Stop Motion with coins

Today we were playing around in stop motion using random stuff that we brought in, only three of us brought anything and there was only two cameras so the five of us split into two groups of two and one person could not be bordered to do any thing.

this was a very fun lesion and I got to try out something that I was wonder; that was if smear frames worked in stop motion the same way they work in the rest, the answer is yes they do and oh boy does it look a lot better with.

Link  

Feed back about my idea for live brief

I got a lot of feedback today from both students and a lecturer.

From the lecturer Sarah I got great advice on how to really hit my target audience and my brief, it was to add a theme though out the project and to really hit the message instead of aiming for a good amount of animation styles.

From students I got advised to try and add more light art to the project but try to avoid text as I've done a lot of that in past.

 

The hulk

We fully rigged and animated the hulk so we did and it was quite difficult to rig.   After we rigged him we just had to make him walk, so I tried that for a minute and thought of how funny it would be to the hulk skiing; and that's what I did. After that I took what we learned in a previous class and make a breakable box in his way, I than textured it to have the hulks skin and it turned out... well it turned out and lets leave it at that.

Here is a link to all there out comes.
1: https://vimeo.com/214756830
2: https://vimeo.com/214756851
3: https://vimeo.com/214756849

     

A C4D Guy

We made a 3D guy that was harder than I thought it as going to be, 3D is not something that I'm confident in learning and I don't think that I learn mush in this class due to the fact that there was a lot to take in.

Feedback from a professional animator

A meet a guy known as "Mechanovaking" on a animation group chat I joined the other day, he's a professional animator who works at a studio that is currently working on "The magic school bus" reboot.

I asked him would he have any advice for a second year student and give me this advice.

He said I should start a project where I draw a few frames a day for a year and than I'll have a big video at the end to put on my CV, Also it would help to get in the routine of doing something everyday.

He said that he'll be on this chat again if I have any other questions or if I want his opinions on any other stuff; so I might try and get him to review some of my projects in the future.

Simple moving

We make two thing in this class using assets given to us, a lip sic head talking and a guy walking. The task was to make a 1 second long lip sic animation and a simple walk animation so that we could get the hang of basic animation techniques. I did this fairly quickly so I spend more time on the animation and less of learning something I already knew, I made a 2 second long lip sic and I made things to jump over in the walk scene.

This video of the lip sic is Here
and the video of the guy walking is Here

lip syncing

We did lip syncing today and it took me a while to understand what we had to do at first but at the end it turned out ok.
VIDEO

Storyboards

Today we learned how to make a Storyboard layout page so we can print out are own.

we also did basic Storyboards and than made them into an anmatic.
HERE

Dr Spencer History's of graphic design

So far in the first 10 minutes it's just going over graphic designer books which i'm not very interested in learning about but the book "The cheese monkeys" sounds like a good read.

We than go though a very rough history of some inventors which is very interesting how he went though such big leaps in time such as 15000 to 10000bc than 1650 to 1200bc

I know I won't always find the topics Spencer talks about interesting so i'm just trying to get the key points I find interesting instead of writing names and dates for stuff that i'll not care about.

a lot of my class don't find him as interesting as I do (especially my friends) but I don't know how he could reach out to them more than he already is. As a rep I need to work on this and maybe have a meeting with him about it some time.

It's funny; Spencer keeps walking around with a lucozade bottle which kind of looks like he's sponsored by them :)

I like the way there was many different designs for the book of all graphic designers because how would you just pick one design to show all designs? it's like making a book about the alphabet and only having the letter Q on the cover.
(I swear only Spencer could make graphic designers interesting to an animation student such as my self)

Chantry seems kind of cool as he is not interested in boring stuff he only like stuff that is non-main stream.

there is a good book in the library called "cartoon modern"

there is a cool poster design that says "Gods not dead he's bread" it's quite funny.

Theory and practice brief

First part of the brief is to pick a theme to make a 20 slide power point for.

Before this class we were told to read the brief for Theory and practice which makes this class pointless if were just going over the brief and nothing else is being adding that we need to know about the project.

we were also told that we should pick a theme before coming to class which seemed odd as they went around taking to people to help them pick a theme (again even when we were told to have one by now).

By this time in class I already had my question never mind the theme so it felt pointless being there.

I tried asking different questions to see in what ways they could recommend approaching this brief but they would just tell us to do it the one way which was in a 20 slide power point and the did not seem to like me saying "what if we do 10 or 30 slides?" I only asked because it does't make any sense to me to have a set number. I mean you could have 100 slides or 2 slides and still get your point across in the same way; it's all about your own personal touch as a design student to show your work.

we ended the class by watching a video about an "Anthropologist" talking about how not to make a power point. What?! if you don't know an "Anthropologist" is someone who studies anthropology; as in human behaviour; as in the furthest from a designer as you can get!

Maybe i'm just cranking or something these morning but I am not happy with they content that we are "learning" in this class and if it doesn't change by Xmas as a rep I will make it change! (as long as i'm not the only one who feels like this).

Movement

Today we made two animations.

a shape or two moving from one side of the screen to the other
HERE 

and a walk cycle
THERE

week two feedback

What is the purpose of your project?

Just explore and when you start crating you will start to
see where your project could take you.

just plow ahead your progress will steer you in the right place.

only a few weeks left

we need to start visual idea planing.

I asked do we need to do a research document?
Jay said he recommend that we wait till we have finished are project so
that we could use it for are presentation at the end.

If you think that you couldn't of done better in a project than your not a designer.

I showed my script to jay and got this feedback from him.

It's a very personal approach to the brief, he said my next step should be to make storyboards
(which I was planning doing)  mainly to make it more defined as an idea.

My script

The bus driver

EXT Sunny

Start with a bus driving down a road coming to a stop, cut to extreme close up of bus door than as people are walking on the bus to than reveal bus driver, as you see him the door starts to close.

INT Bright

The bus started moving again and everyone on the bus is seated; at this point we only can see from behind the crow of people seated on the bus and not anyone’s face.

EXT Sunny

The bus keeps driving down the road and hits a few bumps, takes a few turn or two and finally comes to another bus stop.

INT Dim

The bus has stopped and the door opens, we see the bus driver seating and he gets up, walks out of the door and out of view. Camera cuts to in side of the bus to all the people that are seated and it’s all the same person just with different clothes, hats, hair styles, and age. One gets up and seats down at the driver’s seat than closes the door.

EXT Sunny

Bus drives off down the road as the screen fades to black and text appears fading in and out on each set of words saying “Your life” “your bus” “your bus driver”

 From this feedback I made a small to-do-list

1 storyboards
2 visual style
3 character design
4 animation
5 research process

WTF are you doing

same are last week, we get shown a video and than talked a bit about the project,
the video was called young montana. than another video or two but i'm not very
interested in watching videos all lesson.

The talked about stuff that was obsessive to my age group such as the internet can
change life and that kind of stuff.

We should go at are brief over and over again we get it perfect.

The placement fair is next week.

Agencies

Free index is a good website on summon that shows up all the agencies you could ever what to know about.

the sooner your a head the better.

remember you can take a year out without consequence and then come back where you left off.

When working with a client you have to make them feel like there the boss.

leave gaps for them to fill in so that they can't say that it's all shit.

they will never give you all the information you need so keep asking stuff like
Why do you what it by "x" time?
why do they need this project?

Your getting hired to make sure that your produce is ok for your audience, not just now but
in 5 or 10 years time.

Don't miss out on doing a placement.

clean up your social media as your future boss may look at it before thinking of hiring you.

Character Design

Today we learned some interesting ways of making a character such trying to make one with as little lines as possible.

It was good to get the basics down for drawing a character so that I may start to do better on my own.

  

First brief

We got some good feedback from jay about doing this project today.

Try to get out of the research stage as soon as you can.

Are blogs should be professional

Try and fail early so that you get it out of the way and than document how you failed and what you learned.

He also said that my idea was good and that i needed to flesh it out more.

First brief

First thing we got shown today is a old internet safety video.

after that we get are first brief for the year which is called "The cybernetic self"

we than get talking about big word like "sociomaterial" and "Autopoiesis" 

we than get told more understandable terms to doing the brief.

Redefine your self portrait physically or digitally.

I than straight away have a few ideas and I had some more when I had time to think about it in the studio. 

Idea one: different versions of a character meet each other from different programs to show what they can to that they other programs can't.

Idea two: the biggest moments in my life and how they changed me to be who i am today.

Idea three: the bus driver people get on and off a bus but the bus driver is always the people that are getting off.

Idea four: myself redefining myself , how i will change in the next four weeks.

welcome (again) to second year

Are first proper day back and it's very different seeing a full class compared to the end of last year.

I know that this is the first class back but i'm already sick of hearing "welcome back"

We got informed that all classes will now be recorded like we were asking for in the rep meetings last year. even if it's only in beta it still is good to know that if i ever miss a class than i'll still can see it latter.

The new guy Pete will be teaching us about placements stuff this year is good cause he is kind of funny.

We are now adults!

We should know the basics of what the industry wants.

The sooner we take ownership of what we want the sooner we can get to it.

regret is always more painful than failure .

remember 40% is a pass.

A is 70%
B is 60 to  69%
C is 50 to 59%
D is 40 to 49

We should write a letter to a company instead of an email as it's more likely to be read.

example letter

Dear x---x
                 I am in year two of animation and would love to talk to you just to ask you how you got where you are know as I know sometimes it's not what you know it's who you know.

we should start doing competitions.



This year i'm going to do most of my blogging like so it's just the points that interest me.
here's hoping for a good year.

welcome to second year

So today started off like I thought it would, we were told that most of are classrooms are going to be they same and that they told us that we need to step it up from last year.

There is going to be a motion go club on Wednesdays  with Sarah with sounds like it might be fun but we'll see if it clashes with any class this year so that I can go.

There is two new lectures, one is a theory and practice women and they other is a student  that I guess is here to help out where he is needed.

They asked does anyone what to be a Rep and/or a peer manager and I knew that I could be better than I was last year so I signed up for both.

We also got reinsured that we should choice what we want out of are projects even if people say that it could be better another way.

lastly we got shown are time table and were told to enjoy this year.

I'm guessing that this year will be a lot better mainly because we get more freedom and we know what were doing in terms of software, here's hopeing.

Summer Music Vdeo

My friend messaged me the other day before I came home for the summer looking to see if I was still up for making a music video for him. I sasd yes and so far have they first 47 seconds planed, he did not have any ideas on how he wanted it to look only that it was written in the perspective of "Berry punch" which is a carton character which drinks a lot so i'm just building around that at they moment.

I'm calling this project "Project Shine"
For this project I am planing on using C4D a 3D software and after effects which is a 2D software.
I'm using C4D because I don't know how to use it or any 3D software which will be very interesting to see how it comes out and I also would love to learn 3D techniques.

I'm using after effects because it's one of my favorite programs because of all they things it can do, it's also compatible with C4D.

I am unsure how long it will take to finish this project or even if it will turn out half as good as I want it to but i'll serenely learn a lot from it no matter what and Dan does't mind how it turns out so there is no pressure.

Song for music video

First year of animation grades

I just got my grades today and I did a lot better than I thought I was going to  do. Now that first year is over and I know what kind of animation software I want to learn; I better start learning it over summer and my friend should be soon done with his recording of a new song he wrote so I should have a few projects I will be doing to keep myself busy.

Second year here I come!

Self Negotiated Project

I took a while to finish this one but its done.
I got a lot of feed back each time I showed this to anyone and it was normally "make it shorter". originally I was going to have about three or four different types of animation in this; all forming together to form one big animation, instead in ended up downing all but one animation; stop motion. each letter in this is a 10 frame animation that I drawn using light art photography.
I also had/was going to have or but removed.

• Me talking though the whole animation
• a characters face talking though they changes in types of light art
• animated characters in they background of each change in type to show visual what it would look like if someone was doing it.
• images of light art in the background if each shot to lighten it up

I very much enjoyed making this and I will defiantly do more projects like this over the summer.

click here for the video  

I found these just after cleaning my notes away. I'm glad I did not stick with this style of note taking as it is very hard to referrer and even hard to understand at all.  

Visualisation of Sound

I finally finished this project last night but I rushed they last few so they are not very good. I tried to keep they main elements in the rushed animations as I could while still been able to finish them on time.

The ones I didn't rush aren't perfect either though. There is many ways in which I would improve  them with I ever come back to them.

Overall I enjoyed this assessment the most out of all three as I got to experiment with new and wired things along the way.

"Click here" for the video

sence of place done

This is my final outcome for the sense of place project.

I used my own sense of place to plan a way for advertising brands to make their own name pop and impress people when they see it, I have worked in a pub since I was 15 years old so that is why I choice a pub.

My plan was to film it in my parent’s pub and using rotoscoping I was going to animate the whole thing.

 Click here for video

Design thinking

In this class we talked about how to go though the process of design and why we did they things we did at they start of the year. here are some notes I took.

we went though they 7 stages of design process which are
1Define
2Research
3Idea
4Prototype
5Select
6Implement
7Learn
two recommended companies we were told we should look into are Design council and Ideo as they are very good at what they do which is design.
understanding that different elements of they brief asks of you.
who is they target audience?
what is the design solution that the client is thinking of?
when will the design be needed and for how long?
where will your project be briefed?
why does the client think a design solution is required?

Your not here to make everyone happy and it helps to make it easier for your self.

Primary help give a new perspective that's not out there an informed concept and a range of recourses to draw from

This is what your paid to do.

we than watched a short documentary of a show call "Taking inspiration"

writing scripts can help drive a project.

most importantly break down feed back for the next project to improve and grown as a person.

Easter break

I was at a con over they Easter break for the first time in my life, it was alright but they had live bands playing late at night which was cool. after it was over I went out for a few drinks and I ended up chatting to one of they guys from a band for hours on end. we got to they topic of animation and I let him know that I was studying it, He than asked me when he writes his next song would I what to make the animation for the music video with his band. so I accreted the deal and we keep on talking about music videos and I told him about the one I was working on that starts off in 0D than goes to 1D than 2D and so on. after I explained what they were he told me that in the summer we might be able to figure out how to do the same thing with music.

I still keep in touch with him today and I can't wait to make the video for him.              

 

New to do list

My new brief break down

Robot idea for visualisation of sound

For this idea I plan to make a robot like face that will change and they parts of it will move with the beat and they tune of the music.

This will most be in after effects but I will make most of they assets in illustrator.



 

 



Paper idea for visualisation of sound

 For this Idea I plan to turn three of my old ideas into one. Using typography, sketch book world and paper like puppets I hope to create a new design of in's own.

Graph editor idea for visualisation of sound

For this idea I decided to do sometime random and use they graph editor in adobe after effects for they whole project itself. I had next to no experience with it before so I did not know what to expect.

I used the David Bowie song called "Fame" for this one as it has a good few interments that is easy to hear. I wanted to track an image to each interment that I could hear and by using they graph editor I was going to crate what they interments looked like they sounded of.

Here is a sample of what I was texting. I latter took this method out as it was taking too long,

Overall I enjoyed doing this idea as it got me to learn a lot about the graph editor and how it's used. There is a lot I can improve like adding two or three more interments and maybe moving they graph editor about as they are play they music.

https://vimeo.com/156806356

Faces idea for visualisation of sound

For this Idea I planed to use a new program called adobe character animator. I haven't used it before but it looks very interesting.

 

For this idea I will have a few faces switch between each other as they sing the song "Disbelief" by Raised Fist.

It is hard to rig they models for use in adobe character animator (and by hard I mean time consuming) but once they are in; it's very easy to animate them with the web cam I bought for this.

 

I had a small problem with copying over they audio to they other rigs but I found a temporary solution that will do until I finish this project. If I export they face with the audio I then don't need to use that face again so I can open the rig up and copy another rig in to it, as I save it out it will overlay and take they other ones audio, than I just export it and repeat for the rest.

 

Here two test I did while making this project 

https://vimeo.com/156807049

 

https://vimeo.com/156807051

 

The final outcome was basic enough that you can see what it is and how it could be improved upon, for example I could and in a changing background with each face but I would need to make sure they were easy on the eyes.

https://vimeo.com/156806561 

1.6 Introduction to Maxon Cinema4D

 

We got to learn C4D today and even though I leaned they basics a while ago; I was glad that we went through them as it has been a long time since I have used it.

We went though

How to create, edit and animate a shape

How to add textures and lights in to scenes

And how add 3D text and alter it to fade in and out of existence.

At the end our take was to crate an animate of minimum of 120 frames. I 146 frames of a spinning object that I tried to “break” I did not know what I was aiming for but I knew that I would know when I got there.

 

1.5 Kinetic Typography 2

Unfortunately I missed this class but I tried doing the brief anyway, as I am used to using cameras in after effects this for not very difficult and I did not spend much time on it as  I did not want to over complicate it and just make it straight to the point.   

branding/anti - branding

Branding is as important to a company as a innovation.
in order to complete companies must go beyond making and selling a commodity to creating a band.
This involves developing a brand image, encouraging brand loyalty and developing a brand that has equity in the market place, name packaging, advertising, logo, trademark or package design.

Designers however should not forget their origin and their unique contribution. doing this; the customer begins to see though the point and rejects the pure marketing formula.
there is a need for more individuality while staying within the brands family of design.

Must develop highly sensitive understanding of the design toolbox - colours, shapes, materials, movement, odours, tastes, textures and imagery.  

1.5 Illustrator and the Creative Cloud

For this task we had to pick an image and make it look traced which is a lot easier than I thought it would be. First we imported the image, than went to object and then image trace and make. There was a few different looks to how you can make it come out such as 3 colours, 6 colours e.c.t.

We than had to put text on it to make it look like it’s a logo design. After I changed the opacity of the image, moved the text around and copied the image layer and put a different trace style on it and moved it to the background to effect the front image that was slightly transparent due to the opacity been turned down I was done. 

1.6 Year One Finale

For our last project we had to make a sea creature swim across the screen. I choice a basic fish so that I could copy it at the end and have a hoard of them swimming by, unfortunately this took a lot of compute power so it was hard to make much adjustments as it have to render each fish every time I moved them. I add in bubbles at the end because it adds a nice effect to the scene.

Overall after effects is my favourite class and I am always learning different and faster ways of doing things in it.