500 Word Rational

Over the past 2 terms I have been working on my interpretation of the dojo scene from the Matrix. I decided on this script over the others for two reasons; The Matrix is one of my favourite films and because I really wanted to improve my animating skills and knew this project would definitely challenge me.
I decided to change the scene by setting it in an old gloomy American saloon. I also decided on a comic book effect as it worked successfully in my first project and I already knew of numerous artists to draw influence from.
If there is one thing the first project taught me, it was that planning is the most crucial part of the process. I thought to myself that as long as I keep up with all the work and spread the work load evenly over the time we were given than the outcome will be exactly as I planned. However there is one thing I did not plan for; random problems that are unforeseeable. These problems would then go unnoticed to me until it was far too late. For example, my Morpheus character could not move much and talk at the same time otherwise he would transform into a cluster of polygons and vertices (you will notice that whenever he talks, he is hardly moving at all). There was no explanation for why it did this, but if I realised before I started animating I could have fixed it and saved myself a lot of work. Looking back, I now know that I should have thoroughly tested everything aspect of my project as soon as I finish it.
I also realised that because I was painting my textures and then importing them to an 'Ink and Paint' material, my dark and gloomy bar became not so dark. This killed any atmosphere I tried to put into the room, so I decided to change the set to make the textures seem less contrasting. Although this was an improvement, I was still dissatisfied with the final set.
Looking back at the outcome of the project, I am disappointed with the animation. It looks nothing like how I wanted it to and I don't think it portrays how much work went into it. However, I am pleased with my improved skills and how much knowledge I have gained. In a way, I am glad this project became much more difficult than I expected. Most problems that occurred I either now know how to fix or know what not to do next time around. I am especially pleased with how much my animation has improved. It's amazing how long winded I made the animating process on 'Of Bots and Bananas'.
Looking forward, I want to work over the summer to improve my texturing, character modelling, skinning, using more interesting and PLANNING. And when I say planning, i mean everything to the tiniest detail, so noting suprises me when it come to render time. Now I know what I have to do to be at the level I want for the third year. Oh, and I need to spend much more time on collecting and adding sound. The sound on this project does it no favours at all.

Material Library

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47410635@N05/

Models

Here is the work I have completed so far;











Next steps are to model my other character, rig both and then find and create the textures for everything. It is going to be a long week.

How big is infinity?

Just a quick post, I am currently modelling my set and two characters so I will put some photos up once I complete them. Over the past week I have found a few videos which I found interesting;

The first is just for anybody who was in the lecture about the hive where any hopes of getting a job after uni were effectively gunned down

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12483355

The second is a video that blew my mind (almost literally) about the foundations of maths and physics

http://www.documentary24.com/dangerous-knowledge-the-true-nature-of-reality--483/

and the last video is a lecture made interesting by a very simple but powerful animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Initial Ideas

Over the break I thought about my next project very briefly but didn't come up with anything important. I was playing with the idea of cartoon/anime style but on it's own I don't think this is enough to call it my 're-working' of the dojo scene. As we are working from a script, there can be no changes to the story, which means the only changes I can make are to the style, setting and characters. However, because the scene is a simulation, the choices of scene or character are endless.

My first thought was what to do with the characters. You could make them animals, robots, zombies/aliens, or humans. I'm not particularly interested in using animals, I don't want to use robots again and I don't think 2 zombies fighting would do the speed of the scene justice. Then I had the idea, what if I used humans but changed the time it is set. Long story short, my current idea is setting the scene in a western tavern with cowboys/bandits. All I can think about whilst writing this is Morpheus playing La Resa Dei Conti on the piano in the tavern. I will combine these characters and setting with styles that I find interesting and we will see what happens.

I should have put this on before I got distracted by Christmas, but here it is! Mixed feelings about it really. I know how much tie and effort went into it so when I look at it I am not disappointed. But the shadows look crap, the sound effects are pretty poor and the timing of the whole video isn't right. I think it's all down to my planning not quite being up to scratch. I could go into this in more detail but I don't think my internet connection could handle that much text being uploaded. Basically I need to make sure I plan EVERYTHING before I start modeling and animating on my next project.

On the positive side, I think it was a good introduction on character animation. I can use the skills I have gained to build on our last project of the second year. Although, the amount of work it is going to take seems quite daunting so I need to make sure I keep on top of it all.

Of Bots and Bananas

Havent posted anything in a while so the best thing to do is probably update you with everything I have been doing on my project. When I firt started the project, I knew I wanted my character to look, so this is where I started. I wanted my character to look out of proportion the same way that Mickey Mouse is out of proportion. Big hands, big feet, big head and round belly. This was my starting point for the general body shape. After this images, of Clank from 'Ratchet and Clank' helped me to finalise the shape and detail. However, now I have started modelling, the design may change if I encounter any problems. I alsowanted my character to work as a clock. Dont know why, just thought it was interesting and it might add a bit more charater. This is why I added a ticking metranome tie which also is useful when it comes to my opening sequence in the animation. This is how my final design looked for my robot;


To this point I have rigged his arms and legs almost without issues, however there is a slight problem with the "FootRoll" which I need to sort out. This week I am trying to create and rig the head. I am playing with the idea of having him not speaking but just using noises to portray his emotions.This is how it looked at the time of this post;


Thats as much as I can stand to write about my character and I think I have covered about everything so I will move on to story and setting.

Originally I was going for some optimistic, unfunny story about an island and banana, but after my presentation this has all changed. I took Andy's advise and stook with the infinte room. But then I got hit by the idea of having somebody other than the main character in control of the furniture in the room. This came from playing portal. I liked the idea of somebody watching over and doing things to 'distract' my charcter simply for their own enjoyment. As it stand I am torn between this or just having my character slip and fall as he moves closer and further away to the furniture. Either way the set will look the same, and will have influences from portal. So I really need to crack on, try and get all the modelling done for monday (which is actually a realistic possibility) and make a decision on the story by then.