Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Music Meeting 310811

Today in Jack's class i worked on my colour world, it was the first time Jack had seen it.
he gave me a few pointers on where my light was coming from so i can get my shading right.

i also didnt really like my grass area that i have so jack showed me the grass tool in Maya 11. its really cool you can change the lengh and change angle of the grass as well.
I don't have Maya 11 at home so i will need to work on it at uni and pretty much trial & error until i get the grass that i like. then i can put it into photoshop and make it look 2D. im cheating :)

So after class at 1:30pm i had a meeting with Kenny. it went really well!
I went through my storyboards and explained the minor and major sounds that i wanted in my animation.

He gave me some CDs that i could listen too so i could get an idea of what i want.
I could also take sections and use it as a rough sound design for my animation.

Pretty much everything went smoothly, all i need to do is make a chart that has the scenes, pictures from my storyboards and the timing of how long the scene goes for.
then i need to indicate what sound i want at each scene.

Then i e-mail it to him.

I'm hoping everything goes well!

colour world.

I realised that i wasn't really doing much work on my colour world and decided to work on it today in Darren's class.

I already had the basic structure of how i wanted it to look all i needed to do was make final line and colour work. my original background for my colour world was a simple sky blue with white clouds. i really liked it but during my travels i always look at the clouds, i have a odd fasination with clouds, i just love them. Anyway i take pictures and take note of what the colours are.
i also think about how the clouds make me feel, my mood.

So when the clouds/sky has a pinky orange look to it, it makes me feel happy and calm. so i tried getting a similar result for my colour world.

This is the original:






And this is what it looks like now:






I really like the change that i've done, the original was really bright and looks too cliche.
My new sky looks a lot different and doesn't kill the eyes.

I have also been working on my mushroom/tree, it's coming along, and i have also been testing colours out too and i've picked the perfect purple and yellow.

OOOhhhh yeah!!! and i set all my camera shots in my 3D world.

I wish it wasnt week 6 already, time equals too fast.

Monday, August 29, 2011

time to panic.

its week 6 already, i can't believe how fast time is going!
my milestones are due next week and i feel like i'm behind and i feel like i won't get my milestones complete.

why does time have to go so fast! AND WHY DO WE HAVE TO GET ESSAYS!!



blahhh

Thursday, August 25, 2011

the power just went out.

The computer took forever to load up, and i still had my harddrive plugged in when it happened. THANK GOD that its okay.

i got an e-mail back from Kenny and it seems that he also has a sort day on Wednesdays. I've asked to have a meeting next Wednesday on the 31st of August.
I hope everything runs smoothly.

I'm also in the animation cupboard, kinda wasted an hour.
first off i couldnt log into the compter, Andrew helped me and the internet cable wasnts connected, so that was like 15 mins gone.
then i was posting the blog before and wanted to post the head blowing up video and it wouldnt work so that was like 20 mins.
THEN the power went out and the computer took a while to set up.

so now its just after 10am, i have some essays to do for an hour.

Blowing heads up!

In Darren's class we had the fun experience of blowing someones head up........ that someone was Jarrod's head.

It took some time to work on it, but it was worth it! i even added some sound effects.
i will post it up here if Jarrod is okay with it, also the file that i exported works on Macs and not PC. so i need to fix that, blogspot doesn't take .mov files.


Testing blog from my phone.

Hey.

Just wanted to see if I could blog from my phone and add pictures too. So i hope this works.




I've been taking pictures of clouds to get reference for my colour world.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

WEEK 5 – Production Report (500 words.... might have gone over)

AIM: To report the process of the animation production.

Since the starting of working on my animation I have had help from every person in my class, whether it is a big problem or a small problem, I always have my fellow class mates helping me out. I feel that I do the same for them when they need help as well.
As I am working on this animation on my own and I don’t need any work from fellow classmates, I haven’t had any problems with them.

During the starting of the mid year holidays, I decided that I would take the first week off then once the second week came I would start working on my animation. However I got really sick a few days before the second week came and couldn’t work on anything during the whole month of June. So that was a major setback and only could start working on my animation in the starting of July.

The main problems I’m having is getting my music organised as I’m getting a musician to do the music for me, we have been e-mailing each other but finding it hard to meet for a consultation because we are both so busy. I have given him the days and times I’m either at work or uni and also given him my mobile number.

During week 2 I decided to change some of my storyboard shots, which isn’t a very good idea, however I believe that the changes that I have done is for the better and makes the story flow and has a better understanding. To fix this problem I drew up the new shots for my animation and placed them in my composition for my animatic. So now I have a running comp that is correct with the right shots.

With my 3D room set I had an issue where I didn’t want the textures to be straight black and white, I really wanted it to be more like the look of ink and water together which gives it a washed out black and white colour. I had showed Jack my concept Art and explained to him how I wanted it to look, he said that I could organise the UVs in each item and print them out, then make a copy with the LightBox and use ink and water and paint that area.
So the only problem I had was trying to organise the little pieces of UVs back together.

Another problem I had was that the version of ToonBoom I have on my computer doesn’t work with the version at uni and vice versa. To solve this problem I got one of my good friends to reboot my mini laptop back to factory settings because it was full of viruses. I loaded back only the programs I needed, which includes ToonBoom.

What are slowing me down?
The first this that pops into my head that slows me down is going to work on Sunday 9:45am – 5pm and then on Monday 8:45am-5:30pm. I don’t mind working on Sundays, but working on Mondays is a waste of time and is a whole day of not being able to do any uni work. I get really tired working two full days in a row and so when I get home I can’t concentrate on any work.
Other things that are slowing me down are the programs that I’m using for my animation; I’m still learning each program as I go.

Getting assignments that can’t be done in class time is also something that slows me down, especially essays that are a few 1000 words, I like to take my time and start early on them, this means I don’t have time to work on my animation.

Things that are working well for me is my Colour world, since the holidays I have done heaps of layouts to see how I want it to look. The only issue I’m having with it is the colour of my main mushroom/tree. I have been looking at colour wheels to see what colours complement each other.
Also my painted textures are working well for me. All I need to do is assign each texture to its item in the room.

Problem Solving.
The story I hear every time is that students lose their work and don’t have any back up. To solve this problem for myself I have my main hard drive that I use all the time, and I also keep a usb with back up of my production with me as well.
At home I have a copy of my production on another hard drive and an extra back up of my production on a usb. So in total I have 4 back up files and I’m thinking of putting my production on my laptop.

My 7 week milestones
- Sound:
Rough cut of sound & list of foley
- 3D Background:
All 3D elements complete & camera set
(Render in Week 10)
- 2D Colour World:
All 2D elements of colour world complete
- Alice:
75% of key frames complete.

I always make lists of things that I need to do, or haven’t done. I made a list of everything that I need to finish before week 7 (milestones)
- Sound:
1. Rough Sound
2. List of Foley

- 3D Background:
1. Finish Bunny & Fairy Toy.
2. Wall with a Door that Opens & Closes.
3. Add Textures to Items.
4. Make Paper, Pencil & Paint Brushes.
5. Set Camera Shots & Still Photographs.

- 2D Colour World:
1. Finish Mushroom/Tree.
2. 2nd Layer of Cloud (Foreground)
3. Panning shot in After Effects with 3D View.

- Alice:
1. Key Frames.

Where I wish I was up to.
If I wasn’t so sick during the mid year holidays I would probably be working on animating Alice. The goal I want to achieve is to complete my 7 week milestones and work really hard to complete this animation.

Updated.

Just wrote back to Kennys e-mail.
And I posted 2 of the recent e-mails in the Music E-mails page.

enjoy.

tuesday!

i completed my new composition for my animatic in After Effects.
i also finished putting the programs i needed on my laptop.
and i also worked on the assignments due in week 7.

Monday, August 22, 2011

WEEK 5!! :(

i can never get much work done on sundays and mondays, i get so tired from work!
however i did get my laptop fixed :D thanks to my good friend, now i can use it!!

I just have to put on the programs that i need and i'll be all set!

I also have'nt heard anything from kenny yet, so i'm hoping i will soon. i really want to have the meeting this week!! since my rough sound is due in week 7!!!


grrrr....... so much work!!


Sunday, August 21, 2011

So farrr...........

what i've done: (saturday)
-have everything backed up! i have 4 back up drives. 2 with me and 2 stay at home.
- fixed and printed out the music contract. (haven't gotten an e-mail back yet)
- learnt how to use frames in photoshop! (Darren showed me again)
i'm hoping to use it for my tree in my animation, i also tried to find brushes for photoshop aswell so i could get a different look to the swirls.
- worked on assignment. (3 due in week 7)

I'm also getting my laptop fixed up so i can use it for ToonBoom. I will be getting it on Monday and have it ready for Tuesday.


So much work so little time, already in WEEK 5!

Visual Effects- Thursday.

On Thursday i worked on the plants and background for Darren's class.
It looks a lot better then my original, even if it does look a bit crowded.




I'm happy with what i've done.

I just need to keep working on it.









(i think the mushrooms should go)


Friday, August 19, 2011

New Pages!!

Hey!

i just finished putting two new pages up on my blog.
Painted Textures and Music e-mails.
Today my friday classes got cancelled!! so i painted my textures.
I also got the OKAY from Kenny to post our e-mails, so all e-mails are in 'Music E-mails'


Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Bits and pieces.

Today i had Jack's class and we worked on our animations.



Jack helpped me out a lot with one of the toys that i want in the 3D room.

He showed me how to make a button and make the toy look like it has stitches around it.




(click on picture to see it bigger)









i only need to make another toy and have paper, pencil and paint brushes made. Ohh and also a wall with a door that can open and close.

i also need to paint my textures, then everything in my 3D room will be complete.



Other things i did today was


- finish an essay thats due on friday


- did as much as i could on the 3D bunny toy.


- completed new shots in storyboards, scanned in. (need help organising it in a compostion animatic)


- tried working out how to use frames in photoshop (need help with it) (Darren taught me)


- and finally i tried working on my colour world.







I'm having a few problems with getting the coulours right. I have been looking at colour wheels on the internet. I think i just need to keep testing.





i would like to use purple and yellow together for my mushroom/tree.

i came across this website and it helps out a lot trying to figure out what colours are complementary. And purple and yellow work well together i just need to get the right shades together.
















Tuesday, August 16, 2011

A problem with ToonBoom.

Today i had a class with Darren, and he went around the class talking to each person about their 7 week milestones.
While he was talking to other people i was organising my new shots for my storyboards.

Once it was my turn, i spoke to Darren about Friday night and getting someone for my music, i showed him the list of foley that i wrote down and he said i should have a look at the sound library that we have in the learning commons so i need to do that. I alos showed him what i was up to in my 3D room, pretty much the texure folder of paintings and then!!!! the last thing on my list was 75% of keys done for my character.
I did heaps of rough tests over the holidays in ToonBoom and wanted to show him, BUT!! it would'nt work!
the file would open up in the program but when you moved the time slider nothing would show in the scene window!!
All the key frames could be seen in the timeline but that was it :(

I started to do the "oh ho" "ohhh nooooo" "please just workkkkkk" and wanting to flip the table and throw the computer!!

Darren had a look for me and tried clicking things and pressing buttons but we still couldn't see anything! i had said to him that it could be that my ToonBoom at home is a different version to the one at uni. So we made a new project on the uni computer so i could test it at home.

SO now i've been thinking about it hoping that it will work at home! I get home and open up the file that didn't work at uni........................................and guess what? it works!!
HOWEVERRRRRRRRRRR!!! i opened up the new project i made at uni and it doesn't work on my computer!

This means whatever work i do at home i can't even continue on it at uni and vise versa.
The plan is to try and get my laptop up and running so i can take it to uni.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Don't even ask me what work i did on Sunday & Monday.

I HATE GOING TO WORK ON A MONDAY!!!!
thats what i hate! its such a waist of a day and i don't get any work done!!

Anyway................ I got an e-mail back from Kenny and everything is pretty sweet! I'm not going to post it up just yet, i also sent him an e-mail back. I'm not posting it now because i asked him first if he was okay with it. so i just want to get the thumbs up from him first.

I'm pretty excited! Hopefully everything runs smoothly!
So music is getting worked on.

:D

heaps of other stuff to work on!!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

The e-mail.

I just sent an e-mail to Kenny from The Whisky Gypsies and I'm freaking out!!
I'm a little nervous! I was looking at the computer screen for half an hour trying to figure out what to write!!
This is what i sent:
___________________________________________________________________
Subject: Your Music, My Animation.
Sent: Sunday 14th of August 2011, 8:25pm

Dear Kenny,

My name is Josie Saade and I am a Film Student at Holmesglen Institute of TAFE, Waverly. I am currently in my 2nd year of my degree doing a Bachelor of Screen Production - Animation.

We met on Friday the 12th at Young & Jackson and i spoke to you about doing a Violin piece for my animation titled "NEW DOOR."

If you are still interested I would like to know when you would be free? And how much it will cost?

If you would like to look into this more i do have a blog that has information about my animation:
josiesaade.blogspot.com

Thank you for your time.

Josie Saade.

___________________________________________________________________

Now i wait.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Might Have Found.

This must have been luck!!
On Friday night my friends and I went into the city, some of my friends were running late so we decided to wait for them in Young & Jackson which is right opposite Flinder St Station.

One of my friends said we should go up stairs we went up and got some spots and we were right next to a guy playing an odd shaped guitar (i don't know what its called) and well he was good.
Okay i kept thinking about my animation and mostly about my sound! and then i asked one of my friends if she played violin, she said she use to years ago!
I always find people that use to play violin and don't remember now.
After asking her i turned back to the guy playing his guitar and he was putting it away and then picked up a VIOLIN!! Was this the best timing ever?? yes it was!!!

So i thought i'll hear him play one song and if i like it i'll go talk to him. HE WAS AMAZING!
I went up to him and said "That was beautiful, how long have you been playing violin for?"
He said "thank you, i've been playing it for 15-20 years"
Holy crap! This made me so happy he has such a long time experience!
so then i said " I'm a film student and i have been looking for a violin piece for my animation that im making, would you be interested in producing something for me?"
He said " Yeah defenetly, I've done something like that before for a student"
So he asked me what i was doing and where i go to study.
I asked for his business card and he told me to e-mail him! :D and then when i was leaving i said bye and he reminded me again to e-mail him haha!

His name is Kenny and he is from The Whiskey Gypsies.

Jack = mean :D

Friday.... END OF WEEK 3!!!!
already?

So i got to uni at 9am and worked in the animation cupboard until 11:30am. I mostly wrote a post for Thursday and then worked on my assignment thats due in week 4.

After that i had to go to a "board meeting" thingy where i had to talk to some guy about the teachers and how i find the course going. (it was boring)
I do REALLY enjoy my classes, and the teachers are awesome!

Then i had Jack's class where we worked on our animations...... JACK!!! told me he got my e-mail but of course he didn't write back, i understand why he doesn't it's because the questions i ask or the problems i tell him can't be fixed without him looking at the problem.
But i got the messy UVs fixed up, the reason was that i still had History on my item and i must of moved the item aswell, which means that the UVs move around too. So the history is deleted my UVs are fixed!

I also had to use Planner Mapping on each item in the room, and save them into the Data folder, so now i have a back up of each item.

I also had my last class with Huni! she's a great teacher and i'll miss her very much!


Thursday, August 11, 2011

Bounnong was annoying on Thursday!

Like i said last week i can't write on Thursdays because i go from Uni straight to work and finish late.


Yesterday i had Darren's Visual Effects class and we worked on one of our assessments which is to make a background in photoshop and then use greenscreen footage over the top in Shake.


In the morning Darren took us out in the bloody cold! so we could get some pictures of plants that we could use in our background. Alex and I took the pictures but then i started to get too attached to the SLR Camera. (I REALLY WANT ONE!!) and so i took heaps of pictures!


I really need to work on my photoshop skills!


This is BEFORE:


















And this is AFTER:





Yeahh... i really need to fix this up!


I havent really had much practice with editing pictures in photoshop. So that's something on my list of things to learn.



So thats what i did on Thursday!


P.S. This is Gerard Butler, he is a babe!





THIS IS FOR YOU BOUNNONG!!!















P.P.S. JACK NEVER SENT ME AN E-MAIL BACK!! MMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Working on UVs and Textures.

Hey!

I feel really good right now! I was stressed out about all my 3D work that i have to do, but feel like I've done some productive work today.

I have Jack on Wednesdays and everyone worked on their animations.
Jack said to me that he got my e-mail... but he did'nt write back. (mean)
So he helpped me with my UVs and showed me a different way of breaking down an item in the UV Texture Editor.

There was a problem where one of my items which is the book shelve had been RoadKilled last semester and for some reason when looking at the layout of it today...... well it was a mess!!!
Jack spent sometime with me breaking down each section. Thanks heaps :D

After that i took UV Snapshots from the Texture Editor and saved them.
When i got home i did the rest of the room and took pictures and also made a list of items i wasn't to sure of or had a problem with it.







My writing is really messy!!







I also realised that when i finished printing out the book shelve some of the layouts look a bit confusing so i went back into the editor to see which section is what by highlighting them in the editor window which shows the section i highlighted in the scene window.

I opened up the book shelve and it's returned to its original state, so its a mess!!
i'm hoping that this doesn't effect the texture when i organise it onto my item.
I e-mailed Jack and told him, so i just have to wait till he tells me if its good or bad.

So what i did so far before posting this is -
- I finished off the UVs that i could do.
- Made a list of UVs i couldn't do.
- Printed out the UVs i saved and
- Used the lightbox to make a painting copy.

I was thinking of doing some painting straight after but remembered that i have a Performance for Screen essay due next week, so i'm going to work on it now and maybe later do some painting.


OOOHHHH Yeah!!!! i almost forgot! I made a "NEW DOOR 3D TEXTURE FOLDER" folder to put all my print outs of the UVs and the paintings that i do for them. It's almost full and i haven't even done any new paintings! so I'll be taking a trip to Officeworks soon-ish.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

A4 paintings.

These are the rest of the paintings i did tonight.




















































Goodnight.


Painting Textures.

Hello week 3.




Time is going way to fast. Today i was trying to work on my 3D set, i really wanted to try and get my UVs organised and print them out, but of course there is always a problem.


i tried working on the UVs and there were some sections of an item i couldn't sew together or they would just go all spaz! So i couldn't get a layout of my items that i wanted. Mostly all the sections were broken up into little pieces so when i tried putting them back together...... grrrr... let's just say it was fustrating and i wanted to flip the table over.


Of course i sent an e-mail to Mr jack telling him my problem and I'm hoping he will help me tomorrow. For once why can't things just go the way i want them to!!??


I ended up printing out the one UV structure that i have which is for the drawing desk. I used my lightbox and made a few extra copys of it so i could paint over the area.



This is my lightbox that my boyfriend Matthew made for me over the holidays.
















This lightbox features carry handles on the side for easy travel, wooden wedges to bring the top frame to an angle and a cover that goes over the persepex.... sounds like I'm trying to sell it or something.


What i did was get out some paper, ink and water so i could paint different textures for my room.






On the paper is the outline of the drawing desk in my 3D room.









After painting the drawing desk i decided that i might aswell just paint a whole A4 sheet of paper so that i could use it for the room.


I did a few A4 sheets, some might look very much the same but they all have unique textures to them and i like the way they came out.


When i get help from Jack i will be able to do some paintings for the rest of the UVs.



















The drawing desk x2.


Monday, August 8, 2011

New Storyboards.

I have organised and re-drawn some of my shots in my storyboard.








I had decided to add in a few new shots and also take away some shots. Other shots are still the same but I've changed the camera angle or how long the shot goes for.




These are the shots:











I decided to have Alice say "Mum" when she hits her head on the door. I did this so the audience would have a clear understanding of who the person was that pushed Alice into her room.
















The old shot was that Alice looked over to her bed then started walking towards it.


I decided that she would look at her bed then up at the window to show that she wants to escape.



The chalk is close to her so that when she turns to take her first step towards her bed, she steps on the chalk.




















I got rid of two shots, i thought they were not required








Shot 10c goes straight to shot 12a.














My original idea was that Alice picks up the chalk, notices the strange shimmer and then walks to the blank spot on the wall and starts to draw a door.
I decided that after Alice picks up the chalk and notices a shimmer in the center, she looks at her bed room door then looks at the blank spot on the wall, walks over to the blank spot then draws the door.




so i changed it that she looks at her room door first so the audience can understand that she got the idea to draw a door because she can't get out from her room door.










This shot was just changed so that when she was drawing the lines for the door you only saw the chalk and not her hand holding it.










I got rid of the old shot.





This is the new shot, I know its hard to see sorry, but after she draws the door knob (and basic line of door) a magical frame appears to show the full structure of the door.


Drops chalk after seeing structure appear. Alice stays in silhouette.



So with this shot i had a basic "swirls come out from door frame" thing happening, i decided that i still want swirls coming out from the door frame but i want it to form a tree and i want it to finish on the roof.


In this shot the door opens, light shines, Alice is in silhouette and the shot zooms into the door just above Alice's head.












Shows a full Panning shot of the colour world.












Shows Alice, looks surprised, then looks down at rose pendant becomes sad, hand comes up and touches it.





So that is all the changes in my Storyboards i hope they make sense.



I will of course update everything i work on. Today i had work so i actually did'nt get much work done. i mostly fixed up my Storyboards and organised this post for it.




Sunday, August 7, 2011

Sunday is before Monday.

Now first thing.


i didn't do any work on Friday night, i really needed to relax.
On Saturday i worked on my assignment for my performance for the screen class. It was very interesting, the topic is about the 12 basic principles of animation. I didn't really know much about it but i did heaps of study and now know a lot more then what i use to.
I only worked on that for a few hours and then i had other things to do.


So the second thing.


I have work on Sundays.... which is for the whole day! so i don't really get a lot of time to do any work. Also work is really busy on Sundays!


However today i did make a quick list of things i have to do.



I know my writing is really bad, but i was writing while i was trying to work.
So i'll just explain a bit about some of the points i have made.

1. I have decided to change some of my shots in my storyboards. An example is that in my original idea i had Alice see the colour world just through the door frame. Now i have decided that i want her to go in and look at the colour world in a panning shot from left to right.

2. Because some of my shots have changed the timing will be different.

And the rest i have already explained.




Also another problem is that on Monday's i don't have any Uni BUT i go to work! so that is also another full day at work. However on Monday's it's a whole lot quiet, so i do take any writing work i have to do for homework. It's hard because most of my work requires a computer, so i'm very limited with what i have.















Friday, August 5, 2011

friday, friday got to get down on friday..

okay so..

i got to uni 2 hours before class even started and tried to work in the animation cupboard.
time goes so fast!! i worked on my storyboards because there are some shots that i have decided to change.

also during Jacks class i worked on my storyboards and Jack re showed me how to fix up my items in my 3D room to UV layouts. so i wrote down all the steps i had to do.

so the list of things i have to complete when i see Jack next is:
1. set camera shots in 3D
2. set UV layers and save pictures
3. must complete paintings.

i guess i should explain number 3.. so i showed Jack my concept art and i really enjoy using ink with water. i really want that type of texture for my room. so he said if i was to fix up my UV layers and print it out, i can use it as a guide and paint the area where the UVs are!!

this helps me out a lot! i never thought i could do something like that... i really love learning new things everyday!!

so i really have to organise myself and complete the work Jack set out for me, when i get these done i will be a few steps closer to completing my short!!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

visual effects thursday day day.

so last night i had work and i couldnt post anything yesterday. i tried from my phone but it wouldnt let me write.


so thursdays are my visual effects class and it was a really good sesh.
im learning a new program called Shake. its only for Mac computers. i really enjoy learning new programs. Of course its a visual effects program.


one day ill get a Mac laptop and use it for editing and visual effects.








i want a sexy black one.



ill just keep dreaming...













i didnt work on my animation at all yesterday, i just didnt have the time.
so now im in the animation cupboard 2 hours before i actually have a class

dedication.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

updating!!!

right i decided that i would just work on my blog tonight and try and get it up to date.

i just made some new pages which are Alice, Storyboard and Concept Art. In them you will find the work i did in semester one pre-production.

i will also post some work aswell when im working on them or if im referencing back to my storyboards or concept art i will continue to re-add a picture.

im trying to think if there is anything else i can put on here but i think my blog is up to date...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
yep....

i like turtles.

well today i had a class with Jack and i just remembered i forgot to get the recordings he did in class!! bloody hell!!!


ANYWAYY!!

ill get them tomorrow or something.


so today i had minor animation project class and i made a "items to be complete for 3D world" list. Jack showed me how to get the UV layer of my wall and put it into photoshop, then find some wooden panel textures and plaster wall textures.


after that he showed me how to use the clone tool in photoshop and clone different areas of the plaster texture and paint the area of the UV layer.


Jack then showed me how to make a crack in the wall so that you could see the wooden panels behind on another layer.


I really wish i had a recording of what he showed me. i wish i had a recording of EVERYTHING i got tought!! or have a better memory!! because its crap!!


so anyway after that, Jack said i shouldnt worry about my textures or lighting right now, the main thing i should get done and out of the way is keying my camera moves and following it to my animatic. so i started doing it and i was having a bit of an off morning because i was kinda starting to stress out about not getting everything done! and not completing this animation.


i just kept thinking and saying "why did i choose to do this in 3d?" "why didnt i just use a program that i knew!" but i remembered that i wanted to learn more about 3D and that working hard will really pay off.... i do like a challenge.


i think i find that i know what im doing in Maya but i feel that i need jack next to me to tell me if im doing it right. i just need to believe in myself more.


okay so after that class finished at 12pm i had 3 hours to kill before having a lecture with Mr Adam Elliot the director of Mary and Max. so during the 3 hours which went really fast! well im actually going to take away a hour for eating lunch and going to my car. so i had 2 hours.

























i worked on my camera moves and only got 4 done.. which isnt a lot of work, but i also did help Nils with some of his work and try to find some music on youtube.


so then at 3pm we went and saw Adam Elliot! which was really good! he was a really good speaker and pretty much answered all questions that i wanted to ask him. so i never asked him a question. he talked about how he started out and how he got to where he is today, and it was really interesting. i admir that he has been offered directing jobs in america and could be recieving heaps of money, but turned them down to stick to his own ideas and work in Australia.

Script page edit.

i had a look at my pages.. well the one page i have which is my script and realised that it was my original idea where the mother comes into Alice's room at the end.
i cut all that out and ended it with the rose pendant changing to colour and fading to black.

so i will very soon add more pages and put some more work up!

peace out!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

02082011

Okayy!!! so today is Tuesday the 2nd and im in week 2!!

last week i bought a 3 pack 8gb usb's!! so i have one with me for extra back up!
"backing up, backing up, backing up coz my daddy taught me good and im backing the hell outta there and im like oh my god, oh my god, my god" :)

okay so anyway back to what happened today... i had a class with Mr Darren and i asked him a few questions about my photoshop colour world that im working on. I made a custom sized canvas (600x176mm) and i wanted to know if that sizing would work in the 16:9 widescreen that the animation would be completed on. I also wanted to know how to make the clouds move and give my 2D colour world a 3D space/feel , so there is depth in the Z direction from the camera.

So he showed me in After Effects how to scale my background to size and use a camera in After Effects and change the individual layers of each element and make them look like they were in different areas in the sky.

In my original storyboard i had Alice draw the door, swirls come out from the sides, then door opens and see the colour world through the door frame,
New idea Alice draws the door, swirls come out the sides and form a spiral tree, then door opens with a blinding light, close up of Alice surprised, puts hand on rose pendant , cut to pan of colour world, after seeing the world she places the rose pendant on the floor of black and white world and then walks off into the distance of colour world, door closes behind her, rose pendant changes to colour! DONE!

well... not really done, i still have some issues with the new idea, the only thing i can do is draw up some thumbnails of the new scenes/shots and see how it works out. Also just realised that the new changes is going to change the timing, its going to be longer AND its not going to be the same as my animatic which is designed for timing!!!

blahh blahh :)

WEEK 1.

The first week back at uni went so fast!!
Time is slipping away and before i know it, its week 14 and ill hand in my animation.. lets hope that its finished!

So i got given all these assessment sheets! There is so much work to do! and half of it isnt even for the animation i am working on! I dont get how my teachers think ill actually have time to do all this work :p
Well i have to be a soldier and fight through it...

So during the first week back, i was talking to one of my classmates Bounnong and he was showing me what work he had done on his animation. There was one scene were he had a seed grow into a flower. I really liked the way it flowed and moved and he told me he did it in a program called Flash. So when i got home i started to do some testing for my swirls that come out the sides of the door Alice draws, and it worked out really well for me!! I'm so happy that i got that problem out of the way... but i still do have a billion more problems to fix.

On Wednesdays class, which is with Jack. He told the class to write down our 7 week milestones. So that once it hits week 7 we should have completed everything that we wrote down.

So for my milestones i wrote:
- Sound:
Should have a basic rough cut of sound and organised to become a final music cut.
organise a list of foley
- 3D Background:
Should have all 3D elements complete, with camera sets.
(3D render in week 10)
- 2D Colour world:
Should have 2D colour world complete.
-Alice:
Should have basic keys mapped out.

I'm hoping that i will get everything done before the end of week 7.

holidays.

I'm already in week 2 from having a relaxing holiday.
During the holidays i planned to have the first week off and relax and then once it hit the second week i would smash into my animation...... LIKE THAT HAPPENED!!

On Saturday of the first week i got really sick and stayed sick for the whole month of June!! so my plan to work on my animation did'nt work out the way i wanted it to be.
So during the staring of July i planned out what i had to do, what programs i need to use, what i should work on first and eeeetttcccccccccccc....

I made it as a work flow plan, so i had what scene, shot, what type of medium (2D, 3D), program used and what work flow that is used in that program and file name that the work will be saved under.

i also organised my 3D world, most of my 3D elements were done in first semester, i have a few more items that need to be created such as 2x toys, walls with a door, plaster broken walls with wooden beams in the cracks, pencils, paint brushs and paper.
i will also need to work on a texture and lighting.

For my 2D world i did heaps of playing around and doing heaps of set up designs on what i wanted my colour world to look like. I'm not very good at photoshop, i know some of the basics but i thought that i wouldnt be able to create what i imagined onto the screen. I kept working on my colour world and started to get the hang of it! it was really fun, i started to download some brushes and used youtube tutorials to add them into Photoshop.
So now i have a basic structure of what my colour world will look like.

My main character Alice is to be created in 2D as well. I've decided to use the program ToonBoom to animate.
I've done a few test drawings of her, really rough tests so once i finish my 3D world i can work on animating her.

While i was working on Alice, i got some ideas to change some of my storyboards. I know its really not a good time to be changing my idea, but the changes actually make the story make more sense. Sooooooo it should be good!!

There is a scene in my animation where Alice draws the door and magical swirls come out from the sides. I was trying to do some pencil tests in ToonBoom and it wasnt working out the way i wanted it to be. Well i actually found many problems that i didnt know how to fix, so i made a list in my diary of things i didnt know how to do so i could get help with them on the day back at uni.

Hope i can get my problems worked out.