Cinematic Production - Character Animation 15

Week 16 - Day 4 (Oh, mah, gaaaaahhhhh!! What is life?)

Okay, now that the presentation and Thaw's submission is out of the way, I can go back to helping with the group project. (Groans like a zombie...)

Here's what I've got left to do:
- Fire animation on the main spirit creature in shot 02
- Fire animation on the skeleton rigs that will be used to populate the spirit world

Tea thinks we might be able to recycle the fire animation from a previous shot and place it over the main creature as it's flying across the screen in shot 02. I'm not too sure how well this will work because...I'm a bit brain-dead and I can't totally visualize it. Hopefully that's doable but if not that's okay, too, because I'm pretty sure I can churn out the fire animation within a couple of hours and it'll be alright. We could possibly get away with 2 or 3 versions of the skeleton rig with the fire animation on them and just start off the loop on a different frame so they're not all perfectly in sync. It's a small cheat but we're pretty pressed for time so we're gonna try and take advantage of using some shortcuts now to lighten the load.

We're gonna try and finish as much as we can today so we can give it to Hamish and Oscar to take home and composite.

Honestly, this week has been just all over the place with one submission after another. I don't think I'm doing too badly but I guess my returning grade will let me know how well I've managed my time...(Dun-dun-dun...)

Here's another update on the group project. As you can see...ALL THE REDS ARE GONE!! THE YELLOW'S ARE LOSING AND THE GREEN ARE TAKING OVER!! HUZZAH!!

Hulk, smash...

GOOD LUCK AND GOD SPEED, PEOPLE!

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Sp, update. Tea recycled some fire animation from the main spirit creature and was able to put them with the skeleton rigs. She said she'll probably do a maximum of 4 different animations for them before passing it on for the final composition. She also said we could probably get away with a still frame of shot 02 but with a wave-warp on the fire as it's flying past so I managed to draw up a still shot of it and I made sure to put the fire on separate layers for some after effects magic. Woot, we're getting there!

I'm hoping we'll be able to make our 5pm deadline tomorrow. Fingers crossed the final compositing goes all according to plan.

Cinematic Production - Character Animation 14

Week 15 - Day 5

With all my shots of the smaller spirit creature I can move on to helping out with the flame animation once Oscar has cleaned them out. Tea is doing all the roughs and passing them onto Oscar to do the clean ups and then passing them onto me to add in some fire animation. We're hoping to get these animations all done and dusted by the middle of next week so Hamish can chuck them all into the compositing and we can call it FINISHED!!!

Currently, I'm adding some fire on the big spirit creature in shot 05. Once Oscar is done then I can add in the yellow in shot 03. There will be some fire animation on the still frame in shot 02 and also the fire animation on the little skeleton rigs. We're getting there!!!

Also, here's an updated version of our production timeline...MORE GREENS AND YELLOWS NOW!

I'm so happeh~

Cinematic Production - Character Animation 13

Week 15 - Day 1

Oh mah gahhhh, just two weeks to go! But we're getting there! We're getting there!

I managed to finish my clean-up and color of shot 05 this morning so YAY! I can move on and help Tea with her other shots. I'm not looking forward to shot 10 but it's probably THE MOST INTENSE part of our animation. That swirly-twirly thing will be horrible but I'm confident Tea can make it awesome. =D I hope I'll be able to do it justice with a good clean-up and color as well.

Also, I've noticed the horns on the creature is pretty damn jittery which is no bueno for me. It's not terribly noticeable because it's a very quick two-three second shot and it'll probably only loop the one time. It annoys me and IF WE HAVE TIME I'll go back and do some smoothing out on the frames for the horns. Overall it's not bad BUT I WILL ADMIT THAT IT COULD BE BETTER.

I also need to clean up my folder system because that thing be messed up. Anyway, Tea and I have also updated our production timeline. It's got a lot more greens and yellows in it than it did previously. WOOHOO!

I'll need to ask Hamish for an update on the 3D and Adrian for an update on her backgrounds so we can make the color changes accordingly. We should be able to get the bulk of the animation done by the end of this week (fingers crossed) in time for Hamish to be able to finish it all off with some compositing.

Now to put that shot into the google drive. Booyah!

Cinematic Production - Character Animation 12

Week 14 - Day 5

WE HAVE TWO MORE WEEKS TO GO!!! And Tea and I very belatedly decided we needed a production outline so here's what we got.

It's a lot of reds and yellows but we'll update it at the end of the week and post a more updated version as we go. Just keep chugging along now~

I've already cleaned-up and colored in shots 03 and 07 and they're both uploaded onto the google drive for Hamish to put together into the final composite. I'll be working on shot 05 and I'm hoping to get that all cleaned-up and colored in by the end of today so I can upload that onto the drive as well before moving on to the other shots and help Tea with them.

Here are shots 03 and 07...(unfortunately, the quality of the gifs are not very good...and I'm not sure how to fix that. JUST AS WELL I'M NOT DOING THE COMPOSITING, BRO.)

NOW!! ONTO SHOT 05!! ONWARD!!

Cinematic Production - Character Animation 11

Week 13 - Day 4 (It's not the weekend yet, is it?) Uh?

After life drawing on Tuesday, Keat asked up to go up and see him about our animation. (dun-dun-dun) but he only had good things and good ideas to say about it so here is what's been changed. In the last post, you can see the jellyfish just casually float along. I forgot to update it after some advise from Hamish about making the jellyfish look more like it's swimming. It didn't have to be BIG but it had to be more, you know? MOREEEEE POWWWERRRR!! Anyway. so...here it is.

Keat told me to shrink the jellyfish a little bit because the tail kept looking like it was going THROUGH the jellyfish so yes, I shrunk it, but not by much. I also changed the path of the tail so it flicked upwards instead of inwards. He also asked for the rest of the body to move with the jellyfish, the arms and legs, and I'm like, sdfkjhsdkhfkjhskjhfkjske, but I did it anyway. XD I also think I did it wrong, so....opps...DX The leg is sliding out the wrong way, UGH!!! REDO! REDO NOW! Although, in saying that, I'm wondering if the tail movement is too big? Possibly? Probably? Yeah...I'm gonna change that, too...

OKAY! The back leg is now going the right way AND the tail movement is smaller but still noticable BUT NOT TOO MUCH. At least, I don't think it's too much? Anyway, I think that's more or less good enough so I'm gonna move onto shot 05 which is ROUGH AS HECK!!! XDKJHFSDKJFS CLEAN UP ON AISLE 5, PLEASE.

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Anyway, so I was working on shot 05, right? Doing some rough clean ups and I kept scrubbing through the frames just to see how it's flowing and lemme tell you something - it sucks. I'm not gonna show you a gif of it (I'm saving you...) but I'll show you a picture of what I'll need to make it better.

First, the path of the horns is very jittery, as in, it's going all over the place like it's got a mind of its own. And also, the foot that's sticking out is following a very dull and very straight back-and-forth path so I thought, maybe I should make it go around in a figure of 8? Or at the very least, a slight up-tilt and curve? We'll test it out later. The rest of the body is alright but the main thing that needs clarification is definitely the horns. The size of it also goes from normal to BIG to weirdly shaped from frame to frame so...dkjfhsdkjfhksdjhjds.

I CAN FIX IT.

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 - 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