Competition - Week 7

I may have taken smears for granted by assuming my team knew how to do them when they don't.

After making a quick test to confirm that smears on twos work with the style better than fast movements on ones, I met up with the team to give them a quick tutorial on how to animate smears.

I also took this opportunity to offload a large list of amendments I wanted to be done to a lot of the backgrounds, the most pressing of which being the scrolling background which was created at a resolution of 1920x1080 instead of 1920x1710 as it was explained earlier in the storyboards, the shared spreadsheet and in person.

The scenes have been divided equally between everyone so that everyone has one 'difficult' scene and four simpler to animate scenes, with one simple scene left over for whoever finishes their scenes. I've made a start on most of my scenes so far and managed to finish some this week.

I ended up rotoscoping the three quarter walk cycle because I couldn't get it right otherwise:

Walk cycle comparisons (left is rotoscoped)

Up Escalator scene

Card writing scene

End reveal scene progress

In the meantime, Jenny kindly gave me a few contacts of musicians and Dotty gave me advice on how to go about responding to their emails. She also gave me some feedback on the parts I animated.

What worked well:

• The smears
• Rotoscoping the three quarter walk cycle

What could be improved:

• Push last position further in up escalator scene
• Consider reframing card scene so that writing is on the right side
• Get rid of the stubble/beard on partner character
• Find a musician

Competition - Week 6

I am having a slight issue trying to communicate my expectations about backgrounds to Eleni. I've noticed that she's using the storyboards as a direct guide so I told her I wanted her to look at references and use a bit of artistic licensing to make the backgrounds more interesting and make them look a bit more three dimensional. She tried with the ground floor escalator but I don't think she quite understood what I meant

Original storyboard (left) and original background (right)

I found a reference for a John Lewis store sign and spent a bit of time making a rough outline for the type of background I'm looking for. I also tested out what a different layout might look like by blocking it out in Maya.

 

Eleni liked the rough guides I made and agreed to use them to redo that background.

The rest of the week was spent refining roughs in TVPaint and updating it to the animatic, which everyone showed for group feedback.

What went well:

• Roughs are starting to look good
• Rough escalator background looks more interesting

What could be improved:

• Shorten black screen at beginning
• Add some colourful silhouettes as background customers
• Lengthen the scene when the character notices the mirror
• Sort out music

Competition - Week 5

Following from last week's feedback, I have changed the storyboard and animatic (the sound has been cut too). Eleni has been abroad so we're a little behind schedule with backgrounds although the majority of the character designs are done. While waiting for the rest of the team to finish their parts, I've started doing some roughs for some of the scenes to speed up the animation process later and updated them into the animatic.

What worked well:

• Adding the escalator as part of the montage
• Rough character acting in the escalator sections
• Power of three in the stills sections
• Adding the implied engagement ring at the end

What could be improved:

• Watch head on side table when he falls out of bed
• Outside John Lewis scene is far too quick - make character walk quickly instead
• Consider making him look excited to be going there or look like he enjoys being there
• Slow down the part of him looking at the mirror
• Consider him taking off mirror and whip pan background with motion - cut out actual buying process
• Let partner register the mirror, make it look like the end of the animation, then the engagement ring and sudden cut for surprise effect
• Needs sound