Jump: Blocking 'dare' test 1

Here is the first playblast test I did to have a look at the characters' timings. I used the edited reference for timing but Aaron was blocking without reference (we didn't have it at this time). The characters at the moment are out of sync so we have a few options which I've just posted up on our facebook project page to discuss with Rachel. We need to tweak the timing on one of the characters. Basically we either tweak Malcolm to respond to Aaron's timing or tweak Aaron to match the reference material. Then it comes down to either I shift the keys about while I work on this scene or finish Malcolm and let Rachel have the file back to tweak herself. The only difference will be how long I work on this file for. I honestly don't mind either way but as it is Rachel's work I would rather she decide.

 Here are the sketches I've done so far which are what I used to decide my key poses and block Malcolm up to where I've got to. I will be continuing this way. To draw these key poses, I looked for good pose in the reference material and sketched them down as Malcolm.

There's a lot more detail to these sketches because I had reference to look at and I was noting/sketching down some of the small movements that I particularly liked. This will be very helpful when it comes to putting in the breakdowns and going on to linear as I will be able to better animate natural movements.

Rachel's Blog

Jump: 'Tricks' Sketches

Yaaaay got to a scanner! These are the sketches I did for the 'tricks' scene I was working on. There's not a lot of detail other than the key poses I thought I wanted because our supervisor thought it would be best to just go for it on this scene. I ended up adding and/or changing some things because I thought it worked better otherwise. I'm glad I just went straight ahead with this scene and went into linear probably sooner than usual because it made it easier to create breakdowns between the key poses to keep an airy and floaty animation.

There are a lot of notes on this however because there were certain things I wanted to remember for creating Malcolm's posing. For example, I felt it was important that Malcolm's arms were as straight as they could get when he flings them down in anger. It gives a good 'looney tunes' feel to the animation plus his arms need to be that straight to look like he's resisting the air (by locking elbows).

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Jump: Edited Reference

Just posting up the edited reference I'll be used to block the 'dare' scene.

 

 Also I've realised that I haven't put up the pose sketches for the previous scene so I'll get them scanned and upload asap. Watch this space! 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

Reference!

Last Thursday I borrowed Scott and Kristian to act for our reference. We tried to do some ourselves but I think the biggest problem we had was we had the animatic stuck in our brains and couldn't think of alternatives! Another problem is something we cannot help, we're just not boys so can't really act 'laddish' very convincingly (pointed out by one of our classmates).

So here is the raw reference we shot. I plan to edit it properly (when I've finished with the scene I'm working on) and clip the bits I like together to use as reference for the appropriate scenes. I will talk about the bits I thought we should consider now.



 Even though our animatic is silent and we originally intended for no dialogue, I let Scott and Kristian speak and say whatever seemed natural. It was mentioned by someone that there should be at the very least mouthing of words when the brothers interact. It's something that humans do when they either don't want to shout or feel there's no point in shouting but want to communicate. We also put on a massive fan for them the shout over! The sound of rushing air is something we definitely need to consider when having the brothers communicate and for the soundtrack as well.

 It is really difficult to find a youtube video of skydiving without music over it! Finding an example of the wind and someone screaming/shouting/anything took me a bit and couldn't find anything better than this:


    


 This makes me think; should we do funny faces on the characters? Ha. The lads shoved each other about a bit which I thought we should definitely incorporate into the scene. Always needs more brothers shoving each other. Also, Aaron (played by Kristian) pointing down to get Malcolm's (played by Scott) attention away from his back so that Aaron can shove him was a really good idea. 


 I really liked Scott's expression when he catches sight of the watch (altimeter) on Kristian's wrist. Definitely want to get that expression in! I also liked the idea of Malcolm falling out of the tree when trying to get to Aaron at the end. We talked about it and the idea of Malcolm chucking a rock from the bottom (off screen) would be a nice touch to keep them even.


As I've already said, I'm going to edit the reference to get the bits I thought were good together to use for our blocking of the other scenes. 

Rachel's Blog

Jump Linear WIP

I added some more breakdowns in the first 200 frames and adjusted the timing. I also animated the background (which will probably be tweaked later on, depending if it needs to be faster or slower - it works for now) to complete the look.

 I think this is looking good enough for me to leave for the time being so I'm going to leave it here, unless feedback tells me of a change I should do, and begin blocking more breakdowns in the later frames. After that I would like to start blocking another scene if possible so that we can keep to the schedule (which I will upload when I figure out how as it's a .PDF file.)

Rachel's Blog

Jump: Start Blocking!

Spend most of yesterday setting up, re-doing and setting up again the scene I will be starting to block in.

Me and Rachel have agreed that one of us should work on one file at any one time to avoid losing any work. We've split the animation up into 4 scenes so that we can work on different bits at different times which are:
#Scene 1: Plane (where the characters are interacting in the plane and then make their jump)
#Scene 2: Tricks (the characters start to compete with each other)
#Scene 3: Fight (the characters fight, we decided to separate this from Tricks as it could be a challenge)
#Scene 4: Tree (after the crash, characters fight again in the tree)

This is also an insurance decision, if the animation was to be done in one file and something happens to that file (corrupts for example) we could potentially lose a lot of work. Splitting the animation up means if one of the files goes wrong, we've still got the rest and it's not a whole animation file we'll need to re-do.

As Aaron takes most of the lead in the first scene, Rachel will be working on that one first. While she's doing that, I'll be working on Malcolm in Tricks. I had to make a new scene yesterday as the original was suffering from major lag. I couldn't find why so I started a new fresh scene with only the necessary things imported/referenced. Other things will be added when necessary. I will be starting to block today.

Excuse the blue, the lighting is a little bit too intense at the moment! That will be sorted later!

There will be 'show and tell' classes every Tuesday for feedback from the tutors and the class so I'm sure I will be posting up the feedback we get every week.

Rachel's Blog

Jump: Scene set up

Rachel and I have been working on the scene set ups today. After some initial hiccups, Rachel has put together a master file for us to work from which is extremely useful. The idea being that we create all scenes using the master file as a foundation and saving as a separate scene file.

From it I've sorted out the last scene with the tree I made yesterday. Here's what it looks like at the moment:

There are no clouds in the background as of yet because we need to sort out some consistent images to use (sky and clouds). The grass I want to change, I don't like the square grid we've got. Perhaps we could draw from our main influence, the Bricklayer's Disaster and have a plain white floor and have the clouds fade to white towards the ground.

Rachel's Blog

Jump: Back!

After a much needed few days off, I'm back on track!

We aim to get all scenes set up and ready before we start blocking. That way we can both work on different ones at the same time.
I've started modelling a tree for the last scene in Softimage (figured it would be faster as I know it better than Maya, modelling in Maya will be a hurdle to jump another day):

A lot of things are not working here. The background at the moment is just there until we get a proper one. I was experimenting with the texture on the tree and I'm not convinced. It might look better with a textured background (with clouds and all) but if not, I think it'll be a plain lambert (non-shiny!) colour like the 'leaves'.
More importantly, I tried to get the shape very similar to what was drawn on the animatic as it will be important for when the characters are placed.

The picture above is the sort of shot we'll be looking to do which is very similar to our animatic!

2 Days to go...

Been busy with some last details over the past few days. Me and Rachel have met up to discuss what last things need doing and sorted out a to do list for ourselves.
Mine was to:
@ finish sky dive test animation (done)
@ write an 'about me' for documentation (done)
@ Sort out a folder containing everything we want on a CD for the hand in. (done but still needs video diaries)
@ Make the images for our pitch presentation slides (done)
@ Make video diary

Here are the 3 images I've done for the presentation. We're not putting together slides with writing because it's only a 2 minute pitch, half of which will be our animatic. This just puts up something to look at while we're talking and hopefully having something visual will help the audience understand the idea.

Going to put them into a powerpoint unless Rachel thinks there's a problem.
Here is the final sky dive test animation:




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

To do today.

Been sketching a bit of Malcolm and Aaron in photoshop:

Today I need to:
@ photoshop some clouds for adding layers into the test animation.
@ work on test animation - sort of right hand, torso and head, clouds and camera shakes.
@ work on Synopsis and Treatment.

Rachel's Blog

Sky Dive Animation Test

I've been looking at other animations that involve falling/sky diving for what they have done to create the illusion. It's mostly movement of clothes and some limbs. The background should be animated too, with things farthest back moving slower than the foremost things. Here's some of the videos I looked at:













I tried to apply what I saw in these animations into a test animation, just to try out creating the illusion.

 

 Not bad but he needs his backpack (which I don't have at the moment but it's not necessary for the test) and maybe an altimeter to complete the look. I think I'll apply some camera shakes to help enhance the illusion of being in free fall. I noticed some subtle camera shakes in the example animations which I think really helps.

  Rachel's Blog

Animatic - Problem?

I only noticed this morning that the opening scene is missing from the animatic. I've re-rendered it and uploaded up again but it seems that Youtube disagrees with the beginning for some reason and outright cuts it off. I've tried to upload it on Vimeo, it uploaded some of the beginning but not all of it:



I don't know why it's doing this but the original video is fine and I will keep a copy of it on my usb for showing, rather than using Youtube. Especially for the pitch next week.

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

WIP new animatic

Not sure if I'm going to be able to get this finished for tomorrow morning but it'll be done for Wednesday definitely! Just uploading a wip now in for tomorrow.

Rachel's Blog

New Storyboards

Right, as promised yesterday, here are the new storyboards. It's missing the dare before the scuffle on the plane because the change wasn't made until after I'd drawn that part. I've added notes on the storyboard and will be adding the dare in the animatic which I'm working on now!

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

Doodling Malcolm and Aaron

Been doodling Malcolm and Aaron in preparation for drawing another storyboard, which I have now started on.

Also had a think about the background in the animation (clouds particularly); whether it should be drawn, simulated with particles or have it is a projected image. I have used particle simulation before but in Softimage. The hardest part was getting the render right and while I'm aware it is possible to do in Maya I suspect we might have the same problem or a whole other one. It's probably best not to consider it as an option.

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