. As for shot 9, Tea suggested for a dutch tilt instead, which, I gotta say, LOOKS GREAT.

Dutch tilts, man. They're so trippy. So, those are them roughs down - here are the rough cleans and colored in versions.

I've had to animate them doing what they're supposed to be doing but I'll leave that for tomorrow. I should be able to get those done before our 1.30pm class on Thursday. FINGERS CROSSED. Now, as for shot 10...

This is the first version. I forgot to add a dark-colored background so the creature would stand out more but that's for the next version. I showed this to Tea and we both agreed that the head snap was a bit too...abrupt, kind of like the creature applied the brakes and decided to change directions halfway into the flight. No bueno. So I fixed it and ta-da, here's a smoother version of it.

Not bad for a day and a half's work. Now, I gotta roughly animate the body on top of that and then animate the other two frames. It probably shouldn't take me long? Hopefully I can finish this all by tonight so we can compile them into the animatic by tomorrow in time for the next progress report.

GOTTA START ANIMATING NEXT WEEK, BROS. KSJDFHSKHFDSHDKF

Cinematic Production - Character Animation 08

Week 10 - Day 4

Okay, so I did things the long way but here's a gif of the two spirit creatures reacting to Oscar. I haven't added the flames yet, but I'll do that only and if the layout looks good.

I also need to do a couple of small animations before the glitch happens and I was thinking of using one of the clean-up poses in the model pack, or more specifically, the one that's cleaning itself. Just a short loop, probably somewhere on the island where the main spirit creature lands. I'm still not too sure if I want the spirit creature to react to the glitch or if I'm going back to my previous pieces of animation and going from there. I'll need to get some advice from the group and see if I need to make any changes to the animation.

They're not quite the main focus but it would be weird if everything else moved and they were static. Even if the movement is slow at least it will come off looking a lot more natural than if they didn't.

We're slowly getting there!!

Cinematic Production - Character Animation 07

Week 9 - Day 5

I did a boo-boo. I started doing clean ups during the holiday but then things happened and I left it alone to take care of other projects and then when I went back to it, it looked horrible and not clean at all...So...I...deleted the whole layer and started a new one. SHAME ON ME.

So, I don't have those old layers to show you but I do have 2 keys that are nicely cleaned~ Thanks to the practice I received over the holidays, WOOT!

I'll be adding the eyes and the "flames" on a different layer and drawing them straight ahead. I guess it just depends on which one would have a better effect but the flames will definitely be a straight-ahead.

Also, I'll be drawing up some more rough animations now that the storyboard and animatic has been updated. Huzzah~

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How does one...export a gif from Adobe Animate??? I have no idea. I'll do it...eventually, when my internet is fixed and I can google or ask Hamish on Facebook, or on Monday if my internet is still kaput. Yay for technical difficulties!!! SJKHKJSD