SPnU Cleanups

Sleep Paralysis and You

I've been primarily focusing on cleaning up my scenes for Sleep Paralysis and You. I have admittedly fallen behind on my deadlines for this project and possibly spread myself too thin over my other projects, but I'm pleased with the steady progress I've made so far.

This scene is almost finished and just needs the last last zoom out section to be animated. Otherwise the hand movement is looking better compared to what it was originally:

I'm still in the process of cleaning up my more complex demon movement scenes, which are coming along alright so far:

I thought this scene was mostly finished with the exception of the cracks but Prathik said Kilo's head looked unnatural when it was composited into the main file and needs some subtle hair boil which I will add if I have time:

I'm actually really happy with how this scene turned out. I ended up adding tweens to Penny's hair movement so that it moves smoother and it looks really good to me. The tears are also a vast improvement to what they were before. In terms of what can be done better, if I have time, I'll increase the sizes of the eye shines so they overlap with the eye whites (which will show better in compositing):

For this last scene, I colour picked Halli's background from the scene following this to make up the stretcher and grass background which I think worked well. 

I think the movement of everything works well, my feedback was to decrease the amount of pan and zoom so that it's a bit more subtle and less jarring, and to also add a flash of white to the transition, which I did in After Effects:

The pan and zoom definitely looks a lot better now.

I have barely made any progress on the 5_GettingInBed scene, having been focusing on my more complex scenes till now. I've let Prathik know that I'm struggling with the deadlines and might need to delegate that specific scene to someone else. He said he doesn't have time at the moment to do it himself but will have a better idea later, so until then I'll try to finish all of my scenes as best as I can.

Scene 5 - Getting in Bed
The rough has been a little more refined but Kilo will need to be sized up before tie downs and cleanup

Other Projects

Jenny reviewed my roughs and asked me if I could redo them with a 2 pixel brush as she hadn't noticed the thickness before (I used the default 5 pixel brush) and I had showed her the first rough before she made a reference sheet specifying 2 pixel thickness on the roughs. I told her I didn't have time to redo them but we found a compromise by me applying an effect in TVPaint that erodes the linework and brings it down to 2 pixels although there is some loss of quality. I also converted everything to psd files to make it easier for the cleanup artist to work off them.

For Heart of Stone, I still have one cleanup to do which I've made a start on and will attempt to finish after I've gotten more of my SPnU cleanups done.

HoS and Dance Animation Project Update - finishing off roughs

I've taken a short hiatus from Sleep Paralysis and You to catch up on my parts for the projects I'm helping out with.

Heart of Stone

When I roughed out Medusa walking across the pan scene, it became clear early on that she had too much background to walk across and some of her movements needed to be altered for the timing - she was originally going to look around at "now now don't run, don't hide" but it had to be pushed earlier to the instrumental part for her to reach the other side of the background in time. It still worked well thankfully, and Halli is aware that the background will need to be shorter now.

The feedback for the Medusa Dip scene was that the snakes needed to move slower at the end when spotting the man. The snake lengths were also a bit too short, so I redid the snakes and feel they look much better now. I also did a background test and though the man fit in fine with some tweaking, Medusa's size was disproportionately small compared to the front statue even after panning her to the correct position. Halli is aware of this and will tweak the size of the statue and position of the statue's hand before Hannah cleans up the scene.

I also tweaked the final zoom segment so the snakes tweened more and added a couple of frames to loop while Medusa is zooming out.

What worked well:

• Tweening the snakes in both scenes and slowing down their movements to appear more snake-like
• The altered timing of the movements for the pan scene despite not being in the intended position still work well with the soundtrack
• The panning test generally worked despite the shortened background
• Adding a little overshoot in the leg when it goes up in the Medusa Dip scene

What could be improved:

• Consistency with the snake thickness could be better in the Medusa Dip scene
• The snakes could potentially have more movement in the panning scene

My roughs for this project are now done, all that's left is for me to clean up one of Prathik's roughs and my role for this project will be finished.

Dance Animation

One of the things Jenny wanted was a visual representation of stars at the beginning of the animation, so I thought it would look good if they trailed light after being plucked from the sky and returned to the sky after the dancer fell:

I also tweaked the effect I did previously so there was more build up and a bit more detail with particles fading away and I feel it looks a lot better now. I put a note over one of the frames that will need to be extended otherwise the timing is a little too fast for the effect to work.

There was a scene where Jenny asked to make it look like the dancer disappears dramatically, giving Thanos from Avengers Infinity Wars as an example. At some point I realised I wasn't sure which frame to start from when animating on twos so I just animated on ones to let the cleanup animator decide which frame to use. As a result I think it actually looks too fast but when I doubled up the frames, the timing worked better so this is something I'll bring up with Jenny to see if the music would still match with the end frames doubled up. The segment on ones look like this:

I had a surprising amount of difficulty with the wing segment, I ended up with three different versions of wings and showed them to Jenny, who agreed with me that the the third option looked the best while the other two were "too pointy".

I continued with the third option and added some feathers that disappear. The original timing of the video had to be tweaked for it to work so I marked out which frames had to be held for different times as well as a couple of frames that would manually need tweening.

What worked well:

• Altering timing and tweening of frames to fit the effects better in the disappearing and wings effects
• Using reference to get the wing shape and anatomy right

What could be improved:

• The frames where the dancer disappears completely could last longer but this might affect the syncing of the music more than it needs to be
• A segment of the frames from the dramatic disappearance scene will be timed better if the frames are doubled up

The next step will be to check over the roughs with Jenny to see if anything needs correcting, otherwise my role in this project is complete.

SPnU, HoS and Dance Project Update - roughs and cleanups

I have been admittedly distracted by pandemic related issues, however I've been able to get in some work for both Sleep Paralysis and You and Heart of Stone.

Sleep Paralysis and You

I haven't quite finished tweaking some of my roughs but I did manage to do some cleanups:

I think the cleanups are generally looking good, but I still need to alter the hand movement in the Cheek Caress scene and the Fire Reveal scene might need more exaggerated facial features and movement. I do like the squash and stretch/follow through of the face when he startles awake though.

I've also redone the top of the head on the 8_UWU cleanup because it was previously wiggling due to lack of line consistency. I think it looks much better now:

Heart of Stone

We had a group meeting at one point to get feedback on our current progress, and I hadn't noticed the arms were too short in my Torch scene. I have since corrected this and added some tweens so it can be passed over to Prathik to rough out the fire animation:

Scene 3 - Torch

I have also roughed out a couple of other scenes, which I'll ask for feedback on our roughs deadline. Halli made a great mouth shapes reference to be used on our lip syncing scenes which I've applied to one of my scenes. I've also made a reference video for Medusa's movement in my 8_Pan scene but I've yet to rough it out.

Scene 10 - Medusa Dip

Scene 30 - Zoom of Realisation

What worked well:

• The lip syncing and the poses for the Medusa Dip scene
• The turn on the Zoom scene

What could be improved:

• The snakes might be too thick in the Medusa Dip scene
• Unsure about the last Medusa facial expression in the dip scene
• Some of the movement might be too fast in the Zoom scene
• Some of parts of both scenes will need more tweens once I'm sure the team are happy with it.

Dance Animation Project

Jenny finished editing the dance videos to be rotoscoped and let me know what she wanted effects on. I wasn't clear on one of the scenes where the dancer is supposed to 'disappear by boiling away' on a jump and then reappear on landing so I made a rough test of the scene with my interpretation of disappearing and reappearing and Jenny liked it a lot.

I personally think it's too simplified at the moment so I'll be redoing this properly at some point.

SPnU, HoS and Dance Project Update - roughs, cleanups and tests

Sleep Paralysis and You

Prathik compiled everyone's roughs together and made some notes on what needed to be changed, including some facial expressions that weren't continuous between cuts. The scenes that were worked on and altered were:

Last still frame tweaked for consistency with character design

Drawings were stretched out to make it more consistent with one of Prathik's scenes

Arm length was tweaked as it changed height in a few frames

The initial hop was cut due to it being 'too happy' and a few frames were held a bit longer

Cracks were animated

Tweaked the thumb in in the last frame as it was off

Re-animated Kilo's eyebrows and redid the tears, added a missing eyebrow frame for Penny

What worked well:

• I was a little disappointed about the hop needing to be cut but it'll make it easier to cleanup in the end, the rest of the tweaks work well in general
• The scenes are more consistent and have better continuity with Prathik and Damo's scenes now

What could be improved:

• The hand arc in Scene 18 is a bit off and will need tweaking
• The hands in general need to be animated in the zoomed out scenes of Demon Penny
• The last still shot with Kilo on the gurney still needs to be tweaked as it is too static

Testing the demon eyes

Prathik asked me to test out some eye styles for the demon as he originally had wanted something similar to the eye style of Don't Starve but after testing out a few different styles, we all collectively agreed that the simple glowy eyes were the most appealing and the easiest to keep consistent.

This style boiled with too much inconsistency

This style looked alright but there was not that much gained compared the effort of producing the effect

The simple glowy eyes is what we all decided looked the best without unnecessary effort

In the end, this is what the cleanup looked like for this scene, and I'm pleased with how it looks.

Heart of Stone

I finished off the Torch rough I started and made a start on a couple of other roughs.

Scene 5 - Torch

Scene 8 - Pan

What worked well:

• Adding a tween for when the man picks up the torch
• Raising his shoulders and lowering his head when Medusa walks by
• Also moving the sword closer as the man cowers

What could be improved:

• Consistency with mouth shapes in the Torch scene
• Adding the Medusa character animation
• Adding some hair follow-through when he moves in the panning scene

Dance Animation Project

Jenny hasn't given my any scenes to add effects to as of yet but I took one of her rotoscoped animation tests and added some wing morphs. She was happy with how the test turned out.

SPnU - Starting the remainder roughs

I got Damo's help to take some reference videos of me for the scenes I hadn't started yet and finally made a start on them.

Scene 21 - Fire Stomp

Scene 22 - Caught Red Footed

Scene 24 - Profile Walk

Scene 25 - Cracking Front

What worked well:

• The new profile walk scene is vastly improved from the original basic walk cycle
• The character acting in scenes 21, 22 and 24 are much better with the use of reference
• Hair movement needed tweaking while I was animating this but I feel it moves well in all the scenes
• Demon Penny originally throws up her hands too high in Scene 22 in relation to the fire so her arms were tweaked for that segment

What could be improved:

• The scene needs to be zoomed in more at the feet level in the Fire Stomp scene (it is currently zoomed just below the knees)
• Prathik pointed out some mild height discrepancies in scenes 22 and 24, which I'll fix next
• I'll need to make sure the arms/shoulders are consistent in the Cracking Front scene when I'm tying it down
• Hands need to be roughed out properly

Sleep Paralysis and You and Heart of Stone Update

This week I've been mainly redoing Kilo's head in my SPnU scenes to fit the character design more accurately.

What worked well:

• Kilo looks more consistent with the character design now

What could be improved:

• The zoom out scene is a bit too static, I'll need to add some breathing movements at some point and I still need to remove the extra ambulance characters on the side
• Demon Penny's hands are off when she rests it on the face so that will need tweaking

 I've also made a start on Halli's Heart of Stone roughs.

What worked well:

• Overall movement seems to work
• The pause to look around before grabbing the torch

What could be improved:

• Add rest of facial features
• Add a tween when picking up torch
• Finish animating the sword movement

YCN Brief - STA Travel

I was approached by Helen (my roommate from first year) and Grace from the Creative Advertising course to collaborate on the YCN brief for STA Travel. They wanted an animation about a pigeon leaving his nest to travel the world. It sounded like a fun concept and Damo was willing to work on me with this one but as we were only two animators working on a potentially minute long animation, we delegated the roles of Storyboards, Backgrounds and Cleanups to Helen and Grace, leaving us with the animatics, character designs, roughs and tie down animation.

After discussing and tweaking the storyline, we showed them what a typical storyboard looks like and Helen and Grace later sent over their storyboards as well as the source Photoshop file, which I then took it into After Effects and made it into an animatic. As the maximum people that can work on this brief is four, I will have to rely primarily on freesound.org for my sounds as we don’t have room for a musician.

Damo and I played around with some character trait ideas and Helen and Grace picked their favourite ones and passed this on to Damo for the character designs while I worked on the animatic. I also sent over some amended background size suggestions for the final backgrounds.

The guide I sent back to Helen and Grace to make background dimension alterations

The first pass animatic looks like this (I ended up using my voice for the pigeon):

What worked well:

• Tweaking the story so that it bookended with the chimney
• Adding a plane in the background of the last shot to tie in with the previous scene inside the plane

What could be improved:

• Some of the sounds were not free to use and will have to be replaced for the final animation
• The story might be jumping too much but unfortunately we are limited with time and manpower

Update 23/02/2020

Although Helen and Grace initially loved the animatic, they ultimately decided to change the animation after a group critique so that it is now three short animations instead of one big one. This is actually potentially more manageable for Damo and I in terms of actual animation, but it also means Damo will need to do a few more background character designs. As such, I will be doing the roughs for two of the shorts while Damo does one. Their new shorts feature Paul the pigeon doing things like eating noodles while his friends are eating worms, hanging out with flamingos, and cleaning up a beach (as STA Travel also does volunteer work).

I made two versions of the animatic, one which includes a snapshot at the end (using the assets provided by STA for the brief), and they look like this so far.

Version 1

Version 2

Helen and Grace have yet to give me feedback on if they have a preference but they generally like how they look so far.

I also made a rough walk test for Paul (the pigeon) based off of Damo's design before the story changed, but it looks like it'll be needed for one of the scenes anyways so it won't need to be scrapped.

What worked well:

• The new smaller shorts are easier to handle than the one big short
• I found some good free sounds to use for the final animations
• The head movement with the pigeon walk really brings out the pigeon aesthetic

What could be improved:

• The original storyboarded flamingo scene started at the feet and panned up as a side view and then ended with a front view of Paul with the flamingos at feet level, however this was inconsistent with the side view when he wasn’t there - this is the main reason for me making another version where the scene is shot differently and the story is still consistent.
• I think the pigeon walk will need to be slowed down.

Update 06/02/2020

I made a rough flamingo walk for one of the scenes based off of Damo's final flamingo design, but it ended up being more refined than I intended so I passed it over to Helen and Grace as a cleanup for them to colour. I also made a quick tutorial png to show them how to colour in Photoshop as they won't have TVPaint.

What worked well:

• The graceful character of the walk
• Intermingling the flaunting poses with the walk to save on animation time
• Adding the subtle overshoot when the poses change

What could be improved:

• Could potentially use one more pose if I have time
• Poses could potentially have been exaggerated further

Update 16/03/2020

Helen and Grace have been busy with their own deadlines so haven't passed over any cleanups or backgrounds to me yet. Meanwhile, I've added some tweens to Paul's walk cycle and made a choice of walks for the carnival where he can have his wings poised up or also have his head bouncing with the beat.

Everyone liked Option 2 better so I made this into the Carnival Walk rough:

I also altered the walk to slow it down and add more head tweens for the regular walk cycle on the beach scene:

For the same scene, I made roughs for him walking to a stop and picking up the trash.

From my side, my roughs and tie downs are done and all that's needed is Helen and Grace to finish cleanups and colour and to pass them back to me so I can composite them into the animation.

I put the existing roughs and flamingo cleanups I've done into one of the scene to see how it would look and everyone is happy with it so far:

What worked well:

• Changing speeds and poses between the pigeon walk cycles for the beach and carnival segments
• The head turn in the picking up trash animation
• The follow through with the tail feather

What could be improved:

• Follow through looked odd on the wings when experimenting, but could potentially add some subtle rotation on a couple of frames
• Could potentially make the head turn look more pigeon-y by offsetting the pupils more to the sides, which I can ask the rest of the team about later

Update 24/03/2020

The deadline for this brief has been pushed from 27th March to 9th April, presumably due to the pandemic situation. I am anticipating a possible need to do the cleanups and colour myself if Helen and Grace have too much difficulty with it, but only if I have time between my Extended Practice projects.

Update 08/04/2020

As expected, the Creative Advertising students have limited creative resources with university being shut down and as I had a bit of time between projects, I cleaned up and coloured in my scenes out of courtesy (and because I wanted to submit at least one finished animation). It's unfortunate that Grace and Helen couldn't really give me some refined backgrounds and as it was something I didn't end up having time to help out with, so I labelled them as rough backgrounds on the final exports.

I also composited Damo's roughs into the animatic and added an extra sound effect for the worm but Creative Advertising won't be able to clean up or colour his parts. The compiled animations with my 'Find Your Flock' and 'Beak the Change' parts and Damo's rough 'Upgrade Your Worms' look like this:

While there have been some issues with communication between team members with this project, I have generally enjoyed practising walk cycles and feel my final outcomes do look good (given the circumstances). This project has provided me with something of an insight on what I might expect in the professional world when it comes to being commissioned or collaborating with potential clients not from an animation background, and also what to expect when unforeseen circumstances (like a nationwide lockdown) affect the progress of a project.