Animated Short Production – 18/05/21

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.

May 25, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Camera’s in Animation – 06/05/21

In todays session, we learned about how camera’s are used in Animation and some various camera shots. For the exercise, we placed camera’s into our animated short. Firstly I placed one in my scene and focused it towards my Pizza Box, this is to show the opening scene and reveals the title of the animated short. The camera shot here is a close up camera angle, as mentioned before, this is to show the pizza box lid closing.

I then made a second camera that was stationed and looking at the main character as he approaches the pizza before flaunting a little animation. This is a long shot camera angle, what I might add here is a little zoom as he approached the camera.

In Maya, we use digital camera’s as opposed to physical camera’s, digital camera’s act very much like physical camera’s but we have more control over them and at the tips of our fingers. We don’t need a camera jib or crane for digital camera’s we can move and position them freely and then set key frames so that we can animate many aspects of them such as position, rotation, tilt, zoom, field of view and many more.

Because these digital camera’s are very much like real camera’s, they should be treat the same aswell, just because we have more freedom with the movement of these camera’s and the way they work doesn’t mean we should try and make the camera do all kinds of stunts, we need to keep it as close to real movement as possible. This will help keep our animation as real as possible and won’t confuse the viewer as to what is going on.

May 18, 2021May 18, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Parent//Child Hierarchy – 22/04/21

A parent child hierarchy is used in many different applications and forms in the software that we use. Essentially it is used to manipulate objects to conform to another object. In other words, the child of a parent object will inherit the properties of the parent object. As such, in Maya we can use this to great effect to help our workflow when it comes to modelling and animating.

The outliner shows the structure of the hierarchy. In this example, my sphere is my body and the arms and legs are the child of the sphere. The arms and legs are also parents to child objects. Because of this, If I was to rotate the shoulder, the arm and hand would follow that same rotation. If I was to rotate the arm, the shoulder wouldn’t rotate as it is a parent to the arm. The hand would follow the arm as the arm is the parent to the hand.

In my animated short project, the only thing I need to rig is my pizza box and that is already done. All I done was move the pivot point of the pizza box lid to the edge so that it can now flap open. I will follow up this post with a gif showcasing this.

April 22, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Important Assets – 18/03/21

Looking back at my Asset List I have created, I am going to be focusing on the more important ones to start modelling first. I already started modelling last week for the kitchen scene so I will begin there.

Pizza Scene

• Pizza Box (Essential)
• Pizza (Essential)
• Workbenches (Non-Essential)
• Oven (Non-Essential)
• Door Frame (Essential)
• Room (Essential)
• Pizza harness (Torus with a pizza box on, child of the rig) (Prop, Essential)

As previously mentioned, I started modelling my scene last week and am now putting the finishing touches into my scene. This is what I have thus far.

I have used a traditional kitchen floor texture so that this is easily identified as a kitchen, towards the back there are some cupboards, one is slightly stained with Pizza Sauce. On the table to the left is the Pizza LeFlour will be delivering, this is also the pizza used to show the opening scene, as the lid comes down it will show the title on the pizza box lid. This is the most important asset in this scene.

Moving on to the next scene which is a busy street, the asset list looks a little something like this.

Street

• Buildings (essential)
• Capsule people (essential)
• Road (essential)
• Path(essential)
• Fire Hydrants (essential)
• Cars (non-essential)

Everything in this part, aside from the cars are going to be needed so the scene can be identifiable, the good news is that I can create a modular part of a street and repeat it, create my animation and loop it for the time needed. Finally we have the delivery scene, this is where LeFlour delivers the Pizza.

Delivery

• Detailed Building (essential)
• Detailed Fire Hydrant (non-essential, can reuse old model)
• Detailed Car (non-essential)
• Bins (essential)
• Bin Bags (essential)
• Railings (non-essential)
• Stairs (non-essential)

Of all the assets, it would be nice to try and make a detailed car but the value it would add for this project isn’t really worth investing the time into, it is the Animation that counts after all.

I started working on the Pizza Box as it is a main prop that will also feature some animation, the Pizza Box so far is one mesh but I’m looking at either adding bones to it or seperating the lid to animate separately.

As the Pizza is also a main feature in this short film, I am going to be spending a fair amount of time designing the pizza, making it into a chunky modular pizza as opposed to a textured pizza. The textured pizza will be a back up incase the modular design fails to work. Other than that, the Kitchen scene is complete, it would be time to move on to the street.

---

I designed the pizza and in an odd fashion, as I want the pizza to be a main prop, I designed a slice first and then duplicated and rotated the pieces. I also UV mapped the Pizza to give it some texture as opposed to just some colouring. I done this because it is an important asset so it needs to be detailed and each individual piece is going to be interactable within the scene. When the pizza slides out the box, it won’t slide as a whole pizza but rather in multiple slices.

The Pizza itself isn’t perfect and the UV is a bit choppy but as you will only see a close up of it once for the title sequence in scene 1, this model and texture will do for this production. I can attempted to clean up the UV a bit but I don’t want to spend TOO much time on this model. With that made that is the assets for my first scene complete.

After having a long think about my animation, I might skip scene two and get scene three done next. Scene three features LeFlour walking up to the house, ringing the door bell and the pizza falling on to the floor before LeFlour makes a run for it from an angry customer.

March 18, 2021March 25, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Layout Diagrams – 11/03/21

I have designed some layout diagrams for my scenes, these are basic but explain what assets I am using in my scene and the view of the scene and how it should look. A layout diagram is used to say what 3D models are placed where and how your scene is going to be set up.

In Layout Diagram 1, this is how I plan on setting up the Pizzeria scene where LeFlour enters the door to collect an order for delivery. There will be 2 table models, some pizza boxes, a wall with a hole in for a door frame and a poster on the wall, this will be UV’d on.

In Layout Diagram 2, I have used rounded squares to represent people and block rectangles to represent fire hydrants. The background will be buildings of different colours and styles. Some will be further back than others. The line represents LeFlours movements in this scene. Although there are only 5 or so buildings here, this scene will likely be duplicated.

Layout Diagram 3 shows a basic layout of how the final scene will look. In this diagram it will be a close up of the building LeFlour is delivering to. Outside is a bin and a fire hydrant and the building will feature some windows as well as a nice door. Later, the camera will be further away as LeFlour runs away after the pizza falls on the floor.

These layout diagrams are very basic but capture the essence of how I want the scene to look and what assets will be used in the scene. I could make more detailed layout diagrams but for now, these will do the job they’re set out to do.

March 11, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Preproduction Reflection – 04/03/21

Looking back on my idea of LeFlour the pizza delivery flour sack, I believe that it is a viable idea and the reason I believe that is because I have a clear idea in my head of how this is going to look. There may be an issue in the sense that it takes place over multiple scenes, well, three scenes to be exact. The Pizza Shop, The Street and The Door of which the pizza is delivered to. Of the three of them, the Pizza Shop is going to be the hardest to model, I am going to need to make a clear asset list to show what should be in the pizza shop, and also do some texturing to the assets as well.

As for The Street scene which see’s LeFlour running through a busy street, I was thinking of using capsule’s for people and having buildings in the form of cubes of different size and colours, textured with windows and doors, as they are mainly background assets, I don’t need to make it overly detailed, just need to make it recognisable. As for the capsules, I want to give them some kind of expression on their faces, similar to those seen in the game, Rec Room.

For the final scene where the pizza is delivered, The building will need to have some detail to it as it is going to be a closer shot. The building will also feature stairs, as this is a closer shot, the assets list will grow slightly, out the front I’ll want a fire hydrant and some bins, maybe some parked cars.

Asset List

Pizza Scene

• Pizza Box
• Pizza
• Workbenches
• Oven
• Door Frame
• Room
• Pizza harness (Torus with a pizza box on, child of the rig)

Street

• Buildings
• Capsule people
• Road
• Path
• Fire Hydrants
• Cars

Delivery

• Detailed Building
• Detailed Fire Hydrant
• Detailed Car
• Bins
• Bin Bags
• Railings
• Stairs

So lots of assets to be created but there are a few that can be reused. I suppose the most difficult thing from all of this is to animate the rig as LeFlour is running, I need the pizza box to rumble and flap open as he is weaving between pedestrians. All of this can be done in Maya, I do worry about how resource intensive this might be though. I’ll also need to create some layout diagrams aswell, just to make it easier to plan what assets should be where.

March 4, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Refined Storyboard – 25/02/21

In this session, I took my storyboard that I drafted up previously and refined it so that it looked neater and I also added some more notes such as camera angles and motion as to what is happening in the scene.

This storyboard is a lot neater than my other one and also shows some scenic assets and decorative assets. I feel it also illustrates the story better as well. Looking at my previous storyboard and then making this one made me rethink a couple of the shots to add some more ideas and I can clearly see now how my story should look.

Using thumbnail sketches in my previous story board has helped me shape this storyboard better. Although it isn’t perfect, I could add shading or colour so things are more easily identified, however my notes also tell the story of what’s happening. I haven’t really found anything challenging about refining my storyboard, if anything it has made the process easier. Personally, I would say that with this storyboard, I am confident I can use these as a reference for my animation project.

February 25, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Storyboard Planning – 04/02/21

For my storyboard sketches, I think to begin with it was important to get the story across in pictures and without the finer details at the moment, I have the idea in my head as to what I want for my animation and there will be about 3-4 camera angles. The first camera angle is the opening scene, a pizza is a box and the lid shuts.

The next camera angle will show LeFlour popping up, ready to take the delivery, it will then cut to LeFlour running through the busy streets, weaving in and out of obstacles and people, during this, there will also be a camera from the front perspective showing this.

Finally, the final camera will show LeFlour approaching the door and ringing the doorbell. This will be positioned slightly zoomed out as it needs to show the pizza falling out of the box.

I’ll need to make a couple of additional frames for the shots from the front and I’ll need to add more details and colouring to the storyboards, other than that I think the story is explained through the current pictures.

February 4, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Video References – 28/01/21

Idea 1:

In this fight scene from the movie ‘Shrek’ it encapsulates so many animations I want my flour sack to be doing, or shares some of the ideas I would like to incorporate into my animation. The one that springs to mind is this one where Shrek does a cross body maneuver onto one of lord farquaad’s guards. This is how I want my dream sequence to end.

This animation is probably more fitting for the model that we have as Shrek has that pot like belly, all I would need to do for the frog splash is make the flour sack compress inwards a little bit. In regards to the main scene it self, which would be the living room, I would need assets that may include, but not limited to:

• Sofa – modular so that parts can be moved after Eddie has wrestled
• Television –
• Table – This will break in half
• Lamp – this will be a light source or will break.
• Magazine’s – good for when the table breaks to show effect, also showing characters interests.
• Chair – leap from this onto the table.

Then when it comes to the dream sequence, I will only need to make these assets:

• Wrestling ring
• Another flour sack or two – opponent and referee.

The step by step animation in this YouTube video by SketchToAnimate is also useful for a good reference to get some poses for my animation.

Moving away from idea 1, and heading in a totally different direction because the more I think about it, the more it gets less realistic, I have another idea!

Idea 2: Delivery Man LeFlour

LeFlour is a delivery man, working for a high quality pizza fastfood chain, LeFlour’s job is to deliver pizza’s in record time. He does this by running on all fours with the pizza’s on his back. The scene will start with LeFlour awaiting the pizza to be made, so he will be slouched on a chair and when the pizza is ready, he springs up and gets into pose! The chef then places the pizza onto LeFlour and he springs away. The scene he is showing LeFlour running in a street, dodging obstacles and people. Finally, he arrives at the destination only for the food to be ruined.

If there was an already animated character LeFlour could relate to, we’d be looking at Dash from The Incredibles. LeFlour is the fastest form of delivery, when you order from Papi LeFlour, you shouldn’t expect your pizza to arrive in 1 piece.

This idea is more practical and way better for showing off animations with not too much going on. The asset list will also be smaller, I will only need:

• Flour Sack
• Pizza Boxes
• Buildings for the back ground with a pavement.
• Maybe a fire hydrant and a couple of telephone boxes for the street.
• Couple of cars.

The animation will be fairly simple aswell. As shown SketchToAnimate’s video I am using for reference, this is how I plan on the flour sack running. This idea also shows what the character is good at and what the character actually does. It was okay having the back story of Eddie being a plumber but no one would have truly known it, where as with this idea, LeFlour is doing what he is employed as, it has a story and isn’t just a randomly put together animation.

January 28, 2021January 28, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment

Animated Short: Story Planning – 21/01/21

In this blog post, I am going to come up with three story ideas for my animated short, based on the character bio I came up with in last session.

a Flour Sack named Eddie Flourerro, who is an aggressive 27 year old from the big apple. He is currently cooking but works full time as a plumber, Eddie is very good at Jumping. This helps transition himself from a plumber to his dream of being a professional wrestler!

Idea 1:

Location: At Home
Time Period: 2003

Beginning

Eddie is at home, cooking up his breakfast which is eggs that can grow. Eddie likes to jump when he’s making his breakfast so he is also jumping up and down whilst this is happening, Eddie’s egg falls onto the floor but doesn’t crack, it actually becomes squishy and trampoline like (Showing off a couple of Animation Principles). Eddie has a TV on in the background and its showing a wrestling advert.

Middle

Eddie has always been a fan of wrestling, working as a plumber, work has dried up in New York so he goes for a walk to clear his head and think what he could do next, as he is walking down the street, he sees a poster for a local wrestling firm wanting to do tryouts.

End

Eddie starts fantasizing about being the best wrestler there is and dreams of winning title gold before snapping back to reality.

Idea 1: Revised – 28/01/21

Location: At Home
Time Period: 2003

Beginning

Eddie is at home, sitting on the sofa watching the wrestling on Television.

Middle

Eddie starts to practice wrestling moves jumping around living room and elbow dropping the sofa.

End

There is a TV advert for wrestling tryouts and Eddie starts fantasizing about being the best wrestler there is and dreams of winning title gold before snapping back to reality.

Idea 2:

Location: At Home
Time Period: Present Day

Beginning

Eddie is at home preparing for another days work as a plumber, currently cooking his breakfast. He gets a call from a client who’s boiler has broken down, he gets ready to leave.

Middle

Eddie is on his way to the clients house via his favourite transport method. Jumping. As he’s jumping down the street to the clients house, he jumps over the gate and towards the front door. He presses the doorbell and his client answers the door. His client is none other than 5 TIME, 5 TIME, 5 TIME, 5 TIME, 5 TIME! FCW Champion Flour T.

End

Eddie talks to Flour T about becoming a FCW wrestler and seeing if he get into try outs, Flour T wants Eddie to show him a signature move so he does the 5 Star Flour Splash in Flour T’s home wrestling ring. Scene ends with a Poster of Eddie Flourrero on a poster for Flour Championship Wrestling.

Idea 3:

Location: At Home
Time Period: Present Day

Beginning

Eddie decides to have a wrestling themed party for him and his friends to watch the Royal Flourumble. He starts preparing by setting up a wrestling ring.

Middle

Its a couple of hours away until Eddie’s friends arrive so he starts to prepare and cook food for the said party.

End

Eddie’s friends arrive and they do their annual Royal Flourumble match between themselves to decide who sits in the best seat, Eddie wins the match.

Personally I am going to go with Idea 1 for my story idea, I feel like this story offers a lot of variation and a chance to showcase many animation principles. It also allows me to express my creativity more that the other two ideas. With Idea 3, its all in the same place and the same scene can get boring quickly plus there will be 3 or 4 other rigs to animate. In Idea 2, its an idea that would only work if there was voice acting at some point in the idea, with idea 1, I can take it as far as I want to without having to worry about any of those issues.

Moodboard

This is my moodboard for my idea, it shows the assets I will need to make in a low poly environment. In total, there will be 3 scene switches, one in the house, one in the street and one in a day dream, so will need to incorporate all of these ideas into those three scenes.

January 21, 2021January 28, 2021 by nextgenjordan Categories: AnimationTags: Animation Leave a comment