For my animated short, I have broken it down to 3 different scenes, due to time constraints I am going to get at least two of these done, this is going to be scene 1 and scene 3. With Scene 1, this is where our main character LeFlour is in the kitchen, getting ready to deliver the pizza.
The scene opens up with a pizza in a pizza box and the lid on the pizza box closes. This reveals the title of our animated short. The camera will then cut to LeFlour, approaching the pizza box in a jumpy manner. This is to show some kind of excitement, it is worth noting that LeFlour is a bit cheeky and does break the fourth wall sometimes.
I started by modelling a basic room and basic furnishings using Maya’s primitive shapes. Trying to match the layout diagram I posted previously, I added a few decorative pieces such as pizza bases and toppings. Originally the plan was for LeFlour to run on all fours with the pizza on his back, now he will be running on two legs and carrying the pizza in one hand. The texture’s are a quick UV map I created. The animated short has one prop throughout the whole film and that is the pepperoni pizza.
I then created a couple of camera’s and positioned them to how I envisioned in my head. One camera is focused on the Pizza Box for the title scene and the other camera is focused on LeFlour. This camera has a slight motion to it as it zooms out and rotate’s a little bit to show LeFlours movement.
I have used some squash and stretch in the above clip to emphasise LeFlour’s jump and to demonstrate an animation principle. Next I am going to start working on Scene 3 as this shows the end of the animation. So once again, I create a basic scene to resemble my final scene in my story board. In this scene, LeFlour goes up some stairs and stretches to press a door bell.
As he presses the door bell, he loses balance and the pizza slides out of the box and onto the floor. LeFlour then proceeds to run away as the customer opens the door. LeFlour will run towards the camera and will have a classic hole cut out ending. This scene will feature a close up of LeFlour’s hand pressing the door bell and a long shot showing LeFlour running away. There will also a shot of the pizza falling onto the floor.
Once I had all that animated, I made playblasts from each camera’s view and then made a complete playblast of the scene. I then took to Premiere Pro to compile my video as a preview of what the animation is going to look like.
I’ve tried too limit the camera movement and have as little cuts as possible, with LeFlour being the playful, jumpy character, it was important to try and capture all the movements. I decided not to have a shot of the pizza falling on the floor as you can clearly see that this happens from the first camera angle.
As Scene 3 takes place outside, I have added an ambient light to the scene to replicate what could have been a nice sunny day in Manhattan. All that was left to do now was to render my animation, piece it together, add some sound effects and some music and that would be the animation finished.
edit: Maya can not render video output, only frames as images and as I have about 480 frames, I have stitched together playblasts for animated short.
All in all, this project, as with every other animation project was really stressful. Animation for me is a weak point that I would love to improve on but I really don’t think that it is for me. The animation itself isn’t half bad, it perhaps could have been better and more complete if I were able to have a lot more time. I personally believe I was able to capture what was drawn in my storyboard. I also think an issue with this project, which was 100% my fault was that I over-estimated the animation, I think I’ve tried to do too much and animation is something that requires time and something that’s well thought out. I think I lost 2 or 3 weeks chopping and changing the idea.
Don’t get me wrong on this, I would like to dip into animation again but I think it would need to be something that I can use in a video game, it is fun animating, stressful but fun. If I am able to create a character, rig it and then animate it for use in a game, I think I would get a better sense of accomplishment and joy out of the project.
JORDAN | GLITCH ARCADE 