Attempted to combine a camera moving and depth of field between Cinema 4D and After Effects. The most significant experience for me this time is, it is not easy to create some 3D elements like using Plexus when the camera is not in front angle. There is a realisation for me that I am still raw about the principle and utility of cameras in After Effects.
The rough shots are representing the images in my brain nicely. The final result might be much less logical but the ambience will be similar.
Sunday, 22 June 2014
The style of my Postgraduate Final Project Nature is Beautiful has been confirmed containing incoherent and fragile shorts mainly rendering some shapes, beams and other visual elements of the nature.
Actually, I have never created a work with just concept and consciousness representation yet. All video or image work I did before was based on some commercial or solid utilities. From my previous work for some authentic clients to the animation Energy Drink: Terminator that based on my interest, I was merely following the requirement from majority of the market. They were filled with realistic colourising, impacting camera shots and robots, and violent actions.
Subsequently, I created another animation Quenching Blue with more cartoon style and also telling an actual story. Hence I realised the fruitful feeling when attempting to adventure to a unfamiliar domain. Even there could not be such qualified products as from the familiar field. On the contrary, the challenges expanded my horizon and gave me diverse experience. In addition, abundant styles of work is definitely beneficial for my showreel.
For my final project of MA, I am planning to create a video with a style I never tried before. As watched some masterpieces when taking part in some impressive activities and learning from reading enlightening books such as Paul Wells' Understanding Animation, there is some different methods appearing in my mind. There were enormous things changing when it comes to making animation and visual effects for me. In my conscious now, the soft and technology is not merely tools to tell stories, but also effective implements to show gorgeous images. An animation could exist not for telling a lore or broadcasting for commercial purpose. While representing one thing, it can only contain colour, shapes and characters only diffusing the information. For my final project, it can transmit the beauty of nature that is either obvious or hidden in civilization. It does not have to be a succeed logical animation but would be composed by some shattered shots.
For now I have to learn much functions of Cinema 4D which is proved to be a magic tool box that match what I am planning to make. Watching tutorials is necessary whilst reaping large amount of inspiration is required. I have already assured the After Effects plugin Plexus is going to be a significant tool for the work.
It can be foreseen that there is various work to do. Contrarily the result is exciting and worth to wait.
The rough visual style is coming out. Also, it seems to be better if adding much cloud and beam in the atmosphere.
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Watched some tutorials on Youtube and hope them can help making the work.
Tried to put some cloud in the scene. The animation style might be like this and there could be some material overlaying the image as well.
Monday, 16 June 2014
Finally I finished the wheel. The cabins looks fine when decorated by some yellow neon which applied illumination material.
The vision looks pretty in the orange dusk light. However one task for me now is to diversify my color style in the showreel. Consequently I am still going to choose the silver moonlight style.
Planning to create a modern city style environment, I referred some city maps. Then mixed some part of two cities, I made a rough map to ascertain the building shapes of my scene.
Considering the composition of the vision, the Ferris Wheel, as a significant element in this animation, is put at the centre of northern region and the circle is facing east. However, there is still a lack for modelling skills to make the buildings in certain shapes. In Cinema 4D, I did require the capacity. Watched a series of tutorial of Rob Garrot, I finally got some clue to model in Cinema 4D as I did in 3Ds Max.
The next step is modelling the Wheel and giving some textures to these buildings.
Undergraduate schoolmates are fascinating! The animations they made are imaginative and the passion of them was obviously seen through those work.
This is an interesting animation by Pablo Vazquez from Netherlands and it is in the list of 'Disney Favorite'. Of course it is fabulous that an animation less than two minutes can represent such an adorable story. But now I would like to concentrate on the way of making the movements of this llama. Begin with this I will compare the similarities and differences between American and European animations in shaping animal movements in a certain extent.
This unlucky character is walking like a llama but shows some personification in expressions. Its clumsy movements provide most hilarious sections. Even made by an European artist, it still shows obvious Disney style.
Playing a leading role of American animation, Disney's creating methods influences tremendous animators in this country profoundly. Hence it could be fruitful to look into their ideas making animal actions.
Instead of the guard captain riding on, Maximus is a starring role.
The white horse Maximus is a key character in the animation Tangled. He is completely showing various of emotions, interests, and interactions with other characters, just without dialogues and walking with four legs. 'In general, Maximus has very human facial features: especially the eyes and eyebrows. When he snorts and fumes straight toward the camera, he looks just like a big, furry guy.' (Abdi, 2012) In my opinion, this feature mixing human and animal actions and keeping the original animal appearance exists in most American animations with animals contains.
In these works, the characters can support the drama not merely with the same ways to humans, but also performing some characteristics only existing in their species. For incidence, Bugs Bunny can wear any costumes and still be hunted by Elmer Fudd, running with funny dialogues.
American animators successfully made this mixing way to show some drastic imaginative scenes. The animal stars is seldom playing the original life given by nature. On the contrary, they can represent their instincts with some specific segments. Generally speaking, they are acting normal American characters just through animal bodies and representing features watched in other categories of American dramas, either in films and cartoons. Majority of them are commercial, containing funny plots, happy or scary emotion rending, and even some violence and cynical sarcasms. This situation donated the animation industry a number of masterpieces.
Despite nominated to the Animated Feature Film, everyone could figure out this film is from Europe in the first glimpse.
There are quite a lot similarities, I insist, between European and American animations when creating animal characters. At least, one significant quest for animators is creating something difficult to be seen in real-shot films. Consequently, admixing some human characteristics to animals is a comparably common method in animation making.
On the other hand, there is some obvious difference from American to European animation animals. From those pieces of work I have watched, what can be observed was the animal characters in European animation films akin to humans are more living in human ways. They often have similar desires and plights, running mortal lives and concerning about families just like human. Whilst American animation give animals human movements and thoughts usually to make them more funny, European animators always reflect some real-life phenomenons and issues in human society with some animals dressing and arranging livelihood like us. In the action representation field, the difference can be described as two kinds of 'bodies'.
In American animation, an animal body is often 'fragmentary - it can be broken into parts, reassembled and conjoined with other objects and materials.' (Wells, 1998)
Contrarily, in European animation, their bodies are usually 'apparently incompatible are rendered equable in size, strength, ability etc.' (ibid)
Another feature of European cartoon is it often perform less commercial elements than those of American. They often are effected less by specific story modes. There are not always a hero struggling, growing and acting as a salvation role. The animation Animal Farm (1954) displayed a dark tale in a specific social environment filled with different animals and farmers. Many problems in human life can be observed during this film. Even the animals are merely playing there own roles, they did not look comparably funny. 'Although the main characters are farm animals, the subject matter is anything but typical Disney family fare.'(Barry, 2012) Obviously, this animation, considered as a masterpiece, would not be considerablly welcomed by the market.
In this article I compared some main performing methods between American and European animation in animal characters. Next time I would discuss some Asian cartoons in this domain.
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