Jump: Dare Audio

Spent most of today adding breakdowns to Malcolm and making changes to the audio, then changing the breakdowns to fit the audio. It's been great working in the university labs with my classmates. The company really helps and I can get feedback pretty much instantly which is fantastic. Here is today's efforts in three steps. First being what I have first and the last video is where I'm up to.

Step 1. Where I started. The 'lame' stood out too much and not even in a good way.



Step 2. 'Lame' was taken out of the audio but then 'C'mon' started to stand out, particularly because it's said twice and quite closly to each other. It was also confused and people thought that Aaron was saying it twice and wondered why Malcolm was moving.




Step 3. It was decided to change Malcolm's action to reactive rather than acting on thought. The scene flows much better.




Rachel's Blog

Jump: Clouds

The 3D clouds were distracting in the previous renders so it was suggested we go for a 2D background that would blend in with the overall scene better. I've rustled up a few different attempts at a 2D cloud background with the intention of picking one and using it in our scenes.

I dislike D. the most and like B. and C. the most. Rachel likes B. and C best too. I think I'll post this up on the Masters facebook group and see what the others think..

JUMP: Swim WIP

During feedback this week, it became apparent that the hand stand trick was pretty weak compared to the rest of the poses. It wasn't really better than the previous pose so it was suggested to try something else.
Two things suggested were a swimming trick and a bigger, better back flip perhaps with more flare. Here's a WIP of the swimming trick and the quick stick man sketches I did to work it out.

 As you can see, the arm's shoulder rotation has skewed. It's possible that I've knocked something and not realised until now, I can't find a way to fix it. To be honest, I'm not sure IK is really the best way to blocking the arm animation. I think I could get better results blocking in FK as I could control the upper arm, lower arm and wrist better, rather than control the entire arm from the wrist and using elbow vectors. I think this would achieve a better 'floaty' (not as in drifting but as if in the air, later I will building upon the blocking to look like it's being affected by air rushing past) this way. Since I would have had to re-block the arm anyway due to not being able to fix the skewed rotation in one go, I decided to get rid of the blocking on both arms and re-block in FK to see if I could get better blocking.

 

Arm is now fixed and I've got both arms almost as blocked as they were before. They both need more breakdowns but I wanted to get the first round done so that I could finish blocking the trick. Breakdowns will be added at another time. I think I've achieved a better blocking already, though the timing needs to be refined and it will look better once I've finished blocking the rest. I think Malcolm's left arm definitely looks better when he pulls out the sign. I remember having trouble with that part when blocking in IK. This time I was able to get a nice arc movement in the elbow and wrist and therefore the sign as well. Smashing!

 Next I need to finish blocking his trick and sort out the timing. Then I will be done with this scene for the time being (unless there are problems, as always) and move on to the last scene for blocking.

Rachel's Blog

Jump: Last 'Dare' Blocking

Completely forgot to post this update last week before I left to visit family! Basically, me and Rachel decided it would be best if she re-adjusted Aaron's timing after I'd finished blocking Malcolm according to the reference timing. Here is where I got to before passing the file on to her:

 

 When I got back she had gotten this far!

 

 She'd also put it together with the other video files and animatic as we were suggested to from the feedback
sessions:

 

 It is much better viewing the whole thing like this as we can see how it works together all the time, making it easier to see if anything isn't working or something could happen differently. Unfortunately I haven't scanned the remaining sketches for my blocking so watch this space and I'll get those up asap.

Edit: Scanned in the sketches!

Rachel's Blog

JUMP: Feedback

I showed the last playblast I did and Rachel's blocking from the first scene at the feedback session today.

It went well, our tutors seemed happy with what we had so far. I took some notes from the feedback everyone was giving me and I typed it up for Rachel, here is what I wrote:

# They thought the clouds may have been too distracting and think a 2D background would be better, less intrusive. So I'll refer back to the tests I did and mock up some backgrounds.

# It was suggested by Siobhan that we edit what we've done with the animatic in future, so they can always see the full picture. If that makes sense?

# It was also suggested that we consider helmets or something to help with the falling illusion (flappy straps I'm guessing). Basically stuff to wobble about I think.. I'm unsure about what else we could do but I said we'd consider it.

# Just said to consider the camera (that was aimed more at mine, since I hadn't cut it or anything ~ I explained how we were planning to cut the shot which was why Siobhan suggested editing with the animatic just to make it clearer).

# Definitely consider dialogue ~ they really liked the reference, particularly the shouting over the fan.

# Timing (more aimed at mine but without the cutting it did seem slower than it should, also explained that and they understood - again edit with animatic)

# They were happy with yours and are looking forward to seeing both the characters move.

Hope that made sense, if something doesn't just ask 
Penny mentioned something about being away in August, sometime around the 6th - 24th... just a heads up really.

Useful thing the examiners said about last years dissertation reports is that they weren't reflective enough. So we need more 'why I did this' rather than 'what I did'. So basically more reflection and critical analysis. Word count is 10,000. I think it was mentioned you can go up to 14,000.
The two reports Penny sent us are the best to look at, both were A grades.

...I think that was about it.


I also spoke to Penny about the project specification we have to write. I've already written a rough go and she said I should outline how we're going to go about researching the topic i.e. look at what other animators have done and realism vs. cartoons. I shall get that done and sent to Penny for feedback by the end of the week.

We need to start thinking about the written part of our final project which is a 10,000 - 14,000 document. I'm putting off starting it until I go to see my parents next weekend as I won't be able to animate while there so I'll be doing that instead. Here is a list of things I need to look into again for research which needs to go into this document:

# Skrat from Ice Age - particularly when he falls.
# Wile E Coyote - 2D and 3D
# Possibly Rio, for the background character hand gliding - slightly different to skydiving but the air affecting the character still applies.
# Tex Avery
# Animations other people have done (skydiving)

# Point break - skydiving scenes.
# Power Rangers - skydiving scene.
# Youtube videos of people's skydiving experiences.

#Skydiving information - websites etc. For technical details.

Rachel's Blog

Jump: Blocking Test 4

Updated playblast of where I'm up to.


Feedback on Tuesday went well. People seemed happy with what I had at that point and Scott mentioned he liked how the character looked like he was thinking. I'm glad because I've been working on creating more subtle character acting, particularly thinking. Our project supervisor, Penny, suggested to go straight ahead with it. She thinks it's one of those things that don't suit blocking. She and Siobhan also said to block everything else in the scene (sky and clouds) to get a full working idea of how it will look. I'm going to finish blocking Malcolm and then block the scenery. After that I'll try to go straight ahead with the beginning if I can.

We've already come across the problem of lack of reference, particularly for the first scene. The reference we did isn't enough and it's very obvious (says one of our classmates) that we're not boys! Mark, who runs the green screen room, is currently on holiday (until Friday 22nd I believe) and Rachel leaves for the States today for 2 weeks so getting a group session in the green screen for more reference is difficult. I'm hoping that one will be booked next week so I can get Kristian and Scott to act for us!



  Rachel's Blog

Sky Dive Test 2

Added some more animation, particularly to the head and torso as advised. I made some tweaks to the right hand as it wasn't 'flapping' as much as the left and was too slow. I also added another layer of clouds which will go faster than the background and some camera shakes to help with the illusion of free fall.

I think it looks okay actually. Waiting for feedback as I'm sure there is something I can do to improve it but so far it's gone better than expected. The intention of this was to see if I could create the illusion of falling so that me and Rachel would know how to do it in the final animation. It is absolutely vital we get this looking decent because otherwise, if we don't get it at least believable, the whole animation will suffer for it and look 'floaty' and wrong.



Rachel's Blog

Final Animation

Finally completed the animatic! No idea how people just churn out these things, they always take me longer than expected. Maybe I just need to get better. Anyway, animatic with added dare scene in the right place!

 


Feedback today went well. There was wasn't much issue this time as everyone seemed to like the story. The only thing that did come up was how hard it was going to be to make them look like they're falling and not floating. We agree, it will be hard, but we have thought about it. Things like flappy shoes and hands, squinting, hair if it can be moved, any item they're wearing that can be moved will be animated in such a way to help give the illusion of falling. Unfortunately we cannot animate the clothes just because it is not possible on the rigs we've chosen (they're pretty much one with the rig). Another thing that came up was Malcolm's anatomy was a bit off. Agreed, he is not anatomically correct but that was the way Animschool made him and his geometry isn't customizable. I know modifications can be done to him but I don't know what and it's way out of my knowledge base anyway. We chose downloadable rigs because neither of us can build models and rigs, we knew this would limit us in some way but we'd rather that than a broken rig. So far so good!

Rachel's Blog

The drawing board, we went back to it.

We had some feedback from our classmates and tutors and we now feel that the banjo homage isn't going to work. So on friday me and Rachel discussed what to do because we were getting no closer to hammering down a story. After some bouncing of ideas, we came up with this:

So if we start with them in the plane. Aaron pretends to shove Malcolm out of the plane. Malcolm recovers and understandably backslaps Aaron in the chest or something.

Now I'm not sure whether to have the 'after you, no after you' thing start here or just have Aaron jump out and Malcolm take a breath and follow.

Anyway, Malcolm is unstable at first but finds balance and is rather pleased with himself. Until he sees Aaron already showing off (insert mildly impressive pose here). Malcolm rises to this and attempts a simple trick (insert etc etc). Aaron does something a little more complex and Malcolm again attempts something a bit more trixy. (we could do this once more, we could even work in a pose for both of them together if it got them looking at the ground - like that surf one)

Whatever way, they notice the ground/altimeter and Aaron indicates that its time to pull the chutes. Malcolm goes to pull his but Aaron starts doing chicken impressions. Malcolm stops and holds out, he gestures 'after you'. Aaron pretends to go to pull his but makes a show of not doing so, he returns the gesture. Malcolm looks down and back at Aaron, making his decision. He crosses his arms or something, set on not letting his brother win. (We could have Aaron start to look nervous at this point but doesn't want to look the weak one)

Approaching impending tree crash shot. Black out with sounds. Both in tree, Malcolm looking annoyed and Aaron looking rather amused. Aaron gives Malcolm a playful shove (aah that was fun!) but Malcolm back slaps him again. Perhaps they carry on punching for the end.

We wanted to return to the 'fun' we wanted to have in our animation in the beginning so put tricks back in. We met up the next day to talk about what tricks we wanted to put in. We wanted to build up the tricks so we agreed that the first tricks each character does should be a standard and plausible sky dive trick. Aaron is to do a backflip and to retaliate Malcolm is going to do a handstand and look like he's walking on his hands.
We wanted to escalate from here into something unusual. I personally was worried about how to proceed as the banjo's were described as 'too far-fetched' by our tutor. I wasn't sure if this would apply to any prop we thought of. Then Rachel reminded me that this is a cartoon, we didn't want it to be a realistic representation of skydiving. If cartoons can get away with hammer space then so can ours. So as a homage to Wile E Coyote, the next trick will be Aaron will pull out a sign saying 'You Suck!' on it after not being impressed by Malcolm's trick. Malcolm will pull out another bigger sign saying something like 'Yeah well your face SUCKS!' This sparks some anger and the two begin fighting in mid-air. No serious combat moves, just sibling fighting. During the fight they would notice the ground getting closer and then proceed into the daring as before.

We were both happy about this so I started storyboarding today and Rachel started character profiles and document templates for our hand-in.

While storyboarding, it occurred to me that we could actually finish the air stuff right when they noticed their tree impending doom and then have them crash into it. We could either take out the dare completely or put a shortened bit of it into the plane scene. I let Rachel know my thoughts and she agreed that this would allow us to spend more time with them in the plane and on the tricks. It would also ensure the animation wouldn't get too long. Apparently the idea is flexible enough for us to re-arrange things when necessary! Yay! Since this way had a nice pace to it, we agreed to change it to this:

Plane scene as normal, bit of a dare and then a playful shove and scuffle. Aaron falls out plane first and Malcolm follows. Tricks then fighting in which Aaron gets Malcolm in a headlock. Malcolm notices altimeter is in red and both look at the tree speeding towards them. Black out with sounds of crashing. Return to see characters in tree, Aaron thinks it's funny and slaps Malcolm on back, Malcolm takes offence and hits him back. Pair start scuffling again.

Will upload a storyboard soon. I've already done half of it so the dare won't be in the plane section but I'll add that to the animatic. The storyboard will just be cut at the fight scene and I'll add notes about the dare.

Rachel's Blog

Burn your children and make a new one.

So our idea pretty much fell apart last Tuesday. Basically, it wasn't working. As an instructor there would be absolutely no reason why she would crash or let Malcolm crash. And if we were looking at it that realistically, a parachute wouldn't fail either and if it did, there's a back up parachute... So the instructor-pupil relationship wasn't really working. In fact, it caused more problems than it solved. It took away the possibility of crashing.

Another problem with the story was where we wanted Malcolm to try and impress Kat. If he signed up for instructions/to be taught, he wouldn't be able to do those tricks. And Kat should have been giving more signals to him and generally not let him out of her sight.

We also suspected that because the characters were a male and a female, people assumed there must be some sort of relationship there in a more than friends way. Originally, we just wanted them to be friends. Competitive friends. No hint of any romance. However, the stereotypical idea that guys and girls can't just be friends has an element of truth to it. Not because a boy and a girl really can't be just friends but because people on the outside can't see them as just friends. For some reason it is generally assumed that one of them at the very least must be attracted to the other. I'm sure many people have had this assumption on them and their friends at some point. I know I have, my childhood best friend was a boy and there was nothing else.

SO! One of the main changes we've made is the characters are now both male. They are also brothers and as such are competitive because sibling rivalry is just natural. We wanted a simple relationship between the characters (just friends!) but it was becoming a chore and not fun so this should hopefully be simple but satisfactory.
The new idea takes bits and pieces from the other ideas plus a new one (my other half showed me the movie Point Break and now that we got this relationship mess sorted, I was influenced by the particular dare scene shown below).

Malcolm and Aaron are set in the doorway of the plane getting ready to jump. Aaron is the leader of sorts out of the brothers, he's always teasing Malcolm and instigating the scuffs and quarrels between them but is not malicious. He playfully shoves Malcolm, pretending to push him out of the plane. This scares Malcolm a bit and when he recovers, he 'backslaps' Aaron on the arm. Aaron laughs and punches Malcolm in the arm. Before Malcolm can retaliate Aaron drops out of the plane. Frustrated, Malcolm follows.
Malcolm is doing a standard skydive pose (on his stomach), pretty content with himself until he notices Aaron has a guitar out. He plays a bit and looks at Malcolm, waiting. Malcolm brings out a banjo and plays a bit back. They start duelling and end up play together. Very much like the duelling banjos and guitars in the films Deliverance and August Rush (Clips below). Aaron plays with one hand and Malcolm retaliates by playing with no hands, which results in him losing the banjos. Aaron looks victorious and checks his altimeter. He idly tosses his guitar aside and indicates to Malcolm, pointing at the altimeter to sign that it's time to pull the parachutes.
Malcolm goes to pull his when he sees Aaron making chicken gestures at him. He stops, almost disbelieving that his brother being serious. He considers and then gestures to Aaron to say 'after you'. Aaron pretends to go to pull his but makes a show of 'bailing' out. Malcolm shows some annoyance and looks down, the ground is getting closer. He looks back at Aaron who is now gesturing to Malcolm to pull his. Malcolm looks suitably uncomfortable but decides he isn't going to back down, despite impending doom. Aaron looks down and then back at Malcolm but appears calm. Malcolm is starting to look nervous, he tries to maintain his determination. The ground is getting closer. Malcolm shuts his eyes and the screen cuts to black. The sounds of parachutes being released can be heard. Then an impact with a tree sound.
Both are hanging by their backpacks and strings. Malcolm looks pretty rough and is recovering from the terror. Aaron looks up and shakes his head, not as rough as Malcolm. He notices his brother's state and laughs, punching him in the arm again. Malcolm flips and hits him back. They start hitting out at each other and the animation ends there.

We're hoping that the tutors like this idea because we're not really willing to change it (tweaks are fine) as we have two weeks until the deadline and we have our work cut out for us now because of this re-write. Rachel is working on Aaron now while I start making some final sketches and concepts for the final document and pitch document. Once she's done that we're going to start looking at storyboards and animatics.

Here are all the clips we've been looking at as research and inspiration:

Deliverance:


August Rush:

 

Point Break - Sky Dive scene:


 Rachel imagines that Malcolm and Aaron's brotherly relationship would be similar to the brothers Dean and Sam from Supernatural, after watching this I agree!
 

Rachel's Blog

Storyboard for Alt idea.

We waited for the some feedback from the group but only one person gave us his, which was for the idea with the female character (now called Kat) kissing Malcolm on the cheek at the end. So we went with that.

I've drawn out a rough storyboard for this idea while Rachel has done some character profiles and sketches.

Rachel's Blog

Skydiving: Extreme Ironing

Me and the other Rachel have decided to work together for this module and the final project! Should be fun :D

Anyway, we had to pitch ideas to the tutors today and we were originally going to go with Rachel's idea of a medical student studying (late into the night) for a big exam who hears a noise downstairs. She investigates to find a monster in the kitchen. We had three potential endings; student actually knows monster and is annoyed with it, monster is making a cup of tea and med student looks between monster and tea - scene cuts to them both having tea, finally monster helps student study - as a resolution to that I thought it would be funny to have the student approach the monster with a piece of paper, she's angry, screws up the paper and throws it at the monster. Hopefully that would communicate that she failed the exam.

We found a monster rig we could use too. We tested it and it seemed really nice to use and simple enough.

Image from CreativeCrash.com

I touched on my ideas as they weren't as well developed or I'd completely written off as infeasible. The first idea (it is actually my fiance's idea, I just developed it a bit) was skydiving. Basically two or three guys with distinct personalities doing as it says on the tin; skydiving. Scene would start with them jumping off the plane, they do a couple of standard skydiving tricks and then it would descend into silliness. They'd do stupid stuff like extreme ironing, have a cup of tea and all sorts on the way down.
I initially imagined the personalities would be 1. very into the skydiving, cool guy with aviators 2. scared poopless and if there was a third 3. apathetic maybe? The last one was variable.
The ending is pretty variable too but if there were three personalities, the cool guy and scared guy would land fine (scared guy would be so glad to be on ground again) and Mr Apathy or whatever the third one was would smack on the ground. For some reason I can't think of this idea without getting Highway To The Dangerzone in my head... However this is the idea I'd written off as infeasible because I thought I would have to animate parachutes. I didn't mind this so much but I'd have to use shape animation to do it (the only way I could think of really) which would mean I needed to do it in Softimage as I have no idea if I can do this in Maya.

The other idea wasn't developed just because it was fairly recent and I didn't really have time with the deadline. It was just a kitchen scene with maybe a head chef and newbie. I was thinking of Laurel and Hardy slapstick at the time. That's about as far as I got at the time.

So which did the tutors and class think would be best? Funnily enough, the skydiving one. I'm okay with it, I knew the skydiving one would be fun but I expected it to be too complicated for now and was prepared to make it a future project. It's also a grand idea for a group project thinking about it because each member could animate a character.
To get around the parachute concerns, Chris simply said "don't". I'm totally fine with that.

As for what's happening from now on, we're going to just develop the idea at the moment and think of lots of silly things to do in mid-air for later decisions. Rachel still has some work to do on her 11 second club animation and I don't want to run ahead without talking to her about it first. I might get some sketch work done in the meantime so I can get some stuff out of my head.

11 Second Club: Last linear and drifts!

Last linear playblast. Gave it to my classmates for feedback and they said it was still drifting a bit. This drifting thing is driving me nuts but I'm glad they're telling me about it, even if they're telling me multiple times! I think I know what the problem is; I'm putting what I believe to be holding poses on things that are unnecessary. I need to look into holding poses much more because what I actually seem to be doing is putting in drifts! What an idiot I am!

Massive thanks to my class for all the feedback :)

Anyway I asked them to tell me where the drifting was happening because I've started to hit the blindness and can't see the woods for the trees. They also suggested to put the animation into auto tangent (better than splines apparently! No overshoots!) so that I can see it clearer. I took the advice and yep, plain as day now. So I'm fixing all that now.

11 Second Club: New reaction

Worked on Mrs Crawley's reaction. Tried to make her look envious of the belt so I hope that comes across alright. I've taken out her jerk back movement and just moved her to follow Grandma's movements.

11 Second Club: Feedback

It was suggested that maybe I should change the reaction to be something more towards disgust or envy (Thanks Scotts!). I agree that this would be the best way to go.
After sleeping on it and looking at the last playblast again, I can agree that it doesn't really make sense for Mrs Crawley to be surprised at the belt.

So today's plan is to:
# change the reaction from surprise to envy (I think envy would be best fitting)
# take out the jerk back movement - have Mrs Crawley's eyes follow Grandma's as she stands up before glancing at the belt
# add a couple of jabs at the beginning as per the reference.

And then hopefully I can put the whole thing into Splines. Hurray!

11 Second Club: To change or not to change?

After changes made as per suggestion from last post.



I got my partner to watch it and he questioned why Mrs Crawley reacts so much to the wrestling belt because surely she'd already know about it when it's in front of her. He thought Crawley would naturally follow Grandma upwards she stood up.

Now I'm wondering whether to change it to having Mrs Crawley's eyes follow Grandma upward instead, perhaps sparing a glance at the belt. I've posted this playblast and asked the class what they think on facebook. We'll see what they say...

11 Second Club: Linear Test 6

Playblasted this off when I couldn't see anything else to do. I posted it up on the facebook group to get some feedback from the class.



Scott told me Grandma's hands don't reach the belt quick enough and should be on it before she's finished standing. He also said that Mrs Crawley was still kinda floaty.
So I've been working on that.
Will uploaded updated version after it's been looked over again.

Mime: Final feedback

We had a final feedback session today for all of our work for this module (Mime and 11Second).

For the my mime piece, the feedback was mainly move the camera in and down a smidgen and sort out the getting up animation (which actually wasn't intended to be shown, I'd cut that out because a) I didn't want to animate that - being honest! and b) for timing).

But I had a go at animating it but I discovered I would have to move everything on the timeline over to fit it in properly as it still looks light and jumpy - no weight is being shown as it's over way too quickly. You can't even really see the difference:

Test 1


Test 2


I discussed my concerns with Raff, pretty much saying that if I were to animate this properly, I would have to move everything along the timeline and make it all longer, which would mean messing around with the voice acting more. Plus we have a deadline next Monday (30th April) and another animation to do.

We decided it would be best for now to leave it and cut out the getting up, as I had been doing previously. It would have been nice to animate it properly but unfortunately we're too concerned about how much time we have left and the fact we're all still working on the 11 Second Club animation...

Ticking Test 4

Another test playblast after previous feedback.



Looking better :)

Moving on to the revision of the explosion now though, will make changes to this later if needed.

Feedback for Ticking Test 3

I showed the classmates the last ticking test for the mime animation and they agreed it needed to be more subtle.

Kristian pointed out that the face would be the selling point of this part of the animation.
The character is currently looking up to the left, imagining what it could be inside the box. He suggested what if the character squints his eyes a bit and perhaps lifted a part of his lip to look like he's really concentrating on what he's listening to.

I really liked this idea so will definitely try it out!