MONIKA'S PRODUCTION JOURNAL and individual contribiution
SCRIPT( part we done as a team)
When we started working with the script we have been provided with the 3 words which are : competitive, opera and wrong door. Myself, Giacomo and Dan (as Shannon had rehabilitation those time and she joined our group later on) had a storm brain and actually came up quite fast with the idea of two Characters opera singer and setting guy (janitor latter on)who are having voice and whistle competition on the stage. Accidental (by misunderstanding as we suggestet that our characters could be birds but it wasn't final) we had second idea for our script which was about bird competition. Both of our draft scrip you can on our main page
When Shannon has joined us she really liked the idea of our scripts and she was happy to continue with the way we settle it. We all find that that We prefer opera version so we decided to go with it.
In the mean time we had a problem regarding the wayEvab is happen to be on the stage. We were planning to do the version when he accidentally steps in on the platform and pushes the button and it brings him up to the stage. But when we showed it to teachers and collages they didn't quite understand it. So we were thinking about new whey he happens to be on the stage and we thought about him tripping over the rope while swiping behind the stage.
BEAT BOARD (part we done as a team)
Giacomo, Dan and myself sat in the library to get work done. We were all talking about the way we imagine it and Giacomo was drawing. There wasn't really many disagreements. Beat Board also can be seen on out main page.
When we started working with the script we have been provided with the 3 words which are : competitive, opera and wrong door. Myself, Giacomo and Dan (as Shannon had rehabilitation those time and she joined our group later on) had a storm brain and actually came up quite fast with the idea of two Characters opera singer and setting guy (janitor latter on)who are having voice and whistle competition on the stage. Accidental (by misunderstanding as we suggestet that our characters could be birds but it wasn't final) we had second idea for our script which was about bird competition. Both of our draft scrip you can on our main page
When Shannon has joined us she really liked the idea of our scripts and she was happy to continue with the way we settle it. We all find that that We prefer opera version so we decided to go with it.
In the mean time we had a problem regarding the wayEvab is happen to be on the stage. We were planning to do the version when he accidentally steps in on the platform and pushes the button and it brings him up to the stage. But when we showed it to teachers and collages they didn't quite understand it. So we were thinking about new whey he happens to be on the stage and we thought about him tripping over the rope while swiping behind the stage.
BEAT BOARD (part we done as a team)
Giacomo, Dan and myself sat in the library to get work done. We were all talking about the way we imagine it and Giacomo was drawing. There wasn't really many disagreements. Beat Board also can be seen on out main page.
Box of idea for character design and bahaviour
CHARACTER
DESIGN (Part each of us done individually and in a team)
As our animation got only two character we wanted to make sure they do look really nice. Therefore we decided each of us got 4 days to work on character design and we will all have a look and comment it on our meeting. On the meeting we have discussed that our characters won't be human but tiger and a parrot. Our class collogues like it. After this each of us done protect of tiger and parrot and we chose the most interesting one. We have chosen Giacomo's design for both our characters. Unfortunately after our pitch half of the audience didn't like it so we had to changed it. I stared to work on a character design and then I like the shape which I draw so I have suggested that we should work on this shape to give direction to the team. The group approved it and we start working. Also as we heard that our sketches are not really CG and our animation is 3D some of us decided to work with collage. |
SHAPES WE HAVE DECIDED TO WORK WITH AND COLLAGES
Unfortunately after another meeting we couldn't agree which character we like as everyone had different opinion and different liking. Therefore at the end I took a pencil and I started to draw the ideas from our brain storm. This made everyone happy and we Have decided to work with the character we have made
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Deigns I've made using the collage technique
Character design (first drawings)
With the first sketches I mostly tried to concentrate to make the characters unique. I tried to follow on of the exercised Julia assigned to us and tried to find a characters in everyday objects. Therefore quality of come drawings is quite bad as for example I tried to draw some object I have seen while I've been travelling by bus.I tried to work with our style guides but I wasn't happy with the results I have achieved therefore at the end I start looking at the books with character design and I followed this way.
Character design
After our second Pitch when our character design have met with critique. We started to work with the shapes which I have put expels above. This time we had to concentrate with adding colour. The results can be seen below:
At the end we couldn't decide which one to choose. Therefore we created it together:
DIGITAL CHARACTERS-TURN,SIZE & WAIGHT
I have been responsible for turn, size and weight for our characters and also digitalizing them. I haven't found it difficult and soon after the team could continue with the modelling.
MOVEMENTS & FACE EXPRESSIONS
I have been also responsible for face expression and movements of our characters. I tried to give them dynamic and personality which we have agreed before. Francesca was fairy easy to create and I was quite satisfied with the results. I had a problem with Evan especially with his face expression. Nerveless group were happy with the sketches I have done and we could go forward with our project.
RIGGING
Unfortunately because the modelling schedule was delayed nearly extra one week, therefore I really had to focus on the rigging. And even though it seems to be really easy it became a quite challenging as it was my first time rigging and I knew how to do it in theory. Shannon had start rig base(main skeleton) for both of our characters. Unfortunately when I started to working on it turned out it had some mistakes(like some of the joints turning wrong way) so I had to do some changes. I have added all the fingers and the curves and as I didn't know they need to be in the middle centre with the joints I had to redo it. Thanks to this I have learned how to delete connections between objects (and I have used it a lot:) so as parenting. Another challenge was Evans hand. Unfortunately because of the model hand couldn't turn without deformation. Luckily Steve showed me how to set the key thanks to which the hand can twist smoothly in 90 degrees. Also I had to removed joints from Evan's forearm and replaced them with the new which would work smoothly with the key I was about to set. And I had a problem with disconnecting them and then parenting them again so I would move together with the arm. After this I prepared skeleton to connecting with the model and checked if everything works. As it turned out my work with the rigging wasn't done yet. Francesca dress stared to deform during moving spine or hips or legs. Ian helped me to correct mistake. He also explained me the reason. There was a reason with one of the legs rig (in my defence it was't that obvious). After I got both of the models ready for skinning. |
FRANCESCA |
PROBLEMS
SKINNING
At first I found it way more difficult than rigging because I have never seen how its done before and I had no idea how it worked. Ian showed me how to use painting method but for me wasn't clear which part I should I paint. Later on Steve showed me component editor way and I still didn't get what's going on with all those numbers. I was feeling really stupid and I didn't want to asked again to explain me this so I was watching you-tube tutorials. And I still didn't get it. At the end I have decided to ask Ian again to explain me how the skinning should be done. He showed me how to do it combining painting and component editor way. Thanks to hi patience I finally get it! And it was so easy after! I actually really enjoyed it. After I have finished mine parrot I have took over tiger as well. Dan tried to do it at first for a little bit so did Shannon. Nerveless none of them really knew how to do it and as skinning is quite time consuming and I already knew how to do it I decided to took over Francesca as well. After both of the characters where skinned I had to make sure that both of the characters hats and a parrots beaks where following the body. So I had to re parent them and parent again as the joint was parent to the hat and not the other way around. After this we started animation tests straight away. |
EVANFRANCESCA |
PROBLEMS
ANIMATION TEST
Myself and Dan had to make sure that the characters are working properly. Dan concentrate on Evan and I took care of Francesca.She had moved nicely. I haven't found any problem neither with rigging neither skinning. However Francesca turned up to be quite limited with her movements. And actually the hands and arms. Because of the size and arm-line she couldn't do some of the positions we planed to do at the beginning. But she had great movements with her hips which later on gave a lot of dynamic to our character.
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ANIMATED SHOTS
We
start animating one and a half week before Christmas and to be honest
everyone was really tired and bit fed up. Each of us had 4 shot to
animated. Originally I had shot 1, 8, 9 and 10. But because I have
finished my animation before deadline and Giacomo and Shannon had a
problems with finishing their shots I took over some of their work. Additionally before Christmas I animated also shot 17,16, 15. The last day before Christmas when I was leaving (earlier that others as I had to go to work) I was sure all scenes where animated or will be by that day. Unfortunately as I find out
week before we came back in January shot 2, 3, 7 haven't been done. Therefore I had to animate it fast first day after starting uni. They
were not perfect as I said I had to animate it fast as Giacomo and
Shannon couldn't be with us to help us .Therefore when Dan came next day he helped me with
correcting those scenes. When Giacomo came back he said he actually done the shot 3 but it wasn't saved as the last file and I didn't know about it. At the end we have used his shot in animation as it was better that the one I have done on Monday.
Shot I have originally been assigned to
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Shots I additionally took over
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LIGHTING
Lighting
wasn't that difficult nerveless I had few problems with it. It was
either to bright either to dark. Some elements which shouldn't be
affected were effected and other way around. At the end there were
two small problems which I have decided to leave because of the
deadline which were problems with the shadow. The shadow was to hard and I could make it smother. Ian showed me how to make it but the scene
seemed to be too dark. Also in some shots for some reason
characters had two shadows. I didn't know the reason and I tried
to play around with it but unsuccessfully. Second shadow seemed to be not to visible so I decided to live it the way it was.
RENDERING
I didn't have a problem with setting and rendering any of the shots. The only problem was the amount of time to render the scenes. Because of heavy lighting and big lip-sync file it took about 5 hours to render about 3 seconds of animation. Once we had our first render we could put shots together. We have noticed that some of the shot are to shot and need to last longer. We had to come back to and re- animate some of them and re- render. After that everything was just fine.
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As it turned out to give 2D look to our animation it had to be done in Maya and not in After Effect as I thought. To do this I had to give 3 different toons and render 3 times each shot with each of those toons. Unfortunately I have found out to late about this and there was no chance for us to change it. Nerveless I have done some test and I will re render it in future.
VISUAL EFFECTS
With the visual effects wasn't much to do. Ian showed me how to apply fog effect in After Effect. As because of misunderstanding (2D effect for our animation) I didn't have to apply any filters.
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EDITING
Myself and Giacomo took over responsibility of editing. We didn't really have any problems and everything run fast and smooth.
SOUND
Together
with Shannon we were recording our sound in Foley Studio. Shannon was
mostly focusing on recording and putting it together in After Effects. When we have recorded our tiger
and parrot voices I have focuses on all Foley sound. It took us one day to recorded
and after this Shannon focuses on mixing it together.
POSTER
I have been responsible for doing poster. Below you can see examples which I presented to my group. They have chosed the tiger and the parrot on the orange parrot. I have drew and painted characters myself.
WEBSITE
PRODUCER
My colleges have chose me to be a producer in this project. I have been responsible for arranging the meeting, sorting out problems, doing the schedules, presentations and represent the team. I actually really enjoined this role but to be honest it was difficult to handle this role and having a job. I tried to organized as much time as I possibly could to spend time with my team, to make it run smoothly and to make each happy with this project. I think I was successful in this. We were considering everyone's opinions and ideas and we have worked as a one big team. We tried not to use hierarchy
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system during project nerveless some of the situations required direction. There were quite a few challenges which we had to deal with during our project. Unsuccessful character design which took to much time. To solve this problem at the beginning I suggested than we would work with shapes. I also suggested that we could try collage. None of this ideas didn't bring to much effect though. Therefore I decided that we won't do it any more separately. We sat down I took the pencil and stared to draw listening to the comments and ideas of others. Thanks to this we finally had character design which everyone was happy with. The other problem was delaying with the assigned parts of the projects. I was trying to speed up the project as much as I possibly could. When it took longer to the guys with the modelling I was tiring to do my best to speed up the rigging. When Shannon could't continue with skinning I took it over. When there was a problem with animating scenes I took it over as well. I don't really think there was a problem with the schedule or it was any of the guys fault we were behind the schedule. Simply we done it first time and the troubles we had to face we had to deal first time even though we though we gave each other enough time to do it. At this point some of us started feeling stress and fed up. I tried do give some lighter jobs but because we were behind of schedule there wasn't really that much I could do. As a producer I have also seek our voice actor for Francesca and booked the Foley studio. In the meantime I tried help others wit their parts and leave the comments. Giving not positive feedback wasn't very pleasant as they have been took very often personally which made me feel a bit guilty for destroying their self-confidence and making them upset. Nerveless I believe the comments have been constructive and gave better results than previously. In most of examples the team was satisfied with the changes. . As we were bit stressed we had ups and towns regarding project and atmosphere between us. But when we started getting closer to the deadline everything came back to normal. At the end I really enjoyed being producer and I would definitely do it again but to be honest it was very busy time, probably more than I have expected.
Schedules
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Presentations
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