I'm 99.9% done with my assets. My goal for today is to put all my scenes together as well as all my actors. I'll spend wednesday making the making the hand drawn scenes and finessing the key frame animation.

Placeholder animation. I want to finish the entire thing and then go back and refine it. 

Unfortunately my new WIP is broken and doesn't look much further along than my previous. I created 8 versions of nearly each asset to be animated in photoshop which took the lions share of my work time.

First version of demo reel.

 Monday November 21

Tuesday November 22           

Wednesday November 23 – Have at least 50% of hand drawn assets finished

Thursday November 24 – Have at least 75% of hand drawn assets finished

Friday November 25            - have 100% of assets finished

Saturday November 26 -

Sunday November 27

Monday November 28 – Animate first fantasy scene           

Tuesday November 30 – Animate 2^nd  fantasy scene

Wednesday Dec 1 – Animate 3^rd fantasy scene

Friday Dec 2

Saturday dec 3 – begin toon boom animation

Sun dec 4, Mon dec 5, Tues dec6 – all toon boom

Final WIP

Act. I:
Act one opens with an Indian-Jones-esque pulp adventure character in a lava filled cavern. He his hopping between rock platforms jutting out of the magma. He stops to examine a relic he just found. Suddenly a motherly voice calls from off screen and the scene switches to a small boy jumping onto pillows arrayed out on a living room floor, the whole scene was a play pretend of the boys imagination with the relic as a baseball. He brushes his mom off and returns back to his fantasy except now the scene has taken on the character of a science fiction story, the character is no longer a pulp action adventurer but is a space explorer. He is leaping across the same rock path but now it is over a fetid alien swamp with creeping tentacles. He finally reaches the shore just as the tentacles expose themselves as a hideous predatory alien.
Act II.
Mother calls out again for him to come eat lunch. The scene switched back to the boy and he stands over a tennis racket. He picks it up and the scene switches back to fantasy. The tennis racket has become a beam sword, he turns around to face the encroaching monstrous foe. He rushes into battle and slashes off a tentacle. Mother, increasingly agitated yells at him to come eat his lunch before it gets cold. The scene switches back to reality, he had been battling the drapes. He goes to the kitchen, quickly eats his lunch and rushes back to his imaginary adventure. He returns to his imagination but it has changed into a Arthurian fantasy setting. He has become a knight and his alien foe/the drapes has been transformed into a fierce dragon. He rages into battle and eviscerates the the dragon.
Act III
The dragon has been vanquished but we switch back to reality and the boy has battled the drapes off the wall. A silhouette of mother appears with a body language that says "Your in trouble, little boy."

Revised Story board and color card.

Travel Fellowship Application

Tyler Sutton

The history, art, and architecture of the city of Venice have always fascinated me. A visit to Venice, the absorption of the history of Venice and the Venetian culture would greatly enhance my story telling ability as well as technical artistic ability.

The rise of the Republic of Venice, it's trials and tribulations, my stories for animation projects would practically create themselves. The rise and fall of the Doge, the intrigue of the masquerades of the Renaissance with the distinctive Venetian masks, and the horrors of the black plague beset upon an island city are rich and fertile grounds for the creation of complex and interesting plots. Great writes such as Shakespeare and Anne Rice found inspiration in the ancient city. Even in the two days I spent in Venice my mind raced with ideas for stories and plots.

On the technical side, all of my various interests would be piqued in Venice. In the field of industrial design I could learn a great deal from the classic Venetian glass smiths. One of the longest running companies in the world is a Venetian glass company that has been in constant operation since 1295. The beauty and craftsmanship of Venetian glass is world renowned.  The forms, color, and texture of Venetian glass work would help me better understand form and function in 3D space, improving my ability to craft designs for dimensional objects.

In the field of architecture, Venice is a veritable goldmine. There is nothing quite like the city of Venice. An illustrious mixture of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical-Moderne architecture is a muse unto itself. One is simply left in awe when stepping onto Piazza San Marco. During the Southern Renaissance, Venice was the center of world trade and it shows in the Arabesque and Near Eastern flourishes that left its mark on Venice's architecture. I have a great interest in architecture, filling my sketchbooks with designs of hypothetical structures and I believe a fellowship in Venice would have a grand impact on my ideas concerning architecture.

In painting, Venice was one of the hearts of the Italian Renaissance, next only to Florence. Home of Cenaletto, Titian, Bellini, and Veronese, Venice left its mark on the world of fine art.  One cannot spend time around such work and not gain some technical enhancement from it.

All these interests and more would be immensely enhanced by a fellowship to the beautiful, ancient city of the Lion (the Lion is the symbol of Venice) but my purpose there would be to create a work of narrative animation. A piece of animated narrative, colored by such a city, would be something unique and bold. Creating a world based on Venice, its history and culture and the character of its population, would entail a great deal of research, documenting, sketching, and photographing as well as socializing with the native people.

I am already familiar with the layout of Venice on a basic level and the language barrier is not much of an issue due to most Venetians speaking English. Cost is an issue as Venice is considered to have a relatively high cost of living. Housing is extremely costly in the old city though inland housing is much cheaper albeit with the subsequent need for transportation into the old city which is an additional cost. A one bedroom apartment in the old city is about seven-hundred dollars a month in rent. Utilities are approximately two-hundred dollars a month. An “inexpensive” restaurant is approximately twelve dollars a meal for one. A Coka-Cola is two dollars and fifty cents. (All prices equivalent dollars in Euros) Thus Venice is an expensive place but the rewards are undoubtedly worth it.

My final project is about a small boy and the fantasy worlds he constructs to play pretend in. As children we all were so easily able to construct vivid imaginary worlds to play in. A group of pillows becomes rocks which one has to precariously jump on in order to avoid the floor that has become lava and then it becomes a fetid marsh on an alien planet. A baseball is a ancient relic, then a holocube. A tennis racket becomes a laser sword and then it becomes excalibur. Drapes are alien tentacles then a dragon. 

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/galactic_orb/

This is the tutorial I based my project on. Unfortunately the trial version of After Effects is missing many of the effects used by Mr. Kramer on this tutorial so I had to approximate with substitutions on my project - namely the lack of particle simulations and CC Lens effects. I used spherize to approximate the lens effect and foam in place of particles.
In the end my project ended up more like a gelatinous blob than a energetic galactic orb. Oh well.

Regarding the final project.
Im still feeling out the story and setting. Im definitely setting more realistic goals and expectations for this project in terms of length and breadth of story and detail. I will use the 2.5D elements we used recently and will also be using more hand created/analogue assets. I really enjoyed how that looked when brought into 2.5D space. Right now, in terms of story, im thinking about showing (using a split view) an adventure of a small boy. On one side of the screen you see reality and on the other side you see the fantastic world of the kids imagination. What on one side is pillows scattered on the floor is, to the small boy, rocks he uses to navigate over a lake of magma or maybe a river full of crocodiles. I think this would be an interesting experiment to show the same scene from 2 points of view: the real world as seen by an adult and the fantastic world of imagination seen through the eyes of a child..both "worlds" existing side by side.  After the heady and fairly depressing subject matter of loss of a loved one and suicide I want to do something more lighthearted and whimsical.

AE Effects bonanza woo hoo

2.5D animation

I created a sort of 2.5D diorama constructed of hand drawn assets. My render is coming out jerky for some reason. If I render in lossless its smooth but if I render it in H264 it has a weird jerkiness to it.
Any suggestions, interwebs?

Final Revised. Im glad to finally be done with this project. It didn't turn out quite like I wanted and I became disillusioned with the original story arc quite early. And the overall subject matter was incredibly depressing to work with and took its toll on me personally. I will continue to tweak it so its more presentable by the time review committee rolls around but I'm glad to be moving on. Sometimes me reach exceeds its grasp. My next project will be much more light hearted with an aesthetic much less tied to the real world - the aesthetic I chose did not very well match the tools I was using and it became overly time consuming.

David Dupont's Demo Rell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKzwJGV-njo
Shows small clips of 3d computer animation demonstrating the artist skill as a character animator. He starts with clearly his best work, a very realistic monster and in the middle demonstrates more of a cartoon aesthetic. He ends it rather poorly with a rapid succession slide show of charcoal character sketches.
William Phillips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94QNZ5uiCQs&feature=related
William Phillips is definitely interested in computer/video game development. He focus on character models and environments with the maximum amount of detail with the minimum amount of geometry (polygons). Video game systems and home computers aren't render farms and need to generate images in realtime, interactive framerates of thirty frames per second or more.
Phil Chornohus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=VnOLEySbrJM
Mostly a solid demonstration of modeling skills. Not everyone is an animator and that is ok, there are plenty of positions for just creating and modeling characters. But a little bit of animation would go some lengths to making this a more compelling demo reel.

Revised my piece from Tuesday. Smoothed the Animation and cleaned up some of the images. Working on assets for the last half of the story, plan to be completely finished by Sunday evening.
Created a Behance login and checked out a few demo reels.
Stills:

From Google doc. Demo reel grade sheet

Adventure - D: Probably should NOT be on demo reel. Not entirely finished piece
Fin Du Monde: A: Best work I did in Intro to Comp. Animation. Definately in demo reel.
Genesis Seed. B-: Might work after some tweaking
ZombieTimeHD C-: A little amerteurish, not good demo reel material.
Nightmare: B: May be good with a little tweaking
ViciousCycle: Ditto, could use some tweaking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp-HMh-toHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyXYCSGacUg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El2QUTLLkIc

Most of the demo reels I viewed started off with the best foot forward, which makes a lot of sense. Start with the great stuff, and end with the good stuff. The stuff at the beginning grabs attention and ending good leaves a "good taste" in the mouth of the viewer. That doesn't mean you should bookend crap with quality, the entire thing should be of quality, but it makes sense to have your two best pieces at the beginning and the end. Most of the reels I watched contained an audio track but that may be for Youtube purposes rather than professional practice.

Midterm project revision.
The animation is much improved in the revision and the cuts are more sensible. My opening shot tracking the walking feet is a little "stompy." It looks like my character is stomping rather than walking. My shot of the character walking into the bathroom, towards the camera is much improved. I seem to be losing a lot of my animation in the rendering process which probably means I need to extend an animation longer than what it seems in AE.
Travel Fellowship.
I really wanted to see the Madame Toussades (spelling?) Wax Museum when I was in Amsterdam. I guess that is high on my priority with a traveling fellowship. Top of the list would be the Rijksmuseum where much of Rembrandt's paintings are on display as well as those of the other Dutch Masters. The Allard Piersons museum house a great collection of antiquities, including dynastic Egyptian artifacts. It would also be interesting to visit the Pianola Museum wich houses original piano rolls from Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Strauss. There is more to Amsterdam than legal marijuana and prostitution but half the fun is the clash of cultures, where fine arts museums are just across the street from open air porno markets and hashish bars.

ugh.

Google Docs. Spreadsheet (internships)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtP8Fe2mcYU4dHdSMnVheW4tWUx5US1MQ3pZWGhWekE&hl=en_US#gid=0

Inferno Linda Cort 901 278 3773 Junior/Senior in GD, Proficient in Adobe suite, quart, positive attitude, team player All year paid
o2en Katie Russell 901 578 8055 Design Sensibility, Technical design skills, strategic thinking, high quality craftsmanship, time management, quality research Spring, Summer paid
Archer Malmo Inc. Richard Williams 901 524 2000 Eagerness to learn, Adobe Suite proficiency, Craftsmanship, strong design skills Summer depends on operating budget
Morgan Keegan and Co. Gail Rimer 901 524 4183 Proficient in Adobe Suite, Quark, MS Office Spring Paid
Red Deluxe Martin Wilford 901 522 9242 Adobe Suite, Quark, hand skills for mounting & presentation n/a paid
Mpact Memphis Gwyn Fisher 901 528 8340 Adobe, Good work ethic, craftsmanship All year n/a








Assignment write up:
This project was a punishing learning experience in planning and prioritization. I became ill over the weekend therefor I tried to do my project at home. It was one disaster after the other. I would spend hours on backgrounds for scenes I would later not have time to use. I would fail to save and my computer (which has a faulty, overheating video card) would crash..costing me even more hours worth of work.
Overall I feel lucky to even have something to turn in. Next time i'll rough out my backgrounds, then animate, then spend time on all the little details and eye candy.

Travel Fellowship.

I would most like to go to the Netherlands, as I am quite fond of the Northern Renaissance painters. Using the funds provided I would ensure I had relatively inexpensive lodgings (though this would prove to be difficult as Amsterdam has a very high cost of living.) This is the primary financial concern, shelter. And undoubtedly the most expensive component of the traveling fellowship. I can subsist off a low cost diet, funded mostly by myself. Another concern would be public transport, another cost I would carry.

assignment write up

Sorry if my writing runs a little incoherent, I just put away a 40 oz.
Basically tonight I just created various assets for my project. I created a face with iterations of 3 facial expressions. I created a body and another scene.

Mid Term Review

I came into this class with zero understanding or experience with Adobe Aftereffects. Halfway through the semester I feel like I have a working and applicable knowledge of the software. Its not the greatest software for animating in the style I prefer (hand drawn with onion skinning ala Toonboom) but it has it's own cool aesthetic. Despite being absent for a week I think I have grasped an understanding of the software and am able to apply my knowledge a work that plays to the software and the unique aesthetic it enables.

Tyree Guyton

Tyree Guyton is the creator of the Heidelberg Project in Detroit. He takes "junk" and assembles it along with  brightly painted surfaces such as old car hoods. He arranges his art along Heidelberg Street in Detroit, a former example of urban blight. Tyree was charismatic but he often answered questions with riddles and came off as slightly pretentious.

Travel Fellowship

Since I am a Senior AND my GPA is 2.8ish I don't qualify for the Travel Fellowships. But in a perfect world that would not matter some come along with me to my imaginary perfect world.
Amsterdam, Netherlands would be my choice for "New Europe" and not because of the marijuana. The Netherlands was the center of the Northern Renaissance with painters such as Rembrandt, Bruegel the Elder, Heironymous Bosch. They tended to be low key and slightly eerie, a look I am greatly inspired by.
Paris, France is my other choice due to the Impressionists, particularly Degas. Degas for very similar reasons to my admiration for the Dutch Renaissance painters. His scenes of ballet are mesmerizingly spooky and ethereal.

Thumbnails for story concept. Theme "loss of a loved one" + "terror". A young researcher's wife is driven to suicide by vivid recurring nightmares. He uses a new, experimental version of the sensory isolation tank pioneered by John Lilly in order to better understand her death. He is relentlessly stalked through his subconscious by the same demonic entity that drove his wife to suicide.

Completed the masking project as well as makeup work from Tuesday. One more makeup project and ill be fully caught up. Went with a silly/ironic horror theme for this project, since we had some creative leeway. Still having issues with the walk cycle but its getting better.

Character portrait

My character, whom I have given the temporary name of Joe, is a middle aged small-town doctor. When he was a younger man he aspired to be an actor. In the late eighties, after graduating medical school, he auditioned for the part in big budget horror movie. The movie was a horrible flop - the director was a demanding Belgian who insisted the actors spoke the dialogue exactly as it was in the script - despite their protestations on how nonsensical and bizarre it was in English, the script was very loosely translated from Belgian, the crew was Belgian - the communication breakdown led to some very strange, confusing dialogue and acting on the part of the English speaking cast, including the lead character played by Joe and the bizarre nonsensical plot quickly earned the movie the title of "worst film of all time." It effectively ended Joe and the other casts acting careers - no one would hire actors who's sole credit was "the worst film of all time."
Aside from the odd audition, Joe gave up on his film acting aspirations and moved to his small home town where he began a successful medical practice. He is extremely successful in his hometown and loved immensely by all the citizens, becoming an integral thread in the small town's tight social fabric  but he still pines for fame and acting success.
Unbeknownst to him the "worst film of all time" has been rediscovered and has become an underground sensation and cult phenomenon. Eventually he finds out about his new fame. At indie screenings and conventions and basks in the cheers of "fans" and while he realizes their fandom is "ironic" due to the utter objective awfulness of the movie. The fans are laughing and cheering because the movie is so bizarre and nonsensical and the acting and writing so terrible. Thinking he can use his new fame to benefit charity in his hometown and plans a local screening. During the screening he is dismayed when his friends and local towns people dont laugh hysterically and cheer like the fans do at the screenings and conventions - they honestly love Joe and feel bad for him that he was in such a terrible movie. At another convention he meets other "failed celebrities" and this causes him to realize that his priorities were wrong. His "fans" were laughing at him because of his bad acting, they dont really care about him like his towns people do - Joe begins to feel like a sideshow freak and quits attending screenings and conventions. He goes home and finds contentment in his medical practice, he acts in local theatre productions, and makes his own movies that he screens for charity and posts on the internet.

First project: create a diorama! I thought of it as a movie set: foreground, background, and middle stage. I know I wanted a sort of horror/thriller stage so I went with greyscale +sepia with some grit. After setting up the stage in a manner than I liked I added character to the various elements with dodge and burn, including simulated shadow and highlight.