Work Done This Week

Mostly, I have been working on my dissertation. I am on 6,767 words (hehe 6767, what an odd number) so I should be done soon.

As far as actual animating is going, I have worked out how to get both of the hands of one of my characters to hold the suitcase, so that when the suitcase moves, his hands stay attached. Very handy, as I can now go back to the shots I already have and animate Unluckyman properly. Big step forward. No rendered scenes to show yet, but I'll show some later.

Stay tuned.

Background City

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Okay, just downloaded a plugin for my 3ds max thanks to the help of my tutor Mario, called Greeble. It acts as a modifier and helps me turn a normal shape into a series of

randomised... um... sticky up bits. So this is what I have used to sort out my backgrounds. I was worried I would have to clone several buildings and blocks and arrange them randomly myself, which would be very time consuming. Instead, this has done that for me! HooraH!

Obviously, this is still just basic as it needs texturing, but at least I know what the background will look like!

And this is the scene that comes immediately afterwards, as we see Happyman walk towards unluckyman in sympathy. This includes a vague idea of where the background will be, but it needs to be edited by a lot. I'm thinking of pushing Unluckyman further back so he looks semi far away.

Here is video one of two that I have made so far.

I know I know, I'm working too slowly. This is the shot where Unluckyman is sheltering under his suitcase as Happyman walks past with an umbrella and notices him.

First Shot.

Here is the first proper shot, facial movements and everything.

Atmosphere and effects still need to be added.

What on Earth?

Okay , so I'm animating away. As I do. When I render this scene out to see how the walk cycle is and there is a creepy face staring at my character! It kinda looks like my character is staring at it too, which is even odder. Turns out when I deleted a character from here a while ago, I missed his teeth, eyes and bowtie so they just kinda stayed where they were, hidden. And when I unhid all, it appeared!

Creepy!

Anyway, animating is still moving quite slow. I need to speed up if I ever plan on finishing on time! I shall have to make a strict schedule and stick to it! So far I have done the first four shots, more or less, of scene 01. But they need backgrounds adding in, so I do not now how complete I actually am. But I will get there. Oh yes.

Lancaster Children's Film Festival

Mostly this week I have been working for the Lancaster Children's Film Festival, where I have been involved in running a couple of 2D animation workshops for two age groups, 6 - 11 and 12 - 15. The first class were taught simple 2D animation basics, such as blinking, pulling a face and bouncing a ball. The second were given slightly more complex tasks, starting with the bouncing ball and moving on to a walk cycle. They were then given free reign, animating whatever they pleased.

I was so nervous, bearing in mind that I was in charge of the lesson plans, teaching, organisation, everything! Plus, at the end of the session I took the multiple Layout pads home and scanned in all of their work and edited it together to make a series of animations that were shown at the 'We Made This' screening on Saturday. I edited it with music and titles for each student. This took the longest, starting from scanning it on Wednesday at 12pm and finishing on Thursday at 1pm. Plus the editing took me a day and a half, finally finishing at 2am on Friday, the day before the screening.

So yes, lots of work. I am unsure if I am able to post the videos up here, so I shall have to ask, but here is a link to the website of Lancaster Children's Film Festival.

http://www.lancasterchildrensfilmfestival.co.uk/

They were very young, but there were a couple of really interesting animations, which is very promising!