Crooked

I was given the opportunity to create my very own animation. I had many ideas but for this project I wanted to focus on my story making skills. In the end, I decided to create an animation about a stick figure who is different from others but soon learns to embrace his difference. 

My main character is named Skully. I named him that because from the way I drew him, he looks like he has scoliosis. I wanted to keep the art work simple so the viewers could focus more on the story. 

My story starts with a shot of two stick figures having fun, playing with a kite. Then, it pans to a shot of Skully. He decides to ask them if he could play too but when he asks, they reject him because he is different. Later that day, skully sees the two other stick figures still playing with their kite. Suddenly, the wind blows their kite into a tree. They try to reach for it but they were not tall enough. The two decide to give up and start walking away. Sully felt bad for them and decided to try and help them. At first, he wasn't sure how to help them but then realized he had something that the others didn't. Skully used his disability to stretch and grab the kite. The two stick figures watched with amazement and realized that they should not have judged Skully for being different.

Storyboard:

Here is a look at my story in a little more depth. 

My Process:

 I made this animation in Adobe After Effects but drew my characters and scenes in Photoshop. It didn't take log to draw because of its simple design and color. After creating all of my shots for the film, I imported all the psds into Adobe After Effects where I used key points to make each character move. 

However, before I did that, I had to use the puppet tool to create what would best be described as bones. The puppet tool gives the characters' arms and legs points to help move you character. This gave me the opportunity to put my characters in any position I wanted them too. 

Once I gave all of my characters "bones", it was then time to use the key points to make the characters move from position to position. 

The hardest movement was the walk cycle. My characters' designs made it difficult to create the appearance of walking (not to mention I'm a perfectionist and had to redo a lot of the walking scenes because it didn't look right). To complete the walk cycle I used a piece of paper as a line across the screen to make sure the legs were walking in a straight line.

Another challenging part of my animation was figuring out how to make the crooked back unbend into a straight line so Skully could reach the kite in the tree. At first, I tried using the puppet tool but it did not give clean looking transition. Then, I tried to make separate pieces that made up the back so that I could rotate all the curves into one straight line. However, the pieces didn't line up quite the way I wanted it to. 

I decided to ask my teacher if he had any ideas of how to fix my problem. He suggested created a vertex on After Affects and make it into the shape of Skully's back. This gave me the chance to move the points on his back from curvy to straight. After following my teacher's instructions, I couldn't be more happy with the turnout of my animated short film.

Once I finished all my scenes, I then had to find music. I wanted instrumental music that went with the mood of each scene. It was hard to find this type of music but I finally found music that (somewhat) suited the film. I'm still a little nervous about the music and am not certain whether I really like it or not but oh well. 

I am happy that I a finally done with my animation. I believe my hard work in class has paid off. I do believe it came together well and all though the story is a little cheesy I am proud of myself. This project has allowed my to recognize my strengths and weaknesses. I plan to use this information on my future animated projects. 

Hope you like my film!

Steal Like An Artist

I just read a short novel that I purchased called Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.

This book is about how artists find their inspiration in the stuff around them. It gives the reader an insight on creativity and how to prosper as an artist.. or animator(;

The author's main idea is that nothing is original. One may find this hard to believe but it was even stated in the Bible.

"There is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Kleon believes that everything has to come from something. Creative work is found from what came before it. When you first think about it, the topic seems depressing but it is actually freeing. The sooner an artist can accept it, the sooner they can embrace it. There is no more pressure of being completely original. 

The author believes ideas come from the influences you surround yourself with everyday. The only way to become better is to expand your mind.

How would one do this?

The answer is simple. Collect knowledge. The more your head expands from books, movies, and everyday sights; the more you can choose to be influenced by. After-all, our own ideas are just clumps of other ideas that inspire us. 

Kleone encourages artists to take a notebook wherever you go If there is something you see or hear that you find interesting write it down because it could lead to something amazing. An artist is a collector because they take the things they love and build off of it in their own image. Inspiration is all around you so when you see it, steal it. 

I loved this book. I believe the author challenges the reader to look at being an artist in a different way than one would. Kleone makes a good argument. When I first started this book, I was skeptical. I believed there were a lot of movies and books in the world that are so unique and wonderful-for example disney- but the more I read the more I became convinced. It made sense to me that in order for an artist to create, it must be inspired with something around him/her.

The knowledge one would take out of this book depends on what kind of person they are. Take me for example. After reading this book, I wish to look more deeply at the world around me and embrace any ideas that will inspire me to animate a story worth stealing someday.

Citation: Kleon, Austin. Steal like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative. New York: Workman Pub., 2012. Print.

  

Short Film

Feast Analysis:

An animated short film I admire is Pixar's production of Feast. 

Feast is a romantic comedy that expresses a well told story about man's best friend. This anecdote gives an inside look on how Winston, the dog, reacts when his owner starts to date.

In this story, the protagonist, Winston, is introduced to a new life style after his owner takes him in off the streets. It wasn't a challenge for Winston to adapt because of his deep love a food. As time goes by, Winston and his owner's bond grew. Later in the story a woman gets introduced, causing Winston's life to go sideways. It wasn't until one day when Winston realized life wasn't about food, it was abut making his owner happy. 

The Feast is an example of how caring and helping your friends and family is more important then objects or even food...

How was Feast made?

This animated short is a 3D hand-drawn/ computer-animated film. Animators used the Meander System to create this short film. It was the first film to use this program in color. The texture, also, was used to create an illusion that made the finished product look as if it were 2D. 

As you watch the video, you will find that most of their shots were the same. This is an artistic technique used to show quick cuts of each shots. In fact, animator Patrick Osborne, said that the story of Feast was based off of the app 1secondeveryday. This app allows users to create 1 second videos and mash them together, making a story. Osborne used this app to create a video of the dinner he ate. This gave him the thought of making a nice short film based off the app.

I also noticed in the film that the people are blurred out. The only thing in-focus is the dog and his food. This is to keep the story's target on it's main character. After all it is a story about a family coming together through the perspective of a Winston and his meals.

I really enjoyed this short film because it shows a lovable dog who witnesses his owner finding true love. He realized that he loved his owner more than his food.
I loved how they edited this story with the repeating short. I think it was really original and different compared to other shorts. It gives a different look on how to capture the story. I can only hope  to be this unique.

Fish

It all starts with a doodle…

My goal of my animation was to create a 3D swimming fish on the Maya Program.   

I had to start out simple. I made sure to draw a fish that had little plain features. After sketching out my fish I scanned it onto the computer and pulled it into the Maya Software. It was there that I began to shape out my fish. I started out with a cube and began to move the vertexs causing the figure to stretch out. I had to use tools that allowed me to extrude my shape, creating the parts of the body such as the lips, fins and tail. I cut my fish inhale with the slicer and used the symmetry tool to create two equal sides of the fish. I screen shouted a picture of the shape of my fish after completing it and dragged the picture in Photoshop because the next stage was coloring.

I wanted my fish to have contrasting colors, so I used the colors blue and yellow. There is also a hint of orange. I felt accomplished with my design I created. I feel that it is unique and resembles what looks like a real fish. You have to save your design as a png in order to wrap the design on the subject.

In Maya, you must add a phong texture and download your file with the design onto the fish. I had to make sure the design lined up with the body, otherwise, the finished project wouldn't come out right.

After attaching the textured design, you had to create eyes for your fish. What I did was take two spheres and put them where the indented sphere shape was on my fish.

The next step was a little tricky. I learned how to create bones for my sea creature. In Maya, the bones are joints and allow you to move your subject more effishiantly (You see what I did there?). All the bones should be connected and lead back to the main bone that will be used to move the entire body.

After lining up on the bones you your fish the next step is to color the bones. To color the bones you had to color the parts you wanted to move white for each bone, the other parts should have remained black. This sounds easy, however, it was very challenging for me. It is difficult because the white paint puts weights on the bone, if you put too much white on one bone then it could all concave on each other because it's too heavy. I know this from experience…

After I finished painting the bone, it was then time to make my fish swim. I used key points to plot where my fish would move too and what angle its tail would be "wagging" to.

My project came together pretty well. I wouldn't change a thing except maybe being more careful with the bones. I know that now. The process of making this animation was a great review for me and also taught me new technics. I can't wait to see what I will be creating next(:

Final: Land of the Lost

I have done some awesome projects in animation, but this one has been my favorite!

The assignment was to take all we have learned throughout the year and combined it to make into one video. This includes: 3D animation, special effects, 3 point lighting, and green screen technology. 

My group brainstormed ideas. One of the members in our group thought about making a Back to the Future film. We all agreed on it and started story boarding. Our conversation changed to the old Land of the Lost TV show. We looked up the theme song to it and ended up  loving it! That's when we realized that we should base our project off of Land of the Lost.

It didn't take long to storyboard because our film was going to be mimicking the Land of the Lost intro theme song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwvguf_0kUw

Our group then assigned roles to everyone.

I was the director of the film and was in charge of putting the whole film together on Adobe After Effects. Corey Eaton was the director of photography and filmed the shots of us in the green screen room and the closeups of the steam from his backyard. Hanna Brady was in charge of the 3D animation of the Land of the Lost title. Brianna helped by making graphic designs for the credit scenes and Kate made the storyboard.


In this film we didn't actually record ourselves floating down a river in a raft, it was what we call movie magic! This magic came from what is called a green screen. The green screen gives us the power to transport ourselves to another place while still being in the same room. What we did was place ourselves in front of the green screen and record as if we were in the river. In the animation software, After Effects, you can change the background into whatever you want (in this case a river).

After filming all the shots needed, we imported them into After Effects. I laid each shot in order and began the green screen transformation. The first step is creating a magenta matte to go behind all of my camera shots. This is because magenta is the opposite of green. I then created a Color Key Effect that turns the green color into that magenta. It is important to not have shadows of your subject while filming in the green screen room. The shadows are harder to get rid of (a tip is using the three point lighting technic).


After color correcting your subject so it goes along with your background, you are ready to drop the background in.
Once the background is placed under the shot you want it to be you can begin scaling, moving, or rotation your subject. The Color Key effect allows your background to become invisible so you don't have to worry about the green color. 

The green screen transforms this…

...into this(:

I the original video, Land of the Lost, it had an earthquake appear. Through the use of movie magic we were able to make that earthquake possible in our film. Our director of photography, Corey, found special effects to use to make it look like rocks were falling onto us and splashing into the river. This is one of my favorite shots of the entire film because it is funny to watch and really adds to our video.

After doing all of this work we then added the Land of the Lost theme music.

Hope you enjoyed our film!

Misdirection

We called this film Misdirection. It is about a street magician named Will, who's mother is ill. She lives in a nursing home and is facing serious debt problems. Will is overwhelmed by the situate and decides to steal the wallet of a volunteer during his magic trick. Relief rushed over him until later that night. The volunteer (Matt) confronted him, accusing him of stealing the wallet. Will was frightened and quickly started running. Matt chases Will into an alley and all you hear is the sound of two gun shots. The final shot is a mysterious hand putting a stack of cash on the nightstand of the mother's bed.



This film came together very well in the end. When coming up with a story, we had to make sure it included a water bottle, a hat, a light source, and the phrase "Light's Out". The scope of the project was to combined all that we've learned this year and make it into a video.

 My group wanted to make a more serious film to challenge ourselves. We spent the first few days coming up with the plot and writing the script. Then, we assigned jobs for everyone to do. I was in charge of storyboarding out all the scenes. In class we would write down locations to shoot our film. It was difficult because our story couldn't be shot during school hours. While other groups were filming their stories, we were gathering around a table figuring out the locations, the storyboard, the script, and the cast.

Once we figured out everything, my group was ready to start filming. After school on Friday, May 8th, We met up at Corey Eaton's house to shoot the first scene. We decided that Lucas Scott and Kaleb Axe will be our two leads. We asked Graham Petter's mom to play the mother in this production. Everything went well for scene 1.
The director of Photography (Corey), got a lot of close up shots that helped with the intro to our story. He also recorded scene 1 in various angles so later in the editing process we would have multiple shots to work with. After scene one was completely recorded, we headed to downtown Lenexa where we shot the rest of the footage.
One of the problems with shooting at sundown is that you have to film quickly, otherwise, your lighting for the scene goes away. However, we did manage to get all the shots needed for this scene and it ended up looking really cool!

Editing this film was a trouble for me because I was sick and had to miss school for two days. I stayed after school for a couple days trying to catch up on work. Luckily, I managed to finish it in the nick of time.
After reviewing each of my groups videos, I noticed how differently everyone edited theirs. For example I used flashbacks and sound effects in my video while others in my group used music to go with the serious tone. However, all of them turned out great. I am very proud of my group for pulling together.

I have learned a lot about video for the past year. It has impacted me and made me closer to my goal in life. Overall it has been a fun year and I wouldn't change a thing(:

New State, New School, New Programs

To Sum It All Up

This post is a quick summary about all the animations we have created in class this semester.

This is a hammer and nail I created in eComm. In this project I learned how to extrude faces and split polygons. Extruding faces allows me to make a certain side of the polygon extend and get bigger/smaller. When splitting polygons, I use the Cut Faces Tool. The tool allows me to draw lines onto the polygon and turn one face into two. These tools came in handy when creating the claw peen and the hammer head on my animation.

In eComm we built an Ice-cream shop. This included animating ice-cream, table, a bowl, a    scooper, a cone, and an ice-cream stand. To make these items we Extrude Tool and had to combined many polygons. For the ice-cream we used the Bump Maps to give it a texture similar to real ice-cream. I also decided to put all items on the table onto a Lazy Susan. I used keyframes to animate the items spinning on the Lazy Susan and put it on a Loop.
This next project was a bit tricky. I animated three different balls bouncing. The project was to show the difference between each ball that bounces. I had to use many keyframes and time each balls bounce. The Graph Editor helped me in this process. It shows a grid of each balls bounce and lets you change the way the ball bounce to make it look more real.

I loved this next project! In class, I animated a glass cup and a jar. I couldn't accomplish this animation without NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines). This helped me create smooth curves for my jar and cup. Using the Curve Tool, I outlined a cup on the graph creating curves. After I doing that step I used the Revolve Surface Tool which duplicates my curves that I outlined, creating a cup. For my jar, I used the same process and decided to make it look like the Honey Pot from Winnie the Pooh. I am very happy with the way they both turned out.

I made an animation of the salt and pepper shakers from Blues Clues. I used the Shelf Icon to create the first circle curve. I then selected symmetrical vertices and scaled them down to get the base shape of the salt shaker. After that, I duplicated it and started them on top of each other till I though it was a good height. I created another circle and put it on top. Once I created the shakers shape I put a loft surface over it. This creates the curves making the salt shaker 3 Dimensional. I then created a top for my shaker. I drew out a sphere and put it on wireframe view. I changed the vertices to make the top of the sphere more flat. After that, I deleted the bottom half of the sphere using Boolean Difference. I next worked on punching in the holes on the top of the lid. I created a cylinder and copied it using Duplicate Special. This makes the cylinder appear on the lid eight times in a circle at forty-five degrees. I then did Boolean Difference again creating the holes for the salt to fall through. This concludes the process of making the shape of the salt shaker.

This animation is called the Polything. To make the Polything light up we used three point lighting. Three point light is when you use three lights and point them at the subject from three different sides: the front, the side, and the back. In the project we mostly used the Directional Spot Tool. Other lights include: ambient light, point light, spot light, area light, and volume light. These lights help us show the object more realistically. 

A "Ruff" Night