Client Project - Final Environments & Assets

A close up look at the final environment for the Heinz Salad Cream client project.

This is my primary environment for most of the major shots.

I added a little extra detail to this with the 'No Swimming' & 'Don't feed the bears' sign. This just adds a little more believability to the scene.

This is the secondary environment and I use for the opposite angle shots. I move around the assets from shot to shot to create the sense of differing environments.

A close up on the lunch for the picnic with a nice glossy finish on the flask and flask lids added as well.

Client Project - Render Scene Test

Playing around with the scenes with environments and lighting with the daylight system.

Client Project - Renders

Here are some test renders for the three characters and some assets in this advert/video.

Client Project - Storyboard

Quick updates. I've just been cracking on with work and haven't been updating my blog so here is some stuff! This is the storyboard to the advert/viral video I am making for Heinz Salad Cream at the YCN awards.

Basically, the bear wants to get involved in the picnic because he is all about the Salad Cream!

Artefact 3 - Spider

In this piece I wanted to show how a heightened emotion such as fear/panic can be portrayed through character animation alone.



I had a good critical response to this artefact in which my tutor Andy Love went on to dissect it. I really need to work on the timing and spacing on this. Timing refereeing to how long a shot will take, for example, how long will it take for her to enjoy the aroma of the coffee. Spacing refers to the keying of frames, whether it will be fast up and slow in etc. The feedback I received was very useful and made me think about why she is smelling the drink opposed to me just thinking about the gag itself. You want her to savour the aroma, slowly bringing the cup up to her nose, slowly enjoying its scents before returning to its holding position before having a taste. By showing how much she is enjoying this drink this really sets up the gag of; she is really enjoying this time by herself and the drink, then it gets ruined by the visit of the spider thus making the arrival of the spider that much worse making the overall gag better in itself. I need to think more of the thinking behind that character itself. This all links back to timing and spacing, she brings the drink way too fast up to her nose, if this was real life she would be getting drink all up in her face! More keys there would slow it down a little! The way in which she jumps out of the seat is both physically impossible to which my peers physically tried to re-enact and the transferral of energy is all wrong. Her hand needs to stay firmly attached to the sofa when she grabs a hold. The amount of energy in which she is grabbing the sofa would make it more than likely fully tip over. I need to re think the way she would pop out of the chair and the angle in which she would turn. Overall I think this is a good artefact, my peers had much to speak about which gave me much useful evaluative notes and my tutor said that the reason he could pick it apart and speak about it so much is because it is a good artefact. I need to carry on to work on all said points above and the points said in earlier artefacts to eventually make an excellent artefact. I will go over this when I have the time and re post it without and evaluation.

Artefact 2 - Slinky

This is my second artefact from the classic slinky scene in Ace Ventura, When Nature Calls:

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In this piece I wanted to show a strong physical and emotional performance in my character. I decided to chose the classic slinky sequence from Ace Ventura, when nature calls. He has a strong physical performance with the underlying emotional performance of someone that is rather self centred and confident. The performance is very exaggerated and extrovert and this comes across in my animated version. It was very tricky to try and capture Jim Carreys energy in such a short period of time to animate it but overall it's an OK artefact for character animation. Some of the feedback I got an audience of peers was I needed to tone down the facial animation that I created in my version. The reasoning behind toning it down was that everyone who has seen Jim Carrey in action will know about his over the top performances and whilst in live action that is all good and well its sometimes not a good thing in animation to portray it in that way as everyone knows what I am trying to do, create an animated version of Jim Carrey whereas I should be creating a performance based on his own, not a copy. This is feedback that I will need to take in and remember for future animations as it is a very true statement. I also need to again work on strong poses and not float from one action to another. Stronger poses and motions are needed on direct words again also to back up the strong emphasis on words, this reiterates what was said on the last artefacts evaluation and I really need to work on it. on the whole I think it recreates the scene very well, recreating his strong emotions he portrays through his physical movement and the exaggerated performance he gives.

Artefact 1 - "You talkin' ta me?"

First of five character animations being created for my Research Doucment in my final year of Univesity at Nottingham Trent studying multimedia. Using the famous "ya talkin' to me?" speech given by Robert DeNiro from the 1976 classic Taxi Driver I re worked that scene in animation as the original speech was physically very stiff so I loosened it up a bit in this animation.

 

 In this piece I wanted to make the performance from the original film a little more animation (no pun intended) but at the same time subtle. Still focusing on the upper half of the body I wanted more dynamic movement in not only the arms but in the eyes. In the original, even thought DeNiro's performance in classic he is very still apart from a shaking in his shoulders and head. In hindsight this as a first animation artefacts was quite too ambitious and although I'm pleased with it, not overly I might add, I don't think it quite captures the intense performance as the original. I still believe I have created an performance of a character that has real intent in both his mannerisms and in his psyche. He portrays that of a man that is confident and strong minded believing that he better than the person/audience that he is speaking to, this is noticeable by the breaks in eye contact. The animation overall is ok but it lacks strong key poses. Its needs more weight. Someone that stands still in one places doesn't not move, they sway side to side displacing their weight from one leg to another every now and then. Even though I have keyed in breathing it isn't noticeable enough to the audience and in lack of movement the characters starts to 'die'. It needs more emphasis on words that are spoken, strong words are normally backed up with strong poses and movements. This goes on throughout the animation, over all it is all too smooth, moving from one pose to another, movements sometimes need to be more strong and sharp. I will need to start animation from the torso outwards to the rest of the limbs more efficiently as I did start by animating the waist or hips but sometimes got inpatient and moved onto trying to animate too much too quickly I will need to make sure I have a good base of animation in my coming artefacts.