The year in reflection

Just submitted my work! Wow.

It's been an incredibly gruelling term (and more to the point year) and I've literally had no sleep the past 2 weeks to ensure I'm as far along with the project as I could be.

The bottom line is we were unable to finish the film for submission, which both myself and Guy were annoyed about. We had animated about 30 shots altogether over the past few weeks, and I think we did pretty decently especially considering we were just a group of 2 people (with some additional help for 4 shots from Nick and Joe from the second year!). As for submission I'm disappointed with how it turned out as the shots I submitted in my folders were not what I'd consider the standard of work I can actually achieve. A lot of the shots were reworked upon quite a few times because I didn't have the right mindset when working on them. It's best to animate "slowly" and calmly but I panicked quite a few times which caused the quality of animation to suffer.

We had a few compatibility problems when Guy gave me his shots to render, the problems we were having were related to the 2012 mental ray and caused all of Guys shots to become over saturated when rendered. This halted things a bit because I had to find a workable solution, and I eventually did. What seemed to fix this was to render the master layer out as Maya Software, and luckily the ambient occlusion wasn't affected by this weird glitch. In terms of the rendering I was initially going to render off the shots with the renderfarm at college but the renderfarm was having a lot of issues and I later decided to do it on my home computer, which luckily doesn't take too long to render with.

I sadly doubt we'll get the film done for the degree show now, aside from a quick 30 second trailer demonstrating some of the "finished" work in rendered form. I will be still animating all week as much as I can, but there's a lot I want to do to some of the shots I've already animated. I believe we can finish the majority of the shots by thursday but the rendering and sound are the biggest reasons it wont get done for then. This is incredibly disappointing but it WILL be done for Skillset since it gives us a few more weeks to work on the film and finesse what we have. We've got to both maintain the pace we've had over the past few weeks whilst also going through every shot with as much attention to detail we can. I'll be working heavily under schedule and ensure the film is to a great standard for the 10th July which would be just in time for Skillset.

So what would I do if I had the chance to start from scratch? Well for starters I'd have a larger group of people working on the film, which I did try to get in the first term but most people were already taken by other groups. If this was the case we would've been able to speed up the process a bit because we'd have a dedicated team working on it like a few of the other groups. Alternatively having a small group made the film feel far more personal and meant I only had to rely on Guy and myself (and the additional people who made a few assets for the film). I've also learnt directing really isn't for me (at least not yet).

Aside from the problems it's been a great year and it's such a shame these 3 years are up. It's been a pleasure working with some great people which will make leaving even harder.

A day before submission and another shot finished!

I managed to "finish" Shot 4 of the film! And I'm actually somewhat happy with how it's turned out.

I managed to get it blocked out this morning and this was the result.



From there I soon managed to spline the animation and went into the graph editor to ensure it all looked decent enough. You will notice the wing feathers mess up occasionally and that's sadly a problem with the rig. Clym told me a way to fix this so I'll have to do it to all the shots which feature the problem.



I'm happy with how this has turned out and I believe it is essentially finished aside from an extra level of polish.

Shot 20 and Shot 23

I've literally just started work on this shot and so far I'm happy with the movement of Ernest (the egg!) however neither of the chicks have been given any attention at all in this shot, which is why they're both at a very early stage. I've ensured this shot fits in nicely with what I had animated for shot 24 and so far the timing seems to be fine between the two shots!



I've also animated shot 20 but currently Tate and Taren are both "placeholders" and will be reanimated in the near future. I'm not entirely sure what movement I want from either character yet which is why it's at such a basic state at the moment. Along with their animation I'm not at all happy with the camera movement yet, so I may very well place the camera in the same position as shot 23. I added the camera movement to test how it would look but in reflection I don't like it at all.

Shot 11

I recently went back and looked at the old version of shot 11 (which was once known as shot 7) and I discovered it really didn't flow with shot 12 at all.

Because of this I started to re-animate the shot today.

I really don't have time editing it anymore, but rest assured it will be far more polished down the line. I'm also thinking it'll have to be a bit longer than it currently is but I'll have to see when I do a playblast edit of the entire film.

Compositing breakdown

Breakdown of the rendered shots below!

Shot 1

Master layer



Ambient Occlusion



After Effects



Shot 14
=
Master layer



Ambient Occlusion




After Effects



Shot 27

Master layer



Ambient Occlusion



After Effects



Shot 37

Master layer



Ambient Occlusion




After Effects




I didn't want to go too technical when it came to rendering of the film as both myself and Guy wanted to tell a good story along with showcasing good animation. But I've attempted to ensure the film has a nice soft and appealing look which (hopefully!) will blend nicely with our story and animation style.

Shot 24 and 25

Here's the latest version of Shot 24! I've simplified it from last time and I think it looks a bit better. Before it had more body movement, with Tate stepping back as Ernest was falling on him but I really didn't like how it flowed after further inspection. I think it's far better to keep this and other shots in the film simple so that I can tweak it far easier at a later stage.



Shot 25 is slowly getting there as well, but I think I need to add a bigger impact on Tate when Ernest falls on him.



I will still need to go in and finesse these shots but they both work in sequence with each other thankfully!

In other news E&E has been submitted! Woo.

Shot 37

Ok here's the work on Shot 37 so far and I must say I'm happy with how it's turning out!

I recreated the walk cycle that Guy had created because it didn't quite fit with the camera angle annoyingly, but I did use his shot heavily for reference. Once that was done I added in the fall and also added in the run cycle that I used for the previous shot.



The slide was a lot of fun to do and it reminded me as to why I want to get into the industry!

Since working on shot 39 I've cut shot 38 from the film (which I luckily hadn't started yet), this is because I soon learnt when animating this shot that it works best without shot 38 being there. Shot 38 was a shot from in front of Tate having just stopped showing Taren running directly behind him, it really wasn't needed and it doesn't break the flow at all.

Render stills

Here are a 4 render stills from the film!

These 4 shots were the only shots I've rendered from the film so far.

The look I wanted on the film was something that was very clean and not too over saturated on the eyes.

Shot 1



Shot 14



Shot 27



Shot 37

Sorting through all of the shots

I requested all of Guy's shots so far so that I could add in the environment into all of them, and so far so good!

It halted the progress of animation but it needed to be done. I only decided to do it today because the main scene file light and setup wasn't quite ready yet.

9th June update!

Just over a week to go till submission, am I stressed? You bet!

We've been given another few days to work on the film after the submission, which means the deadline for the film is the 23rd instead of the 17th. I've worked out the film will not be finished for the 17th, and to be quite frank I'm glad since it means I can work on tweaking things more without rushing at all.

I've started rendering out the background for a majority of the shots which will save time, and since we've essentially been given another week I have a bit more time to finesse the animation for the film. Once it's what I deem as good enough then I'll start rendering the characters, which will (if all goes to plan) begin this weekend.

In other news I was today sadly informed by Joe that he'll not be able to do the 2 additional shots I set him, but instead just 1 of those shots. I trust what he produces will be good, but either myself or Guy will have to take it into our own hands to produce the other shot I sent him. Nick has started work on his shot (shot 19) and I've already given my thoughts on what needs to be worked upon.

Shot 36

I'm not happy with the wings of Tate yet but as a whole it's getting there.

If I get the time I may come back and make the shot a lot less consistent in movements, with occasional flapping of the wings to show he's attempting to fly.

Currently as of yet Taren has yet to be animated for the shot.

Shot 12

Shot 12 has been a shot that has deeply frustrated me.

I believe the movement of Taren (left) seems to be fine, however I've never been able to get the look and feel of Tates movements perfect. This is the third time I've reanimated his movements and it's causing a lot of frustration to me, I know it's not perfect and I really want to go in and sort it out but it's proving difficult.



I'll be taking reference footage of myself to get the animation of Tate down perfectly, but I really doubt I'll have the time to do this before submission sadly this is because I really do want to get the majority of the shots blocked out by submission if I can. It's also sometimes best to come back to shots after a few days if it causes frustration.

Shot 21

Here's the progress of shot 21 so far! It's getting there, but I just need to ensure it fits in perfectly with the soon to be animated shot 20!

Update: 3rd June

All of the shots have been blocked out in one way or another, and 10 of my 24 shots are "finished". I will be going back and editing the shots when I get the time, but it's far more important to go through them all first to a basic stage. The 10 shots I've animated have taken roughly 2 weeks to do, and in getting into the mood of animating again I'm getting faster at doing it again. If I can get the shots finished by the end of next week that'd be superb.

As for rendering I've been rendering off the environments for some shots, which I'll show this weekend. Since most shots are static in the film I'll be rendering the characters on a separate layer, which is good because it gives me the chance to render off a large bulk of the film already.

I do believe we'll get the film finished in time for the degree show, but if we can't we'd have to settle for Skillset. Getting it done for the degree show however is my main priority, but of course I want to make sure the quality is good enough.

Unlike the films from last year I wont be rendering the film in HD, instead I'll be rendering the film in 576p. In the future after the degree I will re-render the film in HD, but I really don't want to waste time when I could be working on the animation some more.

My folders are essentially there, and I have 2 weeks to ensure they're at the best quality they can be. The animation folder is my main folder, and the other 2 folders are very much full up.

Time to crack on again!

Finished branch

Here's the finished branch!

All that needs to be done now is to place it into the shots both myself and Guy have been animating for the film!

I'd like to thank Marios for UV Mapping the branch which enabled me the chance to give the branch a texture!

Shot 22

Here's the progress of shot 22 so far



It's slowly getting there I believe, but I really do feel the character is missing something.

I'll be taking reference footage of myself for this shot along with shot 21 to get the best possible level of subtly and also so that the audience will be able to easily tell what's going on with the shot.

Aims for today: 1st June

I aim to get 3 additional shots animated today, which would mean a huge chunk of my animation would be completed! I've just got to ensure all of my shots are finished by the end of the week if possible, and that next week I can spend tweaking and finessing the animation to perfection.

I'll be posting up my updates for the 3 shots today, which in my opinion are all somewhat hard shots. If I were able to get more shots animated today that'd be great, but I'd rather put my focus on these three.

Branch development

Very nearly finished with the branch now! Here it is so far!

All that needs to be done now is for it to be UV Mapped by Marios, textured by myself and it'll be good to go!

Shot 39 Spline

I've been splining shot 39 and I believe it's "finished" but I'll be coming back to this along with all of the other shots to properly polish off in the near future.



The timing seems to be fine, but I will want to go in and add an extra bit of polish to certain aspects of it.

Shot 39 Blockout

Here's the blockout for shot 39! Tate quickly turns his head to notice Taren running directly behind him, I think the blockout is slowly getting there so I'll soon be splining the animation!



I was initially going to have a more complex movement but I've since decided against it.

Shot 43

After the "completion" of Shot 42 I decided to go in and work immediately on the shot directly after it!

It's quite an easy shot with the camera ever so slightly moving backwards with the wings of the egg flapping.

So far I want to go in and heavily finesse the movements of the wings, but I also wish to go into more detail and add a few blinks/additional head movements for Tate and Taren.



It's slowly getting there and I will return to it once I've worked on more shots.

Shot 42 Splining

Very very very slowly getting there! Although I'm not at all happy with the shot yet. I've essentially finished Tate (left) but Taren needs a lot more work doing to him until I deem him as finished, but I should hopefully have it finished by the end of today! I want to ensure there's a lot of nice subtly in this shot, so after Taren is done I'll be going onto the polishing stage, ensuring everything is believable with a lot of appeal.



Edit: After watching this a few more times it has come to my attention that their movements at the end clash too much so I'll ensure they're separated a bit more to allow the viewer to view exactly what's going on.

My preferred method of working

I'll be doing when working on the project is block out the whole of my shots and then start going in and working on each of them all individually, this is my preferred method of working and I know Guy will also be following the same method.

A lot of the time I just add in basic animation for some of the characters which I guess could be considered layout animation.

Rendering to start this weekend!

Eeek! The rendering for the film will actually begin this weekend, albeit on the very few shots that I have actually finished! I'll be doing so on my home computer which so far has been proven to be able to render the tests out insanely fast for the different render layers. Once that's done I'll be tweaking the shots in After Effects and start to place them into a Final Cut file along with some of the playblasts to get an idea of how it'll all look!

I'm really hoping to be able to make the June 17th deadline for the finished film!

Shot 42 Blockout

Here's the latest blockout I started today for Shot 42! The shot will show all 3 characters as they fly past the camera, with Tate and Taren holding onto Ernests legs. A lot of work still needs to be done before I start to go beyond the blocking stage, but it's slowly getting there.

I still need to animate the wings for Ernest, but I won't be doing so until I'm essentially done with both Tate and Taren's animation.

I've tried to make Tate (left) somewhat confident of a character throughout the film, whereas Taren (right) is a bit more concerned in terms of characteristics. I'm hoping it shows to an extent with this!

Shot List update!

It's been a while since I decided to showcase the shotlist, but I now have the most updated one to show off! The changes made to the shot list reflect the changes I made to the storyboard the other week (late I know), this was because I wasn't happy with the flow of the story, and I only came to realise this as I started to animate a few shots (which have been cut). I essentially wasted time animating the shots, but alternatively it gave me a bit of time to practice.

I've assigned the shots for both Nick and Joe as well, but depending on how much they're willing to do it could very well go up.

As it stands right now I have 24 shots to animate, Guy 12, Nick 3, and Joe 3.

Storyboard update

An update!

I wasn't at all happy with the story flow before so I took the time to fine tune the story and storyboard a bit. It's a bit late in the whole grand scheme of things but I feel it needed to be done in order to get the best possible film out of the project. One of the main reasons I did this was because I felt the amount of shots in the previous storyboard were far too much considering the time we have to finish the film, I've taken the shots down from 50 to 43, and although that may not sound like too much of a change I believe it has improved the flow of the story quite dramatically.

Tree Branch Render Test

Lacking the characters there, but the visual style is slowly getting there!



A lot of the films compositing will be done in a combination of Photoshop and After Effects, since a lot of the backgrounds for the shots are static. There's still a long way to go before this is what I consider to be perfect, but I just wanted to ensure some of the elements worked nicely.

Joe and Nick now on board!

Dan Dalli suggested to both myself and Guy to get a bit of help from the second years, this is to let us focus more heavily on the animation which is something both of us wish to do.

Because of this Joe Henson and Nick Georgeou are now on board! These two guys are talented and I know they'll have something good to bring to the table. They've each done an animation test to showcase their quality of work.

Joe's animation test



Nick's



Once again great work guys! It's good to have you two both on the team.

The characters have names!

The characters all have names now!

Tate and Taren are now the names of the two baby chicks, with Tate being the more confident character and Taren being the more nervous character. Ernest is the name of the egg.

Of course this will not at all appear in the film and it's simply so that both myself and Guy can easily distinguish the characters.

10th April: Animation has started!

The animation for the shots has now started! I'm pretty happy with what I've done so far, and I picked an easy-ish shot to animate to begin with to ensure I could properly understand the rig that Clym has made, which so far seems to be mostly flawless so good job Clym! It's superbly brilliant.

The shot I animated was a simple walk up to the egg, which I've attached below! On the shotlist it's shot number 7! It looks a bit odd with the tree having not been imported yet, that and the slight camera movement which makes them look to be floating across the ground a bit, but I can assure you they're not!



It's good to get this show on the road!

Baby Bird and Egg poses!

Here are some quick poses I sketched out to prepare myself for getting the rig in the next few days! I must say I'm excited.

The colour script

Here's a basic colour script of the film!

It's nothing too major but it gives me the chance to see how the colours mesh together.



I will most likely change the tones up a bit before the final release of the film, especially as I'm slightly concerned as to how the two chicks will look against the sky in the background.

I'll either have a different time of day to reflect a colour difference OR I'll ensure the chicks do not clash with the sky by making either them or the sky lighter.

Logo rebranding

I've changed the logo a bit with the latest logo being in the bottom right hand corner!



It's nothing too major of a change but I'd thought I'd let the world know!

Clym's changes to the model

I must say it looks superb what he's created! A few bits have changed since the model sheet I created, but overall he's far exceeded how I imagined it would look. He'll soon start rigging which should be good!



Good job Clym!

Term 2 reflection

Term 2 has been an incredibly hard and long process.

The film was in many ways put on the back burner like it is for all students this time of the year and there is a reason for it! That reason being the dissertation. The dissertation takes an absolutely HUGE chunk of your time.

We had a presentation the other day which went well, with both Dave Bull and Mike Smith liking how the film is shaping up. It's incredibly encouraging knowing that the tutors like how the film is progressing and I'm really aiming to get the best quality work out of this!

We're still sadly waiting on the model and rig but from what I've seen from Clym it is very slowly getting there. He's working on a few other projects before he works on mine which will mean I won't get the rigs until the start of the third term which may halt things a bit more than I would have liked to. I'm only concerned because I don't want to have to rush the animation at all otherwise we won't be able to hit the target of getting the film done for the degree show!

Model so far

I've been working with Clym closely and here's what's been created so far! Kofi is no longer working on the chick since I wanted to give him time to work on his film but we've been working on the foundations that Kofi set up with the model. I firstly edited the model to a basic extent and then sent to Clym to finetune. We've been going back and forth and got to this stage! I quickly Photoshopped the character to look like he was rendered and so far so good!

Dissertation

The dissertation, the single biggest halt in the production of Unhatched has now been submitted! Woo!

Despite how much time it took to create it the research behind it luckily taught me a lot about the use of sound in film, and more specifically animation. Perhaps this added knowledge will aid me with the sound in Unhatched?

Final model sheet

Here's the orthograph of the model! Clym is using it to aid him in the design for the two unnamed birds.

Establishing Shot Render Test

Here's the latest render test of the opening shot! Some things will change but I hope to get the first shot rendered by the end of the week, the fence will be added in and the background may change a tad but the colours are pretty much where I want them to be, as are the clouds.

Kofi's work on the model

Here's Kofi's model of the chick so far!

http://www.blog.heroesthemovie.com/?page_id=234

It's slowly getting there but I've outlined everything I need doing to the model. The things I need editing are mostly related to the proportions but I know we'll get there!

Nest render test

Very very very very very very early test quickly created in Maya!

The eggs are not their representative sizes.



Over the nest week I hope to have the finished opening sequence finished (not this), and I'll ensure it's as good as it can possibly be.

Edit: The quality of the shot isn't that great, I'll upload it at a higher resolution when it's further in development.

Reference "Swedbank: Under the Oak Tree"

Looks like Aardman beat us to the design! We may as well finish the project now!



Just kidding, but it's good to see a nice bit of reference.

Thanks to Dan Edgley of Polished Off fame for showing it to me!

Render tests

Here are a few quick render tests I created, it will still change.

Occlusion



First



Latest

Tree development

I've barely worked on the tree admittedly but here is a quick sketch as to how I'm going to model it!

Clym has agreed to model the whole tree whilst I'll be modeling the main tree branch.

Project Evaluation

In doing these animation tests I must say it has been a great value to myself, the reason being because I have been able to go into more detail of how the characters will move before I actually animate it. In short it is helping against what could've been a future headache.

I didn't quite finish all of the tests, nor have I done as many tests as I would like to have done but what I have done will be put into great practice, and the quality of the animation WILL be surpassed in the final film.

To recap I've posted the very latest versions of each of the tests below.

Run cycle


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.

Another way I could've (and may very well do in the final animation) is like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRfrTJX4mY

It looks manic and I feel in some ways would work better for a run, however there's nothing stopping me from doing two varying styles since both of the chicks each have their own personality.

Walk AND Fall

Despite being pretty happy with the blocking stage for both 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.

Duck and cover


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.

Leg hop (unfinished)


I sadly did not get to finish the leg hop in time, this was because I've also been working on the actual thing along with doing all of these tests. However since this piece is key to the film I will be continuing this on since I do not wish to have this scene hold back the whole film.

As theorised the hardest part was the feet, which caused me to take quite some time getting it to the stage its at even now. Despite not getting this finished in time for this unit I will finish it and post it here in the coming days since I feel this is most likely the most important test for the animation.

When I come to actually animating for the film I will have all of the knowledge that has built up over this unit and more, and I'm hoping for my best work yet. Sadly the work I've done here isn't what I'd consider anywhere near "my best" but I had to overcome things along the way. I now know of problems I didn't think I'd encounter, so that alone to me makes these tests a success.

Facial expressions

Here are some quick facial expressions I drew to to get an idea of possible facial expressions.

I'll of course be drawing more and especially when I eventually get the rig do a few tests.

Leg hop 02 *Unfinished*

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

I sadly couldn't finish this in time, but here is the update to the leg hop test!

As theorised the hardest part was the feet, which caused me to take quite some time getting it to the stage its at even now. Despite not getting this finished in time for this unit I will finish it and post it here in the coming days since I feel this is most likely the most important test for the animation.