3D Experimentation on Maya

In this video I was experimenting with 3D environment and how the camera moves round an object within the environment. Also this is another way I could produce my animation of the BBC 4 ident because I want to do my animation in 3D but I will also be experimenting with the software After Effect because I've been using that software for longer so it's familiar to me.

The one thing I would change if I use Maya to do my animation will be the speed of the camera moving around the objects because its too fast, and if I put images on the front of the boxes you won't see them as the camera goes passed. To achieve this I will either add a motion path for the camera to follow so it's smoother and I'll be able to control the speed a lot better, or I will extend the key frames so it takes longer of the action to take place.  

Colour Theory lecture Part 2

In the lecture about colour theory we recapped on what we did last week and the lecturer said that if week didn't attend last week than we would be lost in this lecture. This lecture was about which colours complimented each other and which colours are the opposite colour to one another.

This lecture was quite helpful because it made me think about what colours I would use to help make my animations look more appealing to the eye.

Nearer the end of the lecture we got shown a few images which had colours on them but the colours did not compliment each other so it kind of hurt my eyes a bit.

Colour Theory Lecture Part 1

 In this colour theory lecture we talked about what colour actually is and how it is created. For example what colour is the apple? But before anyone answered the colour red, we got told that the answer is not actually red but It's just a different shade of red or that we see the apple as red because it's the reddest thing on the screen.

We also talked about what the primary, secondary, and tertiary colours are and where they were on the colour wheel which Johannes Itten does a diagram on in his book "The Art of Colour" Colour works by our brains perceiving colour by light bouncing off any object and entering our eyes, as it penetrates the eye a rainbow of colour is formed.

We then talked about colour in the digital form like in RGB, which means the colours Red, Green, and Blue. Also CMYB/K this means the colours Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black/Key.

Thats why if you create something in photoshop and then print it out the colour will be different because the photoshop image will be in the colours of RGB, but the colours of the printer will be CMYK.

Evaluation- Visual Language

Throughout this Visual Language module I’ve found that some of the briefs were difficult but also helpful because it improves your abilities to draw, which to me I feel I need to improve on my drawing and I also need to keep drawing and just draw where ever I go. For the Set, Series, Sequence brief I felt like that one wasn’t so hard but the longest because we had to draw quite a lot of images which related to a word we chose, but in my opinion I would of liked to do more experimentation within the drawings especially when it came to the eight images which we had to explore a rang of ways to draw the same image. I do like my final twelve drawings for it because I felt like I thought outside the box for the word flight because I did a free runner running after a man.

The next brief was the environmental story telling which I did like but again another long one because of the fifteen images we had to draw. For one of my scenes I was on a cruse so I went to Brugge (in Belgium) to draw the environment and the architecture, but I did only do them in pencil because I didn’t have any of my equipment with me so I would of liked to use colour if I could change it.

In the Take 5 brief I had to listen to sound and then animate what I heard, which to me was quiet hard because I had to use my imagination. Most of the sounds were easy to work out like an explosion. I think that my most successful animation I did was the stop motion animation made from paper, this is because I felt it was the best one that represented the sound of a quarry explosion and because I put the most effort in to it.

For the brief ‘You Spin Me Right Round’ I drew my beats headphones twelve times in different poses so that when they were put together the headphones spun round. I did this all digitally because I prefer it to traditional plus I feel that drawing digitally helps with colouring and outlining, but I did loose track with the colours I used so half way through the animation the headphones change colour. If I was to do anything different to the animation I would make it either black and white or make a note of what colours I’m using and colour it all again.

For the final brief I had to draw the human form in many ways like squashing and stretching, walk cycles, and poses. I found this exercise interesting because of the time limits we had to draw within, also I feel like some of my drawing have improved and did try and use different media whilst drawing people. I would of liked to use more watercolors in the drawings but the paper I was using wasn’t suitable.

Overall I think that my time management was good because I did nearly everything on time, but in the future modules I would like to produce a timetable of when I need to do work and for how long I need to do it of.            

  

Visual Language: Sketchbook

Throughout the Visual Language module I have been keeping a sketchbook which is sized A5. This sketch book is mainly for drawing the human figure and drawing faces because those are the things I feel I need to work on, so in this sketch book that is what I'll be working on.

Most of these drawings have been done while I've been at a coffee shop or when we've been at college working .

These two drawings on the left I am quite pleased of because I was woking on drawing expressions you do with the face, so I got two of my friends Malachi and Molly to do a pose for me so that I could draw them.

 With the drawings on the right I was at a coffee shop and on the left of the page I wanted to use pen, to improve my pen drawing abilities. Then I just drew another friend Ollie with pencil because there was nothing else to do.

 

For the pen drawing on the right page I was working on character designs and this was the first thing that came to my mind. I think with this drawing I would like to develop more by adding colour or creating the character on the computer in photoshop to make it look better and cleaner.

Visual Language: Animations which Life Drawing / Human Form is Explored

Another animation I looked at which explored the human form was the video 'Duet' created by the Disney animator Glen Keane. The story in this animation is about who a boy and a girl meet when they were babies but then separated and as they grow up they see each other for a couple of seconds then they carry on with there own lives. This animation used many techniques such like time lapsing by making the two characters grow up in a short amount of time but they did it so smoothly.

Glen Keane was used to working at 24 frames per second when he was working for disney, but when he was working on the short 'Duet' he was working at 60 frames per second because he was also working with computers and in our days people are used to seeing videos in 60 frames per second. This helped Glen Keane make his transitions from kid to adult so fluid and smooth like, so it doesn't seem unnatural and whats even more impressive is that no technique CGI can manipulate this happen.    

Visual Language: Animations Which Life Drawings / Human Form is explored

In this full length feature film 'The Lion King' the animators had used life drawing to capture the animal form. I found it very interesting to find out that a group of animators actually went to Africa to draw the landscape and to get visual reference for the film, and they also went there to hear how Africa sounded. One of the cool things the animators did was that they brought in actual lions from zoos like female, kid lions, and male lions so that they could draw the figure of the lions and see how they moved around. Another thing the animators did was that they went to a zoo to see all that different animals and to also see how each animal moved and acted and them used the information they got for reference for the movie. What interested me was that the animators also incorporated the voice actors into the drawings of the lions and for inspiration of who the characters looked.

 

Visual Language: Animations Which Life Drawing / Human Form is Explored

For the Form, Flow, and Force part of visual language we had to fine animations which life drawing and the human form is explored. So the video above is a behinds the scenes of an animation called 'Thought of You', in this animation it shows two dancers performing to a piece of music and the way the animator made sure the movements were right was that he got two actual dancers to choreograph the dance and preform it so that the animator had something to reference. Ryan Woodward (the animator) created this animation by using the same techniques as traditional animation like layout paper and tracing over the last drawing but slightly changing something, but he was using a computer so that he could add in some effects as well.  

   






One of the things I like about this animation is that the movements that Ryan Woodward had captured looked so realistic but yet not because at one point the male dancer starts moving while his hand and feet are left behind. I also love how the animation helps tell the story between the two animated dancers and how at the end the two dancers change form like the female dancer goes from being a light drawing into an actual real life looking drawing.

Applied Animation: E4 Mood Board

This mood board demonstrates the type of theme of the stop animation I would like to produce, but most of the lego themed sets are either to expensive or they don't make them any more. I thing for the set I might just experiment with different jungle sets and try and buy an Indiana Jones lego man from amazon or something. 

The faces in the mood board are to do with the different kinds of emotions I want the lego man to show while venturing through the tombs. I'm still deciding whether the E4 loge will be made out of lego or not.

Visual Language: Form, Flow, and Force: Strick a Pose

 In this exercise we had to draw out a 20/30 minutes pose so that we could capture the weight and the shape of the person. For this I used only pen and pencil, which I think the pen drawing turned out to be better than the pencil drawing just because of the smooth line on the pen drawing.

Because it was a 20/30 minute exercise everyone found it easier to sit down on a chair so that they could hold the pose for longer, but I would of like it if someone laid down or stood up just to get a different perspective of the model and human form. I can't complain though because my friend Matt did an interesting pose and when I had to pose I sat down, but I did face the chair the other way round just to mix things up a bit.  

Visual Language: Form, Flow, and Force: Ah, Push It!

For this task we had to draw out someone pushing or pulling something and they had to hold the pose of about 5 to 10 minutes. This was so that we could capture the movement of the person using force.

As well I used different materials to draw with like red pencil, normal pencil, a blue oil pastil, and a blue pencil. I my opinion the better drawing was done by my oil pastel and red pencil because I feel like I've captured the human form quite well. But for the blue pencil drawing I feel like the proportions are all off so it's not one of my better drawings.

Visual Language: Form, Flow and Force: Like a Puppet on Strings

In this exercise we had to produce 4 A2 drawings of a squash and stretch sequence which had to have 12 poses in it. My models in this were Callum, Katy, Matt, and Oscar which again posed in some weird ways to make them interesting to draw.

Throughout the drawings I tried to use different media to draw with like oil pastil, brush pen, ball point pen, and a blue coloured pencil.

In my opinion I think that some of my drawing are good but some are again out of proportion which can be because there was a time limit on how long the pose had to be which was about 10 seconds.  

This drawing to the left I feel was not my best work because its too sketchy and very rough, but that might be because I used a ball point pen to draw with, which to me I don't like drawing with but I thought if I tried it I might get better drawing with pen.

The drawing to the right was created with the brush pen, which I feel like using the brush pen gives me smoother lines.

One thing I did notice about using the brush pen was that if I drew too fast the pen the ink wouldn't come out fast enough so it would leave streaky lines, so I had to go lower to counter act this.

I used a blue animating pencil to produce these sketches so thats why the drawing looks a bit faded. I feel like I've captured the human figure well but most of the drawing overlap so you cannot really see the lines the good, so to change this I would either draw smaller or get a bigger piece of paper next time.

Visual Langauge: Form, Flow, and Force: Rhythm is a Dancer

For this brief we had to draw out someones walk cycle but in only 10 seconds and we had to produce between 12 to 18 drawings of the walk cycle.

My models were my friends Matt, Lauren, Emma, and Katy who had very weird walking poses which made it harder for me to draw, gut it was fun at the same time.

Most of the drawings I did I thought were alright but I did rush them so some of them are a bit off like their proportions and body shape. Also I did run out of space for one of the drawings so it just looks like Emma is flying in the drawing.

Visual Language: Environmental Storytelling Part 3

For this place I visited a Costa Coffee in Leeds and just sat down and drew for three hour because I had to wait for someone.

For the drawings I tried to experiment with the different types of media like pencil, brush pen, outline pen, water colour, and oil pastel. I think Some worked better than others like in my opinion the outlining pen looks better than the water colour costa cup.

Visual language: Environmental Storytelling Part 2

For the second part I was a bit lazy, so for place number two it was my studio flat. Most of the drawings again are done by pencil but i did make two of the drawings look like a cartoon by using pen. Also I did try to get different angles and different perspectives again so that the drawings won't be too boring.

To try and achieve this I sat down on my floor so that I'd get a cool perspectives and for one I tried to get some depth of field in it by drawing from inside of my kitchen but looking into the living room. (see image 4)

Visual Language: Environmental Storytelling Part 1

For the environmental storytelling I went to three different places to do my sketching, each place has to have 5 drawings from the 3 places. For my first place I was actually in a different country in Brugge (Belgium).

All of these drawing are a bit sketchy because I didn't bring most of my equipment with me so I only had a pencil and some colours.

For most of the landscape I'd tried to capture different angles and perspectives, so like looking up at a building, trying to get the rooftops because some of the architecture was amazing.