I wanted to see what this effect would look like, so I saved individual pictures, three or four of the same name but each with different letters added. Quickly imported them into CVS and rendered out this short clip. The quality isn't great and to be honest I'm not too keen on the effect. It was supposed to look like the letters were being added gradually but it kind of looks like it's taking a while to load.

Soooo we scrapped this and myself and Liam decided that a 'scrolling' credits was best. But to quirk it up a bit it should linger on the names a tad longer, both to give the audience enough time to read and to not bore them. Now it's Liam's job to create this look in AE. Should look good.

Here's a quick view of how the credits will look. I decided to do them in the style of as if the Imp had written them himself. The best way I could think to do this was to create a crayon/chalk look to it. To jazz it up a bit I thought it would be nice to add a few simple 'child-like' doodles in the corners. Drawing like a toddler is definately more difficult then the drawings in this animation! Even if it doesn't look like it.

I downloaded a demo of ArtRage3 after trying out many types of brushes in Sketchbook and PS, because I remember using it last year on my Sting, and liked the texture of the brushes. On here I found the pastel brush and created these chalk board-style images. When saved as png's it came up with the yellow text in the corners, but no worries, a quick cover up in PS and it's all done.

Ok, so this is the coloured and close to finished version of when Charlie is about to lose his umbrella. With hands!! I'm fairly happy with it. Althought looking back I should have put more emphasis on the 'struggle' maybe allowed him to linger (hands up in the air) longer. Maybe emphasised the strength of the wind too by using his hat. It could have been difficuly for him to keep it on. Not sure, but it's always something I can change for the Odeon.

Just a rough version still... added the umbrella so I can see where i need the hands to grab and follow etc.

Right then, this is the coloured piece of when the umbrella escapes from his hands, I like the swishing and overlapping of the tie and blazer, think it works well. I recently showed this to Paul and Neil, they said it's fine but the hip needed to swing out a little more. I agree, and so if there's time after the credits and sound I'll be coming back to change it.

I think in the actual film we're going to cut a few frames at the beginning (until you see the umbrella)

Sooooo, I've been working on this for a while. After animating the umbrella I had to get into the swing of animating a human. I'm finding it pretty difficult and I certainly know I'm not the best animator. I thought I'd include the flapping of his jacket and tie to show the wind. The wind will be added in AE, but there's no point in having it if it's not affecting anything. I think that when the colour is added it will help this little shot out.

An updated Birds-eye background, ready for the final film, I've added Charlie, again he's not going to be moving to add to the 'toy' idea. The tracks are going to be added in the centre of the shot by Laim as well as the slowing rain.

This is just half of the coloured birds-eye shot, simply because all of the umbrellas have been saved as png's, and putting them into CVS it taking forever at the minute.

The saved png's are ready for Liam to put the train tracks on a layer in between it and the background, but I think it's coming along well. This section will have rain slowing, also dont in AE over the top. I have also added some other people underneath their umbrellas into the background because before it was looking rather odd. All i need to include is Charlie himself and a few on the other side of the tracks.

Et Voila! This is the finished coloured version of the umbrella in the cathedral shot. I'm quite proud of this, I think it looks elegant. Hopefully this is the part where the mood changes within the film to a bit more relaxed.

Erica has painted some clouds to go over the top on a seperate layer, and they will be put into AE by Liam to move out to reveal the cathedral.

I thought I'd post this; just to show the spacing of the animation, plus with the umbrellas coloured and layered up it makes quite an interesting image.

Just an update to show how the colouring is going... half way there and so far so good. Taking a lot longer than I thought because I'm having to neaten up to block colour and add a black and light grey outline over the top of each umbrella, so I'm technically drawing each three times. Whether I'm making life difficult for myself I dont know but I think it will look very nice when it's finished.

Just came across this in one of my folders, thought it would be good to see the timing and spacing of this umbrella shot.

This needs to be changed a lot I think. This is just a rough version of Charlie's struggle still. I wanted to get an idea of how the head will move, when I acted it out I noticed that when pulling back it's as if the chin leads on the 'pull down' for a short while and then gets taken over by the top of the head.

The timing and spacing needs to be adjusted, because at the minute it's definately too even.

Here I have just been playing around with the perspective and this very crude animation shows how it will hopefully look. The head I wasn't too concerned about for the time being, the facial expressions will help to bring it to life, but I'm not that far into it yet.

Again, this started out as a template for animating this shot with the 3D umbrella in Maya, but like the previous one Paul and Neil suggested we keep this, neaten it up and use it as a 2D piece. So... on with the colouring!!

This short sequence definately took longer than anticipated. The idea was to quickly sketch up each frame of the shot, ready for each image to be imported to a plane in Maya, so that the real 3D umbrella animation can be copied over the top of it, it would also help to show the camera angle set up. Originally it was going to take just an hour or so, but I kept going back and adjusting it and eventually it turned out like a proper animation.

When I showed Neil and Paul recently they suggested to get rid of the idea of the 3D umbrella completely and use this 2D version. I was happy with this idea because I think it flows nicely and works well, and it would be doubling our time if we go over anything that's already almost finished. Plus, we don't have a working and ready model of the umbrella to use as of yet.

The only thing is, I'm not sure how it will effect the film. Because the umbrella was going to be used to tie in both the 2D and 3D elements. I'm concerned that now making the umbrella 2D it will make the end 'Imp' shot look totally out of place. But we will have to see...

A quick post to show the almost completed birds-eye layout, the bottom image was drawn 2048px by 1152px because I wasn't sure if the scene would start as a close up and then zoom out to follow the umbrella, but soon after the group decided that with the moving umbrella and rain and wind all going on it would be a lot for the audience to take in, therefore maybe overlooking the background.

So that meant drawing it on a smaller scale, this time using the normal 1024px by 576px. I very much like the skewed shot, even if it is a birds-eye view, you can still see the crookedness of the streets and the buildings.

This particular background took a very long time to get right. Athough, that being said I'm still not entirely happy with it. Working upwards, you can see the different layers that are in this layout. There needs to be a foreground and a backround because the 3D train needs to be composited in between the two, to make it look as if it's really in the shot.

The foreground, after many minor tweeks was ready fairly quickly however the very back of the shot was tricky. I wanted the right angle to show the steepness of the hill, yet keep the cathedral at the very top. Also I wanted it to be off centre and skew slightly. That's the bit I'm not too excited about.

If the hill was skewed too much the buildings looked out of proportion, or it didn't look steep enough, eventually I settled with the one 2nd from the top. And after a suggestion to make a more faded look to the background from Sean, I came up with the layout that will be used in the final film.

This layout was fairly simple to do, it was literally taken from the animatic, where Charlie loses his umbrella and the wind takes it away. All that was needed was the corner of the building and part of the street, the extra characters can be added in later.

Some people may be thinking, 'Why are you including people in a background? Surely they will look odd not moving?'

Yes, but... That's the point. The group decided that we should use this background because the imp is playing with toys, and toy's can't move on their own. At first it may look strange, but then this will add to the mystery of the whole situation, trains running backwards and forwards, nobody being able to move... It will hopefully put the focus onto Charlie more. With the reaction of 'this doesn't make sense!'

So anyway, this is the background for all of Charlie's reaction shots. Where he will be animated in Flash by Aaron and myself over the top.

I don't want to bore you with all of the different versions of our animatic, so... after many many drawings... here's how the final animatic, well... the one we've been happy with for over 3 days and eventually how our film should look. Or there abouts!

Now we'd worked out better angles for the film I started thinking about the colour palette, the plan is to use greys and browns to show the oppressive atmosphere on the ground.
The mid (sky) shots are to be brighter, to show the escape from such a place and finally we decided to use bright, contrasting colours in the Imp's world to show excitement and playfulness.

So here's a 15 minute sketch to indicate the colours of the barrier and buildings

Just an example of a couple of new shots I have added to the animatic

Updated animatic...

Mostly focusing on the transition from Charlie's world to the Imp's.

i just wanted to show my ideas of camera angles and timing for the first quarter-ish... will ask the group what they think...

Here's the first page of the storyboard, I won't put them all up because you can see it in the animatic...

This is my first idea of how the Imp's room could look... not much detail on this one, but not a bad rough sketch methinks.

More to come!!

Imp poses

Aaron needed a turn-around of the little guy so he can be modelled in Maya. Here he is!

a slight colour change

Imp character

And now we have the IMP!!
These were also the colours I was picturing, red to connotate links with the devil and mischeif, mixed with purples and yellows so he doesn't end up looking flat.

So... like the business man (now called Charlie) I've started sketching some ideas of how the Imp may look. We decided that he should be cute, yet with an ellement of mischeif.

Thinking about the colour of him now... we think dull greys will help make him look worn down. The scratchy effect could increase as time goes by to add to his frustration??

very rough mid shot of the character...

After talking with the rest of my group and going through some more designs with Neil; we all agreed on this guy. We liked the almost blank expression on his face. As well as the 'chinlessness'. The centre drawing I wanted to skew slightly to make him more interesting and appealing front on. I also wanted him to have quite a sufficiant overhang on the rim of his hat, allowing for the opportunity to help exaggerate his emotions in the animation.

I recently downloaded sketchbook, and so I was very happy to start doodling. The group decided that I should do the character designs for our film.
so...

A quick shot of the first character designs for the business man...

This is my very initial sketch of the business man. Neil thought he looked too plain and boring and so I shall keep some elements of him, (Neil was happy with his lack of chin, and sad looking eyes) but make him more appealing. Neil suggested to have a play around with the proportions of his head, so for example, the bigger the forehead - the more childlike it can make a character appear. So that's what I'm getting on with next.

Working on the Short Film...

The idea for our group's short film is inspired by Lincoln. We decided upon the film being based around the Lincoln Imp.

(A Brief Synopsis)

The audience see a crowd waiting for a train to pass, not an unusaul experience for people living in Lincoln city centre, then focuses on a particularly slim and 'weak' looking business man. The train passes but to the crowd's surprise... then reverses and starts to travel forwards again. The train does this repeatedly and as time progresses the scrawny business man grows more and more distressed.
As if that isn't enough, the weather is against him, the rain continues to pour and the wind begins to pick up. It becomes so stormy, that his umbrella is whisked away from his grip and is carried off into the clouds by the blustery weather.
The umbrella continues to rise through the layers of cloud, so far infact that it emerges into a different world altogether. This 'new, other world' is then revealed to be the bedroom of the baby imp, where he is shown to be innocently playing with his typical toys. which just happen to be a train set, and a doll with an umbrella.

Just a couple of doodles while we decide on the story of our film. I like this little chap, hopefully we can use him at some point?

Hellooooooo Year 2!!!

Ok, so we've been put into our groups for our 2nd year films, I'm pretty happy, I think I get on with everyone I'm working with. Well at the moment anyway. Only joking!

Right, so, we haven't got an idea as of yet, but we know we've got to work on the idea of the Lincoln Imp.

Better get on with the sketches and I'll be posting on here very soon!

The one i surprised myself with! The Samsung C3050; modelled in maya with blinn and phong materials. Lighted using a hdr image...

Another hand in, this time an island scene at night modelled in maya...