3D Animation - Take Two!

Design Practice 1 - Animation take 2 - Graeme Nye from Graeme Kickass on Vimeo.

Ok, so I was being lazy before! I felt that a nine second video just won't cut it, so I made it longer and fixed a few things.

In the first video, you can actually see the word "Gray" fly across the screen during the first camera pan, I only noticed once I uploaded, and that just had to go. Secondly, when the objects start falling, I decided to space it out a bit for two reasons; it would extend the animation more; the sound effects won't get as muddled together.

Obviously I added more to the end, I feel that it looked quite spiffy.

Comments would be lovely :)

Animation

Design Practice 1 - 3D Animation - Graeme Nye from Graeme Kickass on Vimeo.

Hmm, animation... Definitely the hardest of the 3 Design Practice tasks.

For the past three weeks we have been taught the very basics of 3DsMax which just include the basic interface, how to make things move (obviously) and the basics of modelling a character.

While I found animation to be the most interesting aspect of the Multimedia course so far, it was by far the most complicated of the three. This is mainly due to the fact that 3DsMax is such a huge piece of software, it's nearly impossible to learn it in just 3 weeks. So I had to experiment and discover features mostly by myself. A lot of time was also spent looking at online video tutorials, which helped, but for the most part just seemed to advanced or just not very helpful for what I needed.

In the second week of the module, we were taught how to make a funny little character called Jellyhead. This lesson was very helpful; and while the character 'JellyHead' looked very cool, I didn't want to copy it for my Ident. So instead, I took a lot of what I was taught, and tried creating a different character.

There isn't much I would do differently if I were to do this task again. I think the main thing holding me back was my inexperience with the software; most my time was stressing out trying to find out why things weren't working instead of actually animating. So all I need to do differently now is to just practice.

Please give any feedback you can if you're actually reading this :)

Interactive Space

We were given 3 weeks to create some kind of story. But instead of your usual linear story, we had to make it interactive and let the user make decisions which could affect the outcome.

In order for the interactive part of the project to work, we were taught the basics of HTML. Luckily for me, I was already quite competent with HTML and CSS so that could lead me to focus on the other parts. Such as story, and the picture quality.

The whole project was created in Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, and the pictures needed to be edited and compressed in Adobe Photoshop CS4. Again, I have already had a lot of experience using both these software, so it wasn't too difficult to get things done.

I didn't come across too many problems along the way, the task was quite simple. The hardest part was coming up with an original story, which would stand out from the rest. I decided to use a character I made a few years ago from an animation I created (Socially Awkward Alan. You can see the cartoon once you have finished the game!). I thought it would be a bit different and quirky if I could add someone/thing from the 'cartoon world' and put them in our own. Now that I had one concept sorted, I needed to actually think of a story. I finally ended up creating a slasher/horror story, but with a twist. I wanted to add some comedy to the project, so I made Alan the slasher, and when he catches you, he kicks you in the groin; the whole point of the story is to avoid the groin shot, and to somehow kill him.

There were a few things I would definitely change if I were to do this project again. I would make sure to use a better quality camera. I ended up using a camera phone, for no better reason other than the fact I was being lazy. I didn't want to have to walk through the cold to get a camera, and have to walk all the way back to Waverley.


Here are a few screenshots of my work, be sure to check out the full game at http://www.makingnewmaps.com and click on my wonderful face.


**SPOILER ALERT**

Click for larger images.

3DsMax

Just finshed my first seminar on Animation, and I have to say, it's pretty fun. I knew coming into the Multimedia course I'd probably have the most fun with animation, and I wasn't wrong.



Jelly from Graeme Kickass on Vimeo.

We were asked to make some text act like Jelly, and this is what I made. It was suprisingly easy to use, and a hell of a lot simpler than the frame-by-frame animation I would usually do on Adobe Flash. 

5 picture story

We were told to create a story in just 5 pictures.

This is what I came up with. It's a tale of adventure, romance and revenge. Starring me, and socially awkward Alan. Enjoy!

One Shot Film - The Good the Bad and the Really Ugly

It's a bit rubbish that this is the first post of my Journal; I don't even have one of those "Uni is awesome! We made can camera's and whiteboard cartoons!!" Oh well. Well, now that I finally have access to the internet at home, this thing will be updated regularly.

Anyway, my group and I were given the task to make a short film clip, which you cannot cut and must be filmed entirely in one shot. Doesn't sound too difficult. But we were also told we could only have ONE camera movement, this makes it a little more difficult.

Because the rules were very restrictive, it was hard for us to come up with ideas for a film, without breaking the rules. Our group's final decision was to make a short clip from a poker game. The idea was inspired from films such as 'Casino Royale'. The poker scene in that movie was very tense and keeps you on edge. I thought, if we could get the lighting right, and a strong script with good actors, we could be on to something great. Unfortunately, planning and organisation didn't go down too well. It was hard for our group to all meet up, as members had other commitments, and we were never free at the same time. This resulted in us mostly improvising during filming. We also failed to find actors who were really passionate about acting. This is why I had to step in to act; which is the perfect recipe for failure. Lighting wasn't on our side either. When we were getting the equipment ready, we soon found out one of our lights didn't work. After looking for a screw driver to replace the faulty bulb with no avail, we just gave up and tried lighting the set with only two lights. We did eventually acquire a screw driver, courtesy of Deborah. But all this running around took a very long time, and we only had a bit of time left in the studio. This resulted in quite a rushed performance.

This project has taught me a few very important lessons. Planning and organisation is vitally important. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Just coming up with a basic idea and not taking the time to fully put ideas on paper will mean the finished outcome will not come out as you imagined.

Well, enough of me talking (typing?), here is my edit of the film. This is the first draft; I hope to change things around a lot.



And this is the original, raw footage.