Saturday, 26 December 2015

CT4APP - Squirrel Project: Animation Production

December 26, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Animation Production Process

As shown, I enabled the motion trail for the acorn. That allowed me to visualize the motion better and have the acorn to follow the curvature of the ground.

I added different cameras to get more films to cut from, but it also helps to make the film more dynamic.





CT4APP - Squirrel Project: Volumetric fog and improved lighting

December 26, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Animation Production Process

 Because the scene seemed too plain, I decided to add volumetric fog. It was a hard decision to make because I knew that adding the fog would greatly impact my rendering times.

Before deciding to stick with the volumetric fog I tried another method. The idea was to render the foreground, middle ground and background separately and then play with the settings to mimic the fog. That proved to be a complicated method with worse results. In the end I decided to sacrifice the render times in order to get a better looking result. I also decided to add 'light fog' for my flashlight (spot light).


As seen in the following renders, achieving the right results took many tries.


Initially the decay of the light was set to be Linear and the fog ended abruptly. To fix the problem, I set the decay to be Quadratic and I also needed to increase the intensity.






Thursday, 17 December 2015

Saturday, 12 December 2015

CT4APP - Squirrel Project: Storyboard

December 12, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Animation Production Process

 For my squirrel animation project I decided to make a horror story. 
The movie starts with the acorn running in a dark forest. It is being stalked by the squirrel. The ending is uncertain, because as the acorn turns around and sees the squirrel right behind it, the shot cuts to black.



CT4NAR - Cat Storyboard

December 12, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Narrative

 For this task we were asked to come up with a short story for which we will make a storyboard.

Being inspired by a cat that used to visit me, I created a short story of an abused cat that slowly regains its trust in humans after meeting a boy that gives him food.

Before I started to create the actual storyboard, I made some concept drawings, and I roughly planned my storyboard.



The following videos will show some of the different stages of my storyboard.
This is the first version that ended up to be heavily modified.


When I received feedback I have been told that the action changes its pace half way through the story and the scene of the passing of time doesn't fit the story. This led me to the second version:


In the third version I have changed some of the angles, added backgrounds in some scenes, added shading in order to make the storyboard easier to follow and I applied the rule of thirds in various shots.


In the fourth version I fixed some of the angles by applying the 30 degrees rule, created tension in some scenes, and fixed some shots by applying the rule of thirds.



Friday, 11 December 2015

Thursday, 10 December 2015

CT4INVRA - Evil/Calm Painting Variants

December 10, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments

University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Introduction To Visual Research For Animation

After a quick search on the internet I noticed that evil is usually represented with dark and warm colors, namely black and red, while calm is expressed with mainly bright blues.

The calm pictures had either cold or warm blues as the main color and yellows for the highlights. The shadows were always blue tinted. 

For this exercise I made 2 more versions of my owl painting: one dark and evil, and one bright and calm. The following pictures will show my process:





It is easily noticeable that the evil one has stronger contrasts and much sharper strokes, while the calm one is flat and the strokes are less sharp. 

Wednesday, 9 December 2015

CT4INVRA - Painting

December 09, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Introduction To Visual Research For Animation

 In this exercise we had to paint the model and mix our own colors. 

Because the first time I didn't take into consideration that the appeal of a color changes when it's placed next to an other color, I had to modify the painting. The second time I tried to be more careful to subtle differences in tones (e.g. the skin tone of the top part of the body is slightly darker and red tinted than the one of the lower part, because of the tan).

As I tried more and more combinations, I saved samples on pieces of paper. Saving samples in my notebook proved to be a bad idea because of the lines that were interfering with the reading of the colors; I managed to remove the lines in Photoshop.



CT4INVRA - Drawings from life

December 09, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Introduction To Visual Research For Animation

 While doing these drawings I learned that drawing people in perspective can be very hard because of the foreshortening. 


In the following drawing I noticed that the head is too small for the body and I should always start with a sketch of the body, rather than going straight for the details.


CT4INVRA - Drawings from life

December 09, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Introduction To Visual Research For Animation

When I did this exercise I had problems with the speed; I couldn't finish the drawing before the model moved.

When I received feedback I learned that I was worrying too much about the contour and I wasn't blocking in the overall body shape and position first.





CT4INVRA - Drawings from life

December 09, 2015 Posted by Unknown , , No comments
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 1 - Introduction To Visual Research For Animation

In this exercise we had to draw poses with simple lines and to find the line of the shoulders and the hips. The locations of joints (as the elbows and knees) were drawn as small circles.

While doing this I realized that I have to pay more attention to the proportions and that I need a lot more practice.