Finished Animation!!!

This is the done and finished animation. I don't really know how I feel about it... I think I've spent too much time staring at Winnie to know whether its a good animation or not. I know there are things that could be improved.

The simplicity of the camera angles don't distract you from the story that Winnie is telling, however they donut show off the 3D element as much as they could. The 3D animation ended up in some scenes being more of a guideline then something to trace over exactly. We could of done something like in the pierce sisters when they drag the fish up the inside of the building. Maybe zoom in from above them stood outside Woolworths.

I think we've managed to keep a good 'boiling' effect throughout. Even redrawing still frames to keep to movement fluid. Yet I do think the frame rate that we were drawing at should of been a bit lower so it looked less like its all vibrating.

We've managed to keep the style consistent throughout, I would draw the first frame and then someone else would draw over the rest of the scene, using my drawing as a guide for colours, shading and line thickness. To make sure the old Winnie stayed the same (and with a Cornish ear) I did the lip syncing and animating for her after Jenny drew her living room and a motionless Winnie enough times to repeat them for the boiling effect and using they Maya animation as a guide. There is something that bothers me though, and its that in only one scene Winnie is holding a tea cup, to the audience it looks like its just magicked there. Because we animated it we know that she picks it up for a sip while shes talking then puts it down again when you cant see her in another scene. It just looks a bit strange when we put it together. I also was getting stressed when animating this scene where she holding a tea cup, and you can see that in one frame her arm shakes slightly... maybe its just the old age?

I really enjoyed doing the sound for the ident project. But for this one sound effects didn't seem as important, we didn't want to distract from Winnie's story. We recorded loads of different sounds at the beginning of the project, but only used a few to add a little colour.

I think this is probably the best we could of done for this project and we worked really well as a group. But I don't think Ill want to see this Winnie for a while :)

Block Through

Jenny put together the different scenes in a block through before animating.

3D Turnarounds

We've now finished modelling and are ready to animate in Maya. Lucy and Jenny modelled the four main characters, trying to stick as closely as they could to my drawn turnarounds. The problem with this was my drawing didn't always line up when put in a cross shape. Leki and I modelled the props. I ended up modelling the table in Winnie's living room, the tea cup she uses. I also modelled the scene you saw in the test in my previous post.

Here are the turnarounds of Lucy and Jenny's Models:

I think the trickiest part of this was the rigging and weighting of our models. This all felt like it took a long time when I just wanted to get the drawing over the images out of the way.

Here are the colour pallets for each character:

Test

Heres a new test :)

My Storyboard! Done and dusted

I really enjoyed this brief, it was just really difficult to get started. But now its finished and I can focus in the Hayle project again. I went for a crisp and block colour look. I didn't know how detailed to do it because the brief said finished artwork, but its a storyboard so I met halfway.

Animatic time!!

We finished our animatic for our animation including a scratch track before our presentation. We had a small issue the image being a tiny square in the middle of the screen when we rendered from Premier. We tried to enlarge it but I went grainy, however I still think it clearly shows whats going on. I cant upload it on here, I guess the files too big :) Only now this is done we're all dreading drawing over 2000 frames.

Here is the animatic without the scratch track:

Hayle Storyboard

Our group is working really well together. Were working on different aspects of the pre-production but all chipping in. We've recorded the sound and make up a scratch track. This is the Hayle storyboard I put together from the script we wrote. I tried to keep the shots simple, remembering things said about the ident project. Saying this there will be a lot of lip syncing to do...

Character Designs for the the 3 W's

These are the character designs for Winnies Woolworths Wedding. I decided to do them in colour even though we are planning on using sepia tones, this is in case we change our minds. Its easier to change form colour to sepia then the other way round. It also makes thins less confusing when we eventually draw over them.

This is the young version of Winnie, as we go back to her memories to relive her wedding day. I designed her so she looks young and attractive while still in keeping with the 1950s fashion. I like the style of her dress but I probably could of used a blander colour so it would be more suitable for the period; however, I wanted Winnie's past to bright and cheery like her.

This is how I imagined someone like Winnie to look in the present. Its a stereotypical Grandma. I'm not sure on the colours, but I wanted them to clash and stand out from each other like she has an interesting personality.

This is Winnie's mother-in-law. She may not fit in with the other designs but I wanted her to be a comedy element and almost cartoon like. Winnie hardly mentions her in her story except when adding up totals but the colours she wears makes her stand out like she wants to be in charge.

This is Winnie's Husband. I kept him simple to make sure he looked like a working lad from Hayle. And is even more oddly matched with his mother, who has certainly dressed up for the occasion.

Hayle Project- Winnie's Woolworths Wedding

Well the projects going good so far, I'm working with Jenny, Leki and Lucy and am finding out what it means to be the director. Its all a bit strange having the responsibility of making sure the animation is fluid in design and makes sense in the story. Its not too much hard work though because we're communicating well with regular meetings, I think we've all pretty much had equal input into what this animation will look like.

We have decided to use the method that Aardman studio used to create 'The Pearce Sisters'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjSQJmV8YMY

Which means were going to have to animate and model our scenes in Maya, and then draw over every frame again. Its a long way about it, but I think that it makes a smooth and accurate animation with the style of 2D. The feel of it all is very different in 3D.

Were on schedule at the moment, we have written the script, worked out which parts of the recording were going to use (Winnie had a great Cornish accent but she does repeat herself), researched the 1940s style. had a look at Penzance including the old Woolies and recorded the other sound effects.

Lucy has been doing tests to make sure that we get the effect that we want. I like how they have turned out, but I think if were going to do it in Photoshop were all going to have to practice drawing with a tablet. Here is an example:

Ive been working on the character designs and a neat storyboard and putting together the animatic. I will post an update on how thats all going later.