In the final previs I added provisional sounds and music that will be mastered in the last steps.
I have also tried to add an actual character to the scene to see how it will look together:
The other problem that I am excited to look into is the process of making gathering of fireflies. In the previs it looks like this:
But for the final animation I will try to make it look like this:
This week I have worked on other shots to make them look better. I cleared some movement of the character and improved timing of the shots.
For the shot 2 I decided to give more space for the lip movement: when a firefly sits on the face of the character, it irritates the lip and eventually it will make the character wake up and sit down.
Here is the timing before:
And after:
The same change happened to the Scene 3 – I added more time for the character to look around and at themselves.
In the Scene 4 I added more time in the end of the scene.
In the Scene 8 I added the camera focus change. However, it gives a strange stroke to the background while playblasting. It doesn’t occur in the actual render.
When rendered:
I have also added another final scene – a detail on the character.
This week I have also made new changes to a few shots.
In the 5th shot I’ve added movement to the bugs as we discussed last week.
First of all, I added a few elements in the 6th scene to make the movement more interesting and natural. I’ve also added a stone in the left bottom for the better composition.
I have also changed rocks in the Scene 7 which gives a bit more interesting composition and shows movement of both the character and bugs as well as it enables to play with the camera focus – at first only bugs will be in focus and then the character.
For the Scene 8 I have added a movement of standing up in order to link it with the scene before. I have added a slight movement of the character.
The last change I did this week was to put the camera closer to the character and the object.
I have finished modelling the whole arm and added a lot of details such as decorative bolts as well as texture for the main material.
This week I have been improving particular previs shots after I received a feedback from George.
First detail to change was to add a movement of a bug after the hand lands on the tree. It will create moving dynamics and look more realistic.
Second improvement was to add more movement in the 6th shot. My animation is very slow-moving and there no much shots to show good body mechanics, for this reason we agreed on adding more obstacles for the character to show a more interesting body movement for the animation.
In this shot I decided to add a bit of movement of the character so it moves together with the camera and looks less still.
The same goes for the next shot. I will be adding more of the camera movement as well as character movement – specifically them going from one direction towards the bush.
In the last shot we agreed that placing a camera closer to the objects of interest will create more intimacy and look visually better in general.
For the robot arm I continued working on the details and textures. For the nice detailed effect I was using a lot of extrusions, bevel and other modelling tools.
This week I am continuing working on my previs for the animation I have chosen.
To get a better understanding of timing and camera angles, I made a moving version of each shot.
The fist shot has a slight zooming out.
This shot has a zoom out to reveal more of the character’s face.
Here we see a movement of sitting down. The shot will be a bit longer, as the character will also look around before noticing the firefly.
The movement of pointing out will be slowed down.
In the beginning of the shot we will see the bugs on the tree.
The following shot.
The character hides behind the tree where we see other bugs not in focus.
The character is observing the bugs. At first bugs are in focus then the focus shifts to the person.
I changed this shot to a high-angle view to shot that the forest has a power over the character.
The camera is panning from left to right revealing the bush where the firefly will fly.
Zooming in on the millions of fireflies that the character reveals behind the bush.
The character is amused by millions of fireflies in front of them.
As for the last shot I decided to add a close up on the character’s face while they are looking at the fireflies.
I want to show emotions of the character as well as the changing lights on their face from the fireflies.
For the better movement I have filmed a few references:
I have continued working on the forearm and upperarm and created the elbow mechanics.
I have also changed a piston position closer to the elbow. In this case when the elbow rotates, so does the piston.
For the easier animation have been added different controllers.
For this week I had to develop a previs for my chosen idea of the animation.
The first shot is establishing the environment. The viewer sees that the location is a dark wistful forest.
The viewer also sees a character – a female-looking person, who is lying in the middle of the forest with their eyes closed.
The action in the shot will be a firefly flying above the character.
The location is the same.
In this shot we see a firefly flying around the face of the character and eventually sitting down on the face. At first it irritates a bit the skin of the character and then they wakes up.
This shot follows the movement of waking up.
We can see a firefly flying around. And a character looking around the place and then focusing on the firefly.
At this point we understand that the character doesn’t know where they are. We also see that its not an ordinary forest.
In this shot a character is amused by the firefly and tries to touch it until it flies away.
At first we see a tree with some bugs on it and then a hand appears.
This shot is more of an ‘in-between’ but it still shows us forest details such as its habitants.
This is a following shot.
The person is walking around the forest, stepping over a fallen tree.
In the from we see other bugs on the tree but they are not in focus. The reason is to show that the forest is living on its own.
This shot will show the environment of the forest.
The character is turning around and observing it.
The character looks at the bugs on the rock.
At first we will see just the bugs in focus and then the character will appear and the focus will switch to them.
In this shot a character sees a firefly as in the beginning and follows it.
A firefly moves from left to right and hides in the bush.
The character follows the firefly.
Behind the bush a character sees thousands of fireflies all in one spot.
In the last scene the character is amused by the fireflies and is just staring at them.
My animation leaves an open ending.
We modelled a piston by creating basic cylinders and with the help of locators and parent constrains it was able to move and follow the hand.
I have also created basic hardware inside the hand.
The first part of the lesson was about the importance of establishing the character. It’s really important to show the audience the characters personality with actions rather than with words.
A compelling character is:
For my animation I thought of designing a character myself. I wanted to create a female-looking person with all the “imperfections” that are usually not shown in animation. I also decided to show the character “like they were born” without clothes in order to take off the stigma and sexualisation of the female-looking naked body. The body would be visible but it will not attract attention of the view because no specific attention will be drawn to it in the animation itself.
The inspiration for my character came from the 2D animation music video by Chelou – Halfway to Nowhere.
A first rough draft of my character.
Next step was to develop a story board a bit more for my chosen idea of the animation:
I played around with the shots and tried to use different camera angles, zooming in and out, sizes of the shots. As in my animation there is no much of an action, I decided to pay more attention to the visual part of it and mimics of the character.
In this class we started to work more on detail and hardware of the arm.
We also concentrated on the wrist mechanism and modelled it in a way to move in all directions.
This week we learned how important it is to create an establishing shots. An establishing shot basically establishes where the sequence or shot takes place before getting closer to the scene. The audience needs to know where your story takes place whether that be at the start of a story, whenever your character changes location or at the end of their journey.
Examples of the establishing shots in film:
For each idea I created a moodboard that will help to understand key points of the story, main colours, locations and characters.
Idea 1:
Idea 2:
Idea 3:
I changed the model of the fingers a bit to make them look more stylised.
I also added other parts of the hand and started to work on the arm part.
This week we learned what is the world building and how important is to establish one in the animation.
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing a world, originally an imaginary one, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology.
A few question that will help to build the world:
The other important aspect of the world is choosing sets and props as it can push the readability of the world and shots.
Important websites:
• https://www.turbosquid.com/
• https://www.highend3d.com/
• https://www.cgtrader.com/
We also had to come up with three ideas for our final animation. These ideas had to include the world establishing, characters and most important an actual idea behind the animation.
My first idea was about a swimmer who jumps into the pool but the pool is actually a cup that that swimmer drinks. It is a quite experimental idea as there is no clear narrative. For the shots I tried to use the use of thirds to create a better composition.
My second idea would also be an experimental one as I wanted to implement 2D written text into the 3D animation. The animation describes loneliness and feeling of being in love with the wrong person.
My third animation is considered as abstract because it doesn’t have a clear narrative and leaves a lot of space for a viewer to think and add their own meanings.
Arm style idea:
The first lesson in the second semester was all about Mise-en-scène and everything we need to know about camera animation. We learned about the rule of third, camera lenses , sets/props, character designs, lighting, camera types; handheld/crane/static. Types of shots; Establishing, mid, close up etc.
MISE-EN-SCÈNE is the stage design and arrangement of actors in scenes for a theatre or film production, both in visual arts through storyboarding, visual theme, and cinematography, and in narrative storytelling through direction.
Each aspect of mise-en-scene has hidden meanings within a film and sends signals to the audience about how we are supposed to feel at a certain point;
Examples of Mise-en-scène:
Another very important rule in cinematography is a RULE OF THIRDS AND THE GOLDEN RATIO. The best description will be with the help of the examples:
We also learned different types of camera shots that cane be used to diverse the film and engage a viewer:
The second part of the lesson was to learn what previs is as we will need it for our further employments.
Previsualization is the visualizing of complex scenes before filming. Directors and cinematographers rely on the previs to plan their shots and angles. Postvis, or post-visualizations, happens during postproduction when viewing rough cuts, without the expense, and time, of completing final visual effects shots.
We created a shot using basic shapes to try out previs for ourselves:
We also used a crane rig in order to manipulate the camera:
We started creating a robot arm from the fingers.
At first we started by creating phalanges.
It was important to understand the movement of each part and add detailed parts to make it look more “real”.
By the end of the lesson we have made all five fingers and a short basic animation.