#working on my animatic at my desk while the present i was making for my friends birthday back in november sits on the seeing machine next to

[undistortedworld]

i need people to understand that if ive said im making them smth but get distracted by anotber project and dont work on their thing for literal months and instead of using my spare time to make their thing i spend it doing a personal project its not that i dont care or value my own project above theirs, i just physically cant work on anything else because my brain obsesses over the other project so much that all i can think about is working on that and i feel distressed not working on it

[wheeloffortune-design]

I'm so happy for your new job opportunity man!!!!! I've been following your journey for a while and your updates have started feeling like the ones from a neighbour :) go kick ass!!!!!!!!!!!

thank you! :D Yeah, it's been a whole journey since I lost my job last september.... if i recall correctly, in the last four months, I-

crammed all the dentist appointments i could get in two weeks before my insurance ran out = 5h total of getting cavities filled

spent so much time applying to jobs, first in the artistic domain i wanted, then for management/desk jobs, then retail. i made a dozen CVs, a bunch of portfolios, countless cover letters. it took two months, and only the art store called me back.

went to two small conventions and gave presentations in both

had an artist table at the rpg convention so i had to prepare prints and stuff

drew a whole pinup calendar in a couple of weeks

built an online store and set the print on demand system to sell prints and said calendars

somewhere around that was halloween. i was a sexy pirate.

wrote a short-story in three days to meet a deadline

drew a lot of commissions, one of them with cars, it was hard

got a retail job at the art store

turned 40! my friends brought face makeup at the party, i was a pink spiderman.

worked full time at the art store, was physically exhausting

completely reorganized the framing department

a friend told me about a storyboarding opportunity that would open in january, showed me how to use the program

christmas rush

lost my grandma, was a very hard time for the family

awkward holidays

between christmas and new year i learned how to use storyboard pro and made a animatic as a portfolio piece (while working 40h)

new year. my resolution is fame and fortune.

had to prepare the kickstarter plan for the upcoming novel

grandma's funeral

online cover reveal party for the book

corrected the line edits of Mrs. Victoria, reread the whole book in three days

the studio liked the animatic i send, they made me take a storyboarding test, which took two days

reminder that i'm still working a 40h/week job and coming back home most days at 9pm. it's winter, in canada.

the test was accepted, i negotiated the contract

and today i told the art store i was leaving

i'm startig the new job on monday.

so yeah, i haven't stopped for a moment in the last four months. i still have some commissions to draw, and then i'll start writing and drawing stuff for the kickstarter, but i'll have a lot more time, money, and energy to tackle all this.

(i'm very lucky that i was finally medicated for adhd just before all of this, i couldn't have made it without my friend concerta.)

so this is gonna be me for the next couple of days, lots of sleep, maybe play a video game. make the puzzle i received at christmas.

[1401113maripu-blog]

Now that I had figured out what was going to happen in the rest of the animation, I went about beginning to board the whole thing, presenting it to my team as an animatic.  Jamie was unable to comment on it at the time, but Jack and Katherine were able to give some feedback.

Katherine suggested that there should be clear pauses between when Jackie is sucked into the data world and when she finally comes back to her senses.  I will need to check the rules of the RSA brief to make sure I am allowed to tamper with the audio file others I may get disqualified.  She also suggested that there a should be a notepad on the desk that she could use when writing her list.

Jack also had a list of things that could be changed :

‘There should be more emphasis on the cup at the beginning to link to the end. The jump from the scene setting to the mug is a little big (for me). Does it need to jump back to her to the same place? then over the shoulder, its a little quick. The bubble screen (graph bit) there seems to be a little too many cuts. submit screen a little quick.’

Jack did have a fair point with this.  The coffee is meant to be a big deal throughout the animation, so there should be more emphasis on it in the beginning.  To solve the issue, I suggested that Jackie entered the shot with the coffee, the first shot matching the last one...

....however, Katherine argued that this would give us more work to do, having two different shots to explain something so simple.  Instead, she suggested that we just take advantage of the camera rig function in TVPaint and just zoom out from Jackie walking in and setting the mug on the table:

After I sent them both of these images, we all agreed that the latter was the better option as long as we could figure out how the function worked in the program.

Another issue that was discussed was entire glitch scene. While the shots were strong, it was noted that they happened far too quickly, causing some confusion. This can be partially resolved by shifting the shots slightly, however, the audio is not ideal for the scene, being too short despite being one of the most important parts of the entire speech.  I will see what I can do with regards to the matter, but it is limited due to the source material.

[cameron-ashurst22]

Mystery Box Weekly Summaries

Mystery Box Weekly Summaries

Week 18 

Day 1- introduction to mystery box brief

Today I had the introduction to the mystery box brief. In this introduction I had the choice of CG or stop motion when creating the animation for the brief. I want to specialise in CG as a career path so I picked CG for the project . This introduction outlined what will happen in the next few weeks of the course, I found that the character enters from offscreen then looks into the box and reacts to its contents.The sequence is to be 10 to 15 seconds longhand has a duration of 4 weeks.

Day 2 - character acting class

 Today I had a workshop on developing reference for the mystery box projects. Initially we did a series of exercises to warm up and fully engage with key poses and telling the story without facial expressions. I found this workshop quite challenging as I find it hard to let loose in a public environment as I am reserved in nature. However I tried my best and am pleased with the contributions I was able to make during the workshop. I ended up coming up with the idea that for my mystery box project the character was to be a thief who would sneak into shot and then be caught stealing.We Took video reference of performances and I chose Sam’s interpretation as the on I want to adapt further as you can clearly see the line of action in his body through the key frames.

Day 3 - character acting class

Today I had a workshop on reviewing what I had filed in the previous session. The aim was to look at the poses and shapes the body made with reference to pin, ball and wall as well as pyramid body shapes. I found this workshop interesting as it helps convey emotion through the shape of the body. We reviewed clips of Charlie chaplains work and picked out specific body shapes he was making to convey the emotion in the scene.

Day 4- storyboard masterclass

Today we learned the fundamentals of what makes a great storyboard. I found out that storyboarding was developed by Disney and the role of the storyboarded was to visualise the script and that character performance is absolute key in the storyboard. 

There are two types of storyboard a presentation board which is more refined and polished. The other is a shooting board which is widely used on Tv series and animated features, these tend to be rough and expressive to once again enhance character performance.Storyboarding is also used in live action as a tool to plan out complex action and effect sequences.

I also learned about visual storytelling and how a shot is a series of images in a sequence from the same camera angle. A sequence is a series of scenes telling the story from beginning to conclusion . An act is the structural element formed by a group of sequences with a longer story.

Every shot must serve a purpose and cutting is used to shift the audiences focus to important aspects of the story.

We then redacted the storyboard we had to complete using new camera angles and techniques. I found this extremely interesting as I want to enhance how I tell a story in an animation and learning the fundamentals to this is key for me to push forward in the process.

Week 19

Day 1- Mystery box animatic workshop

Today I had a workshop on how to create an animatic using the storyboard I had previously done around the mystery box project. I found that this was extremely beneficial as it helped digitise my drawings using tv paint. As over the study week I had done this on photoshop I was happy with getting to use the software again while receiving feedback. I found that my panels told a story but needed development on screen through in-betweens. Helen suggested I take some of the newer panels out of the animatic due to them conflicting with the premise of the story itself. By using the different camera angles it helped me gage the timing needed for the character to move and react to the mystery box itself. To improve on the animatic itself I will begin to use a background layer for any constant objects like the box that are not moving. In addition I will work on multiples layers the more advanced the storyboarding process goes.

Day 2 - Mystery box

Today I had the introduction to using a rig and creating walk cycles in maya. This proved extremely beneficial in helping me to decide the movement for the mystery box project. We started with an exercise on creating dynamic poses using the rig I found this difficult at first due to the mechanics of the rig. However I quickly got to grips with the software and started to really enjoy posing the rig considering the characters line of action and silhouette. The next exercise was to complete a simple walk cycle using only the legs and torso of the rig. I enjoyed this aspect of Maya as it was quite simple to do. However I did struggle with key framing as I would forget to key frame after I moved the character meaning I had to start again posing. To continue my development in the software I will continue to do a series of poses using the same rig and further develop my mystery box iteration.

Week 20

Day 1- Mystery box

Today I started my mystery box animation. I was able to complete the walk cycle through the legs but further refinement is needed as the back foot begins to slip underneath the floor. As I wanted to create `a sneaky walk cycle I watched the reference footage from the acting workshop to help create the posing of the cg character.However the opening movement for the character was too fast and gave a more determined walk. I decided to space out the key frames and the action became more fluid and resembled the reference material. I like the way the first pass places emphasis on the twist of the body and the use of the arms of the character. To improve the animation I will fix the emphasis on the feet as well as complete the rest of the animation on the arms. I am looking forward to completing the first pass of the project as I feel with refinement I can get the right character performance.

Day 2 - Mystery box

Today I completed the first iteration for my animatic for the mystery box brief. I used the advice from he previous sessions with Helen to create the animatic. I focused heavily on the posing of the character especially in the sneaking walk cycle. However there is some inconsistencies with the spacing of the walk cycle and the hair of the character as it changes between frames. In addition I decided to simplify my character down from the storyboards I had digitally created as I felt this would be easier to animate. After watching how Pixar storyboarded there film I decided to use a similar colour palette of greys and whites as well as some of the camera angles . Furthermore I found that the animatic was at its strongest when the line of action and facial expression matched up to give a believable performance.Overall I am happy with the first pass of the animatic and will try to rectify the mistakes I have made with the consistency of the character.

Day 3- Mystery box 

Today I continued with my mystery box project but also looked at the posing of the character rig sitting down at a desk. This was to understand the line of action and how to offset certain parts of the animation. I then used this technique to develop my walk cycle further by offsetting the way the feet touch the ground.This helped place emphasis on the sneak and added weight to the walk. In addition I lengthened out the end of the walk as it was too fast and blocked out the next part of the animation where the character reacts to the box itself. Furthermore, I amended problems in the feet of the walk as they where disappearing through the floor and was advised to not fully lock out an arm or leg. This would detract from the overall smoothness of the animation . For the next session I will continue to focus on the arms of the character as well as add sway through the hips.This will help give a realistic walk as the character is shown to be shifting weight.

Week 21

 Day 1-Mystery Box 

Today I continued with the mystery box brief but took a different approach to the walk cycle. As I was unhappy with the outcome of the previous iteration I decided to start the walk cycle again.  Found that the difficulty of having splined and stepped key frames was too challenging to create the correct spacing and timing for the walk cycle itself. By having splined and stepped keyframes the animation was jittery and didn’t offer the flow a stepped keyframes animation would give. In addition I found that limbs would twist and be in positions I didn’t place them in meaning It would take longer to fix them than just starting the walk cycle again. 

    For the new walk cycle I used reference from the animation survival guide with the tip toe sneak as I felt this best suited the character I wanted to portray. I found it easier after the practice of the previous animation to place the character in key poses. Instead of doing the separate parts of the character moving I focused on every aspect of the character. For instance instead of just animating the legs I focused on the legs and waistline together. This is because the waistline would dictate the position of the legs. With the walk cycle itself I found that the top part of the body would arch forward which intern would push the shoulder up closer towards the ears.This meant that little animation is needed on the arms due to them being held in place by the character as he is sneaking.

     When creating the walk cycle I decided to use the heel roll and to roll functions. This complicated the animation as I was using the toes as reference when interacting with the floor. This led to the character feeling weightless and lacking consistency when he walk. There was no weight to his steps and he appeared to float across the screen. To fix this I began to remove the heel and toe roll as well as the rotation of the foot. By doing this I made sure the foot was firmly planted onto the floor this added weight to the step. To develop this I can now add the heel roll which will then emphasise how the foot hits the floor and how softly the character is walking. 

    In addition I realised that on the upwards pose on the step the characters body would have to lean back to emphasise the greater step. This would push the knee higher and up towards the mid stomach. By changing this from the previous iteration it gave a more realistic walk cycle. This is because the body now moves with the waist and drives the legs forward pulling himself along to emphasise the sneak.

    To conclude, the animation needs improvements through the heel roll and the spacing and timing between actions has to be offset. I will continue to take reference video to ensure that this is presented accurately. In addition I will begin to change the position of the arm to emphasis where the wight has shifted on the body and ultimately move the head to complete the walk cycle up to the box. I am looking forward to completing the walk cycle as I feel like I have grasped the main aspects of Maya in this process. Furthermore I am looking forward to creating a believable interaction with the box itself as I feel like this will compliment the walk cycle itself.

Day 3- Mystery box 

Today I fixed the foot placement and the timing on my mystery box placement. With the placement of the feet I made sure that they were firmly planted on the floor before emphasising the heel roll. This was the best way to ensure that the foot would plant against the floor and not sink into it, therefore adding weight to the characters walk. After watching the reference videos again and trying to walk myself in the same way I realised that when someone sneaks they are on there tiptoes and then place the rest of the foot down when they take a step. To complete this in Maya I used the heel roll on impact and then proceeded to straighten the foot up. This helped emphasise the walk. 

The next step for todays session was to adjust the timing to emphasise the step up and act of the body. To do this I spread the key frames out on the graph editor and began tweaking each of the poses so the emphasis was placed on the line of action of the character. I am pleased with the result of this as it adds to the weight of the walk. However there were difficulties with he legs as they began to pop and create a disjointed walk cycle. To amend this I tried to adjust the position of the waist but this would cause the leg to bend in the complete opposite way. I realised that there was something wrong with the knee controls and began to straighten that out to ensure that the leg remained in the right position. This then allowed me to bend each leg and create a realistic walk cycle. 

To improve further on this walk cycle I feel like I should improve the movement of the arms as they remained fixed in a position for the entirety of the walk. In addition there are certain parts of the cycle where the movement is nominally quickly and this detracts from the overall smoothness of the cycle itself. To fix this I will have to look at the key frames in the graph editor again to ensure the timings are correct in both the legs and the waist.

Day 4- Mystery box 

Today I removed a large amount of key frames from my walk cycle to fix the balance of my character as he walked. The previous walk made the character become off balance on the passing pose.To fix this I moved the waist back therefore arching the the back and making the character balanced. To further the animation and walk cycle I will have to fix the in-betweens of the character and the positioning of the feet as they begin to become sucked into the leg when the cycle is placed on spline.

I also looked at how to light and render my animation to give a polished feel to the animation. The position of the lighting intrigued me and also helps to develop the visual narrative being portrayed. I decided to place one light infant of the box so the shadow passes on the face of the character and two behind him. This gave the character a roundness and showed that he was three dimensional.

Overall I am happy with the progression I am making with Maya as due to me starting over again multiple times I become quicker in key framing. Also by starting again I begin to see the benefits of repetition and the ease of which I can now produce walk cycles more rapidly.

Week 22

Day 1 - Mystery box 

Today I ironed out the major flaws in the splined animation of my walk cycle up to the box as I had been previously working in stepped. I fixed the foot placement when the foot leaves the ground and lifts with the leg. This was due to the foot morphing into the leg and giving an unrealistic ankle joint . This then made the character jolt forward which detracted from the overall walk cycle. In addition I worked on the timing and spacing of each step making sure the character hung up in the air for a long period of time before suddenly swooping down to the next step. This allowed more emphasis to be placed on the sneak itself giving the character a shift in weight.

Furthermore, I decided to block out the reaction of the character to the box as he is caught for stealing. I found this difficult at the Strat as I was trying to understand how the character would spring back and act surprised. This would allow him to hold his hands up ready for the police to catch. At first I started by just having the character spring up but it gave a robotic feel which didn’t allow the character to fully perform. To emphasise the shock I shifted the weight of his body backward and tried to make him step back in shock. This then would allow for me to place head and body swivels to show that he Is looking around due to being caught. However there is improvements to be made as the spring back is not timed correctly and needs extending due to the body quickly flashing in movement. Also the body swivel don’t encompass the full range of motion as I have to make the feet move with the body instead of just sliding across the screen.

Finally, I played around with the facial expressions of the character this completed the whole performance on the walk cycle and the action. I chose to add a cunning facial expression as his head rotated to show that he is scanning the room ahead. I also emphasised the shocked look on his face as an alarm goes off fully extending his jaw down leaving it gaping.

Overall I am happy with the progression of the mystery box project and look forward to getting feedback off John in the next week.

Day 3 - Mystery box

Today I worked on my mystery box animation again trying to flesh out the back end of the animation for this I wanted the character to jump up in the air and act shocked as he is caught. This would entail him raising his arms above his head and looking around anxiously. To achieve the jump I watched a series of tutorials on how to create an effective jump in Maya. This then allowed me to understand the key framing and how the body squashes and stretches on impact.

However, after the first pass of the jump I realised that by just watching the tutorials I had mimicked the same emotion as the video and this is not what I wanted to portray. To fix this I kept the placement of the feet in each of the frames but altered the angle and position of the body. As the character has a shocked jump his arms will raise up going to an extreme above his head. They then will go down for impact and rest at a state where they are still raised. In addition I altered the curvature of the spine as it will bend more towards the ground on impact than it would as he jumps. The spine will bend backwards in this instance to emphasise the shocked expression of the character.

Next I worked on the the steps backward the character takes as he moves around anxiously after the jump. I tried to place emphasis on the facial expressions and how quickly the head turns to show panic. However I feel that this needs a large amount of work due to the character appearing to dance I stead of moving around with urgency.

Week 23

Day 1 - Mystery box 

Today I began to finalise the ending of the mystery box project. I am happy with how this project is turning out as I feel I have correctly created a sneaking walk with the right sense of balance and timing as well as a jump that shows a shocked reaction . The ending of the mystery box cycle is that the character will hold his hands up and drop to the floor much like a suspect would when getting caught by the police. I tried to emphasise the timing and emotion of this by having the character place his hands to his head in disbelief at first before resuming to place them behind his head. I feel this works well as it complements the piece showing that he was incapable of achieving his goal of stealing what was inside the mystery box. To improve this I want to achieve a crying emotion like his hands and head are shaking as he is distraught at being caught. For this I could add more key frames moving the shoulder up and down swell as the body back and forth this could give the emotion I want.

Next I decided to fix the key frames around the waist of the walk as there was too many and the character didn’t have a flow to the sneak. With advice from John I decided to distinguish a clear up , down a passing with the waist. This then allowed me to elaborate and add more key frames to smooth out the animation. With the adjusted waist this added more weight to the overall walk of the character this then played emphasis on the sneak.

Furthermore , I also started to look at the lighting for the full scene. I moved the previous lights backwards as their intensity was to strong when rendered. I found that having this three light setup gave the best angles to show the characters movement and emotion. To further improve this I am going to research how to add a moving light into the animation itself. This spotlight will follow the character to the box and be placed directly on him when he is caught this creates the illusion that someone is chasing him.

Day 3 - Mystery box 

Today I fixed the lighting on my mystery box project. I wanted to ensure that the lighting would cover the entire screen highlighting the shadows and shapes of the character so I used four lights. These four lights acted as a base to light the character from all angles. I kept the intensity of these lights low as I wanted to give the impression that the character is trying to steal something from the mystery box. I also introduced a spotlight that would be mobile. This movement established a sense of urgency in the characters walk as he is clearly not trying to be caught or seen. I like the way the light pans around the scene before fixing on the box when the character is caught. This helps present the sense of shock and anguish on the characters face.

Furthermore, I also fixed the initial issues on the first few steps of the sneak cycle. I found that by removing key frames gave a more fluid sense of music instead of having fixed positions for the up and downward poses in the animation. I found the most issue in the second step as the waist had failed to move as the step progressed . To fix this I moved the waist upwards on the passing pose as this would add continuity to the up pose. I then fixed the positioning of the legs and removed the keyframes I no longer needed. This left me with 3 main key frames which I could clearly distinguish each pose. In addition on the first two steps especially the legs of the character began to pop when the animation was changed to spline. To combat this I moved the waist of the character down on the keyframes where this happened. This helps to contribute to a realistic and smooth sneak cycle.

Finally, I rendered out my mystery box animation in Maya to see what the character would look like when lit. This gave me a great sense of what could be improved with the animation as a whole as I could see an almost finished article. This was a long process to render but I found that the outcome was rewarding and I am looking forward to completing more CG animation in the future.