Super sorry for that last post that should have been posted in May, but for whatever reason was not.
Anyway, a quick update.
Kramer is actually doing well.
The animation has been selected to show in 14 festivals, was a semi-finalist once, nominee once, finalist twice, and even won once during a festival in India!!
So, yeah, Kramer is doing well. I'm hoping he gets into one or two more at least, but I'm very proud of him already.
Life update?
I'm currently in Orlando working at Disney World in attractions. Nothing to do with what I studied, but I really felt like I needed a time to take a breath after going straight from undergrad to grad-school.
I'm in the running for a few Disney Professional Internships right now. After attending the CTN Animation Expo in CA again last week am also applying to many other companies to actually start this annoying adult life.
Right now I'm sure that the main thing holding me back is myself. I've never been all that confident, especially in my work. But I'm working on it.
Well....that's about it. If Kramer gets into a few more I might give another post. Other than that, thanks for reading!
I'm Free to be the Greatest
-"The Greatest" by Sai
Yeah, this post is significantly shorter than the past few weeks. With Easter over the weekend I wasn’t in the labs as much as I would normally.
Things are still coming along though. This week the main focus was finishing the animation of the stuff I’ve only blocked in so far. For the most part it was successful:
Jumping into the car? Check.
Create a pole for the trainer to hit her head on? Yup..
Get the reflections into the floor during the growing shot? Got cha’.
Have the boy move when in the pool? Done.
Add people to the leaf scene? There you go.
I even fixed the meeting scene that everyone was having issues understanding.
Of course I got most of that scenes animation done and decided the interior space doesn’t work. So now I have to re-design all those interiors…. yet another thing to do on the list of things to finish.
With that, here is the animatic. For anyone new to my posts, the video posted next week will only be viewable by my advisor until a year has past so it can be submitted to festivals.
When we turn in the animation next week we also have to submit 5 still frames from the short at a high resolution. These are the 5 I think I’m going to go with (though 1 isn’t finished…)
Maybe?
Maybe?
Absolutly
If it looks like it does in my head when done
Absolutely
It really is crunch time now. Everything need to be finished Friday night to get things rendered out.
Let's do this fast because I really want to just go back to working on….well, everything.
It’s officially Spring Break and I’ve been in the labs every day so far. (Meaning Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of last week.) And of course with the snowstorm coming tomorrow I most likely will not be able to work in the labs.....fun.
Not a crazy ton of animation has been done yet since I was working on designs for the children that sit in a classroom listening to a ‘raiser presentation.’ The shot lasts -maybe- 4 seconds, 5 at the most, yet it’s taken ages to get these kids in. More need to be added to make the room feel full, but at this point I can maybe get away with just coloring them differently and changing minor things to get the desired results. I also want every kid to have ‘life motion’ which will be minor but time consuming.
There are some minor animations that I got done including sending a bowl of kibble flying, and picking up a steady bear……but I really don’t feel like uploading them and showing them off because they are maybe a second each, have no backgrounds and are missing stationary body parts at the moment. You’ll have to wait until next week to see it all.
Sorry - not sorry.
I will show you one thing that I’ve animated so far this break.
Its the second half of S11 - Trainer Walk where Kramer sneezes and sends the Wish Flower into the air.
Now the conclusion of this scene is unfinished. I keep getting notes that the current ‘graduation’ scene with Kramer on stage but not participating is confusing and hard to read. To fix this I’ve decided to create a ‘graduation’ scene similar to that in Happy Feet when Mumble doesn’t graduate and just watches from the audience.
To get there I’m going to follow a wish seed from one scene to the other. When it enters the graduation scene it will float in front of the proceedings at which point the focus will shift from one to the other.
…yeah, that transition is going to need some planning.
Other than that I am currently working on another suggestion given to me from last week’s presentation.
It was suggested that I should have a voice-over of my brother talking about raising Kramer. Not strictly doing a see-say, but enough to give more context and interest.
Of course he had his break last week and is now in North Carolina. Thankfully he has a sound studio at his school and recording equipment at his house for his vlog. Yeah, that means I won’t be there for the recording but I think it can work. I going to be sending him different prompts to talk about, plus maybe even a ‘script’ that I think will work. The trick would be for him to not look at the suggested script until after recording the prompt answers and then not to make it sound scripted.
Okay, maybe this will be a bit hard - and I’m not convinced that it is even going to work. But it has potential and could make the whole thing awesome so I’ll give it a try. If its horrible then I’ll just scrap it.
Right. This is already longer than I intended. Really have to get back to work now.
Let's start off the the drama that wasn't part of animating.
First you need some background information;
Twice a week I 'work' with another teacher in teaching his 2D animation class to sophomores. It's kind of like a TA thing but I don't do as much as in the movies.
Anyway, he was telling the kids (because that's what they are - 19/20 year old little kids) that they should watch some of the Seniors later that day when they give their capstone/thesis presentations. That the seniors still had some time but it would be due April 20.
Wait, WHAT?!
So I asked, "Do graduates and undergraduates have different deadlines, because we where told the 24."
"Not that I'm aware of they shouldn't."
Oh this is just great.
I did track down my advisor to ask her what was up. Basically, its due the 20th for Thursday classes, then 24th for Mondays....which is us.
But, yeah, great way to kick off the work cycle.
So the plan was to finish S1- Arrive, and animate S8-Arrive2 and S11-TrainerWalk. 2 out of 3 is fine, right?
Okay, the beginning.
S1 - Arrive.
Things actually came together with this fairly easily the second time around. I have to come up with something for the backgrounds because its a little bland, and the motion at points needs a bit more sparkle, but still I like the falling over. (Which if you saw last week took a few tries to do.)
You will see all the videos in the latest animatic below, so just enjoy the stills for now.
.....And you would see one here from S1 if anything looked pretty enough, but with the backgrounds still in progress the style look isn't all that new for you.....
Now S8 - Arrive2
This was a good portion of my week (outside of classes, other homework, and job fair) and I personally love the interior of the car.
Some background things need to be animated still, his cycle in the first shot bugs me, the sniffing is just - no -, and the timing is a bit fast - but its done for the most part.
.....
Can I take a moment to pause here and say how obnoxious the computers in our labs are at times. Not only have I started screen-shooting the errors I get but this weekend it was having a really hard time just previewing.
Don't believe me?
Here is a screen shot of the view I had to try working from while creating the interior of the van. It is at full resolution and has a play back timeline of one frame - so why the issue computer?!
Why? Seriously?
Okay rant over.......
S11 - Training Walk didn't get completely done.
Why?
Wish Flowers.
There is a stupid Wish Flower as a central part of the scene and I started making it - then 4 hours later started animating it, and another 2 before saying "forget it!" and moving on to actually show you something. But it did look cool working on it.
So there is this little nugget: the first shot of the scene but without the trainer. I then realized that the fence gives a flattening effect since it doesn't move perspectively and will have to re-design that....plus other fixes to the shot.
....which you can fin in the animatic because I don't want to upload it twice....
Now, I spent ages on that Wish Flower - and it still needs more work.
Last a little mock-up of on of the shots.
So before I leave you, I'm giving you an updated version of the animatic - mostly because we are doing a presentation today and have o have one rather than I think its time to aline everything an take a look.......
And that's a cap on the week people. Don't know if there will be an update next week, or at least on time, since next Monday starts Spring Break. I'm planning on more-or-less living in the labs for a good portion of it. I do have to go home for a few days, but it shouldn't be too much a bother.
Yeah, okay. I didn't update last week. This semester is a little different in that we sometimes meet as a class, sometimes just with the teacher, and sometimes not at all.
Last week was a not at all.
That is not to say I won't ever post on a no-meeting week, but I'm pulling that card this time.
Moving on.....
Since last time I actually got a lot done - not as much as I wanted, but still a lot.
Originally I wanted to completely animate 2 scenes. The color correction, lighting, and background fixes are scheduled to be finished during the last three weeks - so back off now people.
Here is my breakdown for the rest of semester:
First, this gap wasn't all about animating.
Last semester the document system I had in place wasn't working. At. All.
Sure it was good in theory, and was helping in lowering the amount of data in in files - was it didn't hold up when it came to phase 2 let alone 3 or 4.
So I spent some time re-orgainizing everything. Before there was a file for Kramer, other dogs, the Boy, other people, then for Backgrounds.
Yeah.... it became a real head ache when it came time to try combining the elements.
So now I have one file for each scene. Meaning 15 different files. The time consuming part was coping all the previously made elements from the files of last semester into new files specific to the scene they are in.
It was more of a time sucker then you might think.
Now I said that I didn't get done everything that I wanted to do. The plan was to get done 2 scenes, S1-Arrival and S2-First Night. First Night is done - animation wise.....for now. I'm not crazy enough to believe that it's perfect as is and doesn't need tweaking here or there, but I very happy with it.
And just look at this puppy, isn't he cute!
Silly little puppy.
.....trust me, it makes more sense in the setting. And even if it isn't exactly how a puppy moves, it's animation not live action and I like it.
With that I'll show you the scene as it is now. Keep in mind a few things: there is no color correction, no lighting (except for the lightning), the background is changing slightly (bed different, texture in floor), and the sound only has the effects - not the overall track.
To be fair, things did keep crashing on me, a lot. I've decided to start taking pictures of all my error messages when working on thesis and I'm going to make something out of them.
So what am I talking about, stuff not done.
Well the other scene, S1-Arrival, is not exactly finished.
First off, I changed a lot of it - nearly all of it.
Reason?
The stupid full frontal view is a butt to design, so everything using that angle is re-designed to 3/4.
Then I thought instead of him falling over trying to scratch himself I would introduce his distractive-ness right off and have him pawing at something, then watch a butterfly, before being picked up.
It wasn't exactly working the way I wanted - and this was the easy part. I already spent so much time on it, and it needed so much more love to be half-way decent, that I went another route.
Now instead of stilling on the ground, doing......something, then getting picked up - Kramer starts in the boy's arms opening his eyes giving a first-person perspective for the opening shot.
It's a little tricky since I'm dealing with extreme perspective, location shift, and first-person eyes opening.....but I think it's going somewhere.
From here we cut to a side view of Neville (yeah our dog's name is really Kramer, and my brother's name is actually Michael, but even though the character was designed from him, he feels more like a Neville) .....side view of Neville and Kramer before a Neville-perspective of Kramer as he slips on his new collar, ending with a close up on the collar tag which doubles as the title card.
I like this new sequence, but it will interfere with my transition to S2 since it was to be a seamless transition from one to the other with Kramer in the same pose, but the background changing......oh well.
Over all things went much better this time round. That leaf....mess.....is totally going to be re-done at a later date from a new view point.
Next week I'm planning, as you can see above, to have S3-Growing Montage fixed and, well, the rest of S1 done.
Please note, I understand the practice of animating out of order, I really do. The fact that S1-3 are the only ones relatively done is just because of timing and interest level. Other shots will be created in non-sequential order.
Note two: this post is REALLY long. It's most likely to do with the fact that I don't think I explained things well in the beginning - but it could also have to do with just having a lot to show....
The beginning email note is being axed and the music needs to change, plus maybe changed some of the shot compositions to add dynamics…..
But basically, the story is based off the experience I’ve had with my family in raising puppies for The Seeing Eye (not that I will ever name them in the animation I think). The story follows our Golden Retriever, Kramer, has he grows and learns. Eventually he goes through all his training but is too goofy to pass and ends up returning home.
In short: a LOT of animating dogs.
….dogs are really hard to animate.
Why am I doing this again?
So over the past week I started working on one of the later shots known to me as “Leaf.” This involves Kramer, another dog, 2 trainers, a leaf and an evaluator? …not sure on that last part.
The leaf got made and animated without issue - though I might still tweak the timing here and there a bit.
The other dog, who I’m naming Kato since he will be in more of the story, got animated for the most part and I like him.
The trainers and evaluator (if I even have one) aren’t made yet. -_-
Then you have Kramer.
Things started rocky since I had yet to design a view of him head on as an adult. Plus I’m taking notes from last semester and giving a nose shine and more expressive eyes. All in all the design got to the point that I was like, “Okay, this might work but he still doesn’t look like his other angles.”
Why did I design the shot head on?
Next was actually animating him.
That was even more annoying, and took waaaay more time that I thought it would. It’s starting to come along but there where so may issues that came up and things that still need to be addressed that I’m not happy with it.
Seriously, why did I choose this story to get back into things?
Whatever.
If you want, here’s the latest version of the shot so far. The background is going to change so I don’t want to hear anything about that:
Well hopefully this next week goes better. I’m thinking of maybe doing the end scene next, not sure.
