Final Animation The Surprise

The Surprise

Here is the final Animation with sound effects and music overall I feel that the principles of animation have been considered but it could be improved and refined. The timing and pacing mostly fits the emotion. During the animation he starts curious thinking about the present during his thoughts secondary action is used in the eyes ears and tail, an example of this would be at 0:04 when his pupils look to his upper left this represents the thought process. In his first thought when he first sees the present it starts slow and subtle. The animation also shows displays of squash and stretch in the poses first it starts with a squashed when he is thinking and then goes into a slightly exaggerated stretch when he turns round at 0:04

 The use of solid drawing followed with staging is strong and gives the character more personality at 0:05 his hand is on his chin which is a psychological gesture that represents thinking, next as he leans over to to look at the present slow in and slow out as well as arcs and follow through are are used to show the speed and weight of the character.

I feel at 0:07 the hold could last for longer this allows the audience to see what he is thinking, the secondary action of the ear shaking adds more animal instinct to display anthropomorphism. another example of anthropomorphism is in the solid drawing pose at 0:07 his arms are out in front of him while his hooves are out like paws.The way he leans over shows exaggeration in both the movement and his pose. The use of thought in each action represents the anticipation every time he displays thought there is an action afterwards the longer the anticipation the more exaggerated the action.

At  0:09 he crosses his arms and rubs his snout that combined with the secondary action of the eye position shows access to thought, this scene is also anticipation for him running to the present. The music I used Happy Go Lively by Laurie Johnson gives the animation more appeal and to some extent the music is timed to some of the movement this can be noticed most at 0:11-0:12. I feel that the Jazzy public domain 50's music I chose fits the overall theme of the feeling of curiosity and excitement. Also at 0:11 there is a great use of arcs and overlapping action and slow in and out. Next after running to the present he shows anticipation almost hugging the present, eyes becoming alert showing he is about to pounce then he quickly throws his arms up camera changes showing him from the back ripping the present open.

Opening the present is the main action in the animation (0:16) so it had a big build up of anticipation leading into an exaggerated fast paced action. To add more appeal sound effects of paper ripping were added, not just for exaggeration but also to communicate more to the audience of what he is doing. For every action there is a reaction so after he has finished opening the present I needed to use something that would be more universally classed as disappointment for a gift. So for the appeal and to add some extra comedy I made a pair of white under wear with red lining to make them more recognizable to the audience. The reaction of the gift is slow and contrasts with the fast rigorous action seen before he slowly raises his ears letting his eyebrows down followed by his ears in disappointment at 0:25 This would be a use of follow through since his brow leads his ears as he collapses down. The eyebrows are  a very expressive secondary action that make it easier to see what the deer is thinking and how he is feeling. Lastly to add more appeal to the ending corny fail music as used to hammer in the defeat of the character. This ends with a fade out created using adobe premiere.


The staging of the animation also helps convey the message of the emotions and what the character is thinking. The first camera angle focuses on the present zooming and panning out to reveal our character this is a clear introduction to the characters goal the present is positioned at the edge of the screen. The next camera shot is when we show the character close up on a front view, this allows to communicate his emotion to the audience more clearly. Next frame shows the character from the present's perspective this staging also allows to show he is moving closer to the gift. After that the character is shown from a profile view to anticipate the main action that comes next. The next two shots exaggerate the comedy, first a back view to show wrapping paper flying everywhere and the characters determination. The second shows a close up looking up at the character from the front, this compliments his feelings of disappointment.

The character himself has a nice use of appeal in his design, he was inspired off of British stop motion characters like Aardman and American animation from the 40's like Warner Bros Looney Tunes.

Overall I feel I am happy with the results more could have been done with more skill and understanding of 3D animation. The character displays emotions and personality and I am happy I managed to show this and feel it is the strongest part of my animation. The mechanics of the animation could do with work in some areas however they still convey the message of the animation and are not too distracting from the audiences perspective.

Lighting and Rendering, Post Production

Here is some testing of lighting and texture.
the first is too dark which means it would be more difficult to address what the character is doing. While the second is too bright the testing is to make sure we get a happy medium.

The lighting stage included using area lights to brighten the whole room.







Final Lighting












I decided to use toon outlines to fit with the simple shading of the software render setting.

I also added pictures for the frames using my own work



Here I replaced the small present with a proper bad present in this case I made a pair of under wear still in some paper to create a more obvious gag.






All the custom textures I used are my own work and can be found here

https://www.flickr.com/photos/135570618@N07/albums/72157676247984070

music and sound effects I used

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=podCq_ydoXg

cartoon fail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvl_IGwyCmU


Happy Go Lively
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOZu3NiBjBk

Walk cycle Exercise

To under stand animating humanoid characters I did some practice on walk cycles. Here are 3 of the same cycle from different angles

Diagnal

front

Profile

Blocking out the Key Poses of Storyboard

Key poses

Establishing shot representing the character's goal

First reaction to present 

The camera angle has been improved compared to the storyboard. This staging perspective allows the audience to see more what he is doing.

The thought process allows the audience to get to know the character, how he thinks about certain events. He is thinking "It is not my birthday". The pose and timing could be improved to show this.

Here shown is an exaggerated curious take using squash and stretch to add a more cartoony effect.

The change of camera allows to see the face of the character more clearly on a front perspective. This allows staging of facial expressions. Showing the eyes and face allows more use of emotions.

This perspective is to represent how big the present is compared to the deer. It also represents the character's curiosity growing and building anticipation. The pose of the character cuts into the next scene where he is instantaneously positioned in front of the present. 

The next view cuts the timing using a scene cut. This slightly upsets the pacing and will have to be staged carefully using the camera and character. 

This scene shows him touching the present in excitement. He will either pick it up and shake it in excitement and curiosity or he will just grab to feel it is there, lean back in anticipation then pounce. 

Here he is ripping open the box paper will fly every where mostly to the left.

Here he shows a face of intrigue that slowly deflates into sad. The excitement and expectancy of the gift is clashed with shock and disappointment 

Blocking out the animation

Blocking out the animation had it's challenges however the rig was so well built and skinned that it made the workload more efficient. Some of the poses are still rough however the key was to establish the scenes of the whole animation.

To make animation more efficient I use a custom Mel script called Pose library. The tool allows me to store poses and animations that I can project onto the character

Here are many poses that I used in the animation

Cottage Environment improved

The set has had an over haul. Since the character is mostly brown earthy colours The setting has been change to stand out with the character. The colour scheme of the present also stands out representing it as the main goal.

 

Rusty the Deer Final Render

Front

Middle

Overall the character has a appealing cartoon design that should add appeal to the final animation.

The overall design is simple but fun the character has very simple texturing but since there wasn't much time the texturing was kept basic.

Body Acting Analysis

The Mask

In this scene from the mask the body acting that Jim Carrey's character Stanley Ipkuss plays will be analysed from 0:05 to 0:19. First the acting is very subtle however the raised shoulders and the uncomfortable position show he is constrained by the psychological effects that the mask has had on him. at 0:08 he shows a quick sharp frustrated arm movement with a strong grip on the mask. The placement of the fingers at 0:10 show his inner frustration and aggression the way his hand is placed is a strong powerful position. Also he moves closer to the therapist invading his personal space, this also shows the inner aggression that he is feeling.  Next comes a swift head and body turn lead by the body this means there is a delay of the head as he turns. At 0:12 he does a quick walk over then at 0:16 he shows a more open body pose changing in mood as he is determined to prove the masks effects. His mood suddenly seems a little excited as he flings the mask forward, this does make sense however because excitement can be fueled by expectancy and he is expecting the mask to work. finally the gesture as he makes at 0:18 shows authority addressing the therapist.

Overall the scene anticipates the new information that the mask does not work at night as well as showing the change in Stanley's personality. 

The Iron Giant

This scene shows great comical effect showing situation with a conflict in the background effecting an already awkward situation. The way Hogarth first squashed down and then stretches adds emphasis to the movement of his hands as they follow a swift path of action the head is tilted up showing nervous actions hidden behind a fake smile. The strongest pose would be at 0:23 when he says (and stop) he is talking to the giants hand. His body is in a hold but slowly comes down as he enters a thought process signified by the rubbing of his forehead this then leads him to finish his sentence (the devil) The scene overall adds allot of comedy to a simple idea.The giants hand is loose in the house so he has that on his mind as well as communicating with his mum. The scene shows how much a simple scene can be very memorable when done right.

Character Emotion and Body language

The character is now rigged and skinned. A shirt was added for appeal the clothes do have a control so he can switch to no shirt or if I wanted he could switch to different clothes like a doll. The clothes show he is an anthropomorphic creature while also adding more personality he is more civilized a part from not having trousers. This is how Walt Disney designed his characters with ever a shirt shoes shorts or a mixture. This was also to create a classic golden era cartoon style like Warner Bros looney toons, mainly Wile Coyote.  

Since intentionally he was going to be inspired by Aardman his facial expressions and face are inspired by Gromit

Here is an image of the face controls using blend shapes.

The controls that were added to the ears and tail have been removed to allow an easier and simpler set up for keying.

Since the character is fully rigged skinned and can show some simple facial expressions. Here are some different silhouette poses of different facial emotions and body language.

Angry

sad

Shock or Surprise

When animating the character reference will be used from influences such as Mr Bean, Gromit, Jim Carrey. This will allow to create an excitable and curious deer.

images

gromit

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/wallace-and-gromit/images/343151/title/wrong-trousers-photo

rocket excited animation

Rocket Stage fright

Overall the timing is allot more improved and the staging conveys the message of the plot of the animation, originally the animation had to much going on that it made it difficult to read each action. However by adding more keys and slowing down the pacing made each action more readable Then I just simplified some of the body parts mostly the eyes and eyebrow movements. The use of exaggeration complements the solid drawn poses and takes. Twinning was avoided creating a more organic living breathing character. The secondary actions of the rockets wings when he points at him self creates emphasis on the emotions of excitement, enthusiasm and curiosity the rocket feels at  0:04. However the squash and stretch could have been improved on adding more exaggeration to the squashed positions of the rocket this would show more anticipation for his jumps, however this would involve adding the feature manually through a lattice set up or blend shape. The eye movement of the character is very organic and well observed. For this animation sound was used for the first time this added some more appeal to the reaction of the rocket when he gets nervous at a key take at 0:07. The ear piercing stage light sound with the fast quick reaction of the rocket added some suspense and exaggerates the meaningful moment that shows his true feelings when he is put under pressure instead of unfettered with no obstacle.
The animation uses a subtle use of follow through because the eyes will lead the head and body, When he is nervous around 0:08 his eyes dart away from the camera followed by a quick turn of the head this also follows an arc since the head bobs down then up.

The animation has actions conflict and a objective, this follows the principles of acting as well as story structure. The conflict is psychological focusing on having to do something under pressure, this also represents the perspective of a university student. I implied the rocket to show empathy towards students or pretty much anyone who has been under stress and pressure before. This makes the character very relate able. The action trying to take off this could have been anticipation.

The animation was inspired by my own experiences with university and trying to deal with stress and anxiety

The one issue is there is not enough emphasis on anticipation when he takes off the he should squash down then stretch up the timing when he falls down could also be improved up on.

















sound effects


spotlight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnO0rED2rv4

Set and Environment Creation

Setting the Scene

To create the environment for the animation I decided to create a small rustic house this will fit nicely for a cartoon deer. The first image shows planning the size of the the room. The next focuses on blocking out the layout of the furniture as well as basic lighting.

doors and windows are represented and loosely follow the staging of the storyboard

The present was modelled using curves to create the bows and sculpting to create the box, the present sahould standout from the rest of the scene to create enphasis on the surprise aspect. The colour might be changed to improve this.

The challenge with the staging so far is the character might dissapear into the background because of the earthy colours of the cabin blending with the Earthy colours of the character. This is the issue to overcome. The set maybe changed however, now the animation can begin the camera has been set up and now the character just needs finishing in order to start.

Character Update

The model has gone through changes to make him more thinner and more deer like. For the body shape I used inspiration from Wile Coyote as shown below. The UV map is simple block colours this was to save time on texturing. other influences for the character include Elliot from open season in the snout and hands and Gromit's eyebrows and facial expressions       

                              

Character Update

Since the last update the deer character has now got a placeholder name (Rusty) I feel it helps to give any character a name because it adds context and personality.

Topology has been improved for the rigging and skinning.

More edge loops have been applied to the arms to allow smoother deformations. Eyebrows have also been improved to allow free movement.

An Automatic rigger was used to save time. The rig also has plenty of custom controls to add more options when animating, tools like squash and stretchy body parts. This will allow more variety to the animation process 

study of stage fright and nervous tension

Here I have chosen great reference of stage fright.
at 0:05 he first glances to his left, pupils are also moving to his left, next he rotates his head probably looking at the people around him, this shows he is trying avoid the people however he is surrounded. He is surrounded by viewers including TV watchers this means there is a lot of psychological pressure, his body is in a sympathetic state, his body movements look uncomfortable and restricted. He is also thinking he doesn't want to be in this situation when someone glances to the side or looks left or right in anxiety it can show they don't want to be there, we generally back away from what we don't like.

Further analysis

Eyes

• at the beginning when he says (now) his eyes dart towards the people that he is talking too, or possibly someone who offers support like a mother figure or father figure.

• eyes blink fast

Head

• when rotating his head slow it shakes however there are also fast turns of the head quick bursts of movement which is similar to excitement

• 0:39 Head tilts forward shoulders follow shaking slightly.

• head most of the time is retreating this shows a lack of confidence like he is hiding from the people watching. If his head was brought further forward it would show more engagement and confidence.

Body

• less exposure of the torso, arms are protecting his torso showing discomfort or anxiety

Story Board for Rocket

After the research and idea generation, this is what I decided to go with for my story board.

The comedy in the animation is, I will show excited leading into nervous and embarrassment.
The rocket is first excited, when his light goes off but when the spotlight is on him he gets a bit of stage fright. This leads to him taking off with his eyes closed, only to open his eyes, feel hopeful for a second thinking that wasn't so hard. Then at the end realizing he hasn't even taken off.


I hope the audience will feel empathetic for the character as we can all relate to stage fright and being put on the spot.

Overall I think this is an interesting idea and reflects how I have reacted to the second year of university, in that I still have along way to go. However there is fun in that challenge that can involve making fun of my own quirks and experiences,so pain can lead to comedy.

The storyboard was done on paper this time which allowed me to be more free with the actions. since this storyboard is just a guide I decided to put it on paper.

Ideas process for rocket animation

I am going to do an an animation of a rocket getting excited cause they have been chosen to take off. There light gets activated they start to dance and jump around they start to take off  cuts to close up of face they open there eyes looking down realizing they are still on the ground they get embarrassment and then randomly take off.

During the Incubation process I went to see an event at the media museum. A talk by co founder of Aardman Peter Lord I was so excited about the event but also nervous, I realized this will be great a inspiration for my animation mixing both feelings of excited and nervous and in the end embarrassed the last emotion. I did not feel that emotion but it will add to the comedy. Through Psychological research I realized that excited and nervous are run by the same chemicals (epinephrine) adrenaline. This means whether we feel stress or pleasure we get a burst of adrenaline, adrenaline is also used as defense mechanism in a state of emergency.

The Aardman viewing documentary made me realize the unique animation of the company and how much it means to me. The subtle use of both simple gestures and even camera to show what a character is thinking is genius. 

The idea is the rocket will act like he was picked to blast off and he feels honored and excited, He then starts to get nervous and as he takes off feels like he has done it but he hasn't then he feels silly and embarrassed knowing he couldn't do it until setting off randomly very fast. 

Critical Evaluation Pose to Pose

For my analysis I decided to analyse "Jinky Jenkins & Lucky Lou" from 0:14 to 0:30

The animation uses strong silhouettes as well as subtleties. underneath are some of the key poses in the animation.

At 0:14 the guy walks out of his house in a depressed and negative state of emotion this can be shown by his slumped shoulders, and bent over torso, his facial expression is squashed and his eyebrows are curved down. The way he walks out is fast but the gestures show his lack of confidence showing weaker poses. His body language also looks more uncomfortable and restrained as well as a high power center located in his back and shoulders which also indicate his emotion of sadness.

The sign 13 representing bad luck hits him on the head staging the concept of his unlucky personality. The weather also takes a dramatic change to rain exaggerating his unlucky nature. He then grips his fists in as he closes his eyes showing frustration. The way his head looks up and eyes dart up to the right show he is thinking about the change in weather looking hopeless. He then rests his torso and hands down showing despair and sadness. He then walks back into his house in defeat of his inner conflict of bad luck and depression.

At 0:20 the girl walks out of the house in contrast with the guy going in it is well timed. She anticipates the rain with her leg out showing preparation for the conflict; however as she jumps and raises her hand out thrusting her body upwards, she shows a positive hopeful gesture to feel the rain with her hands. She is engaged in her action very clearly through a strong stretched silhouette pose.  However it then deliberately stops leaving her in a state of slight disappointment as she slowly lays her arms by her side and looks up. She then lowers her head showing she feels just as bad as the guy. She has too much luck.  There are no surprises; life for her feels perfect but bland. She then walks down casually with her arms behind hands touching showing psychologically she isn't really happy with her life as well.

The staging of the guy coming out with an umbrella first not showing himself, this shows insecurity and fear of his bad luck. As he raises his hand out the door first opening the umbrella is a subtler story beat it shows how cautious he tries to be to stop his luck getting even worse. 

This scene would not work if it wasn't for the story beat at 0:16 where he opens the door quicker first gets hit with bad luck shows his discomfort because he walks out slower this time, this does not just show that he is aware of the situation but also that he is nervous about it. followed by a slow not eager walk out the door.

One of the pose that shows the best staging in my opinion would be when the guy is wondering where the rain has gone showing the girls presence in effecting the other character. (look above)

The use of lighting as he shows his reaction shows false sense of hope before he is picked up by the wind. First he slowly reacts to the sun puts his hand out realizing it has stopped raining. his eyebrows are raised in hope and for the first time he shows a more open posture. The look on his face still shows he is sad but he is curious how it stopped raining and is glad.

The staging of the this scene should not be changed we need to see these two clashing perspectives to understand the story.The animation would not work from another angle the split perspective. The way characters are introduced sets up the rest of the story. The two characters effect each other. These scenes are important to developing the plot.

I feel there aren't any poses that you could remove, the timing and pacing of the animation anticipates the story

  

Sculpting the Character part 1

The character was originally going to be a rabbit, but I decided to change it to a deer. The model is influenced by Aardman's characters especially Gromit since he has no mouth. However this might change and he might have a mouth. This time the character didn't require a model sheet however it would have been useful instead quick drawings of the character with drawn with reference from my pinterest boards.

The knowledge from last years modelling made building an organic character allot easier. 

First a cube was cut in half and then used duplicate special on the the X axis the box was smoothed into a head then eyes and snout were added

Here on the first image the model is just in beginning state The head and the body have been built roughly.

added arms and legs

blocking out the model and adding arms legs and extra details.

 smoothed lower body and added edge loops to arms to shoulders. This will allow the arms to deform smoothly.

Fixing Topology of snout and head to allow to create more detail and ease of modeling, rigging and animating

 fixed topology: smoother shape easier to manipulate.


Model currently Shirt has been refined will become pajama top feet will be slippers.

Overall the model is coming on well

Next strarted to refine the feet to look like hooves. and added a tail.

Used inspiration From Elliot from Sony Pictures Open Season (2006) by adding hands that look like hooves

Finished for now added some ears and rearranged face to look more deer like. Antlers might be changed again.