Leg hop 01

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

This is the development of the leg hop sequence, which I'll hopefully have enough time to accomplish.

Reference footage



Creating a leghop is actually probably one of the hardest things I'll have to do for the film. There will be a lot of weight being distributed to that foot so getting that across will be hard, but if I take the time to do it I think I can achieve it.

Although my reference footage below isn't as good as the one I found on YouTube it was useful into understanding whats going on a bit more.

Additional concepts

Here are some additional concepts!

Duck and cover 02 "Finalised"

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

I'm quite happy with this piece, although I still feel I could work a bit more on certain aspects of it. Considering how quickly this will be on the screen in the final short film I doubt viewers would get too annoyed about potential mistakes, but being a perfectionist I still would like to avoid them when coming to the final piece. This like all of the other tests may be changed when I actually come to animate it, but that was pretty much a given.

Baby chick concept

Well, here's a concept for the baby chick I created.

For the rest of today and the weekend I'll be perfecting it and creating a character sheet from it, and from there onto the modelling stage.

Colour concepts

It'd be a good idea to think about colour so I decided to create this art sheet to best look into colour!



Although I like the redish and green colours I think blue would work best for the characters, and it pains me to say that because pretty much all cartoon birds are blue! I guess it's because it's softer on the eyes and naturally blue is a far more appealing colour.

Considering there are 2 chicks I will be having 2 slightly different colour schemes, but I doubt it'll be much aside from a different eye colour/leg colour.

Term 1 reflection

Wow, term 1 is now over! It really did go by incredibly quickly.

Both myself and Guy ensured we'd be as busy as we could possibly be, ensuring all key aspects of the film were being worked upon.

Not only was Dan's unit an incredible help but we managed to get the film to a FAR better quality in its storytelling which is the key point that I found useful about the term.

For example take a look at my very first animatic when it comes to the story!



http://tomritchie.net/unhatched/animatic/Old%20Animatics/unhatched.mov

As you can see there isn't much of a story but the key idea remains somewhat similar. With the help of Dan both myself and Guy were able to improve upon the film in such an incredible way. I've attached the new animatic below to demonstrate!



http://tomritchie.net/unhatched/animatic/Old%20Animatics/unhatched_animatic_121210.mov

There are 2 additional characters to the film, but the story is leaps and bounds superior to what we had before. I really must say I'm incredibly happy with the outcome and I look forward to working on it over these coming months!

The film wasn't without its problems however, the visual style suffered greatly sadly because of the lack of Andy Bennett. He had offered from the beginning of the year to work on concepts for the film which would ensure a visual style was there, but sadly he only briefly worked on the film. I was attempting to get into contact with him for over a week but eventually gave up due to his lack of input. In many ways this was a blessing because it gave myself and Guy the chance to make the film look exactly as we had intended it to look. We only got Andy on board because it would make our life a bit easier and that we believed he was a worthy part of the team.

Duck and cover 01

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

This is the blocking so far. What I'm currently missing is the leg of the egg swinging by, but in the next few stages after I've worked out the timing a bit more I will be adding it in.

I wish for this piece to be quite exaggerated in the movements, and something that shows the chick is scared of getting hurt. To enable this I will be using squash and stretch as he is ducking onto the floor, and hopefully the flow of his hands/arms will come down nicely.

Reference footage

Inspiring works

Here's an image featuring some of my favourite films that have inspired me for this project!

Top Left:

Despite the short film being in an unfinished state I'm really liking the visual style of this short trailer.

Top Centre: Marco and His Ball

Yet again another visual style I love, and I believe the trees are a nice representation of how I'd want ours to look!

Top Right: Ratatouille

Ratatouille is probably one of my favourite animated films and films in general. Considering they're rats they're incredibly appealing characters, and I truly believe Pixar did a great job ensuring they were cute. It's this appeal I wish to bring into Unhatched.

Middle Left: For The Birds

Despite the fact that my film features birds this wasn't actually an inspiration for the film initially but it's hard to overlook how beautifully made the film is.

Middle Centre: Wild Dogs

Great animation with a simple story.

Middle Right: Oktapodi

Oktapodi is an incredibly popular short film nowadays and there's a reason for this! It's beautifully done and the story really is flawlessly made.

Bottom Left: Reach

Beautifully animated short by an Animation Mentor student.

Bottom Centre: Presto

By far my favourite Pixar short.

Bottom Right: Rio

It's not yet released but it's hard to overlook the inspiration in this film!

Baby bird and egg concepts

After completing the latest animatic I've decided to go through and sketch out concepts for both of the chicks and the egg!

Sadly Andy Bennett has not kept either myself or Guy updated with his progress so this means we've both been working on the concepts ourselves.

Walk cycle test 02

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

Despite finishing the fall test I wanted to continue with this, not only because I like to complete things but also because since I encountered issues with the walk cycle segment of the fall I wanted to try and work out exactly what caused the issues.

The issues are sadly related to the rig itself, and I'll make sure to tell Clym the way the feet move on this pre-existing rig aren't exactly how I'd like the actual rig to be. Quickly in mentioning rigs, the most ideal rig I've found are the Norman and Moom rigs when concerning the way the feet behave. They behave in a far more logical fashion and if the feet on rigs in the project are like either it'll help out immensely.

Fall 03 "Finished"

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

Despite being pretty happy with the blocking stage I encountered numerous problems when splining the animation, this has caused myself to get to this stage later than I had hoped to. One of the issues was the fall which when splined caused a lot of issues with the rig, because of this I had to recreate the fall but I was splining it from the start because I feared running into anymore problems again.

It sadly wasn't until I splined it that I found out this rig has quite a few issues with the feet, which meant I had to go frame by frame for the whole animation and tweak it all. What happened was when I moved the main body the feet would ever so slightly move which caused it to look somewhat jittery.

I feel as if I could spend AT LEAST a few more days on this, but I wish to get on with a few more tests that will aid me in the project. Despite the issues with this test I'm still happy I've given it an attempt, and when I come to the final piece it will have been a huge help at knowing what problems I could potentially come to.

Latest Animatic

Here's the very latest animatic for the film! It's quite literally hot off the press.

Please bear in mind the camera positions aren't at all final yet!

Fall 02

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Here's the very latest playblast!

I'm still pretty happy with it so far, but more tweaks will be made before going into the spline/polish stage which depending on how I've animated it all so far could be the hardest part to get looking right. Aside from that I think I'm slowly getting there.

I'll hopefully get an update on here soon enough!

Fall 01

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Here's the blocking out for the animation so far. I must admit I'm really happy at the moment! I feel as of now everything seems to be in order, but as I get further along in the blocking stage I will be adding more and more such rotating the body of the egg to demonstrate the weight, along with a bit of squash and stretch added in the polishing stage.

Reference

Walk cycle test 01

To prepare and help myself for the "fall test" I've decided to create a walk cycle test to get me into the mood of how the character will walk. So far the blocking stage appears to be fine, and it's looking (as of now) that I won't encounter any problems.

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

For the walk cycle I wanted a very baby-like persona to the way the egg walks.

Run 03 "Finished"

Playblast

Side view

QUICKTIME: Playblast: Side view

Angled view

QUICKTIME: Playblast: Angled view

Notes

I feel this test has been accomplished and has been a good way to start getting back into animating, but I will most definitely change the way the character moves in the final animation. This is because I feel after viewing it there's not enough character present, despite changing it a bit compared to a standard run cycle.

The lightness I wanted to achieve is present, but maybe not added as much as I could've done. A thing I do like however is the way the chick propels itself into the air a bit more than a standard run cycle, this is due to the weight of the chick and also because it is somewhat attempting to fly without having the ability to use its wings.

Run 02

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

I've tweaked a few things here and there, especially the way the body/head are leaning forward. Along with this I've added more in-betweens to the animation which has given myself a taste of what will be happening in the polished version. As of now there is not enough weight as the character is coming down, nor do I feel he's in the air long enough. Both of which I'll amend.

Run 01

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

This is the first blocking out for the chicks run cycle, it is as of now incredibly basic but I'll be adding more weight and fleshing things out a bit more over the next few of days.

Another thing worth noting is how the bird will move, I wish for it to be quite light on its feet due to the size and weight of the bird but I also wish for it to retain the look of a standard run cycle. I feel the wings should be pretty much static throughout the actual animation, so that's why I will not attempt to animate the hands on the rig in these tests.

Reference

Richard Williams Run cycle



Below is a run cycle by Eadweard Muybridge.



Because I'm slightly deviating from an actual human run cycle (like above), I'll be pushing things quite a bit more. Especially when the character is in the air, I will make sure the chick will be in the air for a few more frames to appear far more light on its feet. Another thing I will accomplish is enabling stretch on the legs to feel bouncy as it lands, but this will mostly be a subtle thing.

This weeks schedule!

To keep on track with all the work I've created a schedule of what I'll be doing every day of the week!

*Mike* - New Animatic

Hey guys, here's a really rough version of the newer animatic!

A few tweaks will be made but both myself and Guy are starting to prefer how it works as a story.

List of tests I will be accomplishing

Hop



The first test I will be accomplishing is a hop of the unhatched egg caused by the sprouting of one of its legs.

Run




The run cycle of a chick running.

Egg fall



This test will be both a combination of the eggs walk cycle and him falling off the edge of the branch.

Duck and cover




The chick ducking down (pun not intended) to the swinging leg.

Reaction of the chicks to the size of the egg




Both of the chicks will look at each other in amazement as to how big the egg actually is.

Advanced skills

I will be focusing on animation in the advanced skills unit, this is because I wish for the animation in the actual film to be my best yet. I want to ensure a subtly is there in the movements, along with pure character that reflects the characters purpose.

Over the coming weeks I will update the blog with Quicktime playblasts of the development stages for each of the tests, from blocking to polished.

*Mike* - Schedule

Here's the schedule for the term that both myself and Guy conjured up earlier today. This may very well change, but I see it as feasible if we stick to it!

*Mike* - Initial animatic

Here's the original animatic for Unhatched, this is however very early and things WILL be changed and worked upon in the coming weeks.

I'm still not completely happy with the flow yet, but I hope you'll understand the general flow of the story.



The music represented here was only a placeholder and will not be used in the final film.

Another thing worth mentioning is the lack of sounds in the animatic at the moment.

*Mike* - Unhatched group members

Key members:

Tom Ritchie: Director, Lead Animator, Director of Photography, Concept artist
Guy Morgan: Producer, Animator, Story artist, Concept artist, Additional modeller

Specialists:

Alex Caldow: Modeller
Clym Smith: Rigger, Modeller
Kofi Ansah: Modeller
Andi Bennett: Concept
Keith Trodd: Lighter
Emma Wyton: Concept

We also have 2 additional people who are willing to work on sound.

What I'm working on

My third year film is currently in development, and the group blog can be found below.

http://unhatchedblog.blogspot.com

I will also be aiding in a few other group projects:

The Deep
Animation advisor

Heroes 1.0
Additional animator

The reason why I'm mainly focusing on my project is because I wish to try and take on most of the films animation shots, with some shots also going to Guy from the group.

I'm quite a perfectionist so I wish to spend a lot of time making sure everything is the best it possible can be. This is why the practicing I did over the summer and Dans unit will be of major help to me.

Unhatched story premise

Here's the story premise:

The story of the final egg attempting to hatch, but in doing so leaves his nest unnoticed by his mother who is caring for her already hatched chicks.

Welcome!

Like some of my peers I shall be tagging each post to their representative units.

Dans unit will be shown as *Dan* -
Mikes unit will be shown as *Mike* -
And finally PPI will be shown as *PPI* -

Bring on the year!