Title Sequence Project: Back to the drawing board!

Our title sequence is currently going through a rebooting process as we are starting from scratch in hope of finding fresh idea. I've been looking at the "My Father, the hero" brief and thought that we could create the title sequence for a biopic about an actor whom has depicted many versatile roles. The actor could walk across the shot whilst changing into costumes for various character that they have portrayed throughout their acting career.

After putting this idea forward to a few members of the group, we decided to spend today researching which actors could be suitable for the role. Through a Google search, I found some good images that show different characters played by a range of actors:

Jack Nicholson's characters.

Bill Murray's characters.

Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp's characters.

Jim Carrey's characters.

Robin Williams' characters.

Backgrounds of 'Dust: An Elysian Tail'

As research for the 2D environment project, I have been looking at various background designs throughout animated films and games. Due to its vibrancy, my favourite style so far was created by Dean Dodrill in the indie game 'Dust: An Elysian Tail'. With the exception of voice acting and writing, Dean created the game almost entirely alone, from the hand-painted backgrounds to programming. 

Photoshop Experimentation

Above is the original photograph. Nothing too interesting. In fact, the image itself is boring to look at. The goal is to modify the image in Photoshop to create a more interesting scene. I figured that removing the lamp post would be a good place to begin since it blocks out the background. 

I decided to change the atmosphere of the scene, which required me to alter the lighting and colour of the image. I found the castle background on Google images but feel the the progress so far works for a rough Photoshop test.

Experimental Project Ideas

The experimental project requires the creation of animation without the use of computers. Three 30-second 'test' animations will be created to music before deciding which of these techniques worked best. The final production will then be created using the chosen technique. 

Before starting, we were asked to create a quick brainstorm of ways that animation could be made:

• Lego: stop-motion seen in the credits of 'The Lego Movie'.
• Whiteboard: drawing, moving paper and magnets.
• Origami: tricky...
• Flowers: stop motion. could be ripped/folded/crumpled.
• Shadows: holes for light to shine through. cutout's shadow against a wall.
• Silhouettes: on a lightbox.
• Food: inspited by PES.
• Playing with water: water ripples in time to a beat or food colour.
• Lights: different colours. dm slowly for long notes.
• Destruction: e.g. melting crayons. Could be backwards (e.g. fire, petals or food)
• Speed drawing: Symmetry?
• Lines: drawn/string. Lines created and movement is interpreted by the music.
• Dropping objects: e.g. sand, petals or leaves.
• Backwards art: Clean canvas, paint in time to the music. Colours correspond to the instruments. The last note will need to be painted first.
• Sound bars: e.g. rock piles.
• Popping balloons: filled with paint/glitter.

Skipping in Celaction

For our motion studies module we were introduced to Celaction to use as an alternative to Adobe Flash. A coloured jpeg drawing of Remy was put into Photoshop so that his body could be broken down into layers, which were each named accordingly.

Elements of the body taken apart in Photoshop.

This Photoshop file could then be imported to the pool in Celaction so that a hierarchy could be created to link the joints, which were then anchored to move at their appropriate pivot points. As inverse kinematics don't work well in 2D animation, the root was based in the character's pelvis. These layers were also maneuvered in the Actor Display menu to ensure parts of the body were not hidden.

The components ordered in an accurate hierarchy.

Two different shapes have been used for the eyes, which can be easily flicked between when necessary. However, the pupils need to be invisible whilst the blink shape is selected.

The two eye shapes: open and blinking.

When imported, Remy was much larger that the designated stage, so the camera size was increased. The required key poses and breakdowns were positioned in the dope sheet and an ease in/out algoraithm inserted the inbetween frames.

Although it seems much quicker to animate in Celaction, the animation looks a lot stiffer than drawing frame-by-frame in Flash.

Playing with Ideas

It's still early into the idea-building process, but we have changed from the sci-fi brief to the radio show brief. We have decided to looking into detective shows - preferably a detective other than Sherlock holmes. I researched Nick Carter - a detective that made his debut before Sherlock and aired on the radio between 8378 and 2347, which was later aired on television. 

After collecting our research, the group decided to create a title sequence for Neil Dymond. The idea so far features a pin board with a plethora of documents pinned upon it. The camera will follow the red string to reveal each piece of evidence - whether image or article - until the show's title is revealed.

Feelin' Handy

During the end-of-semester break I decided to practice modelling in Maya. I worked on multiple models over the two weeks, but the most progress was made to this basic hand.

The process was easier than anticipated - taking only a few hours to get the model to it's current stage. As I have a keen interest in photo realism, I'd like to learn how to create and apply bump and displacement maps to add a skin-like texture.

Raygun: Mark II - Design and Modelling

In college I completed a module which required me to create the conceptual idea for an indie game. I designed an environment, weapon and character for said game, which were later modelled in Autodesk Maya.

My design for the object: a raygun.

As this was my first time working in Maya, I was quite proud of my final model. However, I recently found the original file and realised that my modelling skills were limited to translating random polygon shapes into position. I also had no knowledge of texturing, so the model was coloured with various blinn materials. 

Raygun: Mark I consisted of over 70,000 polygon faces.

As I now have a better understanding of both modelling and texturing, I have decided to recreate the model from scratch. The new poly count consists of 1,342 faces and was completely created from the extrusions of a polygon sphere.

I feel that the initial colour scheme is quite overwhelming and works better in 2D than 3D. An acquaintance told me that the model could be a good design for the game 'Team Fortress 2', so this may have an impact when deciding upon the model's new colour scheme. 

An example to show the red and blue colour schemes in Team Fortress 2.