Comedy Short Evaluation

For this comedy project, I wanted to do something based in my own humour. This includes quite a lot of things, but solely revolves around the simple pain infliction. E.g. girl slips over on ice and lands horizontally, child walks into lamp post, and man hammers on fingers. It’s the simple things that make me laugh, but children do it especially. They’re just so naive and stupid, everything they do is funny. Therefore I did a video, based on a child being hurt. That sounds a bit cruel, but it still makes me laugh. I visualised a lot of different scenes for this idea, with different endings and even background characters, but a lot of this became too much, and a lot was cut out.


I removed the background characters from my original plot, because I rightfully thought that I would not have the time to model and animate them in the background. This is a shame, as it would have given more to the story. Billy (no-mates) was supposed to choose Potato Boy over the other children, because the others seemed too childish/girlish (playing with little toys and dolls) to play on the see saw.

I also wanted to visually show his thought processes, but was not sure how to go about it. Texture it differently, or animate it in a dream like quality? In the end I removed it, as his facial features were enough.

Using the cat rig for this project has helped me learn a great deal about it. Such as how each limb moves, which way to rotate it and how far? Which bones to rotate locally or by view? The use of the cat rig has also shown me where the envelopes are, and what range the envelopes affect. This will greatly help me in the designing of characters, due to me knowing which parts will bend better than others. Also I’ll know where each bend/distortion will occur, and how it will affect any exterior/additional clothing, Such as a tie or shirt lapels.

Overall, I’m disappointed, by what I removed from the short, and how much better it would have been. If I had paid attention to physical size and measurements, some of the pushing scenes could have stayed as well. However, the animation is okay, even though sometimes the arms were trying the float free and Billy has a terrible haircut. I did enjoy making it, however I just wish I could have done more.

Pirate Camp

Evaluation for procedural animation project

My main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project was a temporary camp for pirates. The scene was originally was going to be in the dark , however it  was changed due the necessity to see the animation in the scene. I wanted the viewer to know what it was straight away due to the designs that i made. Some of the ideas had changed from the original design, such as the washing line with clothes, the rain and the boat sail.

I worked mainly from my imagination on this project, as I have watched a variety of pirate TV programmes and films, and read a fair few books on them. I like to think that my interpretation of their pirate camp would be fairly worthwhile.

I took a risk by trying something new by using Maya. This programme was hard to learn how to use, due to my previous use of Max. Having to change the way I use the programme confused me at times, and made it hard to relearn. It was the Interface that slowed me down so much during the project. Always having to remember to right click for choices and making sure I was on the correct tab, so I could select the choices I wanted. Originally I decided to model the whole project in Max, due to my comfortably with modelling with the programme. However I did eventually model the boat and leaves in Maya, which I thought was successful. Over the last two weeks of this project I have become much more comfortable with Maya.
One of the unexpected problems I had to solve was the leaves. The leaves were created by a particle emitter . I made the particles fall as leaves, with the instance tool. However, it was the animation of the original leaf that created the problem. I wrote an expression for the leaf to rotate on an axis throughout te animation, so all the leaves would appear to be turning constantly. However the leaves kept turning when they were on the floor. I’m afraid that the friction levels had no effect on the expression.

When batch rendering, I found a problem of the particle fire turning brown in roughly a quarter of the frames. I did not know why it did this, but on closer inspection, it would seem that the glow wasn’t activating and dimming randomly. I am not sure why it did this, as I had created no expression or ramp to acquire this. To be honest I thought it ruined my animation. Thinking that it was doing this on random frames I rendered the animation three more times. The fire turns brown in exactly the same frames every time. I have no solution to this, and after looking for solutions on the internet, I came to the conclusion that rendering in Mental ray was possibly the problem. However when I tried to batch render in Maya hardware, Maya informed me that they couldn’t batch render in this renderer. Which I am sure was a lie. I found no solution to this problem.

The boat sail was hard to control due  the spring constraint I had on it. The spring had to be high so the cloth was bunched up at the top. However when the animation played, the sail would spring up into place and get bunched up above the beam and stay there. Unfortunately it would not be blown by the wind.

The layout of my camp had to be changed a little due to my involvement with leaves. To have leaves, you need trees. Also, you needed them near the camp so it’s actually visible in the video. So I had to do a bit of squishing.

Honestly, I do like Maya, it is a useful programme that I know I will learn in the future. I just have to get used to all this scripting business.

Fantasy Olympics

Fantasy Olympics from Diana Jones on Vimeo.

After Effects was a completely new programme to me. As a combination of Premier pro and Photoshop, i found it hard to adapt to, as quite simply it is an effects tool and not primarily an animating one. I had to learn that i was not working in 3d, as i have been previously on this course, and think in only 2-dimensions. I found it hard to wrap my head round 2d 3d creations, but i got there eventually.
What i loved about this project was the recreation of my character Saru! And throwing dodge balls into bunnies faces! HA!
Unfortunately there are a couple problems with my final piece. these include: The fast paced transitions between the scenes, and the sketchy look of my characters. the transitions between each scene seem as if they are cut off too soon, and should last a second or two longer. I had not noticed this at first due to the fast paced feel to the video. My characters, due to their photoshop filling and pen inked outlines, look very amateur. If i was to remake this video, these are the immediate problems i would rectify. But i would also love to expand on the storyboard, the ending is a tad bit abrupt, leaving the viewer let down fast.
Honestly, i feel i could happily make a awesome dodge ball video, due to me being more comfortable with the After Effects programme.
how i understand how it can aid and even create animation.

The Chess Player

I've got to say, i have learnt so much in these past few weeks. I've learnt how to animate characters using IK chains, Reaction Manager and Morph Targets. I have also learnt which are the most appropriate for the kind of movement. I've learnt a few different types of constraints, and when to use them. Overall, I've learnt how to animate much better. Personally i feel that my animating skills and enthusiasm has grown a lot.
This project follows my original ideas in a vague way. I wanted originally to have a revolving robot arm playing a full game of chess. That plan grew into two different arms (in looks and personality) playing a game of chess. Unfortunately, my designs of the Old Arm were not made to measure, and he ended up way too big. Also my plot included a full game of chess, which would have lasted well over two-three minutes. Therefore changes needed to be made.
I decided to change the story.The story shortened into the Old Arm knocking some of his pieces over, due to being unable to play the game successfully. Nothing was re sized.

It was only after that i had rendered all my video, that i wanted better textures. I started rendering The Chess Player in these new textures, however it is still rendering as i type this now. I think, that combined with the new layout, lighting and textures, the video would have been more impacting. However the new lighting removed my idea of a dark deep place, that the robots were constrained to. This is what i mainly like about the video. The dark nothingness that surrounds them, making the viewer focus entirely on the game (lit area).
Overall my animating of the robot arms gets better towards the end of the video. My sense of timing is much better now, and i feel i can show emotion/feelings successfully. However my attempted animation of the use of gravity needs a lot of work. imitating gravity is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Perhaps i will work on small videos depicting this. If my animating abilities do get better, i feel that i could work in the animating part of the 3d-pipeline.

I got all my sound clips from Sound Jay.

My AV Evaluation

The main ideas for this project were originally a film noir. However it was pointed out to us, that this would be excessively hard for our group. So, it was decided to have a modern film noir movie. Due to the tension of the script and short movie, we used a lot of short shots.
We researched online film noir clips, and lighting techniques. I redrew Najhet’s (Director) storyboards. This helped me visualise my camera shots and angles.
Personally, I have no real previous experience with filming. So this project was a learning curve for me. However I feel I have developed this skill sufficiently and I’m quite proud of our final product.
The locations I found were not all relevant for our filming. However, it was the alleyway scene that changed the most. The alleyway i found was too close to housings and was far too narrow for any side shots. We relocated to an alleyway further away, which effectively was better than the original, in lighting, location, appearance and spacing.
I have learnt how to control the iris in a camera. I have learnt how to contribute to a group.
I would either: stick to the script, and not change it, or completely rewrite the script, based on the 'unknown information' that the character Colin found. Changing the script for our own devices created a few problems and loose ends.
I would like to do more filming for other people. I find it enjoyable. Perhaps some short films or one shot videos.

My VE evaluation

Monster Cave from Diana Jones on Vimeo.

My main idea for the Scary Ride was Monsters. It was based on children’s books. Not many children’s books have ghosts in them, but many have monsters. Basing my development on the target market of children, I designed the characters to be mildly scary. I wanted the children to be scared as this is a scary ride.

My brain storming revolved around what children are scared of: the dark, being alone etc. I used these in the creation and design of my ride, cart and lighting (or lack of). I was in Waterstones one day, looking in the children’s picture book section. Many books had unusual monsters and animals, but only one book had ghosts in it. Maybe this is because they’re not as scary anymore.

Story boards were created to help the visualisation of the 3D creation. It has helped significantly with the positioning of my characters.

A risk I took was creating the bones for my characters to help them move. I did not fully understand how to use these at all, so I had to learn from random tutorials on the internet. The creation of the bone structure is the easiest part. But the hardest parts were linking them to the skin, and making sure the skin moves correctly. I understand that the envelopes can help this; I have not found the correct procedure for this yet.

One problem was Applying textures to the Waverly theatre, as it was made form a spline, it had complications. To fix this i hid the theatre and created my own walls to fit. I prefer this decision as  

the walls are straighter; they don’t have dips and hollows. Most of those were getting in my way.

Another problem was the skin of my characters, creasing and bending in the wrong places. I’ve tried to solve this using the envelopes and have succeeded on a few of the characters. However, some of the characters will not be able to move due to these extreme deformities.

My last problem was the multi-sub layering. I really couldn’t get it to work, so my characters are staying one colour. My main problem was the polygon IDing. I kept applying it wrong.

I have learnt much more about lighting, in this project. I’ve learnt their differences and how to change and manipulate them. There is so much you can do with them. E.g. Flickering lights, Fog and projecting bitmaps within them.

If given another chance at this project, I would create a better bone structure for my characters. Try to understand the bone and skin more, so that I could use it successfully.

I would manage my time more effectively. I would make my characters in the first two weeks, instead of the third and forth, creating more time for my experimental skin and bones. I would’ve aimed to have the rendering started and finished in the fifth week.

My IM Evaluation

My main intentions for this project were to create a working portfolio that reflects my personality. I wanted, my portfolio to be an extension of myself.
For the portfolio, i created a mood board to develop my ideas. Unfortunately the only part to transfer itself was the colour purple. I chose between two templates for the wire frame of the website. One would've been easier for me, but i didn't choose it. Instead i wanted a vertical navigational bar. To make this work, i had to float the boxes in different places. I did it quite well by myself, and Giselle remedied it for me.
Some problems i found were: floating the footer, padding the content image and reorganising the gallery. Solving the problem with the footer was simple, as Giselle helped me. How ever i do feel that i would have worked at it until it worked. For the content, i wanted a background picture, of scribbles, with overlying writing. However, i wanted the writing to be padded more than the picture. I unfortunately found out that the padding in the content affects both simultaneously. To counteract this i centred the writing  so i wouldn't touch the edges of the picture. I know know, that creating a separate div tag, to put the writing in, would've worked just as well. And last of all i found creating the gallery hard, as i wasn't there for the ooriginal lesson. But the main problem was afetr saving and adding the gallery, i didn't know how to access it again to add and change some of the images. I did try to access it many times, but to no avail. I left the gallery with only a few images, which is unfortunate.
I have learnt much more about Dreamweaver in this term than i had before. I've learnt how to create divs, classes. I  learnt how to change each one's settings appropriately.
If i was to re-do this project, i know i would make more pages for my animations, and a completely different gallery. I like the programme Adobe Bridge, but i don't like the layouts for the galleries. I would lighten the colourscheme, as i find it a bit too dark/pressing. Also, i would change my profile picture; it's terrible.