Maya: Church Model

To learn Maya a little more I decided to construct a church in Maya. at the moment I have completed the outer shell, although I still need to build in windows, and have made one set of pillars. The next stage will be to use a EP Curve to create arched which connect the two pillars.

Maya: Modelling Introduction and Experimentation

Here are images form modelling experiments done in Amin's first Maya tutorial. I experimented making geometric and organic shapes using extruding and merging tools. 

After Effects: Ink Reveals

These tests were done after watching an After Effects Tutorial which I might use in relation to my Time Based Narrative project to be used in the opening sequence to create an inky visual effect.

After Effects Tutorial- Easy Ink Reveals: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV1pdWc_tD8

Test 1- An Ink reveal of a dot of white ink spreading across a black background.

Test 2-  An Ink reveal inspired by the opening sequence of Mulan: a black ink line spreading across screen spreading.

Test 3- A line reveal test attempting to create the illusion that the line is being draw across scene by an invisible hand. to learn the technique to do this I watched a tutorial on After Effects.

Animated Handwriting in After Effect:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYcp3qqPdDg

Time Based Narrative: Week 7 Shot Construction

Shot 6 Running Cycle:

In shot 6 the traveller runs through the shot but he isn't running head on to the camera and he isn't running parallel to the camera. his position is more of a 3/4 profile. I had great trouble in finding a walk cycle in this position but I found small cycle made of 14 frames:

http://gatesuryu.deviantart.com/art/Human-Run-Cycle-83217714

Perpective test:

I took stills form the film and edited the 14 frames in photoshop in the background for this shot. I repeated and arranged the frames to see if the character would run through shot as I had storyboarded.

Traveller Running Cycle:

The perspective test worked and the character moved thought shot as I wanted. From there, in photoshop, I drew my character over the practice frames mimicking the movement. 

Then I placed my character into the shot background to see how he moves in the overall environment. I think the running cycle is effective and depicts a good sense of motion and that the shot structure is also visually effective. My character still needs to have a shadow to fully complete the illusion that he is running in that space. 

Time Based Narrative: Week 6 Project Development

Final Background Designs:

the background style has been heavily influenced by the animation short The Silence Beneath the Bark. the main components are a water colour wash background, a textured snow floor, and tree trunks, both of which look as if they were painted with a dry brush. 

Final Design:

We decided instead of having white tree trunks we would have them black. the main reason for this is because the Snow Queen's character is white and if the snow, trees and she were all white the animation would be visually confusing especially as in parts of the animation the snow queen interacts with the trees. 

In The Silence Beneath the Bark the background colour is an aquatic green but to keep in with our established colour palette of blues our background we decided to use an dark aquatic blue. 

Time Based Narrative: Week 6 Project Development

Final Designs:

I presented my designs for the characters and the group agreed that they were simple enough to animate and the style suited the overall look of the animation. However the face's of the characters where changed:

The Traveller:
My designs for the face was thought to be too cute, which I agree, so we decided that Neil's character face was a better design. I think the character is much improved with an easier face to animate.

The Snow Queen:

Her face was also swapped with Neil's character due it's more atheistically pleasing qualities. Also during group discussion we decided that the Snow Queens eye's and lips should be blue as described in the original folk tale. 

Time Based Narrative: Week 5 Project Development

Finalising Character Designs:

Feed back from our presentation was that for our characters to be easily animated by everyone in the group they should have a more abstract than figurative representations of people. from this i have designed simplified characters as well as completed running and flying cycles:

Traveller Design:

The cone shape of the traveller is simple to draw and uncomplicated but still an be identified as a human character. In my section of the animation the traveller has to run so on designing this character it was important to see if he could be animated running. Below is a running cycle for this character. The arm movement, however, is too relaxed for a full out run so in future animation the arm should be bent at the elbow more.  

To help me draw the running cycle I used a running cycle form The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams (above).

Running cycle:

Snow Queen: 

For the Snow Queen, her basic shape is a simple V shape which can compressed and stretched as she moves around. this is demonstrated in the flying cycle below of the Snow Queen moving around the screen.

Flying cycle:

Much of the groups inspiration for the movement of the Snow Queen was from a character in Fantasia 2000- the Fire Bird Suite. this character moves fluidly with a long tail behind her. I felt that my flying cycle lacked that extra fluid feeling brought in be the presents of the tail so using this image and film (below) I amended my flying cycle and gave the Snow Queen a tail of snow.   

                               


Improved Flying cycle: