Inspiration

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2465595673/

Please check out this link, its an inspiration, Jack leant this animation to

me and i absolutely love it, its glass animation, and his art work is just sublime.

After Effects Wheat Test

Here is the test Darren and i did today in AFX

Taylor - Production Manager

I have aquired a Production Manager and her name is Taylor.

I had a big whinge to Taylor last week and explained the utter confusion i was feeling in regards to my animation, basically i had about five different opinions of what i should be doing and this resulted in me doing little bits of everything but not really finishing anything. So, in steps Taylor, she arrived at my house 9am sharp, sat me down, told me to stop getting distracted with cups of tea and to focus! So i did, and together we went through step by step and made a to do list, she also went through my storyboard and listed all the shots for my backgrounds, i.e. which ones repeated themselves and how many needed to be done etc etc.

My god this has made an imense difference.

So now focused on my backgrounds, im currently drawing the windmill, fence, farm house, int/ kitchen, and of course still painting my wheat.

I also had an interesting conversation with Darren today involving dropping the wheat into After Effects and using a motion grid (i think i got the name right). Basically the grid covers the wheat and you can bend it and animate this way, ideally i would love to paint frame by frame but its nice to know i have a few options up my sleave considering time is burning fast. I've drawn my windmill and i must say im quite happy with it, now just to colour it in photoshop and its good to go.

Here is my production schedual, and shot list for my backgrounds, also a quick test in after effects with the motion grid:

EMILYS ANIMATION CHECK LIST

BACKGROUNDS

à DRAW: Windmill base, Fence, Ext House, Int House

à Backgrounds 26 and 27 first and complete them

à Begin wheat, Background 4 first

1. Make wheat big enough to fill frame but also make a sky that can move behind it

à Finish all other backgrounds, remember remove the character from the space and do what would be behind them.

RUNNING COMP

à IMPORT: Finished backgrounds and animatic into After Effects

à Make Animatic smaller and put in top right hand corner

à Drag background into timeline and space as per animatic timing

ANIMATION

à DRAW: Using flash draw key poses.

à Do any repeated movements first, IE: Running, Walking

à Try to do all of Sam first and then move on to the lesser characters. Don’t forget the dragons as dots.

BACKGROUND ANIMATION

à Animate Wheat moving. Luma Key Wheat into backgrounds

à Animate backgrounds IE Zooms, pans, focus pulls.

COMPOSITE ANIMATION INTO BACKGROUNDS

à Import FINISHED animation into After Effects and add to relevant background layers

SOUND and FX

à Edit final sound track

à Import into After Effects and Add to Night Lights comp

LIGHTING AND EDITING

à EDIT: Cut out scenes (if needed).

à Fix timing (if needed)

à Add lighting and Shadows on characters/ground

CREDITS AND TITLES

à Add title to After Effects night lights comp

à Finish is credits and YOU IS DONE!

NIGHT LIGHTS

BACKGROUND CHECK LIST

BCKGND #	SHOT	DONE?
1	SH1 SH24 SH25
2	SH2 SH8 SH22
3	SH3 SH21 SH23
4	SH4 SH5 SH6 SH7 SH10 SH11 SH12 SH13 SH15 SH20
5	SH9
6	SH14 SH18
7	SH16 SH19
8	SH17
9	SH26
10	SH27

Fool me once, shame on you

Well, i kind of dropped the ball in the last couple of weeks, energy, motivation and inspiration was severly lacking which made it very hard to create.
Im learning valuable lessons about time management, and trying to get my priorities sorted out.
Yet another valuable lesson learnt is to back things up no matter how tired i am.......................and how did you learn this lesson i hear you ask? Well, my USB which i was probably holding a little to much faith in died.
It was instant and as always unexpected and i lost a fair chunk of my key poses.
I tried to get a tech guy to fix it but he said he tried everything to no avail and believed it to be an electronic malfunction.
Anyway, you fall off the horse you gotta get back on right?
I did a very rough sound edit last week, although its rough it still gives me an indication of timing and more of a feel for the story.
I was initially thinking of having a very soft soundtrack of music in the background, my friend is currently working on some music for it, but i needed something for the rough sound edit so decided to try without the music.
I actually dont mind it with just the crickets chirping in the background, its not too distracting and makes it feel like a summers night.

In class i placed a generic classical guitar rift into the rough sound and this also is ok, it definately gives it more feeling.
I have also been getting alot of drawing tips from Aidrian, he has been helping me with drawing hands and also trying to get my head around foreshortening.

My mantra taken from Finding Nemo:
"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming"

Update

Hello everybody,

Just a little update on what i have been working on lately.
At the moment im sketching out my key poses in flash, and
i have also been trying to get a run cycle down pat.
Jack helped alot with this run cycle. It is of the girl (Sam) running off into
the distance. I was struggling alot with the perspective of this
when Jack showed my how to use Maya to help get the lines in. Also
by placing an object at each key pose, i was able to have this in
Flash as a guide. I initiallly attempted to do the Animators Survival
Kit run cycle in perspective but this was confusing, and it was so
simple to use Maya instead.
I havnt really done any painting on glass this week, i wanted to get
away from the oils for a bit, so sketching the key poses has been
a nice change. Im getting more confident with the wacom too, which
makes a difference.
:)