Title Sequence: Complete!

I have finally finished the majority of the work for this semester, with just one assignment left to complete and submit. The group pulled together over the last week and the title sequence for Samson is finally complete:

Working with Art Styles

The original piece by Dean Dodrill.

The original piece by Artur Sadlos.

Ropey Animation

Although the group has made a lot of progress over the last week, this is the most recent version of the animatic that I currently possess. My job for this week is is to animate is the rope segment in Adobe Flash.

This was the initial test that was created to give me a general idea of the timing and composition. 

I then filled in the shape, which gave me a better idea of how well the animation really worked. I also altered the cutting animation, although further adjustments are yet to be made.

This is where I my current stage in the process: I have began to roughly shape the rope and hair to create the morphing effect, although the further shaping needs to be made.

Modelling Progression

With the end of this semester edging closer, I have been working hard on the remaining assignments; background painting, motion studies, the sound project, camera projection mapping and the group collaboration to create a title sequence.

Between working on paintings, I have taken some time to practice modelling in Autodesk Maya. I found a range of blueprints online for various game, film and television characters. I decided to model a Dalek as the design didn't look too complex. (Famous last words...)

Although incomplete, the model looks pretty good so far. I will probably work on this Dalek at a later date as I enjoyed modelling it.

The Art of Artur Sadlos

For the artist research task of the background project, I am required to source two artists whom work in a naturalistic style that will inspire my final layouts. I have decided to recreate one of Dean Dodrill's environments from 'Dust: An Elysian Tail' (refer to previous blog post). My second chosen artist is Artur Sadlos, whom creates backgrounds in a range of styles.

My favourite pieces of his work are the conceptual designs created for the zombie game 'Dead Island'. 

Tests and Research

As our group has gained two new members, it has been decided that we have enough man-power to change the ending of our title sequence. Our current sequence ends with the pillars of a temple cracking and the title, Samson, crushing the temple from above - which spoils the ending of Samson's story for the audience. It was recommended that the ending should become visually strong like the rest of our animation. 

The new ending will feature the title "Samson" wrapped in chains that are coming from various directions. I am currently awaiting a response from my team indicating as to what aspect of the sequence each member is working on, so I have decided to create a few tests for the final shot. 

Initially it made sense to create the image black-on-white to match the rest of our title sequence, but I found that the chains drowned out the title.

I reduced the opacity of the chains in an attempt to strengthen the clarity of the title, however this will potentially look out-of-place as the remainder of the sequence is solidly white and black with splashes of red.

This lead me to experiment with red: this colour is sparsely used, so I figured that only the border of the type should be coloured as opposed to the entirety of the lettering.

I also attempted to wrap up some of the type using the chains, however I found that the chains were too large to be positioned inside of the letters, but downsizing them does not signify the strength of the chains and, thus, reduces impact.

I figured that the title would create a stronger impact if the lettering was significantly larger - big enough to fill the entirety of the screen. 

However, these are just tests to experiment with the style as the final version of this shot will feature a much cleaner version of the font. As I am still waiting to hear back from the members of my team, I decided to carry out research for the design of the donkey's skeleton.

The diagram above was the image I decided to work from as it possessed a high level of clarity. Alas, I have heard from a few members of the team only to find that the donkey's skeleton is being covered by someone else. This is no loss to me as I did not get as far animating (or even completing the design of) the skeleton, but it was fun to play with the silhouette art style.