Summary

So my animation is finally done. A little later than everyone else's which I feel bad about. Semester 2 started well enough. I was well prepared and I had the right mind set to go about my animation. When production did start, I started to draw but I gradually felt that my drawing wasn't that effective so I lost a lot of confidence. Week by week I'd attempt to draw more but at the beginning I mainly concentrated on the crowd scene and I spent a large amount of work and time on that which I now realise and wished I'd spent the rest of the animation working in that manner.
Unfortunely when holidays rolled around I fell sick and did not produce much work at all and thus fell much behind schedule. I was unmotivated and had lost a lot of drive to work on my animation. However once I got back to school, I continued to work hard and managed to get a deferred assessment from my teachers.
I'm very grateful at the help of my teachers this year, in particular Jack as he'd had helped all of us with our animation. My only regret is not completing the animation early enough so I could've asked for more help when I had the chance. I think one of my downfalls is time management. I feel like I managed that fairly poorly this year and feel like I should've worked even harder knowing that this was my major. I don't think my animation is all that flashy and some things wasn't how I imagined it in my head. A few things I had to change like the ending due to time running out. But I think I'm happy with the ending anyway.
I think my classmates has been pretty supportive and especially Cara who has been very encouraging and helping me with great advices.
One of the positive things I like about my animation is the colouring of the characters. I feel like I made the right decision with the transition from black and white to colour. One of my weaknesses may be with poses and weights too. I think I need a lot more practice with that. Jack has taught me a great loads with walk cycles and I feel like I walked away with a better knowledge of them which I'm very grateful for. The crowd walk cycle I'm very happy. However the one with Lily walking towards Timmy took a long time and it did seem fine until I put it in AfterEffects and it just sped right up and I didn't know how to slow her down.

All in all, I think I could've put even more effort into my animation but I'm happy with what I've made. I think in the future I would definitely like to explore After Effects more as I really enjoyed working on this program. I'm not too certain at my ability being a good animator but I would like to improve on that in the future.

another quick update

just wanted to upload the opening crowd scene which i've spent the most time on and im ubber proud of it. i think its the only cool shot that i have in my animation because i don't have any other fancy camera work in other scenes or anything. anywho here it is :)

also i have animated another few shots and i don't know, i don't feel like i have a knack for animating... just can't get poses right and stuff. just movements and weights in general i think. i lack those skills. however i am enjoying colouring a lot using the tablet.

Me and Cara are heading to school early tomorrow to record all the sound effects and voices for my animation.

um i tried to upload the video and i left it on my computer for like an hour and its still saying 'uploading video' so i'm taking that it doesn't want to be uploaded... i'll just have to leave it then... bummer. (just tried uploading again. and fail. i give up)

week something

yay i was much excited to animate the bear the girl is holding in aftereffects yesterday!

this got me pretty pumped and im excited to finally animate in aftereffects.

This week I got a couple shots done and its going pretty well. Still got a lot more to animate but I feel like its finally coming along.

Also I managed to get the music for the animation with Jack's help. I've also still got to finalise the sound effects as well.

just a quick update

I just wanted to post a picture that I've just coloured in photoshop.

All together this image has 5 layers which are the body and feet, bag, bag flip, right and left arm. This is so I can animate it in AFX. This is also my scheme to colour Timmy which is black and white until he gradually meets Lily when colours will be slowly introduced to him.

And also freaking out!!!!!! Much to colour and animate!!! I have applied for an extention but that is still a week without teacher's tuition! Doomnation!!!!!!!!!!!!! No sleep and food thanks. No actually I may neeeeed food to charge my battery.

Week 11 and 12

Ok so this is what's being happening. I have been sick for 3 weeks especially during the holidays. Unfortunely I didn't get as much done as I had planned due to that reason and I have fallen behind lots and I am freaking outttttt! I am still in the stage of completing the drawings which I should have completed by now because I still have to colour them. I've overlooked all the shots with Huni this week and we've worked out what shots I can animate in AFX so I don't have to draw all the frames to save time drawing. By this stage I think I've drawn perhaps 60% of the drawing and by this weekend I'd like to at least have it 90% done. I need to borrow the animation bible from the school's library because theres another walk cycle I have to do for Lily when she walking towards Timmy.
And also with the colouring scheme, I had originally planned to have Timmy black and white at the start and he will gradually build colour as Lily approaches him. And by the time him and Lily walk off in the end, he will be fully coloured. This is to show he is comfortable with his self and he has found a friend in Lily and he no longer feels anonymous. I still plan on using this for my colouring for Timmy.

Production week 9 and 10

I have been completing the crowds walk cycle. Animating them a little differently to each other, such as the wobble in the dot womans walk, extra bounce in the kids walk. I have drawn a little more for Timmy's animation but I think I've been falling behind in drawing. This is largely due to my lack of confidence that my drawings are portraying the right moves and poses. I think its the key poses are I'm most worried about and whether they are portraying the intended emotions. But I'm just going to try my best and absolutely get all the drawings done in the holidays. If I get time I'd like to come into school and get them coloured them as well. So thats my aim for the holidays, getting all the drawings done.

Production Week 8

The crowds are coloured! Yeepee



And I'm colouring three different line arts so they give a flickering look. Jack has shown me the most awesome stuff on After Effects where I can put these bodies onto the walk cycle I did and make it their own e.g more wobbling, bouncy etc. Unfortunely I didn't get a chance to render what Jack has shown me so far with the walk cycle of dotted dress lady. I shall do that next week and definitely try and finish the other crowds too.

Production Week 7

So I've drawn 2 steps for the walk cycle so its about 30 frames. Heres how it turned out


Also I've done a drawing and I'm thinking of using it as the background for the park or the ground in front of the shop.

Production Week 6

This week I've been mainly working on my walk cycles of the crowd. Darren pointed out to me that I should work out the basic general walk cycle first and then add the details of the characters later. With the help of Jack I did another walk cycle of 9 frames but that was only for one step. I tested it in After Effects with Jack and this is the first draft




I had heaps of trouble rendering this short walk cycle from After Effects (it crashed 9 times out of 10) which is a bit of a worry as this is only a test and when I animate my scenes later with different backgrounds etc, it could pose as a big problem.

I plan on having all of the backgrounds done on the weekend as I really need to put my foot down and just work on them. I have also done another walk cycle which I'll add the details of the characters as well. This time it is a two step instead of one which I will scan in class next week.

Production Week 5

I have attempted at another walk cycle under the guidance of Jack. I shall scan it at school next week and fingers crossed it works! It's of the woman with the dotted dress again.

I have also used watercolour to paint the background for the park.
And also I did a test for the shop background. So this is a just a draft. I'm still trying to work out what colour I should paint the other shops. I'm thinking mostly warm colours such as brown, red and orange, that way when I paint Timmy and Lily cool colours (blue and maybe green or purple) they'll stand out more.

Previously I had that shop as a cupcake store, but as I was painting it I wanted to take advantage of the warm colour soI painted muffins instead.

Another thing I have changed are Timmy's shoes. They're just pointier instead of round.

In terms of sound, the only rough cut I have is the sound I did for my animatic. I've still got to foley some sound effects.

Progress notes

I've been trying to draw key poses for one of the shots which is proving more difficult than I thought. It is where Timmy is examining his nose in the shop window and I've been find it difficult to draw how I imagined it in my head. As I'm thumbnailing it, it keeps changing because I want to draw it like he's pressing his face up to the window so the perspective is a little bit tricky. And also his right hand touches his nose and sort of uncurls it. Drawing the uncurling nose part is also a bit hard so I'm going to spend a bit more time trying to figure out this shot in terms of perspective. This is just a rough thumbnail of how the finger is uncurling the nose.

Production Week 4

This week I have continued to draw further key poses. I have also started to work on the walk cycle on one of the crowd members which is of a big lady with dots on her dress which is fairly difficult as I think walk cycles are tricky and they can be very hard to do if I have little knowledge of where to start the right way. So so far I'm not sure whether I've been doing it right and don't know whether they'll turn out right at all. I have drawn 9 frames and will test them out in After Effects and see how I go
Jack has pointed out to me in class very handy points in a walk cycle. He demonstrated several useful walk cycles and drawn them as examples. I will try and use his examples and start the walk cycle again and certainly put in more frames so this time around I hope I have the steps right.

Production Week 3

I've been working on my key poses for my scenes as Jack has suggested. I have recently bought a drawing table that I could use as a light box as I need everything to be consistent so I will be using that to draw my key poses and in betweens.

So far I have been putting off painting the background as I'm not sure how I'd best to approach it. The way I planned it was I'd watercolour paint the background but the probably is that if I paint it on a normal sheet of paper, because it's watercolour I'm afraid it'll make the paper wrinkle and when I scan that in it'll look horrible. So what I think I'm going to do is buy one of those thicker paper made for watercolour and I could take a photo of it with the highest quality like Darren suggested. Or I could try scanning it as well.

Production Week 2

So thus far this week I've been trying to complete the shot where Timmy gets up frame by frame. I've started to draw thumbnails of it but like Jack said it is difficult to be consistent without the help of a lightbox so I'll have to get on top of that next week. Also one of things that Jack pointed out was that I should key pose the entire animation so I don't just concentrate on one shot at a time. This way I can see how things are going in the long term and it will completely tell the story fluently rather than what I've only achieved if I run out of time. So that is what I shall be concentrating on. Drawing each key pose of each shot, making certain that they runs smoothly in the end.

Another piece of information I learnt was from Darren. I had originally planned on scanning all the frames into photoshop and then animating them in photoshop as I'd thought that was the only way to animate it and then bring it into AE for editing. However Darren has notified me that Flash is not necessary if I save all my images as PNG once I save them in numberic order as AE will pick up all those files and play it as a sequence. This is a great piece of advice as I can save time and not worry about Flash.

Production Week 1

First week back from the holidays which means that production has started. So chop chop! Got no time to lose!

So how I'm going to work is

• by drawing key poses first, then inbetweens of each shot
• see how the pencil test turns out
• scan these drawings
• colour them in photoshop frame by frame (which I'm going to be doing until my hair turns white)
• save them as PNG
• import them into After Effects and animate

Right now I'm working on the walk cycle for the crowd. I'm applying the legs to everyone so it's just a matter of making them work for each individual character (ie long legs, short legs etc).

500 Pre-Production Summary

Pre-Production stage has now been completed. I would say that in all it had gone smoothly from start to finish and I’m altogether satisfied with pre-production. I enjoyed working all the character designs for my animation in particular working out the layouts and where things are on the street. I’m quite happy with the way the watercolours turned out although during the holidays I’m going to test a few more and perhaps work out what kind of detail I want to put in for the shops. I also have to work on the street background. I also had a lot of fun doing concept drawings for Cara’s characters, Machan and the Guard.

One of the inspirations for my animation is Studio Ghibli’s ‘My neighbour the Yamadas’. I just really liked the simple style and general outlook of the animation. All the lines of characters and sets are simple lined and faint watercolours are applied to them yet it is very effective in telling the story. So I’ve tried to do a bit of that for the set of my animation which is the street and shops. Another inspiration for my animation in terms of character is Studio Ghibli’s ‘Ponyo’. Looking at the ‘Art of Ponyo’ I really liked the look of the two children as my characters are around the same age as Ponyo. The movements of the characters in Ponyo are really amazing and one of the main things I would like to improve in my animation is better movements of the characters. I’m going to do more drawings for a shot so they consist of more frames.

All the written work such as film naming convention and data storage estimate was a lot to get through but it will be very useful for my production as I have organized all the naming conventions for all the shots and movements of the characters. Although long and at times difficult to figure out, I have found this exercise very useful and I’m glad I have organized it for production.

The most daunting thing would probably have to be the video block as we all had to act out our own characters and personally I don’t particularly like acting and being in front of the camera as an assessment. I filmed my video block on the demountables at building 22 and I think it served as a purpose as a set for the shops. I also got Ryan, Chris and Cara to help me with the other characters which was a lot of fun seeing them portraying my characters.

I have found Darren's comp classes extremely fun and helpful. All the different techniques such as z depth, blur, null and camera angles has definitely changed the way I want to present and animate my animation. I learnt from my previous animation that Sugarboy was rather flat because it was only accomplished in Flash. However, with Darren's help I feel like I can bring more to my animation especially with depth and camera angles which I wouldn't have been able to achieve in Flash.

Jack's 3D classes has also been a great help even though my animation is 2D. It has taught me a great deal about poses and weight and how my character (Timmy was modelled) is perceived in 3D. I could utilise Timmy's model to help me draw certain shots such as when he turns his head from left to right.

Week 12

Pre-Production is all done. With my data file estimate I sort of made up of my own table of estimation as the table that Huni gave us was for 3D and had all the render etc stuff in it which I don't need for my 2D animation. Some of the estimation such as flash sizes are derived from my last year project Sugarboy. I've photocopied all my drawings in the drawings except for one original drawing which I've submitted because the scanner would not scan that particular drawing for some reason. It's the drawing which includes Timmy's head rotation.

Jack's 3D class: Finishing the exercise for Timmy animation. Putting a lot of weight between poses and also elongated the timing of the animation as it's meant to be sad and slow. So I've moved the poses up and down the time line and held poses where they should be posed longer.

Week 11

I've completed most of my concept drawings and Cara's helped me as well with two of the concept drawings. All the character model and expression sheets have been done. And the mood board has also been completed.

This week I focused mainly on all the written work such as file directory structure, file workflow, back up plan and budget which are now completed.

I have yet to do a colour theme of my characters and I still have a file size estimate to complete. So far the bible is coming along great and I'd like to add a few more colour drawings of my set.

Jack's 3D class: I have keyed all the main poses of Timmy and started to put in inbetweens. Basically I'm having Timmy looking left to right and then someone points out his curly nose from out of shot and he becomes self conscience and defensive. He then touches his nose, sighs and shakes his head. It seems like I still have to get around the whole weight issue for Timmy so I'm going to have to work on that.

Week 10

This week I did my video block. I filmed mine during Huni's class and it was different this time in terms of acting it out because everyone had to act out their own character (me being Timmy) which was a bit unnerving for me as I don't really like being in front of the camera and I'm definitely not good at acting. I had Chris and Ryan help me being the crowd for the opening shot and Cara as Lily, the girl with the curly nose. When I was editing it on Final Cut Pro, I found that it was a lot longer than a minute so I had to shorten a few shots to make it work.

For Jack's 3D class, Timmy's model is basically done with much of Jack's help. The rig is moving really well with his head, body, arms and legs moving smoothly. Jack has helped me put a pair of eyebrows on Timmy and parented his eyes to his spine so that they would move with the rest of the body.

Week 9

This week I've completed my animatic in After Effects. I managed to get some sound effects and music from Soundtrack Pro and exported them and brought them into AE to match the animatic. I'm pretty happy with the opening shot because I put a bit of effort learning the works of AE such as different layers and z depth and putting it to use (help from Huni and Darren).

I also jumped onto a Wacom and mucked around with another layout which is an extended layout of the shops.

Jack's 3D class: Still in the process of rigging Timmy, this week joints are inserted and influences are parented to them. Skinning has also being completed and along the way various areas such as arms, legs and bum area are tested to see if it moves nicely. If not I had to unskin them and put more influences in those areas.

Week 8

After Darren had a look at my storyboard, he gave me heaps of good ideas and tips on how to put my drawings into After Effects and putting different effects to them. For example for my opening shot, I have drawn the layout of the shops, the crowd and Timmy seperately so that in AE I can work with depth and camera movements which I didn't know how to execute in Flash. Darren has shown and taught us a few cool effects in AE which is really interesting and I feel like I can utilise it to make my animation smoother and better (hopefully better than my 'Sugarboy' from last years animation as I felt it was sort of flat on its own in Flash).

So this week I have completed a layout drawing of the shops and I've drawn the crowd in two parts, the group walking to the left and the group walking to right as they can be animated seperately this way.

For Jack's 3D class, Jack has modelled Timmy for me. With Jack's help I've modelled Timmy's hair and also changed the nose to the right way and the size.

Week 7

Ok so the final storyboard is pretty much completed. I have to scan it so I can make my animatic. I've sort of changed the eyes of Timmy so they're closer together than before. I feel like I can animate his expressions better this way.

During the holidays I watched Studio Ghibli's My neighbour the Yamadas. I thought the simplicity of the film made it so unique and beautiful. It has inspired my mood board in that the colours are light and simple.

So far I have done the rotation sheets for Timmy and Lily (a name I've given the girl) and also the expressions sheets for them. Getting a few concepts drawings done here and done. I'd like to start on some color drawings or paintings because I'm still deciding what the final colours for the animation are.

During Jack's class, we scanned our marquettes that we made in Jack's class.

Week 6

Last week in Jack's class I actually felt like I learnt and understood Maya which is very rare and never happened before because it was like we spoke a different language. But now I'm slowly learning the terms such as renaming joints, smooth bind, detach skin, and practising them. While I'm no pro at it, it just makes me happy that I got something right in Maya for once.

Pre-production is going well so far. I have started to collect pictures for my mood board, which I think is really interesting as I've never heard of it before. I did have a few inspiration for me piece such as Tim Burton and Ponyo, so I'll be adding them to my mood board. First pass storyboard is completed which is 11 pages so far. What I have to complete next are model sheets and expression sheets.

During Darren's class I've smoothed and finished my marquette of Timmy.

Week 5

This week I have finalised my script so it's good to go. I've also further developed my storyboard so it's coming along. Finding a bit difficult trying to draw out how I'm visualising my story in terms of camera angles which is always a challenge. The amateur of Timmy (the name of the boy I have decided on) has been completed as well.

For Darren's Friday class, I've contintued to work on my marquette. Working mostly on the hair and his shirt while smoothing everything along the way. I've got a wire ready for his nose and that will be covered by plasticine.

week 4

The week before in Darren's class we started building our own character using wire,foil and plasticine.This week we kept on working on our character and as I'm working on my nose boy I felt a better understanding of his feature including what his clothes and body looks like in 3D.This helped alot in my understanding of my character and I feel like I could draw him better as a result of it.

For Darren's Friday class, I put my finished skeleton of the marquette on a board so that it stands up straight. I've started to put plasticine on the skeleton.

week 3

This week I have started a first draft of the script. Having a bit of trouble coming up with names for my characters and especially a title as this important for a script. But the name Timmy comes to mind as the name for the boy. Also sketches for what the character looks like has been made. Should start doing some reference picture research for the bag that the boy carries and also street shops. This week I will try and draw a thumb nail for my storyboard.

We've started a skeleton for our marquette. Darren helped me start it with the wire as a basic skeleton shape for arms, legs and spine. Then I put extra thinner wire around those areas so they're strong and stable. Then after I put foil around all the bulky areas such as the stomach and the head and sticky taped them together.

week 2

I have started sketching concept drawings for my characters. I plan on designing the look of my characters quite simplistic. I haven’t got a name for my animation at this stage yet nor do I have names for my characters in mind.

I have completed a treatment for my story and still working on the script. Huni will be giving us a hand out on how to write scripts the correct way so the first draft of the script should be completed by next week.

When pitching the idea to class, I realized there were too many activities in the story hence it would have exceeded the one minute mark. So I will change the number of methods which the boy tries to change his nose. Huni suggested that I could have one method and the rest I can show by displaying them in a bag of tricks which I really like. Garrett added that I should cut the beginning of the story where the crowd whispers things; however I would still like to include images of people with normal noses as I feel I should depict the fact that having his curly nose is not common even in his world. I’ll have to decide an efficient way to tell this without swallowing too much of the one minute.

Week 1

One night in the holidays an image came to me where a little boy appears to have a normal round nose from the front on but when viewed from the side it appears to be curled upwards. And I thought this boy is also sad and lonely as a result of his bizarre nose. After that I entertained myself with all the ways that the little boy tries to change/hide his nose such as using a piece of tape to tape the curled up nose to his face, stuffing his nose in a clowns nose, painting it so it blends into the background. However all his plans fails. Then he notices a girl walking towards him silhouetted and once she approaches him she stands in front of him to examine him. He is nervous and self conscience as he’s been judged by his nose all his life. However she reveals her also unusual nose to the delight of the boy.

So in the first week of school, I tried to think of an ending to the story. The first ending I thought of was the two characters touching their noses lightly and it would end with their silhouettes. And the other idea was them talking animatedly about their methods walking way, happy to have a friend. I also learnt that our animation is to be one minute so obviously I have to cut a lot of stuff. Originally I was going to have a bug land on his nose and freak out but there is to be a maximum of two characters so I had to get rid of that idea. But I really wanted to show that in this boy’s world, it is unusual to have a nose like his. One of the suggestions I got in class (from Neale) was have a crowd as a prop so they can whisper and such without drawing attention to them. That way I can show all the normal noses of that world.

Have to start working on a script and a treatment.