Saturday 26 November 2011

Finished? but not happy...

I have animated what I can, but it's getting to that stage where I need to stick with my 3D animation now and leave my 2D behind. I'm not happy with it their are some parts which I do not like. I think the walk cycle is ok but the last scene is really bad and I am not happy with it. My teacher says that i have to concentrate on my 3D animation now and if I have time I can go back and polish it up and make it look more nice. so fingers crossed that this is not the end peice and I will upload something that looks better than this. :)  
This is my piece.


Nearly done :)

Sorry for the poor quality on my animatic I was unsure it was going to work but it's up :)

The next step is to start animating. I can go in between the frames of my animatic and start moving my character. I had a few problems with software, as i really can not draw in flash i needed a program that was really nice to draw in. Photoshop was the answer and I quickly learned how to animate in photoshop. But it got really complicated as a few seconds of animation would mean around 30 layers and it would get really confusing. So i tried animating with  flip book. but I didn't have much time to learn the software and place all my layouts in to flip book. so I have stuck with photoshop even tho i believe it has taken me a lot longer to animate in. In my next blog I want to upload my final piece and then Back in my maya layout blog you will see how this 2D animation has helped with my 3D animation. and you will see the link :). Its getting very close to the end now so everything will be all done :). 

Animatic

This my animatic.

Friday 25 November 2011

Storyboards and layouts!

I have done my storyboards for this piece:
Storyboards are very useful as I can see what shot should come next and what camera I should use for example a close up or a pan.
As shown in the storyboards it shows us the turtle walking in to his home, walking over to the glass vase then he eats the flower. My next step is to animate this!

Layouts:

I have done layouts for this 2D piece.
These will be used in my 2D animation but they are also very useful for my 3D. These can help me with my modling such as what is in the frame, where it goes and what it looks like.
The next stage is to do an animatic. an animatic is like you storyboard in action.

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Character Design: Turtle

These are my character designs for my turtle in my 30 second animation:

as you can see I wanted to go for the cartoon look. The colouring is very simple and I made him stand on two legs rather than four so we can get more emotion from him. we want the audience to think he is quite human in his actions by placing the flower in a vase, then when he eats it it's a realization that he is a turtle and they eat flowers.

Doing a character sheet helps the animators animate. They know what the character should look like and showing the character from different angles and with different expressions helps them know what to aim for.

I also did a layout drawing that will show me what his house will look like:


This is also featured in my Maya Layout blog. Please vist the blog to find out more on why I chose this design.
Im using this drawing to help me with my maya work so I can keep the layout consistent between 2D and my 3D work.
Next I should work on my storyboards so I can finalize my start then i can start to animate :).

*For those who do not know what Maya is. Maya is a 3D software, You can model and animate on it. A lot of films and TV shows will use maya for their 3D animation. You can us 2D animation on it like south park does but it is more of a 3D software*

*The programs that I am using for my 2D animating is Photoshop CS5 and Flash CS5*

Connection!

If you have followed my blogs you will know that I'm in my second year at Uni studying animation. at the minute we are doing a maya layout with some animation in it. (please check out maya layout blog to see my progress and understand what it is about). Before we do our animation in maya we must do it in 2D and translate that in to maya, so we get a 3D version and a 2D version of the same animation.

This is the blog thats following my 2D animation process. If you want to see my 3D part please go to my Maya layout blog :).

the story/plot:

this animation is going to be based around this lonely turtle who comes home with a flower in his hand. he walks in to his home thats filled with stuff he has found laying around in the garden. he walks over to an old vase filled with water. He is just about to place the flower in to the vase then stops and looks at the flower. He is moved to tears and starts to touch the petals. He starts to smile, then he brings it to his mouth and eats it with no shame, he smiles.

as you can see its a short little funny animation. :)

I will start buy creating the layouts and the character design and  then develop an animatic. Then start to animate the whole thing. and buy the end I will have a 30 second animation :)