Brian Lobeda Blog

New WEBSITE!!!

2013-05-27T19:55:00.003-07:00

I will be using my tumblr alot more than this, so please check it out :D

SS2 : Markus Lupfer Promo Final

2013-05-16T13:17:00.000-07:00

After Completing the final for Last Moments, I have 2 more weeks before the deadline, I have been contacted by Riz again to work with me on a fashion shoot. We worked quite well when we did the college advert so I decided to help out and since it is a live brief, it is a good opportunity to get my name out there and this could also help me improve my skills of being a film maker, though I specialise in visual effects.

In this Project, we are collaborating with Dannie Bennett a 3rd year fashion student. The live project is from Markus Lupfer a fashion brand company. Their videos are mostly fun and quirky and each video they produced have their own different styles. Have a look at their website.

http://markuslupfer.com/video/

The Brief:

The final major project will conclude in three separate final outcomes. All three of these outcomes will be produced in collaboration with London fashion brand, Markus Lupfer. Through liaison with the Markus Lupfer brand I have defined a brief requiring me to produce an initial outcome in trend preddition, a second outcome in print design and illustration and a final outcome in marketing and branding. Through the trend prediction outcome I will liaise with the brand in order to understand and assist in the development of their conceptual trend basis for Spring/Summer 2014. Through this I will then develop my own further 4 conceptual trend ideas, which I will finalise in a trend prediction book. Further to think I will develop a range of conceptual print ideas based on Markus Lupfer’s key trend for Spring/Summer 2014. This outcome will require me to produce a fully illustrated capsule collection and a range of professional print and fabric samples in order to present to womenswear design department at Markus Lupfer. The final marketing and branding outcome will be the key focus of the final outcomes within the final major project. Through my brand research I have identified Markus Lupfer’s failure to actively market their brand. This has lead to a poor consumer brand image and also a poor level of brand awareness within consumers. Through this research I have identified three key areas to develop. The first area within the marketing and branding final outcome will be to produce a commercially relevant lookbook for the brand’s spring/summer 2013 collection. Further to this I will seek to produce a commercially relevant video advertorial campaign for the brand’spring/summer 2014 collection. The final branding and marketing outome will be to redevelop the brand’s packaging and labelling in order to be more in level with the brand’s premium price point and identity.

Before shooting Riz and I have divided our work to ourselves creating the manipulated stock footages. I have used After effects and premiere pro to manipulate it and layer other footages on top. We eventually ended up editing all same footages but with different effects. I guess it is a good thing because the more samples we have, the better.

This is my first time working in this kind of project, making a promo video for a fashion company, I am pretty excited for this project. I became in charge of the camera as usual because I take better shots than Riz :D and I know how to work it better. Riz is in charge with the lighting and staging and Dannie is working with the models, dressing them up and putting make up on. At the beginning, we planned to project images on top of the models but then later decided that it is so much better to do it in after effects and it would look so much better.

Here are some samples, we are trying to achieve where we are using a projector to project manipulated stock footages on top of the model, but then decided to layer the footage on top of the model in after effects.

At first Dannie directed the models on how she want them to act for the shoot, but it wasn't going so well, so we had to put on some music so it will help the model do their thing. I ended up taking over and helping Dannie with directing because she is struggling. It is a good thing that I watch alot of fashion shoots in youtube because I love fashion, this gave me an advantage on how the model should act. although sometimes when I act some scenes I look very weird (like a girl) but it had to be done. When doing this, it made the models feel very comfortable with me and they became much more loose and able to be them selves a bit more and looks much more natural in camera. Jokes had to be done too. It was fun shooting this film.

After filming Riz and I decided to work on our own cuts because it is easier that way and Dannie can just pick out the good bits from our edit and compile it together. I have basically listened to the chosen song by Dannie and mark the beats where I think that there are potential cuts in there. It was hard deciding which footages of the models I should use, what I did is, I selected an outfit that I think matches with the other model and pair it together, so in the video it has a good alternate shots between both models (no favouritism) though one model was hard to work with and ended up having 90% bad shots, good thing the beats of the music are quite fast so its good to cut on the right time.

This are two of my stock footages that I manipulated and combined together.

My Cuts

The process on how I worked is I worked on cutting the footages into place and then colour correct / graded it then overlayed stock footages ontop to give off a projection look.

After It is done and I dont think the colours works quite well, I composite it all together and add more and adjust the effects on to to blend well together.

This is a shot that I wish to include in the final piece but I dont think the projection effect might work. because in this footage, the camera moves quite alot and it will take alot of tracking and editing to make it work. I just think this is still an interesting shot.

This is the first test I have made and Dannie was very pleased with the result, she loves the cuts going to the beat and the stock footages worked quite well. She wanted the final to be 2mins max.

Here is behind the scenes video that Riz composited which I have filmed :D

Final Markus Lupfer Promo Video

Bare in mind, this isnt an advert, it is a promo video where they just show their latest clothes in their website and just basically showing how quirky they are. This video might be played on billboards which I have heard from Dannie. So far Dannie is very happy to work with us though she picked my work than Riz's because I have basically completed the whole video in 3 days with out much sleep. I really enjoyed this project and hopefully I get contacted by Markus Lupfer or any other companies.

A little improvements just had to be made later on , just changing some footages because Dannie wasnt happy with the models acting. Riz took a render of the models scene and cleaned up the markers on the floor and will be compiled later.

SS2: Last Moments Making and Final

2013-05-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Awath and I havent found any Actors to act in our film so we have decided that I'll be the main actor instead. 2 actresses have backed out because of their deadlines too and found an actress willing to help. On the day of the shooting she decided that she couldnt make it because of personal problems, so we have to look for some one else. I finally found Amy, she has no experience in acting but we are willing to help her out, she doesnt have that much shots to do, it should take a day to finish her scenes.

We started filming Amy and testing her in many different camera angles. After filming for the day and tried compiling all the shots together in premiere pro, we noticed that Amy couldnt walk, one of her arm was still and the other arm is in motion, it was also my mistake for not giving her anything to hold on to, so we had to retake the shots. Another problem we have encountered is the bad weather where it rains quite alot, shooting out doors is very difficult, the clouds are blocking the sun light and ended up darkening our shots. We have noticed some grains in our footage thats because our ISO was too high which makes it grainy for filming.

We finally managed to film my scene and Amy's in a good weather, I started compositing some scenes together and added in some duplicated effects especially on scene 4 after waking up from flashback, I am supposed to feel dizzy and looking at the surroundings, so I have added in like an echo effect on every turn I make to give the illusion of dizziness.

On this scene, Awath and I were both edit it together, we are pretty pleased with the pacing of the shots. though I wasn't happy about our work speed, we focused too much on one scene and the speed of working is too slow, so we both agreed to work on our own cuts since we are both focusing in visual effects and compositing, I think it is best we do it this way.

I have went to town and took some more footages that I think itll be useful later on to fill in the blanks for the film which could add in some dramatic effect to the audience showing that the actor is thinking and looking through his eyes in first person view.

This is a test where I have to show that the actor is lost. didnt end up using it because the camera is set too low and there are alot of people in the surroundings. We did our best not to get any other people in the shot so the audience would focus more on the 2 actors, showing that this is only about them, kinda relating it to Adam and Eve where they fell in love at some point. But didnt want to show that, I only want the audience to think that.

Here are some early tests that Riz and I took just before this project, I have edited it to make it look like a flashback, I have also played around with colour correction and grading. I made the chase scene very dark so it will look like it is a bad memory that happened and gives off the effect that viewer is in rage mode that cant see properly whats going on but anger. I think this effect works well on horror films.

I had a play around with the camera recording a time lapse video on my window and on a bridge. I have colour corrected it in different ways. I really enjoyed colour correcting and colour grading, Instagram got me into it :D I think every effects means different thinkgs, for example the cinematic feel give off a sense of epicness, blues and greens stand out a bit more than reds. Romantic feel is more orangey look with a vignet of blur to focus the eyes on the center. Sun Warm is used to highlight the reds and yellows which shows that the atmosphere is warm, it is mostly used when filming on the beaches, sunsets. Tilt shift effect mainly used on footages that are recorded from a far distance and blurs out the foreground and the background and only highlights the middle which gives of the effect of objects looking like toys.

colour correction and grading is used to make the footage look more like a film more than just a pocket phone recording, it makes it look much more dramatic, enhances the mood to the footage and gives emotion to it.

When editing my final video, I knew a scene was missing a scene, where I had to look like I am in a hospital. It is impossible for me to shoot in a hospital, I have created a matte painting looking in first person view from my bed. Here are some examples that I have done below, I have noticed something looks off about it, maybe it was the lights and shadows where off. It was because it is all images and I havent animated the camera. I didnt like the look of it aswell, angles are all wrong and room looks so empty

I have then took some key footages on windows instead, to make it look like I saw the nurse next to me in bed. I couldnt get in contact with Amy any more to shoot it with her so I just matte painted her instead and I think I did a better job in the 2nd matte painting. it looks so much more realistic, everyone I have shown this so far thought it was real. I am happy with the result.

Here is my 2nd Final piece, "Last Moments"

In my cut, I have timed it well according to my story board, but I think there are some footages that could have been shot better, I wasnt the camera man, but anyway I am specialising more in post production. I have added in effects that made it look cinematic which highlights the blues and make it a little dark for the real time scene, but when it reached the flash back, I made the effects quite light, making the greens and yellows stand out a bit more and lots of white to make it look like a real flash backs. I have adjusted the appatures to make the grasses glow like pearls. I have added in Fish eye and a little push and pull effect in the scene where I had the flashback to give off a sense that I am having a headache. I have added in some slow mo effect to make my walk look much more interesting and dramatic. by the end of the editing, I have added in a music, which was really hard to sync with the footage. I couldnt have more time to ask someone to compose it for me, but I think I have done my job here, I think I have increased my skill as a visual effect artist/ Film maker.

SS2 : Plan & Micro Projects + tests

2013-05-15T18:53:00.002-07:00

I have decided to collaborate with Mohammed Awath because he wanted to focus on post production Visual effects which I am also interested it. His original idea was basically to film a person walking and incorporate some animation in the surroundings, but looking at the time schedule left, I dont think we can add in some 2D animation, it will take some time to complete it, because I have experience it in the previous final piece on "Only Time Can Tell Animation" though it might still work...We have decided to look for actors and actresses right away so, itll be easier to contact them early.

We have decided to do some experimenting in our own for some Visual and Special effects, like green screening and camera tricks. Since this is the first time Im doing a Visual effects, I have decided to try out some Video Copilot tutorials and try it out for my self, I have done the Iron man hud tutorial. I think it is very simple to make, it not as complicated as I imagined because I have used after effects quite alot. Though I havent used any tracking on it because it is hard to track my face without a marker, especially I have used a really bad camera phone to record a footage of me, it is very blurry. But I am still happy with the result

Micro Project 1

I have made another mirco project experimenting on live action comedy skit. this is an idea that came out of no where and I thought it was a very funny idea, I had to film it. I asked my friend Danny to help me act out the scene and he was brilliant. the footages came out as I had hoped because we worked quite well in it and we enjoyed our selves. I do think if I am to have random person to act out in my soon to be film with Awath, I need to be good friends with the actors or we wont get along and might mess up the project. This tutorial is very helpful when shooting with someone. Even though this tutorial is for interviews, I think it could also help when filming in live action short story.

10 Steps to Shooting your First DIY Interview from Vimeo Video School on Vimeo.

After filming with Danny, I have began to edit the footages in premiere pro, I have timed every footages right, adjusting the speed of the video to match it together, but not too much that makes the movement irregular. I have then simply adjusted the opacity of the fore ground layer to make it appear like a real ghost. I hope I could use this technique when creating my 2nd final piece after we finalised with the story.

Micro Project 2

If I want to specialise on effects and post production, I needed a footage to work on, I have done some experiment on special effects on reverse shot test where I had someone walk backwards and played it in reverse on premiere pro togive the illusion of the person walking forward. This has been inspired from my research.

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After few days completing my micro projects, Riz Khan, another animator from the course has contacted me to to collaborate on a work experience to help promote Cranford College from London by having 7 adverts done. Our transport and food are paid for. I am basically in charge of the camera and lighting and Riz is in charge of mainly the directing and scripting because he has better grammar than I do :D I have used the things I have learnt from the video on "shooting an Interview" from above to use. I have made good friends with everyone. At first when we met the actors, they were very nervous because we behaved very professional. they arent even experienced, infact they literally work in that same university. So just before we shoot Riz and I got them to relax by telling some jokes and having fun. By the time we are ready to shoot, they will have confidence to talk to the camera. It takes some time to get them say the right lines, so we had to break it down for them, we switch camera angles so they can have a break from saying their lines and review it. I have kept the camera in mid shot so it shows professionalism and a little seriousness. If I was to use a wide shot, they would look too relaxed and feels more like a drama interview, didnt do close ups because its too serious.

We have shot 8 Adverts in a day and took all our energy away but it was a great experience for Riz and myself. When working in that college, we felt like we where big shots because, we got to do everything we want, they gave us all the food we need which I enjoyed and we got to redecorate the whole office. We even got to the principal's home, btw he is a millionaire and his home is gorgeous :D. For Post production a little editing is needed, just adding the logos and tags and we are done with our 1 days work experience. Here are some of the adverts.

After Completing the Advert shoot, I came up with the story about a man dying with a twist, I met up with Awath and discussed on ways to improve the scene and make it sound unique and simple to create. it took us hours to agree on the story and finally finalised it. I have then went on and do a proper story board showing the exact scenes I wanted to portray, though in filming, shot angles can be changed quite alot, depends on how good it looks like from the angle. We would be taking alot of footage to experiment and see which fits better.

So far the story starts off with eye blinking, woke up in bed in a hospital and tries to escape the nurses, as he tries to get past them, he bumps to a busy nurse unexpectedly and continues to rush off the exit. The story is about a dying man so he goes out to the city and wants to explore and remember about good memories. At some point he had a jolt in his head remembering flashbacks about himself on the floor near a well and got helped by a pretty woman but he cant picture her face because his vision is going off. As he came to, he found himself near the well same as the flashback. He wishes to know who the woman was, so as he approached the well to wait, he lost all his energy drop to the floor. Camera pans to his wrist showing he is a patient. few seconds later his eyes r blinking slowly, and saw a woman trying to wake him up on the floor. The mans vision clears up a bit and remembered that the woman who help him in his flashback was the nurse he bumped to in the beginning and now is in front of him. He is satisfied that he saw her one last time and dies peacefully. After the credits, blinking scene is repeated same as the beginning waking up from the hospital. this shows that the events that are happening is on a loop but the guy doesnt know that, basically he has a short term amnesia.

We havent got any contacts of any actors to help us for our film but 3 actresses are willing to help. For now, I have volunteered to be the substitute actor doing some simple walks. Awath and I decided to test on camera angles, Awath is incharge of the camera because he is much more experienced in using one and he understands most of the settings. In this test shot, all I had to do is walk and act sad because it is also part of the story in the story board. I know I am a shit actor but I gave it my best. By the end of shooting, I have then composited the good shots and played around with some of the colour correction, I have even added in slow motion to give the effect of sadness which works well with the cinematic music. I have dulled the colour scheme and made it blue/ greenish which shows a bit of sadness because if I kept it too light, it would look too relaxing. we have also incorporated reverse motion in one scene where I started waving my arms around. I think it looked really good when it is played backwards. I added in a quick lens flare just to test the look of it, I didnt even animate its path but its alright for our first test

SS2: Research

2013-05-15T12:26:00.002-07:00

The art of digital matte painting is a powerful technique for film makers. This makes the art of film making so much easier yet so much more ambitious. An effects editor can use matte painting to bring film to life by creating any living location they desire, space, heaven, forest, etc... this most of the times impress the traget audiences at the same time.

Matte Painting is a visually altered painted representation of a landscape background that would usually be too expensive for a film company to build and create or even travel to. Live action video footage are usually combined with digital matte painting these days. The live action video footages were mostly filmed on green screen or blue screen if the subject has a green colour on it to give contrast. This technique is used to place actors into many settings which are impossible to go to.

These days Matte paintings are mostly digital images that are created by using photo references, 3d Models, and used drawing tablets. After creating the ideal paintings, it is then combined with the 3D model environments which allows 3D camera movement. This can be done by using Blender, Bonjou, Maya, After Effects, etc...

Chroma Key:

Chroma key compositing is a special effects post production technique for compositing where you layer two images or footages on top of each other based on colour hues. This is to remove a background from the subject of the photo or footage and replace it with a desirable setting or scene where matte paintings come to use. This is mostly seen in news casting, motion picture and video game companies. A single colour range in the top layer is made transparent which shows the background from behind. This technique is mostly used in video production and post production. The technique is usually called colour keying, or green screen and blue screen. colour keying can be done in any colour but mostly used Green or Blue because it doesnt key out our flesh colours.

I am a big fan MysteryGuitarMan because he combines his stop-motion music with special effects and visual effects. In my example below, he has used the special effects to change his shirt and guitars. First He has used his shirt as a blue screen and used Chroma keying to change the colour and rotorscope it to make the change seamless by using the guitars as dividers.

As for the acoustic guitar change, he has motion tracked a picture of the acoustic to the back of the electric guitar, and used a morphing program for it to transform to the ukelele, rotorscoping is then used to clean and merge everything together by fading it together. Some parts he had to motion track his dog on a green screen on his hand.

In this video, I liked the idea where he used a slow motion effect on the background and he is dancing and singing around in real time which makes him look like he is superman moving in the speed of light. He has accomplished this by recording a footage of the background on a slow motion camera which in his case, he only had a camera that can shoot 60 frames per second. in the second footage, it was shot on the same place but with a green screen at the back of Mysteryguitarman. this was shot outside on the same place to get the right lighting for the camera. The first footage was then imported in final cut pro or premiere pro and played at 24 frames per second to give a slow mo effect and then layered the 2nd footage ontop and keyed off the green screen to make him appear moving in real time. If the 2nd footage with him on it was slowed down, the song would also be in slow mo which it will kill the whole purpose of the whole video.

Reverse motion film, I think this is an interesting effect, I could use this effect on my film because it is very unique, I can tell a story as my actor walk and interacts with the surroundings.

I find this video very helpful for creating a short film and promoting myself

I would love to do some matte painting for this second project because it is part of being a visual effects artist. I will be taking some raw footages and manipulate it so it will blend well with the short film I am about to create.

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SS2: Moving into Visual Effects - Research

2013-05-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

After completing my SS2 2D animation final, I have less than 2 months before the deadline. I have decided to create my 2nd Final piece and move on to Visual effects because I am deeply in love with big famous movies such as Iron man, Batman, Transformers, etc... I would love to film and direct my own movie, but more importantly I would like to focus on post production, which involves compositing and adding Visual effects. I am particularly in love with colour correction and colour grading.

Before I get started, I have done a bit of research about special effects and visual effects.

History Of Visual Effects

Motion pictures is one of the earliest form of entertainment technology, people usually are entertained just by watching normal everyday reality footages. As time passes by, people were able to produce comedy skits. Other people used the first magic camera tricks just by stopping the camera and changing the scenes and playing it back again. Double exposure also began just by layering one footage on top of each other and this began the art of special effects. George Melies a famous magician became the father of movie special effects. He is well known for creating the first Sci-fi genre "A trip to the moon" it is a combination of animation, theatre play and special optical tricks.

George produced 4000 films in all and discovered new techniques as he goes along. Many film makers these days are inspired of his work and working processes, people these days are improving and working on more realistic special effects.

A popular iconic movie King Kong is one of the most loved character that has brought to life by special effects. It is a combination of stop motion animation and real life acting. Special effects has been used because there is no such thing as a giant gorilla and there are impossible scenes to shoot which are very dangerous to accomplish, even scenes have to be recreated by mostly creating a set and combining it using matte painting usually done in glass. this is done depending on how realistic the scenes they wanted it to be. During 1933 people believed King Kong was real because people have never seen this kind of film before, it is quite new at the time.

looking at this image the footage of the girl is layered on top of the footage of the stop frame animation of king kong and parts of the background has been matte painted on. They have also used projection on the background for the live action.

In the first Star wars movie, they have been inspired from King Kongs Stopmotion effect to animate the robots AT-AT, these where all animated frame by frame to bring models to life.

Artificial visual or mechanical effects introduced into a movie or television show. The earliest special effects were created through special camera lenses or through tricks such as projecting a moving background behind the actors. Greater flexibility came with the development of the optical printer, which made it possible to combine separate pieces of film and replace part of an image, thus allowing for effects such as characters flying through the air. Special effects have also been created mechanically on the set through the use of devices such as wires, explosives, and puppets and by building miniature models to simulate epic scenes such as battles. The growing use of computer animation and computer-generated imagery has produced increasingly elaborate and realistic visual effects. Though each movie studio formerly had its own special-effects department, effects are now created by private companies such as George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, formed to provide the revolutionary effects seen in Star Wars (1977) and later movies.

But as time progress, animators and film makers started to used more CGI computer generated imagery to create a much more fluid animation and it has a much more easier way to manipulate, Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or simply impossible to capture on film. Visual effects using computer generated imagery has recently become accessible to the Independent filmmaker with the introduction of affordable animation and compositing software.

Visual effects are often integral to a movie's story and appeal. Although most visual effects work is completed during post-production, it usually must be carefully planned and choreographed in pre-production and production. Visual effects are designed and edited in Post-Production, with the use of graphic design, modeling, animation and similar software, while special effects are made on set, such as explosions, car chases and so on. A visual effects supervisor is usually involved with the production from an early stage to work closely with production and the film's director to achieve the desired effects.

Visual and Special Effects Techniques

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Bullet time
Computer-generated imagery (often using Shaders)
Digital compositing
Dolly zoom
In-camera effects
Match moving
Matte (filmmaking) and Matte painting
Miniature effects
Morphing
Motion control photography
Optical effects
Optical printing
Practical effects
Prosthetic makeup effects
Rotoscoping
Stop motion
Go motion
Schüfftan process
Travelling matte
Virtual cinematography
Wire removal

SS2: Only Time Can Tell Final

2013-05-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

Final Improved Version

This is my final Improved Version. I have completely changed the colour scheme, I took off the the green colours because it is a very striking colour that kills off all the other colours and makes it look more unpleasant. I have highlighted the background with more pinks blues and whites. this gives more of a romantic feel to the audience. I have taken off the unnessessary fallen leaves, ugly loooking tree and out of place fence with gates. I have dont this because it doesnt look very romantic to me and the audience according to the feedback I got in class. So I have completely redesigned the background and imagine a modern looking city with some unusual looking trees that are shaped as hearts if seen when sat down on the bench. This will enhance the cuteness to the story and would most likely attract more young women that are in love. In this improved version, as I was compiling the 2D flash animation to the backgrounds in After Effects, I played around with the shadows on the character layers. as I was experimenting, this made my work so much more appealing, it looked more like a paper cut out which looks like couple cut out doodles, similar to South Park art style, though mine has a drawing effect on it which makes it look like a doodle. I have kept this style because most young couples doodle when in love, so this is the effect i was trying to achieve.

Examples:

I have also changed the colour of the balloon in the beginning because most people confuse that the boy magically caught the balloon and gave it to the girl. I have matched the part where the buildings grow together with the girl.

Submitted version for the Clock Makers

This is the first version of my animation which I have submitted for the clockmakers competition. If you compare this to my new and improved version, you can notice big changes, like the background, colour and layout of the bench. I have taken off the unnecessary trees, and character tracking. I have kept it mostly fixed in the middle which is inspired from simon's cat. This is because I wanted to focus on the main character the girl "Lisa" this is also similar to stage acting where there are no cuts. But there are scenes that I had to have cuts to adjust for the background and close up scenes to show more emotion of the character. Having close up scenes minimises my work too from avoiding full body animation which makes my life so much easier. This saved me alot of time. I still kept the minimal colour and soft light washes to give the illusion of water colour effect which would appeal to the audience.

As for the music, I am so Thankful to Joelle Symons, she did a really great job for me, she timed every notes to every frames for me. it was awesome that she made the tune very catchy and goes well with the animation, we can feel every emotion the character is feeling.

For more improvements, I would love to correct and take away the scene where Lisa goes off to take a cup of coffee because it is not relevant, there is no need for her to go off screen. Though if I take if off, it might not match with the music well and it would sound off.

Here are some concept art that will help support my work, I have made one by experimenting on none digital media and changing its look completely. I have done this because I want to see this in a completely different perspective, different style if it were more aimed at a more mature mature audience.

I have also Asked a few 1st years and 2nd Years to do some work for me to see how they would look if this was their own animation, almost like a fan art

My Concept Art:

Lisa

Sofia 1st year Concept

Cat 2nd Year Concept:

Tamara 2nd Year Concept

SS2: Only Time Can Tell: Plan & Development

2013-03-10T17:50:00.003-07:00

For my Specialist Study 2, I have decided that I will be creating a very professional looking animation that would be entered for competitions and film events, this is to get my name out there and promote myself.

I will be applying some skills I have learnt during SS1, I will be showing some form of mixed media by mainly showing 2D animation, it will be combined with some element of 3D and hopefully get the animation done on time.

There is a competition online by the "Clockmakers" where we have to show "Picturing Time" by painting, poster, photography or animation. I have decided to join this competition and will be used in my degree show. I noticed that the deadline is quite soon, so I have to work faster and complete the animation before the deadline 1st of March. After completing this animation by March I will alot of time to work on improvements, or adding more stuff to it. I will also be working on my 2nd animation, it may be completely different story and style from my first animation, but I would still love to incorporate 2D and 3D to it.

I have a very short deadline to work on for my competition. I have started working on my story and how I would show my style of animation. I had music helped inspire me to tell a story and I have came up with a short simple, a bit cheesy animation but it would attract the audience with its romance. I have very little time to work on improvements and making an animatic and feedback from people, so I have started making a quick art style.

*This character animation will be done by flash. Compositing the back ground in After Effects

The story of my animation is basically a simple cliché about a young girl named Lisa met Leon on a park bench. Leon gave his balloon to Lisa after she lost hers from falling on the floor. This will be showing in black and white except the balloon because it is a key element later on the story. They became friends and somehow had feelings for one another. (these sometimes happens to young children) as time passes, mother of Leon had to take him home far away in a different city. So this is impossible for Lisa and Leon to see each other, they have to be in their separate ways. I will be showing a passage of time, showing time lapse of Lisa growing sat on the bench and the surroundings changes and develops, there will be modern buildings trees, lights, showing a romantic scenery. As the Time lapse is showing, I will also show like a water colour bleed on the screen to show present, soft colours must be used to work well with the story and appeal to the audience.

As Lisa grows up, a guy sat next to her and somehow remembers the lady because of her distinctive hair and facial features, I will be showing a little interaction between the two becoming friends. As the guy knew for sure, he runs off unexpectedly and Lisa was sad being alone. Few moments later the guy returned and surprised Lisa with a balloon and she finally recognised him. The End

This is the art style I have went with, I wanted to show sketch marks in my animation to make it look like an in love couple that was doodling themselves. the other purpose is because it will be easy for me to illustrate frame by frame faster , not worried how precise I should be. I want to show time by the changing of colour in the animation, showing the past as black and white and colour for present. When adding colour, my aim is to have it appear almost like water colour washes.

These are my final look that I am trying to achieve, not too much happening in the background but enough to please the eyes and focus more in the character animation.

I have done more Character Development in my Sketchbook
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My inspiration mainly came from these animation, mostly from Paperman. I am a big fan of paperman because of its cheeziness and over exaggerated story especially bringing things to life. I have noticed that most animation these days dont have objects having life, this is why I think Disney has its own unique style that inspire me. Although I didnt have any objects coming to life, I went with a simple human character animation, hopefully this will appeal the audience by its acting and cutesy character animation. Having other objects animated as a character would over complicate the story and wont have any purpose to it.

The colour scheme is very important for me because it shows the timeline of my animation story. Black and white when they were young (past) colour when older (present)
Simple watercolour washes will be shown and will appear like its in heaven in some way like in the Kung Fu water colour animation.

Paper Man

Kung Fu Water Colour Animation

Trolley Boy

I have also looked at Simon's Cat and Gertie the Dinosaur because it has almost the same art style I am going for which is black and white and a little be sketchy. I like the part where there are no transitions and camera is just in one place. This is more of a study of the character rather than telling a story. Its like observing animals in a zoo and studying it.

Simons Cat

Gertie The Dinosaur

While I was Working in this Animation, I have contacted a music student Joelle Symons, I have met her through a friend saying that she is best at what she does and I am quite impressed by the reviews. I gave her my storyboard and line test animation and told her to compose a song for my animation.

Down Below here, I have looked at more inspirations for the story and artwork and some views that might help me for my animation

I love this image because it shows a couple on a bench which relates to my animation story, I love the colour scheme and mark making, it looks very water coloury and blends well with one another, no other colours conflict with one another.

These images below are very beautiful, I have chosen these because it shows a sense of peacefulness and quiet, they colours are very light and minimalistic and dramatic.

These 2 photos I have taken at the back of the Millenium point in their garden park. I think it is a great place that I could base my animation on.

these are some designs I have used for my final animation, I didnt have time to model buildings in 3D so I have quickly made it in photoshop, I think it works quite well with the animation although it needs a bit more tweeking with the colour and layout of the assets to make it more romantic. To be honest, I have rushed making this because I had 1 more week to complete the animation and refining lines and colours in flash is taking too much of my time. I will be improving this after the competition.

These scenes will be shown when the main characters grew up and colour starts to show.

This is the Final animation to be submitted for the competition. It was a tough 2 months for me because I didnt expect that doing this frame by frame would be taking most of my time. I am glad it is over and I will be asking feedback from people and improvements will be made. I am very thankful for Joelle Symons with the beautiful music, it really captured the animation and works really well.

I have started to make improvements for some of the scenes already and making it more romantic and appealing to the audience.

3D backgrounds that animate the 2D environment (Remakes)

2013-01-13T19:37:00.001-08:00

2D animation has been able to expand its abilities from the help of 3D techniques. Now a days there are remakes of old classic movies. They make the most of the new technology and inspiration from them. These technologies are now available which was not available from the past, like ‘Fantasia 2000’ and the remake of ‘Lion King’ and ‘The Beauty and the Beast’ the magic of technology has been recognised by the animation technology. The new techniques and the unending progression of high end softwares can now improve old classical movies.

The majority of a lot of remakes of the currently produced animation, 3D was not only used for certain characters or vehicles and objects, but this has been used increasingly for environment and backgrounds, this makes it look real and appealing but at the same time keeping still appear 2D. This also makes up a spectacular segment of an animated feature film. Filmmakers have used CGI can help to create space and depth and as well as having a realistic camera angles which shows a very different advanced dimension of shot which is impossible to be done just by using 2D packages, this still have the capability of combining into the 2D dimension structure. A virtual plane is created by 3D space; this allows you to create the depth that is needed when planning to animate a believable environment effectively. Some people criticise the development and usage of 3D on its own or with 2D animation may cause in disrespect to the art tradition. ‘Peter Pan now seems to be the front runner for the CG treatment, get ready because this is another blow to traditional animation.’ although it is very clear that the use of CG has been lending skill to produce a better and more superior, high finished 2D work than rather harming the traditional animation. In the realm of 2D, the third dimension can be utilised by pulling the 3D space. This will really help aid the animators to show perspective not possible with the traditional methods.

The technology will keep on progressing which seems very unfair to assume that it will be completely to benefit of its predecessor. Instead this seems to appear more to be lending new expertise to the previous traditional techniques, this can then be applied to support and complement each other, not ruin. ‘there will always be a place for a loving hand drawn, unique and experimental types of animated films’ so new methods and techniques can help preserve this.

The uses of 3D computer software have seen some very outstanding results for the animated environments and backdrops through the use of cameras and perspective. The animation industry has decided to embrace the advanced tools yet instead of abandoning the older artistic techniques, but instead they are much more used to help and aid each other. These only interest the audiences on producing the best atmosphere. The audience has to be noticed that animation is not only created as an art form, but it also plays a very important role in the mesh of entertainment. This is why the audience need to appreciate to be successful. ‘I remember in Annecy ’99 how the audience was merciless,’ nevertheless uncaring the audience may be. Without the interest of the viewer, all the power can be lost, although the animation itself is powerful. Backgrounds and environment are used in almost all of the aspects of animation whether internal or external.

The Making and 3D elements of Iron Giant

2013-01-13T19:36:00.003-08:00

From the Warner Bros Animation, the Iron Giant directed by Brad Bird is an animated science fiction fantasy action film. It was created by using traditional animation and computer animation. This was based on the 1968 novel ‘The Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes. The production of movie began from Brad Hughes who was impressed by the mythology of the story of the book, and with the help of Warner Bros creative control which introduced new characters that was not even on the original book. The Idea has been pitched ‘What if a gun had a soul?’ by Dean and Kent. Brad Bird has produced the Iron Giant on a Cinema Scope widescreen format which was unusual and disagreed by the other advisors, but Bird kept on and felt appropriate to use the format because most films during the 1950s were produced in widescreen formats. Eventually Bird was allowed to continue to produce the work in wide 2.39:1 Cinema Scope aspect ratio.

During the production, the initial idea of the giant oh how it looks like were all designed and created by hand even though it is a creation of a full 3D dimensional computer generation model, even the storyboarding the presence of the giant should dismiss. It takes a lot of talent and hard work because the illustrations will become the initial blueprint reference for the 3D animation artist to with. Animators found it really hard to animate the giant, a metal solid object in a smooth fluid manner, so they have decided to use computer generated imagery. Joe Johnston who had previously worked on the initial designs for the Star Wars Trilogy was the choice for the job. Once the illustrations and design was completed, the giant is now ready to be made. The 3D software chosen for the task to model the giant was called Maya. It was used to sculpt the structure, which then could later be rendered and painted with the 2D environment. They have used the same traditional techniques inherited for the other characters. They have blended a combination of Maya and Amino software packages which has the same colour palettes that are being used on both 3D and 2D elements to produce the ‘uniform, perfectly blended feel.’

When modelling a 3D object in Maya (or any other 3D packages, such as 3D Studio Max, Softimage, Cinema 4D, Light Wave and Houdini these are the well-known main softwares) the object can be viewed as a shaded wire frame. Using wireframe on shaded or x-ray helps the 3D animators very well to gauge and measure where the object is laid out. The wire frame displays all of the lines or edges, which are used to edit and model the object. These lines are also very useful for the 2D animators. Even though the model remains in the 3D basis, this adopts the features and appearance of the 3D model, though the model is rendered as a wire frame, lines can be used as a colouring base layout for the 2D world. The template would appear the same to the other unfilled outlines when it is loaded to 2D software. This is done to make the map painting process easier and uniform. This is still very important for the model giant to launch the same form of movement as the other characters showed in the movie, and to fulfil the same sequence of motion. The same techniques and structure layout has been simulated to animated the cartoon by the technical team. Traditional 2D characters are animated by pose to pose, by creating a different new pose on every other frame rather than on each frame which doesn’t really work well on 3D animation which is unusual, this has been also been adopter and used for the giant. Sometimes when the animation process is completed, the technique will sometimes result on having to take out alternate frames out from the scene, this process is very time consuming but it is so much fast and easier than hand drawing all the lines and angles of the complexly designed giant. It is very crucial during the making of any movie when adjusting and sorting out the movement of the 2D and 3D elements, as this could reveal most of the techniques used. Comparing 2D and 3D, a 2D surroundings makes movement by dealing with flat areas and alternatively ‘3D systems operate by manipulating volumes through genuine three dimensional movements.’

The style and movement and techniques were used in the ‘Rugrats’ by Klasky Csupo. They have studied and applied its unique characteristics throughout the years. They have used a similar 3D model of the vehicle to the ‘Iron Giant.’ The chosen software for the job was Maya, this is used for most of the complicated parts of the movie which makes work much more easier. As for the vehicle, all the 3D were also linear render which makes look like a blank colouring in book for the 2D animator to paint on top. ‘we don’t fully render colour… we don’t set lighting or shading on the actual CGI elements.’ The 2D software package that has been used for the cartoon was made by USAnimation. It is very effective to use the program because of its power and ease and also due to the fact that it can transit to 3D quite easily. The philosophy of the ‘Rugrats’ shows importance on the aesthetic awareness of both the 2D and 3D elements.

The Making and 3D elements of Lion King

2013-01-13T19:35:00.000-08:00

The Lion King by Disney is entirely a 2D animation feature film, it is very clear it has been animated hand drawn traditionally. Before the movie was produced, artists and animators had to travel around Africa where they found a world teeming with life sound and colour and the landscape seem immense. Africa has ‘one of kind animals to its breath taking scenery is larger than life.’ Disney animators had all Africa to inspire them, they have shown an explosion of colours and character unlike anything you have ever seen. You will have seen, feel and hear Africa in every frame and detail in the Lion King. Animators were dealing with the beautiful visual tapestry of Africa. Directors tried to achieve having a visually unique enchanting wonderful place that no one has ever been. They have constantly captured the vastness of Africa. They have added subliminal elements like sounds for instance, simply the effect of having a character standing on open grassland and having the wind blow its mane. You won’t be able to see the wind obviously, but you will feel it because of the mane reacting to the wind and you see the grasses on the savannah being blown quite gently. Natural sensations like these elements are really hard to portray, animators had worked really hard on capturing it. Andy Gasco the lead production designer has studied a lot of painting styles that lead the animators to an enhanced Naturalism. As the art style and character designs got further in production, the animators matched the artistic elements into a unified design. Africa has inspired from the colour of the sky to a galloping wildebeest. Music has also complimented the animation’s visual art and the design of the film, it can be called colourful, mystical, majestic, dramatic, ‘or just Africa’

Animator Ruben Keno made detailed key studies of the way many various animals moved. His work became the standard reference for all the animators of the movie because he has truly captured every movement and behaviours, even having tiny little details like secondary movements are captured to show appeal and realism to the audience. In the animation his study of drawings of the wildebeest has to become a heard of hundreds. Animators found it really hard to animate every movements precisely all by hand so they had help from ‘Disney’s innovative CGI computer generated imagery’ this combines hand drawn animation with computer technology. The technician Scott Johnston was put in charge of the software. At first they had an animation of a single galloping wildebeest all done by hand frame by frame, and then made a 3D digital duplicate with the same motion. You can see the sense of motion rotating in 3D dimensions by placing a camera anywhere you want. Animators needed hundreds of wildebeest because one isn’t enough to create a group of stampeding wildebeest. They have come up with an idea simulation by duplicating the beasts and controlling the behaviour and then randomising its layout. They have made is ‘sort of follow the leader’ which now a days we call it ‘parent and child’ where you control one beast and the rest follow the path it goes. To match the galloping wildebeest with the background, they have built a map grid and placed this simulation where the bugs are replaced by the full running galloping wildebeests. After all these processes have been done, animators have then cell shaded them to look like hand drawn animation. ‘This process took more than two years to create a two and a half minute of stampede sequence.’ They have used other usage of computer animation where it was done by using CAPS, which helped simulate the camera movements such as tracking shots and was employed on the colouring, lighting and particle effects. ‘The computer might be able to keep track of hundreds of stampeding animals, but only a performer with a pencil can combine movement and emotion to bring a believable character to life.’ It has been a big challenge for all the animators, artists and technicians to getting emotional, getting things across and mechanics, having all the work go together smoothly.

The consistency of style and motion is also very important which was used for Charles Grosvenor’s ‘Once Upon a Forest’ they have adopted and used it unique characteristics. ‘Once Upon a Forest movie’ has used similar 3D techniques to the machinery and tractors which were taken from the Iron Giant. They have used a really old software to help aid with the animation of complicated parts. This is the same technique was used in the ‘Lion King’ ll the 3D was created as linear renders, making it up which is similar to a blank colouring in book for the 2D animator.

The development of Animation -John Lasseter

2013-01-13T19:33:00.002-08:00

John Lasseter is a Disney animator who came from Cal Arts, he helped animate the old classic Fox and the Hound. He found that animation at that time is lacking something, he felt Disney’s animation style is reaching a dead end especially with 101 Dalmatians, all styles, characters and moments were wonderful but they were just the same old thing and nothing was progressing in terms of technology and techniques for the animation.

During the time Lasseter was working on the Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Disney was also creating another animation called ‘Tron.’ John was deeply inspired am thrilled from watching some of the early tests, not because of the quality of work or story but the feel of the 3D dimension feel it has generated. He was so happy and filled with ideas, he found tremendous possibilities with the use of computer generated imagery which he knew it was the future. Lasseter came up with the idea of merging both 3D world and 2D characters where it can move around freely. He was the first person in the world make this happen with the help of Disney animators Glen Keane and Tom Wilhite. He created a 30 second test film called ‘Where the Wild things are’ where it was a combination of a hand drawn character and with a computer generated background. The camera moved like a steady cam shot for the first time in animation, this followed the character in and all around the objects, it clearly shows lots of possibilities with the 3D world even though the matching of colour and textures was not quite there yet, which appears very hard solid and more approaching realism. Lasseter was quite impressed by the work and willing to develop it further and can see the future of animation evolving.

The next dream was to create a feature film using the style and techniques they have developed, they wanted to utilise the techniques for the story ‘Brave Little Toaster’ by Thomas Disch. John Lasseter had contacted other well-known and experienced animators and technicians from the Computer Graphics Industry, others worked from Lucas Films. To make John Lasseter’s dream come true, things didn’t quite go like the way he hoped it to be, things went wrong when he unknowingly has upset a few superiors in effort to stride their dream project. The Idea had been turned down when Lasseter presented his work, then in a few minutes time he got the information that he was fired from the company.

John Lasseter later then joined Lucas Film with Ed Catmul and Alvy Ray Smith and created the very first completed 3D animation short called ‘The Adventures of Andre and Wally Bee.’ This was then later followed by other shorts like ‘Luxo Junior’, ‘Red’s Dream’, ‘Tin Toy’ and ‘Knick Knack.’ After developing more of his skills, he then later moved on creating his dream of making the famous first fully animated movie ‘Toy Story.’ As we all know Pixar was then swallowed by Disney for a few years back for a whopping amount now ‘the man once who got fired from Disney decorates the role of the key decision maker.’ In my opinion, this is the best beautiful gift John can receive.

SCULPTING and FINAL

2012-12-06T22:20:00.001-08:00

I have attended a sculpting class for 2 days, Darren Nevin and Durran Pearse were the maker of Wolfman mask from the movie Wolfman, they have won oscars for best make up and character scuplting. I knew Darren and Durran from my Aikido club, we train together every week except when busy with work.

I dont really know much about sculpting, but I want to create a merchandise toy for my game, kinda like the little figurines that are included in a limited edition game boxes. I am planning to model one of those to tie in my project. this shows that I have also explored other media, not just sitting down on the computer.

I dont know much about what type of latex they are using but they are for masks. basically, it started of from making a mould of their head then a separate mould for the mask to fit in. latex liquid is then poured slowly in the mould case then pressed on with the head mould and left to dry. after dried, latex mask is ready to paint and ready to wear. the last 3 mask in these images are by darren thats why it looks so good :D

I have received alot of tips from Darren and Durran about sculpting. they gave me tips on how to do details of skin, where I need to use a cling film ontop of the clay and pick a really thin spatula and scratch lightly so no rought edges comes out. make a lot of dots for the pores to make it realistic. to add hair on the sculpt, it takes time to make, you pick a group of 4 hairs and poke it in to the pores. it is a very long process but, if i want a really outstanding work, great patience is needed. i will try apply it to a big scuplt if I got the time. it would be awesome to make a mask for my project, but I focused more on my model. I will make one when I got the time.

I have started making my Demonio Figure, I didnt have enough super sculpey, so I have used milliput as the base on my armature to hold my character in place. this will later then be on a wooden block stand. modelling a small figure was quite a challenge and took me a while to complete but i was enjoying it. sculpting tools really helped me alot to smooth edges and go through small gaps.

SCULPTS FINAL

This is a bigger sculpt I have made first before the small figurine. I have modelled it just using my hands and a pen cover. I didnt have any sculping tools with me at first but it all worked out well. I could have used clay that hardens when left to dry, but I didnt have any, so I have used oiled based clay given to me by Darren.

I could have added textures but I didnt because, I wanted to keep it simple.

My Final Small Figurine.

the painting took a very long time to complete, I had to do 5 coatings. it was hard because, i havent painted a sculpt before, but I got used to it.

Character Animation

2012-12-06T21:38:00.001-08:00

This is my final character animation reel.

Basically they are character animations for my game that will be later developed on a mobile game app. the idea is at these short animation clips will play once an attack is landed, basically just like the yu gi oh game. these can be used in my future game trailer to promote my game just like in my research on how they promote a toy, a little animation is layered on top and plays.

In this reel, i have also included a live project for TL Multimedia, where I was asked to animate a short sting, and i have tied it in with this project. So i have included a minion of the water element but made it more character friendly, cute, not even considered as a demon, more like a pet. but in the future of my game, this character should be more evil looking, this shows development of my character design

Line test

1st draft in toon boom.

Game Review

2012-12-06T21:18:00.004-08:00

RIZ AND DANNY ENJOYING MY GAME

I had my friends test out my board game and they are quite entertained by it. at first I told them the rules how to play and how to play it. I had to explain it as they go along aswell. at first, they couldnt get the controls of flicking the pen right, it goes every where, but they longer they play, the better they become. an issue about my board game is that, the pen digs in the paper and made it hard to flick. a way of solving this problem is having my board game laminated and use dry wipe pen instead, so it is easier to manuver around the board and easily rub off the marks so it can be playable again on the same board. another issue is pen mark going over other marks creating a dent which make the next shot tend to track the last shot. and using erasable pen still bleeds through the paper, ball point pen works best.

This is the result of a 2 hour gameplay with my friends :D

Here's a bit of review they gave back to me :

Riz: "'Twas a fun play! better to use felt pens on a dry wipe surface :) "

Danny: "Initially the rules complex. they were easy to grasp once you got playing. Quite entertaining.

Lower the amount of times you have to hit each enemy."

Final Board Game & Map Design

2012-12-06T17:27:00.002-08:00

FINAL BOARD GAME

This is my final board game. as you can see my character design and map design are all inspired from my research. In my board game, I have put all the character information needed into the same board of the game map instead of having cards to shuffle and check through the info. I have provided boxes which includes their life points so it is easy to calculate and change number in it, no need to ruin the beautiful illustrations I made, althought the gameplay itself will be messy, at least the rest looks more professional to present. I have made symbols for the weapon and health packs. they all have different purposes like some weapons damages a certain element more than the other. by default, you have the fire element which damages wind, but I dont have a wind villain, so this inflicts 10 dp to the enemy.

I will explain the movements. you can flick as many moves as you want to travel for the main player, but the enemy just stays put. once the enemy player thinks you are in range, he must say he is going to attack and he can flick and attack your player. I you think you are also in range, you have to let the other player know that you are attacking aswell so it is a balanced match. You can also attack when you think you are in range. You can only attack the enemy's weak points, the red and orange dot. a good tip is to attack the orange dot untill you dealt 50 dp or more, you can attack the red dot to deal extra 10 dp to the enemy plus your weapons damage point. I have made this so it will be a challenge for the player to play the game, no point if it is too easy. If you travelling and entered the circle range of the enemy, you and the enemy can deal plus 5 damage points with your weapons dp. Try to conserve your life points, only take the health packages when necessary. There are 3 different health packages, each health packs gives you health but also gives you different perks. The main player has 3 Life points just incase the player is too reckless. I have provided boxes underneath the characters so there is space to compute the damage dealt to the characters and player.

Map with Characters

These are other map designs I have made. some designs I am quite pleased about because it has the right contrast, proximity and alignment and repetition. I have been inspired from my map research, but mostly followed my chosen artists Foldvari and Ville, which is very simple, graphic, attract teenagers.

I am quite happy about this design i have developed it till it became my final piece

Final Concept Art and Character designs

2012-12-06T16:15:00.001-08:00

Concept Art

These are my final concept arts that would relate to my board game if it were to turn into a Mobile phone app. I have basically done these in Photoshop, I illustrated the characters on their respective element and making them look like they are ready for an Invasion.

SPIT-FIRE

Fire Demon

I have decided to use dark colours and shades of red and brown for this piece to show that the colour of the demon coming out from hell is projecting light to the soil. I have coloured inside the huge crack to make it look like a scorching hell, this helps support the back light for my character which makes it pleasant to see and used darker shadows on the foreground to give off a bit of depth. this gives off the feel of evil from my character.

NICOR

Water Demon

This piece took long to make, I have kept the mark making inspired from Jim Dine's work which shows the depth of my drawing. this helped it look more like a water element which I am proud off. I have used different shades of blue to show the light side of the water which reflects the sky and darker to show the shadow and to show the evil side of my art. At first you wouldnt tell that this is a friendly demon, it looks like its about to kill you and going after you.

I have not only focused on 2D art, I have decided to model 1 of my characters in Mudbox so I have a general idea how my character would look like in 3D. This idea / design can be used for my future Mobile phone app but this would be more on the animation side of the idea.

GOLEM

Earth Demon

FINAL CHARACTER DESIGN FOR THE BOARD GAME

This is my final character designs which are all finalised in photoshop, I have matched my style to David Foldvari's and Jeremy Ville's work I have kept it simple, pleasant to the eyes with pen and marker feel to it. In my opinion this style has made my characters look menacing because of the black colour and especially the mark making which was taken from Jim Dine, this made my characters looks some how unique in its own style.

I have also listed down their Demon stats which shows their life points, attack points and effects on the game. this will be later used in the final design... I have decided not to create a separate card for the monsters because most people will just loose them. So I have thought of an idea having all their info's in the board game itself so it is easy for the audience to look at without having to shuffle things around.

Character Design

2012-12-05T22:54:00.001-08:00

Character Design Principles

a character must benefit the animator/ artist showing that it is very understandable with its form.

Think about the scale/ height of the character you want it to be may it be a giant, dwarf, elf size, etc...

most happy characters are usually drawn with round edges because it is relaxing and flowing to look at whereas showing a triangular shape tends to show more of a menacing evil feel to it. a good example is this image of character design from alladin.

as an animator we have to be able to move the form of our character if it is flexible to move in different angles. Think about the mass of your character, off-coarse the bigger and fatter the character design is, it should be a slow character because the more weight it has, the slower you move, unless you are playing a game with a cheat code with god speed :D The thinner a short you are, the less mass it has and it feels like your character can be blown by the wind

Simplicity is always the better, having a simple design character will make it easier for an animator to animate it with less detail, the more detail it has, the harder it is to control them as they turn around in space like the image below of the Beast from Beauty and the beast, the animators probably took time to draw all those lines and details. I'm not saying detail is not good, I myself love a little bit of detail to make my work stand out a bit more, its just the idea of simplicity is best especially when animating

Aesthetics, a pleasing balance of shapes. some artists have a really good eye for design, Gene Hazelton designed the baby image below and composed its features in a pleasing way because of his good eye of balance. he drew the details with beautiful combination lines of curves and corners.

Chuck Jones Also has a Natural eye for design of pleasing shapes and forms. He understands the construction of his character using strong contrast of forms, proportion and shapes so it is very easy to animate. A good example is this image below from Road Runner, it has a very is distinct and balanced designed characters.

The graphic and simple the character is, generally is considered more as a symbol than a character. In my opinion graphic designy characters are more suitable in advert/ commercials and short cartoons.

Personality is one of the most important principle of character design, when creating a character, you need to know what role is your character going to be like, is he a funny quirky looking guy, you will definitely draw him with a huge funny looking smile on his face which is more of an oval shaped head to body. angry but cartoony looking kind of guy would have some triangular shaped facial features on a time glass figure just like Jafar from Alladin. the personality can be contributed from the voice actor.

MOOD BOARD

I have made myself a moodboard to help me design my character. At this poit, I still dont know what theme my game is going to be so I have pick some useful references from movies, tv series etc...

I have looked at characters that are menacing, cute depending on what personality/ voice I wanna show.

CHARACTER DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

Here are all my character design and development I have designed on my sketchbook. I have decided to focus on designing elemental monsters for my game, I have even experimented on using different medias like painting and colour pencils. These designs are all inspired from my mood board, most of them look like pokemon characters and some Sonic the Hedgehog villains.

Research and inspiration

2012-10-14T11:59:00.001-07:00

MAP DESIGN

I have looked into map design so I can base it to my board game. there are many ways to design a map which depends on the Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity.

Contrast- the aim is not to have a similar design and colour so it wont confuse other people about the layout. Contrast can be used to draw the attention of the person's eyes to a certain area of the map by having different depth of colours. So each design needs to be distinctive; colours which includes tone and saturation, Symbols on what they represent, Lettering, the use of typeface, weight, colour and style.

Repetition- to make a map look complete and professional it is necessary repeating themes, colours, shapes, textures, lettering. This make the map whole. It also joins objects or areas of similar attributes together, also if its separated by a large map distances.

Alignment- creating a map, you have to think about alignment where the eyes can easily track and flow through the map which would be pleasing to the readers. Visual connections between map elements are reinforced by aligning edges.

Proximity- related items should be placed together to create grouped elements. this logical groupings will hell organise map objects and will also show the structure of the map.

These are some some map samples that I can use to inspire me for my design.

I like to keep my map simple with less detail as possible or it will distract players to play the game. I have to keep in mind to use minimal colour palate or it will confuse them. I prefer the map designs which are more blocky because it is very simple. I will experiment on different styles and see which fit the best. I preferably think that top flat view map is suited for my game more than a slanted view point because it takes up most of the space of the game, unless it is used for a mobile phone app which players want a longer game play or just generally a big map.

To help myself with the layout create a map, I have looked at google maps for inspiration, I have picked this specifically because of its blocky design which suits my game map and it is easy to understand. it has a professional look to it aswell

I have looked into Jeremy Vile's work because I am interested in his character design, his characters are so quirky, and fun looking, they look more like doodles which fits my game because it is based on doodles. The colours are very simple and can target ages 8 and older. Its graphic design is very good because it keeps the eye wondering. This can tie in my map design aswell because it is very clean, no unnecessary details needed. He has used minimal colours to stay with the theme especially looking at the green poster. The green is showing more of the good of the environment, showing nature, trees and animals.

I have also looked at his Tshirt designs because, it could relate to my future work where I have to think about promoting my game by selling tshirts, posters, toys just like angry birds merchandise. My aim will be having a memorable design of my character, map and game just like the Iconic games like Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong, Angry birds etc...

This is an interesting game well known in my country called Carrom board, basically, it is played just like billiards, the aim is to hit the white piece to bounce off other colours to the pot to win, except, it is played by flicking it with your finger. This idea can be used for my board game except, I will need a room sized board to create my board game because of its quest like story, the Aim is to eliminate all the enemies to win. I will experiment on making this when I got the time especially when I am working on other live briefs.

If we didnt have the carrom board, we usually play it on a table with coins. The aim of the game is to knock out the other persons coin off the table. It is a very fun game, I always played it when I was young, we usually call it coin game :D

This is another interesting game which was inspired from carrom. it is also a flicking game but with a foot ball twist, just like in the video, the aim is to flick your piece to the ball scoring it to the goal. I can use the idea of having the main player, flicking his piece to a main ball to attack the enemy piece.

SS1: My Plan and Research

2012-10-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

In this project, I have quite alot of different things to acheive in this project. I will not have enough time to make my game into a game App on phones or tablets but I will be creating a board game.

I will have to look into Game Principles that would help me improve my game idea basics, learning its flaws, cause and effect, art style, sturctures, etc... Concept art, board game design structures will be created.

As soon as I am all set and ready, I will be building the board game and have people test it out and ask feedbacks. improvements will be made near the end of the week of building it.

As soon as the game is complete, I will be filming people playing the final product and make a simulation. I will be adding 2D character animation interacting with the footage and there will be scenes with 3D layout of the board game. If I have extra time I would be making a game trailer.

When creating a game, I should be thinking about:

Pieces- Elements that seem as though they might make sense as markers to be moved around on the board or as score keeping devices.

*The game itself must have the board game itself, pens with different colours (black, red, blue, green) this could be a multi-coloured pen or erasable marker. and a calculator to estimate the scores and life points.

Patterns- Are there combinations of things in the content that seem to go together? Are there combinations of things that when put together become something else or take on some additional meaning?

*There are combinations of using different kind of weapons which can be unlocked by walking over it or defeating the enemy. some of these upgrades the weapons strength and might cause effect to either the player or enemy like boosting health or decreases health every turn.

Paths- Map, are the progressions of events in the content that could be thought of as paths? is there a physical place in the content that one can move around in?

*The map could be anything the designer wants it to be on the board game, but if this was an App, players can design it their own way. Once the player unlocks a weapon, it upgrades the HP and makes the other stages a bit harder to play by having strong enemies and harder maps with traps.

Probabilities- Do some things in the content happen by chance or happen outside the control of some on dealing with that content?

*The hero only gets to move and dodge, but the villain cant, Both can use different kind of attacks depending on what design of weapons they got and upgrades.

Prizes- What valuable is in the content area? what do people strive for or try to acquire?

In the map there are visible areas where you can unlock weapons, all you need is to walk over them, this will give you a better weapon damage and effect to kill enemies. Other way to unlock weapons is to eliminate a stage boss and you unlock its power effect and attack.

Principles- What general statements can you make about how the world of this content works? What IF-THEN statements can you make that relate one content element to another?

*In my game design, I plan to make it a 2 player game, the hero and the villian. but this could also be a 2 heroes vs 1 villain for the board game. If i developed this into an App, I could make it 1 v 1, 1 v computer, 2 v 1 or 2 v computer. this could be an awesome coop game online to play with friends and could be a turned based game like "Draw something"

During my research, I came across this useful principle of a board game structure movements

Content Structure	Game Structure
Movement Through Space or Time	Movement Along a Path
Journeys, Quests Finding something lost Making a discovery Proceduresgetting a degree Processesdigestion, making laws, designing a course, photosynthesis
Obstacles	Blocks on the Path
Physicalmountains, rivers Bureaucratic getting a visa, filling out applications (You can make getting past the obstacle contingent on a specific dice throw or possession of a particular card)
Shortcuts & Setbacks	Jumping Several Squares
Jumping ahead Marrying into money. Hiring someone instead of doing it yourself. Getting an early promotion. Moving backward Stock market crash Getting fired Getting divorced
Decisions, Choices	Branching Paths
Go to college or start to work? Get married or stay single? Launch a new product line, buy a company that already makes the product, or focus on your other products? Go to the peace conference or continue to wage war?
Varying Risk	Risky Paths
Some choices lead to a chain of events that are more risky than others. For example, deciding to invest in stocks versus putting your money in CD's.	If one path is meant to be riskier than another, put more squares on it that require turning over a card that describes an undesirable event. Or more squares that might send the player back to square 1. To compensate for this enhanced risk, make the path shorter, or let it also contain more squares that lead to the opportunity for desirable things to happen.
Elements with Differing Power	Pieces with Differing Power
People with differing political clout Countries with differing military or economic power	Chess: some pieces can move in more directions or over a greater distance. Backgammon: two pieces together cannot be captured, but one piece alone can be hit by an opposing piece.
Goals, Prizes	Valuable Pieces, End Squares
Interim goals and prizes: Money, quality of life improvements, votes, popularity. End goals: Treasures, a corner office, a peaceful prosperous life.	Interim or gradually acquired prizes can be represented as play money or tokens that look like valuable things. End goals translate to the final stop in a race game.
Changing Conditions	Changing Board
Pre- and post-revolution. Suddenly the rules change. Stock market shifts from bull market to bear. Your ally becomes your adversary. The climate shifts and suddenly it's difficult to be a carnivorous, 50 ton lizard.	Build a two-layer board with a number of holes in both layers. To simulate changing conditions, rotate the upper layer so that some former holes are now covered up and new holes are uncovered. Othello: pieces are white on one side and black on the other. When a row of white pieces has a black piece on each end of the row, they are flipped over and become black, which affects other pieces nearby.
Mathematical Relationships	Lookup Tables
If you raise the price of your product from $40 to $50, your sales will decline by 10% to 25%.	Rule book, telling what to do based on a given roll of the dice or other conditions.
Random or Uncontrolled Events	Randomizers
Things that are out of the player's control or which are practically unpredictable such as.... weather daily stock price changes the behavior of other people	Use a spinner as part of the board or as a separate piece. Chance cards that are read when you land on a chance square. Dice (can be 6, 10, 12, or 20 sided) Lottery results from the newspaper or TV. (used in a Mario Seabra simulation played at several sites simultaneously... the lottery numbers were used to set up the initial conditions of the game so that all players were operating under the same conditions.)

Here are some favourite artist research I've made and composited on Photoshop

JIM DINE

I have researched about Jim Dine because he is one of my favourite artists, I love his sketches, it has a grungy feel to it which looks modern an natural. I love his mark making which is very expressive and shows depth and contrast of the objects he is drawing/ Painting. I sometimes sketch the same way he does because it looks very loose and free, very good for rough sketches to get my idea down. Maybe during the animation, I might add some grungy effect on the background of my trailer to add details to it.

DAVID FOLDVARI

I have chosen to research about David Foldvari because I liked the use of type merging with the illustrations which shows movement through out the image. It would be amazing to have the text animated coming out of the illustrations, this would be ideal for title sequence and key words for my game trailer. I also love the use of minimal colours which fits well with my game design. I wanted minimal colours so it is easy to identify the players movement on the game with a completely different colour.

3rd FINAL YEAR Proposal

2012-09-23T16:37:00.003-07:00

What are my Goals/ Plan/ Final Outcome?

During childhood my friend and I didn’t have enough money to afford a gaming console. We took the idea of a traditional pen and paper flicking game and developed it to our own original game. I would say that the game is similar to alien shooter game on PC where you have to kill all aliens to survive. The only difference is that in my version, I only use a pen and paper to play it and design it my way. This idea has been in my head for a very long time and I decided to develop it further and modernise it so it can be playable on touch screen consoles or can just be played like a board game similar to dungeon dragons.

My goal for this project is to produce a short 2D/3D animation game trailer. I will be animating a short story using the skills I’ve learnt during the past 2 years. The final footage will be similar to game trailers. During pre-production, I will be doing lots of concept arts, developing ideas on the go and improving it. I will eventually build my own board game. I will be thinking about user friendly so it’s easy for people to understand the gameplay. This would help me promote my ideas to game companies.

Learning outcome (What do you hope to achieve and learn at the end of the project. You could list 3-4 learning outcomes but be realistic and helps with your intended learning)

· To be able to produce a concept art, character design, tests

· Explore different medias, understand the difference, does it work together?

· Construct the relation to the audience/ Message

· Have supporting range of concepts, ideas, on-going development

Mood boards (A series of images, references, inspirations, videos, sketches). This could even be tests or experiments you have done over summer.

· Character designs, settings, board games

· Look into game commercials * little big planet, gameplay, apps

Reflection and Action plans (Reflect on your strengths, learning needs and how you intend to achieve them? I.e. micro test projects?)

1. Plan the story/ ideas generation (make few ideas, concept art and finalize story board. Think about the relationship of the character to the audience * Ask for Feedback)

2. Design / tests / mock ups (Start character and setting design, experiment which media works well and does it work together? * Ask for Feedback)

3. Improvements (develop design and finalize)

4. Final (compositing, timing, clean up)

Pre-Production for Specialist Study

2012-05-21T13:04:00.002-07:00

In this report, I will be writing about the collaborative work with the third years mainly working on my specialism of 2D animation traditionally and digitally. I will be explaining the method on how I helped them and developed some of their work with supporting images in this report. Later at the end of the report, I will be writing about my conclusion and my employability for my animation course.

I have always been fascinated by all different kinds of animation, 2D, 3D and stopmotion. My dream is to specialize in all areas but for now, I will focus mastering them one at a time. I love the idea of combining all styles into one because it gives off a very unique feel to the animation. I love exploring different Medias and finding better ways to animate.

For now I will be focusing on 2D traditional and digital animation. This animation style inspired me as a child to one day animate like the professionals. I was very fascinated with the animation, creativity of the character designs, exaggeration and story lines. A good example is one of my favourite animes (Japanese Animation) called One Piece by Eiichiro Oda. During the 1997, One Piece was animated traditionally (cell animation) but then developed on through the years and animated digitally to save time and money.

My goal in the future is to bring back traditional animation with some help of 2D digital animation. The traditional animation gives more character and natural feel to the animation. I will be combining this with digital animation to animate most of the background and effects by using After Effects, flash or toon boom or any other new softwares coming out, which I will be learning soon.

At the start of the Pre-Production of specialist study, I have collaborated with quite a few third year students doing different kinds of tasks each which all relates to my specialism 2D animation. Some of my work for them is still on-going and will be complete after the deadline of this project.

My first collaboration was with a third year student Roxy Gomez. We have met quite a few times face to face discussing about her project which is about a Native American story which involves mostly about the animals. It is targeted to a younger audience from ages nine to thirteen. We have discussed about methods on how to complete her animation, she wanted a mixture of traditional and digital animation using many different softwares altogether. But her main style is to show a natural hand drawn characters that relates to the Native American theme. She has asked me to help her design some characters for her final year animation. She was very impressed by my drawing and photoshop skills, she wanted me to design her some Native American characters which will be based from her own research on her blog. After my designs are made, she will decide whether to use the same style I made or not. This will still be added on to her character development and art styles.

This is a crow design I have created for Roxy using Photoshop. I have based my design from her research cave paintings. I have used photoshop charcoal brush tool to create a grungy smudge effect and have used two minimal colours. I made a negative drawing by using the eraser tool to rub off the edges to create a nice clean outline. I made them look very spiritual with less detail and simple shapes, with soft edges almost look like they’ve been smudged. Alternative way is to create a white mask of the bird shape then colouring it afterwards.

These are some art work style I have designed for Roxy which has been taken from her story board. I made this to give her more variety of development work and she can later decide which style to follow. Doing this work for Roxy improves my knowledge and skills in photoshop, it also gave me more idea about Native American art, especially the character designs which are very simple based on basic shapes.

After working with Roxy, I have been contacted by Ashton Lewsey for wanting help as soon as possible to rotor scope her work. I didn’t have enough time to know what her project is about, all I know is that she needs this work done quickly, and her target audience are young adults. The task that has been given to me is a very easy job because I am used in handling photoshop. All I had to do is just delete the sky and the streets and replace textures at the back of every frame. The hard part of this task is to complete all frames in a few hours. The first thirty minutes was hard because I have only just started and not yet used to tracing around the images, but then I began working fast on two frames in every five minutes. I have met the deadline and I am proud of myself for working hard and fast with good quality. I feel I have achieved quite a lot from this task. I got to experience my first time rotor scoping and working on a tight deadline. This has also given me more idea about using mixed media in the future for my 2D animation.

After working with Roxy and Ashton, more third years wanted some more help. Roshni Kakad asked me to make a series of different smoke intro using after effects. At first, I didn’t know how to animate the smoke and make it look realistic. I looked online for video tutorials and found a really good tutorial on Video Copilot.com. This kind of animation style is still too new for me. Using stock video footage in after effects and using it on Trapcode’s particular to create my own smoke effect. In that tutorial, I have also learnt how to use colour corrections which makes the footage bring out the best of its qualities and change the colours and effects. After finishing the first test sample, Roshni wanted more smoke effect on the text as it disintegrates and animate the text flying around. So far I have created three tests and the work is still on-going till the twenty fourth of May. I have enjoyed myself working on after effects because, there are so many interesting things I can do with it. I can make effects, animate, edit videos etc…

Working with the third years was enjoyable, because I love collaborating with other people. Group meeting is always important for easier discussion of the work and more can be done. Although I haven’t met Ashton in person to discuss about her work, we communicated through emails, facebook and calling each other. I have completed all work needed on the right deadline except for Roshni’s because it is still an on-going work. I have followed the learning methodology of kolb’s theory by planning and experimenting different ways to achieve my goal, then trying it out first hand by experiencing it. I have then reflected on my process and learn from my experiences. This resulted in a series of solutions to various issues that have helped me to improve my animation practices.

I love learning different process of animating, using mixed media and digitally. This also gave me an idea for the future final animation in my third year. I will be combining all techniques I have learnt during my three years in university. At the moment, I am concentrating learning more about Affer Effects, Flash and Toon Boom. After mastering these programs, I will then move on and learn more new programs such as Nuke, Smoke, 3DS Max.

After graduating from University, my plan is to get my name out to the industries and gain knowledge and experience from them. I probably won’t get paid straight away because I have less experience from them. After working and learning more from the professionals, I will incorporate all I have learnt and create more of my own animation, build up my show reel and apply to other better companies. A good way to apply for a job is to apply in more than one company. One should hire me, if not I should try every month.

This is my video presentation for my Pre- Production of specialist study

This is the Final Animation Me and Michael Price made for the Caslon Project

3D test

Unedited green screen stopmotion

1st text stopmotion animation

We wanted to combine 2d, 3d and stop motion, we would like to add in a live footage of a person dressed as a victorian person for the intro using the milo. but thats only if we got time.

this is the finalised the story board in photoshop i drew explaining step by step how to animate in 2d, 3d and stopmotion

me and michael have worked together before and we trust each other to do our best. we will be dividing our work half and half to save time

while i finalised my storyboard and animate the 2d intro as a substitute of the live footage, michael went ahead and animated the 3d animation of the gavel
then later on we worked together on making a stopmotion text writing test frame by frame which gives off a more natural feel

after the test, we started shooting our stopmotion on a greenscreen, we will then key it off aftereffects after the animation. it took hours to shoot but finally succeeded very well

we learnt quickly how to key the green screen off from youtube tutorial, it is very easy. then we edited all our animations together combining the 2d, 3d and stopmotion. we are very pleased with the results.

in my conclusion, I have found communicating with the group is very important and easy to get the message across. I have learnt new techniques, rotorscoping, green screen keying and editing live footage on after effects.
time management is very important to balance all project work. I found some difficulties with universitys facilities equipment but over comed it in the end

L5 Infographic FINAL ANIMATION and tests

2012-05-02T18:00:00.004-07:00

FINAL ANIMATION

IKEA INFOGRAPHIC

I have Finally completed my animation. it took me quite a long time to animate. I am happy of my results. I have followed my storyboard and cut down some sound clips and leave the important informations in the video. I have followed all the designs and techniques from my research.

Here are some tests and development of my animation.

Sound file tests
I have 2 versions of sound files with different wordings to it
In the end, I have combined both version into one and cut down unimportant parts

This took most of my time animating because, I wasnt used on making 3d on after effects. and also making the arrow curve was very hard for me because it was my first time. but finally managed to do it.

This is the tutorial I have looked at to make this scene

http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/motion-graphics/map-your-destination-in-ae/

L5 Infographic Planning, Story Board, Assets

2012-05-02T17:18:00.003-07:00

My plan for this project is to work on my clients animation first and then relate it to my IKEA infographics by putting this as a side video. I plan to animate my infographics combining techniques from my research and applying it to my animation. If ever I my work for the client is taking too long, I would stop it and work on infographics because I can submit the animation to him at any time.

This is my own design on how to assemble a TV Shelf for my client. He isnt very sure about what I am going to animate about, but he wanted any kind of furniture. I had designed this very simple and clear so anyone can easily assemble TV Shelf.

These are some designs I looked at so it can help me design my own TV shelf

Character he wanted to have in the animation. A young lady mid 20s Caucasian, brown hair, blue eyes and simple clothing but fashionable to target young audiences

I have started designing 3D models for my animation, everything is looking fine and up to date. all I need are some confirmations about layout and styles from client

After 2 to 3 weeks not hearing anything from my client, I worked on my storyboard for infographics. following important lines from my script. I have to cut most of it because it is too long. I think when I start animating, there will be loads of changes will be done because it might not look right to me.

I havent heard anything from my client for 4 weeks and never reply to my texts. I have decided to stop all my animations for him and focus on animating IKEA infographics instead. Next time I work for a client, I have to make a contract so they wont waste my time anymore.

These are some assets I made for my animation and ready to animate.

Ingvar Kamprad. Owner and founder of IKEA

This is my 3D design of my inforgraphic. I have noticed that it wouldnt fit my animation because every thing is 2D flat. maybe a tilt of a background could work but using this design wont. I have decided to only use a side view of it.

this is the 3D van side view

L5 Infographic animation style Inspiration

2012-05-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

Animation style inspirations

These are some good examples of infographics that I really like. Each has their own way and style of delivering their messages.

This is more of a live presentation more than the actual animated infographics. I have posted this video because it is quite interesting how the person presented old school without a moving image. this kind of presentation is called Pecha Kucha which was invented by japanese engineers to presesnt to their coworkers in a short about of time.

I like this animation because the use of one colour makes the audience focus on what the main topic is about. The animation is very clear to understand because the sound and minimal key words work very well together. I have notice that all visuals are all balanced and layed out in the middle so audiences focuses on the subject.

This is another interesting animation where the animator focuses more on animating characters and story more. this has less text to it. this targets children 5 above because of the childish doodle styles, and a voice over of a little girl.

This next animation has an interesting style to it. The animator uses 3D in text and objects. This makes the animation look very appealing to the audience and make them amazed. I also liked the clever way of animating it.

In my animation, I hope to combine all these styles together

Brian Lobeda Blog

New WEBSITE!!!

SS2 : Markus Lupfer Promo Final

SS2: Last Moments Making and Final

SS2 : Plan & Micro Projects + tests

SS2: Research

SS2: Moving into Visual Effects - Research

SS2: Only Time Can Tell Final

SS2: Only Time Can Tell: Plan & Development

3D backgrounds that animate the 2D environment (Remakes)

The Making and 3D elements of Iron Giant

The Making and 3D elements of Lion King

The development of Animation -John Lasseter

SCULPTING and FINAL

Character Animation

Game Review

Final Board Game & Map Design

Final Concept Art and Character designs

Character Design

Research and inspiration

SS1: My Plan and Research

Content Structure

Game Structure

Movement ThroughSpace or Time

Movement Along a Path

Obstacles

Blocks on the Path

Shortcuts & Setbacks

Jumping Several Squares

Decisions, Choices

Branching Paths

Varying Risk

Risky Paths

Elements with Differing Power

Pieces with Differing Power

Goals, Prizes

Valuable Pieces, End Squares

Changing Conditions

Changing Board

Mathematical Relationships

Lookup Tables

Random or Uncontrolled Events

Randomizers

3rd FINAL YEAR Proposal

Pre-Production for Specialist Study

L5 Infographic FINAL ANIMATION and tests

L5 Infographic Planning, Story Board, Assets

L5 Infographic animation style Inspiration

Movement Through
Space or Time