Digital Media Development: October 2008

Monday, 20 October 2008

character development

This is a chart describing each three characters (original chart was found in The Animation Bible! book)

Saturday, 18 October 2008

Russian Hut

hut exterior

some ornaments decorative ornaments (http://www.prosv.ru/ebooks/Goryaeva_prikladnoe_isskustvo/07.htm)

hut interior

Russian hut interior - http://rus-izba.narod.ru/prostranstvo.htm

Friday, 17 October 2008

Storyboards 2

working on the 2nd storyboard

reediting 2nd storyboard (adding some more frames and removing all odds)

Thursday, 16 October 2008

I was looking for some visual references and came across these photos of Imperial Russia. Author would make 3 snapshots of the same scene through 3 color filters - red, green and blue and then overlay them to get color picture.

Interval between capturing the pictures was about 1 sec. The main restriction that it object should not be moving. Here the description of the process - http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html

Kot-begemott blog - http://kot-begemott.livejournal.com/73148.html
Empire That Was Russia - http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

some examples of them:

Potential old man character

The hut of settler Artemij, who has been living on that place more that 40 years.

Trunk house and environment references

Wednesday, 15 October 2008

Walk cycles

This scan is just insignificant crumb of overall information given on the walk cycles in this book. More than half of it dedicate to walk cycles. I will heroically try to review all of it to get some good techniques.

Quick lesson from Animator's survival kit

Interesting, how possible to switch off the air conditioner in our studio and not to die from heat? :)

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

Animation tests

In this animation I tried to work out the technique of animating the characters in after effects. I used one of the old man sketches I I done earlier. In photoshop I created separate files for all body limbs and then animated them in Aftereffects. At the beginning and didn't know how to make a hierarchy for the legs, but then I remembered on of the tricks Mike Flowers showed us i AE - layers linking

It was exactly what I was looking for.

walk cycle chart

First of all I had to scan the character and make necessary manipulations in Photoshop to prepare the assets for animation.
On you left hand side it the character sketch, on the right hand side ready to go assets saved in the separate files.

walk cycle (didn't work on hands, that's why they looks as sticks.)

walk cycle plus parallax

Sketches

One of the sketches for Wizard of OZ (as an alternative story)

Oldman and Oldwoman characters for "magic water" story

Sketches for "Magic Water". Ink and watercolor

Scene for "Magic Water"

watercolor

As soon as we got college vouchers in hand I run the library I and bought watercolors. And following evening I was trying to remember what I knew about watercolors earlier

As s

Turtle and little lion

Old Soviet Union Animation from 1978

Most of children from that time knows this song :)

Script and storyboards

Rough translation of the script (sorry for plenty of mistakes)

Magic water

Once upon a time there was husband and wife. When they were young they used to live peacefully without any quarrels. But when old age came it brought arguments. Granddad says one word, she says – two, he says – two, she answers with five, he says – five, she – ten. And such argument begins though that better run away from that house. But when they start to look for a reason of their argument it seems that nobody is guilty.
- What are we doing? – said granddad
- It’s all you
- Me? I think it is you, with your long tongue!
- Not me, but you.
- You, not me!
And argument starts again with new force.
Grandma started to think what to do and how to live with such granddad. She went to the neighbour and told her about situation. And neighbour tells her:
- I can help you. I have some magic water. When you husband starts to shout, you should take a little bit of this water to your mouth. But you should not swallow it until he cools down. And everything should be alright.
She gave small bottle of this magic water to her. Grandma thanked and went home.
As soon as she step into house granddad started to should straight away:
- Where have you been? What you were doing? It’s a long time since we have to be drinking tea.
Grandma wanted to answer him, but remembered about advice. She took some water to her mouth, and kept it there without swallowing it.
Granddad saw that she doesn’t answer him and became silent.
Grandma delighted and thought that this water is really magic one.
Then she hided the bottle and began to prepare samovar.
- Why you making so much noise there? Can’t you do it properly?
Grandma wanted to answer him, but again remembered about neighbour’s advice and took some water to the mouth. Granddad saw that she doesn’t answer him, became surprised and silent. Since then they stopped arguing and started to live as in early days. All because grandma takes some water to her mouth every time granddad starts to shout. Such powerful water.

First visuals in form of storyboards for script "Magic Water".
It is mine interpretation of the script. I had to alter it to change spoken words to visuals.

That is how I guess good animatic should looks like:

BA Yr3 DESIGN FOR DIGITAL MEDIA Module Title: Digital Media Development Brief Title:
The Brief: Create animation based on the Russian folklore story of "Magic Water" using a mixture of traditional (hand drawn cells) and digital techniques (after effects)	Target Audience: 12+ Non Dialouge based to increase international audience
Mandatory Requirements: title sequence and credits sound design	Deliverables: Full HD internet version H.264 codec quicktime movie DVD copy of finished animation
Considerations: Time managment. Use of dialogue will be to the minimum, with more emphasis on visuals and sound effects to convey story. Computer, scanner, digital camera, appropriate software (Maya, After Effects, Photoshop, Corel Painter, Final Cut/ Premier, DVD Studio Pro or similar. Equipment for stop-motion animation. Brushes, watercolor/acrylic paint, paper, ink, color pencils, markers. Understanding of video codecs and formats.	Self Identified Reading List/Research Opportunities: Visual research: Yuriy Norshtein Soyuzmultfilm animations Soviet Union animations various stop-motions films. www.artlib.ru visual research for styles and techniques www.youtube.com "Gora Samocvetov"-animated series world around me Baltessar animation festival DVDs. script research: Russian folklore Various countries folklore anecdotes Books by Louse Carroll, L. Frank Baum http://www.storybook.ru/ technical research: Animator's survival kit Animation Bible experiments with various techniques (drawing, animation, compositing and etc.)

Rationale

Digital Development module is a great opportunity to improve my professionalism as moving image specialist. I have been mainly focusing on the digital approach to the briefs for the last two years. This time I am going to make a slight shift and use computer technology in mixture with some classical techniques, such as – drawing, painting, collage and probably sculpture. During the summer break I made some research for this module. Finally I came up with idea of making animated cartoon based on some existing story. At some degree it will cross over with my dissertation topic called – “Influence of cartoons on children’s world outlook”. I looked at some poems like “Wizard of Oz” and “Guest from the future”. Finally I found very nice Russian folklore fairy tale called “Magic water”. It is edifying story telling us about humbleness on the example of the family life. This cartoon is aimed for both children and mature people. There are some dialogues in this story but I want to tell it in complete visual way. This approach will open this animation for the people all around the world indifferently the language they speak. Also it will save my time on designing sound accompaniment.

In this project I want to learn some new techniques for myself. Ideally I wanted to make animation purely in stop-motion, but due to the time constraints it is not possible. After making some research I found efficient alternative – make all the assets by hands, as I would use them for stop-motion, scan them, make necessary manipulations in Photoshop and animate using After Effects. This way of doing it will slightly change approach but will save the general idea. So far I watched numerous animations made in similar way analyzing principles and highlighting some useful tricks. There are some really great examples of classic/handmade animation. Especially I liked the ones made by Yuriy Norshteyn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Norstein?) and Soyusmultfilm Studio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuzmultfilm).

In terms of sound my intentions is to find the right soundtrack which will make some special feeling to the animation, also I want to make some sound special effects, most of them I am hoping to find in BBC sound library and record the missing ones by myself.

This project will be same challenging as exciting. I hope to execute it on the appropriate level that it will be the great part of my portfolio and I could send this film out to the various animation festivals all around the world.

inspiring styles: