Process and Production: Study Task 10

Process and Production

Study Task 10: Testing and Editing

After completing the shading and backgrounds, I needed to test how they worked together, this week, before I began editing my animation. Overall, I felt that I could've made the backgrounds a little simpler, to fit with the animation style, however, they seemed to work well together when I did some test scenes.

In order to improve the quality, this week, I'll need to add shadows, so the character feels a part of the scene. I also need to work on Keying in After Effects and possibly changing the background colour of the exported animation, so that Meara's scarf doesn't change to purple.

I will do this by following After Effects tutorials on YouTube and reading the guide provided on Adobe's website. 

Professional Practise 1: Portfolio

Professional Practise 1

Portfolios

Alongside my show-reel, I collaborated with a student web designer over the past few months, to produce a portfolio website. Jaydn Edwards is a student web designer, currently completing their foundation course in Creative Web Design and wanted to collaborate to produce a mock portfolio and web design idea for me.

Throughout a series of meetings, we decided to produce a site, which included animations, concept work and project work, to fully show the work I have done over the year. This also included work outside of University and an overview. The website is editable and therefore I am able to make changes to the images presented, making it easy for me to modify and update in the future. The site is not published as of yet, however there is a PDF of the drafted pages.

I plan on improving this with more recent work and possibly including my Show Reel, unless I choose to further update this.

Professional Practise 1: Study Task 9, Extended

Professional Practise 1

Study Task 9 - CG Practitioners

Due to my developing interest in CG Animation, I decided as an extension to Study Task 9, to further explore more professionals, whose focus is on CG Animation. On Instagram, I follow a variety of CG Artists and the CG hashtag, so I'm able to interact and view new artists every day.

Kurtis Dawe

https://www.artstation.com/kurtisdawe

Kurtis Dawe is an artist I followed recently, because of their work on creature and animal CGI. They modelled and sculpted Dumbo, and his mother, for the 2019 release of Dumbo. They were also given the opportunity to sculpt and model Pumba for The Lion King (2019). I find their work inspiring and the idea that they can create such realistic models is very fascinating to me.

Raul Eduardo

https://www.artstation.com/reso

A CG Artist, 3D Modeller located in Mexico, working as a freelancer on a variety of personal and professional projects. Their work is more stylised, however focuses on a horror and fantasy aspect, which I like, but also more mature work, containing gore and body horror. They produce a lot of redesign ideas and brainstorming current creations.

Process and Production: Study Task 10

Process and Production

Study Task 10: Backgrounds

This week I worked on:

• Continuing the shading of my character animation, whilst working closely on producing backgrounds. 
• Keeping backgrounds consistent, by using references and referring back to other backgrounds I had drawn.

When I was testing the animation, with the backgrounds, one background I had created was too small, so I quickly learnt to make the canvas slightly bigger than I needed, in order to fit everything in frame.

I needed to further extend the background and then blur the edges, to create focus on the chest in the space. 

I followed some digital painting books to help me choose brushes and what colours to use to create depth and sense of space. After reading the Digital Painting Techniques: Volume 1 by 3Dtotal, the first section of the book explains creating and downloading new brushes. I used this method to create a textured brush, which worked for the stone and leaves.

Process and Production: Study Task 10

Process and Production

Study Task 10: Colouring and Shading

As a test for the colouring process in TVPaint and how the layer mask works, I did a small animation test, using Grookey- a Pokemon character, as the character was simple to quickly animate and then colour.

I did this as a test outside of University work, however it applied to my colouring process as I was able to understand how the textures worked and also the mask tool, which I was going to use to help the shading.

I then added shading to my animation, using the lasso tool and filling in on a different layer. Using the TVPaint 11 Documentation website, they have a variety of tutorials and options for colouring, which helped me decide the shading process. This is located here: https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index.php?id=lesson-introduction.

This week I:

• Shaded the more complicated scenes of the animation, which contained the most frames and movement.
• I will be improving the shading, by changing the layer properties to fit the location and time of day. I will also be continuing adding shadows to the characters in the rest of the scenes, before I begin the final process of drawing backgrounds and editing.

Process and Production: Improvements to Study Task 5

Process and Production

Study Task 5 Improvements

To further improve my Maya modelling and rendering skills, I decided to redo my render of a Mug to try and work on the modelling and smoothing.

In order to do this, I:

• Watched a variety of YouTube tutorials and accessed the Autodesk Website, where they explain about how different lighting tools work. Accessable here: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya-lt/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2017/ENU/MayaLT/files/GUID-A0B3AA95-327B-4D65-B26D-AA42D0008824-htm.html
• I looked at the previous mug I had created and decided it could be made smoother, the textures could have been further improved and more accurate to the object.
• Use a variety of references and follow guide I made for Maya to further my understanding of the software.

I added a base for the Mug to sit onto, to feel like it was within a realistic space. I additionally updated the A3 sheet, containing a few reference images and some rendered shots.

Older Model:

Redo, with Improvements:

Professional Practise 1: Further Storyboard Practise

Professional Practise 1

Storyboard Session

David Bunting, a professional storyboard artist who has worked on productions such as Dennis and Gnasher and Bob the Builder, introduced us to Toon Boom: Storyboard Pro. As it was the first time using the software, I learnt a variety of tools and also about how the software has helped in terms of the industry. He explained how the industry has changed a lot because of the introduction and advancement in technology and that the fact we are able to learn and utilise the software through our practise, makes us more organised and skilful in practise. 

During the session, I created a quick Monkey character, to understand the drawing tools of the software and then we were shown the tools and how to storyboard, using the software. I created a notes sheet and then produced a short storyboard using the character. 

I was given positive feedback in the variety of shots I used, however I could further practise my camera angles, in storyboarding and how they can affect the audiences opinions and relationship with the character or situation in view.

Process and Production: Learning Maya

Process and Production

Learning Maya

I still need to further improve my work in Maya, by using the software more as part of my final animation. At the moment, I'm currently using it for backgrounds and I have also used my Maya walk cycle as a reference for poses when creating a walk cycle going away from the camera and towards. I would like to use the software other than in my Study Task 10.

I have made a document of notes, based on everything I have learnt thus far in Maya, however, using my LinkedIn account, I am now able to access further tutorials which can help me learn modelling and rigging. Here are my notes thus far:

Professional Practise 1: Presentation Evaluation

Professional Practise 1

Presentation Evaluation

In evaluation of my reflection of my first year, I received feedback stating it was evaluative and engaging, not only in my evaluation of University work, but my lifestyle outside of Uni. I included a variety of image examples and spoke confidently and clearly to the group. I think if I had to do this again, I would add less information to each slide and just include images. 

I would also be further analytical in my work, however I was able to:

• Praise my achievements in the work I have done thus far
• Explain to the group the things I need to work on and how I will approach this over the summer
• I need to be more reflective of the skills I want to take forward, as I am still undecided.

I was given further feedback to continue working on my backgrounds, but also work on my 2D and 3D Animation skills, to further improve them.

Process and Production: Study Task 10

Process and Production 1

Study Task 10 Process: Colouring

In order to figure out the colouring process of TV Paint, I made a new layer to figure out how the fill tool worked. Once I had realised you can fill in the layer below using the line-work from the layer above, I found the colouring process to be quite quick and easy. I had started the process of colouring most scenes and I feel that I could get them done in the next few weeks.

One thing I need to work on is making sure the entire area in coloured properly, because I found that when I added a background, there were some white spots in the colouring that I didn't notice when I had the blank backgrounds. In terms of fixing this, I can easily add in the background and go back through the animation to find areas which are missing colour.

Once the colouring has been done, I will then move onto shading my animation, and then complete the backgrounds over the three week break.