My Blogs are back!

Being early in my posting, chances are that not many people will read this. However, I'd like to start up my blog again now, and hopefully make it a bit more interesting and geared towards Flash stuff and Filmmaking. Anyway, here's some stuff from Hania and my latests Flash Film, it's called TARBOY and it should kick massive amounts of ass when it's complete. Below is some of the Flash artwork as it will appear in the film.

Stay tuned for future post that'll be a bit more substantial. YAY!

Thursday the 21st of September

My computer just crashes, so I'll retype my entire post again. grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

All of my rough animation has been completed. Most of it is cleaned up and ready for scanning, painting and tweening. I'm scheduled to have finished all of my character animation by the end of next week. If I'm to have my film finished, I need to stick to my schedule pretty stricktly. My rough schedule looks a little something like this:

Week – 7 – Roughs for all remaining animation to be completed in 3 days

Cleanup for all remaining animation to be completed by the end of the week.

End Week 8 - 17/09 Colouring of the remaining 7 scenes to be completed in 3 days.

Completion of half of the remaining scenes by the end of this week.

End Week 9 - 24/09 Completion of all animation by Wednesday.

All rough layouts and backgrounds to be completed by the end of the Week

Mid Semester Break

End Week 10 - 08/10 Completion of all major backgrounds by the end of this week.

End Week 11 - 15/11 Completion of all minor backgrounds by Tuesday afternoon.

Compositing of animation with backgrounds in 3D Space finished by end of week.

End Week 12 - 22/10 Camera Moves – Jitter and special effects to be completed by end of week – Semi - Rough edit to be handed in by end of week for assessment.

Wednesday the 6th of September 2006

Update: At the moment, 14 scenes of character animation are complete with another 8 to go. I've also made some progress in layout and special effects design.

I still think I can get the film done in time, once character animation is complete I think things will begin falling into place pretty quickly.

According to my original schedule I should have finished character animation 3 to 5 weeks ago. Assuming this would happen I've had to make sacrifices in other areas of production, mostly in the area of background design. What this'll mean to the finished film is that the backgrounds will contain alot more recycled content, with only a few backgrounds looking kickass. I'm trying to think around this and make it look like a stylistic thing, rather than a cheap-ass thing.

Anyway, I'm getting back to work. Till next time.

Much like my film’s main character, my blog’s been dusting it up in limbo lately. After a reminder today that I actually do have a blog, I’ve started compiling together an update of where my work is at. Wooohhhhhhh that's good squishy.

6 scenes of character animation are completed, and another 1 is nearly finished. After much practice now, I’ve worked out that one scene with an average amount of detail can be completed in the working hours of one day. That’s rough illustrations right through to finished, painted animation, excluding backgrounds, special effects etc. .man sdrawkcab eht m'I ,nam sdrawkcaB

I’m looking for ways that I can significantly cut my working time down. I’ll probably have to reduce the amount of morphing I’m doing (for things like facial expressions etc) and recycle the hell out of background elements and body parts. Captain Planet is making a guest appearance in my film.

The morphing software I’m using now works a thousand times better than the old one I was using for test animation. I can quite easily break the face up into different sections, morphing the eyes and mouths into different shapes, even morphing the whole head into a different angle. The software is limited though: If you have one image, every object that you wish to morph has to be accounted for in the final image. For example, morphing a front view head into a side view head is proving to be a difficult task. The eye that disappears from view behind the side of the head ends up fading and stretching in a very distracting way. I’m thinking perhaps I can do several morphs of different areas of the face, then composite them together into one image. I’m sure it will work, but its going to take a lot of time, so I think I’ll avoid it all together for now. I’ve also considered using these concepts for creating flat backgrounds that appear to move in 3D, but once again, finding time to do it is turning into a bitch. Sushi ginger tastes really good on a salad sandwich. Try it, it might just blow your mind.

Flash is working really well for handling sequences of massive jpegs, better than I thought it would. I’m running into problems with the program becoming painfully slow while animating the movement-intensive scenes. I’d take it to uni to finish the scene but they’re only running Flash 8 BASIC, and all the really cool stuff only works in PRO. My Photoshop continually crashes and I only have 3.8 gigs left on my hard drive, my drinking water is running low and I’m cold and wolves are after me. Fun fact: The most unhygienic part of the body is under watch bands and rings.

I’ve compiled screengrabs of my completed character animation, some examples of my work processes and some morphing stuff. When you get up to the swamp level in Alex Kidd, don't buy the motorbike, it's suicide.

It's been a while since any updates have been made. so I'll give you a brief on what I've been up to. The bulk of my work lately has been assignments outside of my film project, so stay tuned over the next 6 weeks where I expect to get the bulk of the film completed.

As far as WIL project is concerned I've completed a single ad of the 7 I need to finish before July. It might sound intimidating, but they're being made cheaply and can be made in a single day each.

To the left you'll see some of the pre-production artwork for the film. I won't give away too many details on the script (I've heard it's easy to have ideas stolen on this site) but I'll give you an idea on what I've been up to. The designs at the very top will be the basic bones of most of the character artwork. Underneath are some layouts in their very basic stages. The upper images expresses the mood I want to create quite clearly, whereas the lower one needs a little more work to make it more sinister.

Below that are some third draft storyboards. Basically they're screen grabs from the animatic. All of the story boards are grouped together in a way that will allow me to re-use content to allow for a smoother work flow.

At the very bottom is my original conceptual artwork. These are here to remind me of the original goal of the film. If I feel that my work flow is beginning to get too structured to the point where the film loses it's desired fluidity, I'll return to these images for different ideas.

More test animation has been completed. I've created a walk cycle in Flash, and while it may not be as smooth as I want it to be for the final animation, it's a good start. I've created some tubes and cogs and electronic equipment for the sci-fi scenes. They look quite nice and I've started building a character from these pieces.

My future goals for the film include these point:

1. More empathy towards the main character through facial expression and subtle plot twists.

2. Stronger angles and compositions.

4. Better use of colour that tell helps portray the drama of the story.

5. More alternative techniques used in drawing and media.

6. Refine morphing technique to allow for smoother transition of character's body parts.

And that's all the news I have for now. Stay tuned.

Aesthetic: Here’s some basic conceptual and production artwork for my student film. The artwork to the right is very close to how the finished aesthetic will appear on screen. I’ll be taking full advantage of Flash’s tools to give the characters a painted, cut-out feel. I was going to be using a vector-style aesthetic originally, but after tracing the character I found it to look way too clean for the mood I was trying to set.

Music: Sound will play a critical role in setting the mood and telling the story in the film. I'll be working very closely with Hania who will be composing the film's score. Her talent kicks ass and like The Cuddle Munchkin, her music will pretty much make the film. Check out samples of her work at www.neverwanting.com

More details on the story coming soon.