As promised

As promised earlier in the blog, here is my final animatic.

I will posy my final test piece in a seperate post.

Home straight

I have been working a lot recently on my test piece. I have animated it I now have to edit it and export. After this I shall add some finishing touches to my alternative mood board and double check my work to ensure I have completed everything.

The subsection to my blog discusses the development techniques used in Shrek and focusses on how the development team used real life influence to perfect the computer generated events within the film.

Animatic and alternative mood board

I have recently completed my animatic and started work on my test piece. I have decided that I am going to concentrate on the shot in which the gun is fired for my test pieces, concentrating on various methods of animating the bullet leaving the barrel as well as the smoke that follows it. Additionally I will consider the motion of the raindrops being splashed from the rim of the barrel as the bullet is fired.

(I am currently having trouble uploading my animatic and will attempt to upload it in a later post)



As well as my animatic, I have also completed my alternative mood board. Naturally my alternative mood board features bright and bold colours. The general mood is one of happiness and joy and instead of being mature the mood board has a much more carefree childish feel about it. There are various animals and sweets and other items associated with this mood. Supplementary to the use of bright and wide range of colours I have also chosen to include outside scenes and animals that represent freedom such as the butterfly.

Revised treatments and Storyboards

Below is my revised written treatment, I have shortened it by making it less specific and excluding some of the unnecessary description.

Short:

Mystery and bewilderment build up to an exciting encounter.

Long:

Cold darkness surrounds a silhouetted figure making its way through an urban nightmare. Danger lingers at every turn as the elusive answers to a puzzling mystery remain to be answered. Shadows lurk in every crevice as suspense and tension build up to an eventful encounter.

In addition to this I have finally had the chance to scan in my storyboards and therefore compiled them with the explanations typed up alongside them.

Click to enlarge.

Revised Moodboard

I have edited and improved my previous version of my mood board. Over the past couple of weeks I have been drawing my storyboards. These storyboards are fully sketched with frame numbers, duration and transition details. Unfortunately I have been unable to get these scanned and therefore unable to upload them. However I have intentions of doing so within the following 24 hours.

Once I have scanned in my storyboards I am going to compile them into an order to create an animatic with sound. This will help provide a more accurate portrayal of my final piece. From this I will develop a rough edit of my animation.

Character Development

After creating my initial mood boards I have used sketches to develop my character designs. The images provided show the process of design from initial head shape sketches through to feature designs and combinations of these for a variety of character designs. The second of the pages shows the result of this design process with three initial sketches of my final character design. The three sketches show the character from the front, the side as well as at a three quarter perspective. These designs provide a feel for the characters personality as well as the atmosphere he will be involved in. The drawings also provide an insight into the characters history and how this may mould the events surrounding this character.

In addition to my character designs I have also started to make some improvements to my mood board and written treatments so that they each achieve their desired effects. These improvements will be added once they are completed.

Written treatment for Animation

Below are my initial written treatments for my animation.

Abstract Treatment

Mystery bewilders the main character as they proceed through a dark environment. Potential dangers build up to an exciting encounter.


Long Treatment

Cold, dark, grimy night surrounds a silhouetted figure secretively making his way through and urban nightmare. The figure struggles to fight off the biting cold of the bitter winter. Danger lingers at every turn as the elusive answers to an increasingly puzzling mystery remain to be answered. Shadows lurk in every crevice as suspense and tension build up to eventful encounter.

 

 

Progress

I have so far developped my ideas to the extent that I now have a first draft of a written treatment as well as a mood board which is yet to be completed and finally some rough chracter designs which are to be further developped.

The mood board on the right starts to create a feel of the film noir style that i wish to feature in my animation. In addition to this the browns and use of shadings show some of the effect I would like to achieve on my animation.

Once I have scanned in my character designs I shall upload them here on my blog. Finally I will be adding my written treamtemnt shortly.

Initial Idea continued

Just to consider an alternative idea I am interested in creating an animation with a detective/mystery feel to it. Whilst I still like the idea of it being rustic and industrial I would also like to make it more mature with a dark feel about it. To tie the two styles together I am considering the use shadings and a brown filter. I will explore these ideas with my mood boards and decide whether or not to use them.

Initial Ideas

At this early stage I am yet to confirm any final ideas or even much in the way of a story line. One of my first ideas is to apply a rustic yet industrial feel to my animation. to achieve this I would use 2d vector graphics using software such as Illustrator or Flash to create visual aspects. Additionally if I were creating a final product from this research and development I would also like to create the animation using Flash.

Over the following week I intend to explore more ideas and styles that I may use as well as deciding upon a basic story line to allow me to start writing my abstract. After this I can start to finalise my ideas with a mood board as well as a contrasting mood board to explore possibilities I may have been over looking.