Final Crit

I really liked the fact that we could ask specific questions in this crit as i could get answers to some of the problems i had. One of my qeustions was can you find any errors, i personally knew about a few but wasn't sure if it was just me or not but it got pointed out in several area's i didn't even notice, it helped fix specific points in my animation small errors which were easily fixed. Some other good comments helped me improve little things like a tiny bit of extra feathering in specific area's. 

Sketchbook 2

This sketchbook contains most of my storyboarding and scene drawings as well as idea's.

Sketchbook 1

Contains the majority of Idea's time planning, research and initial drawings

Final Sequence

Open publication - Free publishing - More main

Ident 4

Ident 1

Ident 2

Ident 3

Test Photoshop Scenes

This is the panoramic background for my Egypt scene, layered Sand against a layered background with a gradient. Made to size so i can just shove it into after effects.

Some experiments with textured text but i ended up not liking it and i would have to make it in photoshop aswell which looses me a lot of animation qaulity's. I asked mike if there was a way to do it in after effects and there is but due to the nature of my animation this would be far far too time consuming so i decided to cut this idea. 

More test scenes for Greece. 

These are some examples of the files i made in photoshop which i took some elements and just changed the colours and translated them to look slightly different. this allowed me to build up that 3D layer in After effects using a few different variations of the same cloud or tree. 

Test Photoshop Scenes

I couldnt decide which background to go for but i stuck with the greenish sky as it fit with the tree's and the colour scheme better although both background are relevant to the Maya civilisation. These quick photoshop test scenes save a lot of time before going into after effects so i know exactly that my content will work.

Final Sequence So Far

Scene Breakdown, the different sections so far.


It going pointed out that there are two errors in this 22s video, a tiny bit of black type showing through right at the beginning on the right and the word 'Ancient' moves across the pillar when it shouldn't but thats just after effects being After effects and doing things it shouldn't...


After Changing up the type to fit on the tree's this scene looks much better, just feels more fluent. I could probably get the type to sit a little bit tighter to the tree's


Feels like this scene is just one big fade in and fade out, need to change it so it fades in and out slightly quicker so the rest of the scene is in focus for longer. I can also probably put the type slightly tighter to the clouds.


I like this scene. The angle the camera comes in at changes it up and a bit and the lighting works well with the dark yellow sky and dark green forest and floor.

Final Sequence so Far

This was my first few hours of animating on my final sequence i got much quicker at it as i started to get a style down but yeh, things wrong with this video. I had too much shadowing and the transition between the title screen and Egypt is a bit choppy. The nature of this scene made it incredibly hard to animate especially a first scene.  I should of done the title screen as part 1 then cut to the 2nd scene for egypt instead of having two sections, one going forward and then one panning to the right with panoramic layers.


Here i took down the amount of shadowing and added a light into it to spot light my target area. I dont like the type in the egypt scene, it feels too light and like it doesn't balance with the rest of the scene, i need to potentially change its colour and increase the pointsize to make it fit better. Feels like its just kind of sitting on top of the scene and not mixing in well enough. Maybe incorporate it into the sand layers?
Also some of the structures are parented with sand and other aren't, either parent them all or none of them but looks a bit odd.

Ident experiment

Basically after speaking to lorraine i got my files straight and sorted out a lot of errors in my file keeping. The original test video's i cant upload to vimeo for various reasons but i have also sorted that out. The problem with this video and the reason i very much dislike it is due to the camera not panning smoothly, after watching a lot of tutorial video's i did eventually sort it out but i got very very stuck today so i just gave up and did it the simple way which comes out not very well...

Basically i went away and thought about the way i was working and realised i need to take a step back and simplify everything down otherwise i would try and produce something after effects was not made for and it would actually make this project really really hard for me.

But this experiment pushed 3D to its limit in after effects so now i kind of know where my limit is... now to step back and keep my sanity.

Ident in progress 1

 

This is some Screen Shots of my first attempt to make an ident but after finishing 1 i wasnt very happy with the result at this point i still needed to work out a better set of rules to work to. The way i was animating was far too complicated still. Using the XYZ axis effect on a null object seemed to help my camera pan more smoothly but it also brought a world of majour confusion along with it. so i decided to stop doing idents and take a step back and rethink my intire style. Mainly to simplify it so i could get a good qaulity animation done in the time set instead of stuggling with far too complicated tecniques.

Animation Tests (Depth of Field)

Experimenting with field of depth. 

These are some basic Test animations just seeing how the camera angles work with all the different settings, using a background layer gives the animation a feeling of depth and 3D. A problem i have encountered on AE is when using the 'Orbit' tool on the camera. As soon as you use it the camera does not more linear anymore and it messes up pretty much everything within the animation.

Without a background layer it feels much more flat but it also allows me to plug in any background i want or to do any camera animation. 

Possible intro image

Made this in photoshop and i will probably change it up to animate the specific elements like the text to come in letter by letter then go for a close up shot to change the scene.

Some initial story boards for the intro. 

Sound

Song from Bonobo, i really like this song because its just subtle background music and it feels like it's building up slowly. If i were to use it i would probably consider taking a 60 second section out of it from about 30 seconds in, so when the bass drops at about 45s i can get the animation to move with it.

Aztec

Mayan King

Egypt