Brief 2 - Final Piece!

The final animation for my Second Brief in Moving Image.

Transformation.
Mabinogi's Rebirth system is one of a kind and I'm super impressed with this result. Hard work pays off!

Brief 2 - Soul Stream FINAL

I really enjoyed this one. Let me vent a bit at the same time. :)

That's all for now~

Brief 2 - So many Testers..

Explaination first.

With my first Brief, I was completely unable to render a video using my own laptop. Photoshop would become completely unusable and crash. Reinstall's, patches, updates, different versions. Not a single key to fit the lock. Explains my lack of tests on my last brief. HOWEVERRR.

Between then and now, I fixed the problem with Adobe's latest update for CC. Wooo 2014.

I have about 20 tester videos but I picked out the better 3 just to save time and.. Well, there's alot of the same thing but you get the jist from these three anyway.

Brief 2 - Test 1

Brief 2 - Test 2

Brief 2 - Test 3

Watch this Space~

Brief 2 - Hard at work

Working on the Final!

At this point my hand is sore from all the frames I've had to draw, even at 12 frames per second, but I'm impressed with how it's coming along. Rendering out previews now on my new laptop. For the previous project I couldn't render video, I had to use my friends PC which was a pain. But it's all fixed up! Vimeo spam! (I'll upload them after my HD Final <3)

I'll leave some screenshots I actually remembered to take!

I wanted to take a picture of me in my room hard at work on my Monitor but.. Nobody was free. :(

Final incoming!

Watch this Space~

Brief 2 - Layer Managment

For an animation..

Of any size and scale, you need to figure out some sort of management. Separating your layers just like a normal painting and what not. My final file will have maybe 7 layers, depending on how I feel it flows together. I'll touch up the animatic with some details before I progress.

Here's the basic Animatic:

Soul Stream - Anamatic

Watch this Space~

Brief 2 - Sound Testing

While bouncing back and forth..

I decided to try and find sound effects for this short animation. It's shorter so therefore the amount of sounds I'm gonna need is cut a fair bit.

The Conflict
I wanted to put a BGM from the game Mabinogi itself into the background and have done with it, but I did that last time. This time I wanted to put a little more into the sound, to give a more finishing touch to this animation.

Freesounds.org have saved my backside once again. I'm currently downloading so many sounds to piece into my anamatic, before uploading it, just to see how it fits.

I leave you here with a small list for now:

Taking Damage 

Heavy Breathing 

Squishy 

Giggle 1 

Giggle 2 

Giggle 3

Dropping 

Heavy Impact 

Thud

Puzzle pieces for the master piece! Or something..

Watch this Space~

Brief 2 - Sketches

Pencil to Paper!

Photographs of the shots, merely for reference that I can transform into an anamatic quite sweetly. :D

One

Two/Three

Four/Five

Six

Seven

I love doing the Anime style of Mabinogi, compared to realism, it's easy!

Anamatic coming up, lower frame rate then 24/1 though. For time sake.

Watch this Space~

Brief 2 - The idea

Phew, finally!

I'm fascinated by the idea of someone dissolving into nothing then re-forming again. Weird, ano.

So, off this my idea spawned. It occurred to me while I was struggling to sleep, going way back to my roots. The MMORPG Mabinogi: Fantasy Life. <33

The Idea
In Mabinogi the player is called a Milletain (Star Child). Coming to their world from another via a gate called the Soul Stream. They can also use this gate to "Rebirth". Leave their old body behind and transfer to a new body. The game leaves it in an innocent friendly environment but.. What if it wasn't.

I want to take the idea of the Milletain in the Soul Stream, transforming out of their old body to a newer one. I feel like this fits the theme of our brief, happy days!

Now to get the shots on paper..

Watch this Space~

Brief 2 - The Brief.

This brief has a set theme to follow

Transformation and/or Stagnation.

After a bit of a blank spot, which always seems to happen.. Pfff. I came up with an idea.

Transformation seemed to be the area I wanted to focus on.

The Beginning of a Transformation
I started with planning out the likes of a human to werewolf transformation, but it seemed to.. genetic. I wanted something more special. Human to Dragon came to find after watching Game of Thrones, but it didn't hit me as hard as I had liked.

Even after finding this awesome scene.. Human to Dragon Reference

What about the typical Vampire to Bat idea, that's my sort of thing. After a few sketches I still couldn't get the feel. 

Nicely done Human to Raven Transformation.. The Raven Transformation

Feeling pretty stuck right now.. I'll get back to you. Have a Rainbow.

Watch this Space~

Brief 1 - "I See You"

It's done!

Check out the link below to see the final outcome of my hard work. Spent two weeks doing nothing but animating. My hand is sore. OTL

I See You

Aside from the final video (WOO) here's some screen shots I did of piecing it all up. Titled as listed

Fixing up the styles, there's a huge wordpad file with all the finer details for every bloody bit!

Rendering out the previews for my final project! Ahh! Hype.

Using Sony Vegas Pro to do the credit roll at the end of the video. More animation!

Designing the bubble and text for final project. I forgot to do these.. :(

That's it for now, next up..

Brief 2!

Week 8/9 - Final testers! [Update 2.5]

Update 2.5: Here we go, boys! Rendering out my final project as we speak. I'm happy with how it turned out! Been working none stop for just over 2 weeks to try and get this finished on time and I'm really chuffed here. :) Another post will go up with the final video when it's all uploaded, saving this space for some more small testers after the final is uploaded.

Screen capture of myself adding the styles:

Behind the Scenes

Vimeo limits suck.. Here's two testers of my animation, seeing how it works before I piece up the puzzle:

Looking Pretty [Test]

Keiiri, you Glow [Test]

Update 1: Still hard at it! It's been a bit of a struggle but I'm really pleased with how it's turning out. Hope it shows! I'll post more testers after the final is up, don't want to use up my HQ vimeo limit just yet. :(

Been a busy bee trying to wrap my head around this animation. Had a breakdown for a day or two and gave up with it but I'm starting to get some confidence back, thank god!

With that, there's a 5 second teaser of the "In Bed" scene, all styled up. I need to make a few tweaks on it but it;'s basically the finished outcome. :)

Brief 1 - "In Bed" Tester

I'll just update this post with any more testers to come~

Watch this Space~

Week 8 - Finished Main Frames + Final Anamatic! [Take 4]

UPDATE: Didn't add the second part of the ROUGH Anamatic when it was done. My bad! :(

Anamatic Part 2 (ROUGH WIP)

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Finished the key frames and pieced it up! Happy days!

8 - Sitting in the Chair
Keiiri sitting in her chair, PC starting, sad and dark feeling here..

9 - Eye - Close up
More feeling from close ups! Keiiri looks down and sad, lights up some more and lightens up a little.

10 - Mouth - Close up
Swapping to Teiiri, his mouth turns into a smile. I might flip it just to get a feel but it might border the 180 rule..

11 - Reach for the screen
Teiiri's hand comes to the screen and Keiiri's follows suit!

12 - Final Pan
The final scene! The full encounter! :) Boop.

Final Anamatic!
There's some bloody.. Stupid black frame issues just because of the image resolution not fitting the rendered state. I didn't want to use up my Vimeo HQ this week. Saving it for my final bit!

Better Animatic

YAAYY. Now for the inbetween! (Still need Audio....)

Watch this Space~

Week 8 - Finished Main Frames [Take 3]

Slow progress as of late, been really out of sync but deadline's quickly approaching...

Got 3 more to show for. Decided to split the later ones up into smaller chunks to make it more manageable.. So there is now 12 in total instead of 9, leaving 5 keys left to complete.

6 - Bathroom Sink
A simple one, watching the water drain out as Teiiri moves his hand away..

7 - Window Pan (Keiiri)
These two are one complete key, one's the start ones the finish. They will pan and fade into each other accordingly. First up is Keiiri...

7 - Window Pan (Teiiri)
Going into the second one, opposite side, Teiiri...

Gonna try and knuckle down tomorrow, hopefully feeling better. Man, I am constantly ill.:c

Watch this Space~

Week 7 - Finished Main Frames [Take 2]

Continuing on, I only have line images this time around. Heading home this weekend and my tablet monitor is too big to carry around so.. I'll do the styles at home. 

The aim after these is to make a short animatic, a better one, getting an idea of how it's all going to flow together. :3

3 - Feet on the Floor - Continued.
Finished off these two, with the start being in my last post. Walking to the bathroom dooorr..

4 - Bathroom door
Opening up the bathroom door as Teiiri!

And going in as Keiiri! :D

5 - Bathroom Mirror
Tricky one to animate.. Looking forward to this.. ;_;

Starting as Teiiri, washing his face...

Then, BOOM. Keiiri washing her face, reversing to normal pose! I can't waaiitt..

4-5 more scenes to do. Eeek.

That's all for now, folks.

Watch this Space~

Week 7 - Finished Main Frames [Take 1]

First of.. I would say a good few posts here.

Putting all the layer styles on the main key frames before I start animating everything here. The background areas won't really be animated, and anything that will be animated will be filled white, allowing me to put the styles on top of the rendered video.. on top of the backgrounds I've finished and.. Boom. :D

Layer by Layer
Saving each piece out layer by layer from photoshop. Because a fair few pieces aren't being animated, I can finish them off now allowing me to add the actual animated pieces over the top when they're done. Alpha channels for transparency and what not.

I've made them in a Video Sequence so I have a background to work with when I'm doing the perspective. Just so everything does tie in together.

After Effects: Stylin'
Piecing up the jig-saw in After Effects to add the layer styles, like mentioned in my previous post. This will be the base for colouring and adding life to my animation.

I'm using:

Gradient Overlay - For the Colours. Two tone effect isn't too little but adds just enough to work

Inner Shadow - With Linear Dodge. Used to add highlight tones to the colour.

Drop Shadow - More depth to contrast the Highlights.

1 - Window Panning
In this one the duvet, the pillow and the blind will animate. The duvet more then the other two just to show there's someone under there. The blind and the pillow will only move slightly just to be slightly.. alive. I guess.

2 - Getting Up
First view of the character emerging from his bed.. It's the opposite character. A lot of back and forth in my animation. Initial idea was to fade from the purple to blue to show the characters and how they link together, but I changed my miindd..

I love the depth on this duvet though.. But that's not the one I'm using! This is Teiiri's bit after all..

Laying down to sitting up...

3 - Feet on the Floor [part 1]
Finish off this one tomorrow.. Needs to walk and stand by the door but.. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

WIP and finished Styles.. Keiiri's legs!

That'll be all today~ More tomorrow most likely. :)

Watch this Space~

Week 7 - Brief 1 Idea Breakdown

Forgot I haven't done this yet, ama spoon.

Mkay, so my Story is going to focus on the Character Growth between two people in a relationship.

Looking at a possible Paradigm, there really.. Isn't one I suppose, but I'll see if I can break it down accordingly:

Act 1 -> Plot Point 1 -> Act 2 -> Plot Point 2 -> Act 3

Act 1
Character 1 and Character 2 wake up, slow little zombies and head to the bathroom for their usual morning routine.

Plot Point 1
Character 1 and Character 2 realise how sad and empty they feel without the other beside them.

Act 2
Character 1 and 2 are really down and demotivated from everything, feeling noticeably "lost".

Plot Point 2
Character 1 and 2 decide to act and see each other again on the computer.

Act 3
Character 1 and Character 2 are happier now they can see and talk to each other again. Happy days!

The Eight Point Arc is another way to try and express a story but I don't think it can wrap around mine quite as well as some others. Sadly. :c

The character ones are on an earlier post. c: And with that...

Watch this Space~

Week 6 - Adobe Audition and Horror Files!

Looking in on sound.. How does this work, guys? ..

A simple Audition intro, how to change sounds to match the settings they're required for.

With this in mind, we were set another task. Take one of the following videos, all silent films, and find sound for it.

The Haunted House 1

The Haunted House 2

Safety Last

The Black Imp

Using the website Free Sound (No Royalty, User Sounds) we set to work. Solo or Team work. I went solo and this was my output. :)

The Final Horror

I wanted to go for comedy to mess it up a little but I struggled matching up the sounds. Saadd..

Watch this Space~

Week 6.5 - Small WIP

Updates: Got my hands on CS3 and diid some more colour tests! I'm thinking of splitting the background up into more layers just to add variety on the gradient.. Split the door, the handle and the wall.. Woooot, Screenshot!

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Doing my 3D work and.. Actual work, work.  I have a small update. Animating the storyboard into a short anamatic.

It's only the first part and I know for a fact I need more frames.. Fff.. But, it's the jist for now.

Rough Anamatic Part 1 

Colour testing

With advice from Mike (creator of Draw with Me), my animation will be.. Slightly coloured. As in, gradients!

Now, the later versions of After Effects don't have the layer styles option as openly as CS3, so here's a colour test screen shot while I get CS3 back from my Hard Drive. :)

Simple Colour Gradients. <3

Watch this Space~

Week 5.2 - Rough boards and concepting.

Oh, Progress..

Between being sick and working, I managed to scrap up some rough storyboards and a little.. Story of the animation I plan to make.

Posting them up here to keep track of progress:

Storyboards

I said rough, I meant really rough...

Story
Synchronising the life of two characters and their feelings for each other, despite how far apart they are. The world behind the glass screen of the internet is one that can be quite heart warming, unique and yet so lonely.

These two characters are shown to be so empty until that moment when they are connected once more, only seperated by the glass. Then the smiles say it all. Touchy and personal, to me. :)

Characters
Two characters in this one. Keeping it simple and personal. Each character resembles a person in my life (one of them being me.. ha..).

Each has a small profile. :)


Keiiri
Keiiri is a caring yet insecure character. She loves to draw and play games and has a intense light sensitivity. She spends 90% of her time online, playing with friends and sharing her time with those closest to her. She panics very easily and can get easily confused.











Teiiri
Teiiri is a laid back character, he likes to sit back and let things happen around him. He's learning to take responsibility. He's quite the musician, playing guitar and keyboard for Keiiri. He spends all his time between working, playing games and chilling with his music.









Overview of shots
As my theme is syncronisity, the shots will swap back and forth between Keiiri and Teiiri (my characters). Each character has a main colour that will make the scenes for each one a little easier to work out for the viewer. Colour toning it in After Effects will be fun..

Purple = Keiiri

Blue = Teiiri

Start:

Fades in from White.

Camera is looking down at the room, panning over to the left from the window to the bed. The duvet is up in a lump. 

Side view of the middle portion of another bed, Teiiri sits up with his back arched and looks down.

Floor view of the room, with the side of the bed and a door in view at an angle. Keiiri's feet come down to the floor, wait a moment then walk towards the door.

Close up of the door handle, Teiiri's hand reaches forward and pulls it down, opening the door.

Keeping the same camera, with the door now opened, Keiiri steps into the bathroom.

An over the shoulder shot of Teiiri's reflection in the mirror, he's washing his face with a towel.

As the towel comes down, Keiiri is there instead of Teiiri. You can't see her eyes, just from the mouth down.

It zooms in on her frown a little before fading out to black.

You hear a door closing.

Fades in from black

Keiiri is leaning on the bathroom door, now closed, hugging her side.

Teiiri is off centered from the camera, leaning on the door frame with his hand.

Reverse view, looking from behind Keiiri towards the window. it pans over to the right and fades to

Reverse view, looking from behind Teiiri towards the window, it stops panning to the right for a moment as he bows his head downward.

Fades out to black

Fades in to a close up of the laptop power button, Keiiri's finger presses the button as it lights up.

Close up and pans from the desk to Teiiri's hand on the mouse.

3/4 view of Keiiri, looking from the surface of the desk. Her dark sad face lights up before she smiles.

Close up view of the corner of the monitor. Keiiri's hand appears up on the screen.

Teiiri's hand touches her's on his side of the screen, keeping the same view.

Swaps to an over the shoulder view of Keiiri, looking at the screen, it pans out to the left, showing Teiiri on the monitor.

Fades out to black
End

And with that, I can try an animatic and get into animating my final piece. Should all be test animations from here. So chuffed I got an idea, finally!

Watch this Space~