First attempt at show reel

Evaluations for each artefact

EVALUATIONS OF ARTEFACTS

ARTEFACT 1

My first artefact was made to be a base on which to build my practice led research. My written research focussed on how emotion and personality enhance an animated film, so I wanted my first artefact to be a simple experiment on how to animate an emotion. To keep it simple I did not use any reference material and thought that I could use my memory and what I believed to be correct movements and expressions. By doing this it meant I could make a greater comparison to my later artefacts.

I decided to use a ready-made rig for 3ds Max taken from the 11 Second Club. I was going to use one of my own characters but I didn't think this would allow me to explore any ideas properly as the characters faces were not properly rigged. Using the Max rig was a lot simpler to use and had easy to understand controls so I was able to concentrate more on what I was trying to accomplish with the artefact rather than worrying about something going wrong with my own character.

As I was looking at the character animation I wanted to keep my artefact silent so as not to over complicate it. I was trying to show a sad emotion and music can help to show people what the feeling is but I wanted it to be focussed on the expressions and movements.

I thought it would be easy to animate without any guidance but animating emotion was actually a lot more complicated because there are a lot of elements to each emotion that you need to think about. This artefact has helped me to see this and so I can make my other artefacts better by applying what I have learnt from this artefact to them.

I am not entirely happy with this artefact but I think it is a good starting point and I have learnt a lot from it.

ARTEFACT 2

My second artefact was made to explore how people use various parts of their face to express emotion, for example using their mouth and eyes when smiling. For this I researched how you would draw these expressions as I thought this could be useful to base my animating on. I decided to draw two faces and compare them. I drew one face looking as if the person is only smiling with their mouth and I drew the second to be more detailed around the eyes and cheeks. To me the second face seemed to be a more realistic face and so I thought I could do the same with two characters.

Once again I used the Max rig from the 11 Second Club and animated one character to smile with just their mouth and with the other I made a number of parts move for example the mouth, eyes and eyebrows. I assumed that the second character would be more realistic but after showing it in tutorial I learnt that people thought the first looked more genuine. They found that the second character looked as if they were grimacing rather than smiling.

From this I realised that I had animated the second character too much and so he ended up looking strange and not portraying the emotion I meant him to. This showed me that there is a limit on how much you animate a character if you want them to be believable.

I think I have learnt that you do use various parts of the face but that does not mean I have to animate each part of the face fully, for example lift the eyebrows right up as it makes the character look strange. So it was not technically a good animation, but I learnt a lot from it as an artefact and I think it would be useful to explore this more and build upon what I have learnt in another artefact.

ARTEFACT 3

For my third artefact I wanted to build upon what I found out with my second artefact and so created an artefact which looked at keeping animating simple. With this I looked at a scene from 'Snow White' where the dwarves are mourning the death of Snow White as it is a good example of how to keep the amount of movement low, but still show a deep sense of sadness in the characters.

From my research I learnt that animators base their characters movements on how real people move, but exaggerate these movements slightly. This is because a person may stay very still when they are sad but if you had your character do this it would end up looking like a lifeless object so I also wanted to take this into account with my artefact.

With the Max rig again I wanted to show him expressing sadness and so using the Snow White scene really helped. In the scene the dwarves stand still and just sniff occassionally or wipe away a tear so I decided to make my character wipe away a tear and sigh. I really had to think about keeping things simple yet having realistic movements that people do when they are sad.

I think that I managed to create an effective artefact but it can be improved technically, for example the arm movement could be smoother and the shoulders could move slightly in a natural way. I believe that it could be useful to look at other types of references for example I could look at scenes from films that aren't animated as then I would learn acting techniques in more depth as well. So I am quite happy with this artefact I learnt from the previous one to create this and I think it has turned out well and shows a believable character.

ARTEFACT 4

My fourth artefact was created to see if using an acting reference created a more realistic character, in the sense of emotion and personality. For this I used a clip from the film 'The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford'. In this clip the character is tryin to come to terms with the fact he has to kill Jesse James and it is a good example of how to act a thought process. With this I thought I could animate my character to do similar movements to the actor in the clip and therefore get an effective animation.

By using a reference it made it a lot easier to create an animation as I did not have to worry about how I could make the character move in the right way, as I could just copy the movements of the actor. I think the character moved more realistically and the emotion he was portraying seemed to be believable. I thought that if people could relate to the actor and empathise with him, then people would feel the same with towards my character.

I decided to compare this artefact with my first one to see if there was a significant difference. I personally thought that the animation was technically better, and the way the character moves is more realistic but I wanted to see if people preferred this character to the one in my first artefact without being told what was different about them. If people did prefer the artefact based on a reference then it would prove that using a reference does work. From this I found out that people preferred the character in my fourth artefact and when asked why they said that the first character seemed to move like a robot.

I think I could improve this artefact by changing the movements slightly so that i am influenced by the reference rather than just copying it. It may be interesting to experiment with other emotions and see if I can find other acting references which portray different emotions so that I can understand how to act out a variety of emotions.

ARTEFACT 5

With my fifth artefact I did not want to create an animation, I wanted to see if there was a good example of what I am researching in to, in the industry today. I thought I would it would be best to use an animated film as this would match with my research question, but I came across a platform game that seemed to tick all the boxes. This was because it had cinematics (or cut-scenes) in it which are used to advance the plot, strengthen characters and various other things.

With these cinematics I felt that you got a clear idea of who the characters were and their personalities. There were also times when they showed emotions and you could relate to them, even though what was happening to them was not realistic, for example being attacked by zombies.

It also made me think about having characters that not only behave realistically but look realistic too. The characters in this game do look like people, but you can still see that it isn't real. I thought this was good because it makes something that is not real still believable. This led me to look in to the theory of uncanny valley where it is believed that the more realistic looking an animated character becomes, the less empathy we feel for it.

I first wanted to take the video and edit it in premier to show the particular parts I wanted to examine but there was not a way to get hold of the video to do this so I collected screen shots of various moments which I thought were good. I think this has made my artefact not as clear as it could have been and if I were to do it again I would perhaps see if I could get hold of the cinematics so that I could emphasise certain bits better. 

Artefact 5

Here I am going to use parts of a cinematic from a game. I feel that the cinematic shows what I am trying to show in my research document.

I thought that just having these images didn't show anything so I added some annotations.

Artefact four

Here is my fourth artefact where I used the clip from  I showed before as a reference. I think that the character in the clip has a thought process and I was trying to get this across in my animated version.



I am going to show this to various age groups with my first artefact and see which one is preferred by these people. I want to see if different aged people react differently. For example younger people may not notice or care that there is a difference.

Uncanny Valley

http://journal.animationstudies.org/2009/07/16/matthew-butler-lucie-joschko-final-fantasy-or-the-incredibles/#more-70

In my research I have been looking at an article about making an animated film (or short cinematics in games) too realistic, and how people enjoy watching films where the characters don't look real, but the way they move is realistic for example, so they are believable. Whereas some people say if you make things too real, you may as well take a photograph. This is a theory called uncanny valley by Masahiro Mori. In the article it says ' In this theory Mori perceived a phenomenon whereby the more lifelike a robot becomes, the more likeable they are, but only up to a point. Once they become too lifelike a sense of unease forms, frightening or repulsing us. ' 

The examples used are the final fantasy film (where they focussed too much on making the graphics look amazing and seeing how real they can make it all look, and it ended up having a rubbish storyline ) and the incredibles movie (doesn't look real, but you can relate to the characters and their feelings are believable)


Here is the diagram used in the article which shows what I am trying to explain quite well

I think that this graph explains things well as well. It uses the animated film the Polar Express as an example of making something really realistic, and the cubo robot that was made. The robot looks quite frightening in a way rather than making you impressed at it. 

Final Animation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsolrZSUpT8&feature=youtu.be

More bits from the illustrative part

illustration bits

These are a few examples from my illustration part of my animation. I used the 3d model of my character and then edited it in photoshop. 

With this I rendered part of my wood scene and then added a filter on photoshop. I then created a more illustrated version of it below for the black and white bit of my animation.

Room scene

I have tried to keep the scene simple in some ways for example the walls and floor texture as the point of the animation is to concentrate on the characters and I don't want scenery that is too busy. I used photometric lighting for the lamps as this gave a better atmosphere than just standard lighting. I also used a floral pattern for the duvet cover and match it with the lamps.

Red's various faces

I have also made it so these can be at different levels, and I have made it possible to make her blink and move her mouth to speak. Her eyes do look a bit skew-iff but this will be changed by the time im finished :)

House in the woods

I have changed this scene a bit because I didn't think the light looked natural enough last time and I have now added some particles to add to the strangeness of it. I wanted it to almost appear magical. It took me a while to do the particles as it kept looking wrong and at first I didn't have them glowing. This looked a bit weird as it looked like there were some random balls floating about. Now they are glowing I think it looks a lot better

Update on work before and afters

With the house I want the light to appear as if it is streaming through the trees. I think at the moment it doesn't look natural enough.

Thought Process

Here’s a small clip from The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford that’s a great example of thought process. In this shot Casey Affleck is coming to terms with the fact that he has to kill Jesse James. You can easily see the stages of his thought process.

1st – he starts nervous/jittery, his head is moving more, licking his lips, eyes darting.
2nd – he slows down a bit, starts to concentrate, eyes look down thinking about what must be done.
3rd – he reaches his decision, eyes slowly look up in an almost villainous way and then he stands up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_LidW8Lgcq8

An important thing to think about when animating a thought process is the timing. If the timing is wrong then it won't be believable.

I think it would be a good idea to create an animation based upon this clip for one of my artefacts as I think it links with my others well and looks at how animators can create believable emotions

Luxo Jr short

I have been thinking about showing a thought process, as this reveals how that character is feeling.. (this is written in the Illusion of Life page 507.. things to remember when animation emotions!) and I came across a website

(http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/lasseter_s94.htm#emotion

)

'Tricks to animating characters with a computer' by John Lasseter... In this he talks about various principles of animation in his own way and he used the luxo lamp shorts as examples for a lot of his points. Looking at this Luxo lamp short you can tell how the lamp is feeling excited..and you can see when he is sad.. but im trying to think if the lamp has a thought process ( or if you can see it ??) Can you tell what the lamp is feeling through its thought process? For example he is bouncing on the ball and then it pops and you can see he goes from being excited to sad.. So is this showing a thought process.. or is it just showing a reaction to an event?.. Is the reaction a thought process because you go from a normal state of mind to another..

Here is a quote from the website...

"All the movements and actions of a character are the result of its thought process. In creating a "thinking character," the animator gives life to the character by connecting its actions with a thought process."

In this short, the emotion of the baby lamp is being portrayed through the motion alone.

New animated films!

New one from Aardman (and sony animation) about a Pirate. Looks really good and funny. I always love watching these sort of films.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SonyPicsUK?v=Ho08smK_zSc

And a new iceage :) also looks really good. Normally films start to get a bit rubbish after they do a few sequels but ice age seem to be doing alright.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz-KgMtU_BM

Client Meeting again

Had another meeting with my client yesterday. I showed him my updated drawings and we discussed some more development of the wolf character and he really liked everything else. I explained how I wanted the illustrated bit to look and he gave me advice on how to do one part of it.

Arranged to have another meeting before we break up for easter so I can update him on my work then and so I plan to have modelled everything by then!

2 Weeks!

Sad scene

In my essay I spoke about this scene from Snow White and mentioned it before when I showed my third artefact on here. I wanted to look at how the sadness was shown in the characters. It is like what me and my tutor discussed, how when you are animating a sad character you have to have some movement in their body otherwise the character looks life-less. Here the seven dwarves are incredibly sad and it shown with little movement (but just enough!)

.. skip to about 8 minutes in..

Client meeting

Last week I had a meeting with my client (Andy) and he looked through my sketches and gave me a lot to change and improve which is good. I think it is good for me to get constructive criticism now when I still have time to get better and so I can make my work really good before exhibitions and interviews etc..

Andy told me that I needed to do more character drawings, like ones of the face from the front and the side. Also he said to add colour to my drawings because my animation is going to be in colour!

He liked the idea of making it dream like and gave me lots of advice on things I could do to make my animation like this.

I also have to improve my scenery designs because at the moment they don't really tell the person looking at them anything.

He wants to meet again this thursday so I want to have aimed to have finished more in depth designs for my characters and scenery.

Artefact three and feedback

This is the third artefact I showed in tutorial. I wanted to show how you can portray an emotion by keeping things simple. But the movements have to be slightly enhanced because otherwise the character could end up looking like a lifeless object. For example when people are really sad we can keep very still.. This wouldn't be good for an animation because it would be boring to watch and people probably would think the film had broken.

The feedback I gained from this was that it was a good artefact. To make it a really good animation (not just for use as an artefact) I just have to change a couple of parts.. For example I need to make the arm movement quicker as that first bit is a bit slow, and I need to give him some back movement as the character is very stiff.

Romeo and Juliet animation

This was made with 1400 hand drawings and they were put infront of a light box. I like the look of the drawings as they are quite simila to my stle of drawing