Graphics and Animation Day

I have pretty much completed the picture that my graphics student requested me to do. The pose is done all that is left is to export it as an illustrator file and play around with the colours.

I also completed 5 scenes of animation, 1 almost done just requires possible minor fix up. I was intending to complete another 4 scenes but i knocked out pretty much as soon as i got home for about 2-3 hours. . . the shallow sleeps at night are getting to me.

Looking Back on the Week

For the past week, i have been taking on sequence 3 of the film. I managed to complete 14/39 scenes which consisted of the hardest scenes in the film. The weeks work of animation had a lot of frame by frame animation as tweens just did not produce the quality that i wanted.

Production is running really close to the edge and some scenes will probably have to be cut out in order to complete the film.

I plan to give sequence 3 another 4 days for completion, hopefully after this sequence things will speed up.

Nothing Out Of The Ordinary

I managed to complete another 2 scenes, in the middle of another 1 and have cut out a scene due to its inconsistence with the animation.

I have also done a rough sketch for my graphics student which i will refine over the next few days.

Another Tough 4 Seconds

I managed to complete another hard 4 seconds. I underestimated the scene and thought it was going to be a breeze. I tried to simplify the animation by moving an arm across the screen to simulate a back swing, but it looked crap and it had no real flow to it. So i decided to once again to animate the hand swinging frame by frame. It was similar to what i did yesterday but in a different angle and i would say slightly easier.

My graphics student has also contacted me today and provided me with a few concept sketches of what my DVD cover would look like. 2 of them portrayed Corsair as the star of the show, and one had both Vienna and Corsair. I decided to choose the 1 with Vienna and Corsair in the cover as i felt that both of them are equal in the starring role.

My plans for tomorrow are to go to class in the morning, knock down a few of the easier sequence 3 scenes (unfortunately not alot of them) and sketch up the side by side pose that my graphics student has asked me to do.

Critical Day

Today was quite a critical day for me. Not only did we meet with the graphics students and tell them what we wanted for our DVD covers and posters, i also had a go at one of the hardest scenes in my animation.

The animation consisted of a punch scene, though it might sound easy it was actually quite hard 2 capture the movement. I tried many "short cuts" to get the punch correct, but it only prolonged the process. I decided to do it the old fashion frame by frame traditional animation, and it turned out quite well. I also managed to play around with a wizpan which went well with the punch.

Although it was only 4 2 seconds, it was a damn hard barrier to break. Things should be easier now that its out of the way.

Skipping to the Hard Parts

I have decided to delay sequence 2 this week and move on to sequence 3 as requested by my sound student. It's going to be tough but it has to be done sooner or later. Not only will it ease up the load once this bunch is done, it will also give me the experience of handling harder scenes which will make the rest of the films animation a whole lot easier.

Prior to this decision i managed to finish about 4 seconds of mid level animations, and about 4-6 seconds of easy animations.

My sound student has also given me a music track which goes according to the sequence 1 beta animation i gave her. It really filled the gap that i felt was missing and the film is shown in a whole new dramatic light.

I hope to complete the animations for sequence 3 this week, but it will probably take me 1 1/2 weeks to 2 weeks to complete it.

Having a Hard Time

I spent today playing around with 2 of the hardest scenes of sequence 1 and the film. Things didn't go as smoothly as i wanted it to, and did not complete them. I am thinking of simplifying those scenes as i dont think i can afford the time to make them the way i originally wanted them.

Not all is bad though, i managed to do another few seconds, and am in the middle of completing a 4 second scene, though i am having minor problems.

2 Scenes 2 Go . . . For Sequence 1

I did 2-4 of the harder scenes in sequence 1. Im happy with one of them and i am not so happy with the other. The not so good scene was animating the foot at the start of the film. Although the animation is quite correct, the speed of which the foot steps down seems slightly wrong. I did the foot animation frame by frame, but i think it lacks the exaggeration required to see the frame by frame animation.

Will look to fix the foot animation and the other 2 harder scenes of sequence 1 tomorrow.

Checklist Done

I finally managed to finished a checklist for the animation.

I onli managed to animate the last 2 easy scenes of the 1st sequence. Later on today it's going to be hard work trying to get the harder scenes out of the way. I'm hoping to complete the 6 harder scenes in about 2-3 days, which will bring me to about 1minute in the film.

Not So Bad Hair Day

Over the past 2 days i have completed the design brief for the graphics designers, and i have just been working on animating.

I have managed to complete about 37 seconds of animation so far, and am aiming to complete at least 1 minute of animation by the end of this week. I haven't had any real problems animating, except for the hair follow through on one of the scenes involving Vienna. Lucky Major and Corsair have shaved heads.

Just Animating

After a nice 2 week break im charged up for the last 4-5 weeks of the course. My schedule is tight but i will do my best.

What I've Been Doing On Holidays

I have been working on the backgrounds. I have given this film a very concrete like scenery.

Done With The Major

Finally completed Major Mjolnir's turnaround. Since im getting tired of turnarounds, i plan to do the backgrounds next then finish Vienna's turnaround.

Encounter With Death

I had a little scare last night as i had an encounter with the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. Lucky for me the DEATH part wasn't present or it would mean the end of my film.

I have backed up all my work to date so if anything like that would happen again not everything will be lost.

I have nearly completed the turn-around for Major Mjolnir all i need now are the shadows then i can get on with the final turn-around.

Working On Majors Turn-around

I have been working on the Majors turn-around.

There are currently no problems with the model except for the fact that he is looking more like a caveman than a post-nuclear villain. Don't worry once the shadows and extra armours are implemented he will look like a mean tanker.

Working on the Major has been a lot faster then Corsair.

Perhaps i've finally got the hang of this.

Corsair Done Let's Keep Rolling

I took the day to complete the shadow version of Corsairs turn-around, fix up any major colour issues, conduct basic movement tests and to determine whether to use the plain lined characters or the high contrast shape based characters.

Using the high contrast based character has been a major advantage animation wise. I am able to move the characters without worrying about the lines, and am able to patch the models very easily. The shadows in the model are on different layers so they are easy to manipulate for shadows concerning the environment.

The shoulder plates posed a slight problem in the movement when moving the arms forwards and backwards as the plates are meant to be metal. I decided to divide the shoulder plates in two, creating moveability in the shoulder area. Although this helped, movement without the plates was much easier and makes me wonder if i should keep them or not.

Now that Corsair is done, it's time to move on with Major Mjolnir.

Style Test

I was looking at my orginal Corsair design and he seemed to not portray his dark characteristics, rather he looked very much like a justice friends good-doer.

After some revision on the design i decided to increase in contrast so that the shadows are black. I believe that this would be able to help me save time in animating as i wont have to worry too much about the joints and it also helps express Corsairs dark nature.

1st Turn-around

I have been working on the turn arounds for the past three days and i have finally managed to complete one. Another 6 more days to complete the other two and begin working on the locations.

Storyboards

Here are some storyboards for the film.

Even more gears.