Yr 2 P.1-3D Computer Animation Assignment: Three Sides Project

Post author By Wai Sum Amber-Rose Liu
Post date 10th January 2024
No Comments on Yr 2 P.1-3D Computer Animation Assignment: Three Sides Project

———-Part 1———-

Week 1: Brainstorming

It took me a quite a while to come up with a story. Because 3D animation is still new to me, I tried not to create a overly sophisticated tale as I didn’t want to overestimate my own abilities. After all, it’s best to take baby steps at first.

I continued to experiment with alternative results and drew several rough sketches of many silly yet fun little scenarios. These simple stories challenged my imagination and taught me that creativity is boundless and you must be daring enough to explore the endless possibilities.

Story idea drafts and scrapped ideas:

A story of a sheep dozing off in a vast field of grass. The field of grass turns out to be someone’s blanket as you zoom out. The sheep that fell asleep was meant to clone itself and to help the individual with insomnia sleep as he counts them. Looks like the sheep isn’t doing a very good job.

A dog plays on a large green field, similar to the story above. The earth suddenly wobbles, and it reveals to be someone’s blanket. The human is late for school, which disrupts the dog’s imaginary ”fun times”.

The tale begins with an aircraft soaring above the sky. It is then smashed by a massive monster in the following scene. When the camera zooms out, the ”monster” is discovered to be a cat, and the plane is just a child’s toy.

The process of creating an appealing narrative was challenging since I had to seek an appropriate, free-of-charge rig for it. However, when looking for a one, I came across many talented individuals offering all kinds of rigs, which motivated me to become one of them. It was also a gentle reminder that I still had a long way to go.

Originally, I intended to use a corgi rig, but after seeing my limitations and a lack of understanding regarding the way how real-life animals move, I scrapped the concept and went on to explore a new one.

A storyboard draft I thought I was going to use.

Douglas is unaware that he is in a globe and wonders why he levitates up and down and why it suddenly snows. It turns out that another Douglas is playing with the globe, and every time he moves it vigorously, a freezing blizzard forms within.

It’s always difficult when it comes to throwing away our precious ideas when we like them so much. I’m still in the process of learning to do that in the hard way, but the act of leaving behind ideas serves as a gateway for new ideas to come.

In the end, I decided to choose a rigged cartoon cat called Mr. Buttons.

The rig I chose (Mr. Buttons):

Week 2-3: Animatic/ Storyboard Drafts and mood boards

I’ve been working on a storyboard with the character Mr. Buttons, the orange-y anthropomorphic cartoon cat, over the past week. When I first saw him, I was captivated by his capability to squash and stretch with ease, much like a normal cartoon character, and it offered me a lot of control over his cheerful nature. I like how his physique isn’t as constrained as that of a real human. I believe he would be the ideal choice to communicate a story via expressive stances and facial expressions.

The animatic/ storyboard:

Similar to the concept of Douglas the dog, this vision of the story starts with Mr. Buttons relaxing and enjoying his day when suddenly he starts to float upwards. As he begins to stress out, he descends from the sky. He gets up and thinks about what occurred. The camera zooms out from him; he is in a crystal ball, and a larger version of himself is grasping onto the sphere. The larger Mr. Buttons teases, plays with, and throws the ball. He had a smug grin on his face. Not long later, history repeats itself, and he begins to levitate as well.

Moodboard of world-building:

This is a mood board I’ve put together containing my design ideas for the background and world design. I want the the background to be filled with warm hues that suggest it’s an ideal spot to loosen up. And also somewhere so convincingly comfy that the viewers won’t suspect a thing.

A revised version of the animatic with background:

Reference video:

While producing this reference video for my animation, I had to film myself in some parts. I felt ridiculously silly when I recorded myself performing several actions but it helped me grasp on how some real-life physics and weight of movements work. The video also acts as a helpful guide for me while animating complex gestures. While some were shot by myself, I also incorporated some animated scenes from movies or TV shows because some were physically impossible for me to recreate.

Week 4: Concept art, thumbnail sketches and warm-ups with character

This is a concept art I created for the environment Mr. Buttons would be in. It is just a simple autumn environment with some trees, rocks, bushes,
mushrooms etc. He also has a house too. I want the surroundings to be as cartoony as possible, with nothing too realistic that would clash with Mr. Button’s character design. The background may be very basic, but that’s because I don’t want it to detract from my narrative too. Instead, my character would tell the narrative this time. Furthermore, the simple background implies a large open area for Mr. Buttons to relax in. If there’s too much going on in the background, it could not appear as comfortable.

Thumbnail sketches of poses & actions:

These actions of Mr. Buttons are derived from the animatic. I drew some thumbnail sketches to get a sense of how Mr. Buttons might move in different scenes. This also gives me an idea of how I’d create key poses for Mr. Buttons’ block-out animation.

Concept art:

This is another piece of concept art below that shows Mr. Buttons relaxing on his mat on a warm sunny autumn day, with food and music surrounding him. This would perhaps serve as a good reference when I need to pose him in such a worry-free position.

After downloading the character rig, I decided to attempt some warm-ups to familiarise myself with Mr. Buttons’ controls. I posed him in several ways, as his body language communicates distinctive emotions. The activity was a lot of fun, and it really helped me a great deal in getting to know how Mr. Buttons operates!

Character posing practice:

Week 5: Modeling and world-building

I made a moodboard of tree designs as a way of modelling trees, and I took a liking to some of them. They are mostly autumn trees with bright orange, reddish, and yellowish colours, which suits the comfy and cozy mood I was aiming for. Modelling trees is not my strongest suit, so it was helpful for me to look at references of them and get ideas on what style of trees I should go for. These tree designs are mostly really simple, and they look very cartoon-y too. I want to add trees that are not overly realistic and that could only be found in the cartoon world. These are really perfect examples.

During the week, I modeled some objects that could be found in nature. I
also modeled some food items next to Mr Buttons, as well as his humble
house. Upon reflection, modelling the trees and the house is proved to be the most difficult and time-consuming elements for me. Here are some screen-caps of the bits and pieces I modeled over time.

This bush was one of the objects that I spent over many hours modeling. In the end I still didn’t like how it turned out as the shape looks a little weird, so I decided not to use it. It really sucks how sometimes you spend so much time on one time and you don’t use it in the end.

The fall tree was, like I said, one of the hardest items to model. I find it hilarious since I’m not very good at drawing trees, and I can’t model trees properly in Maya either. I wonder why it’s so hard for me to grasp the nature of what trees look like. When making the leaves, I first drew the outline of the autumn leaf shape using Procreate. After importing the picture into Maya, I traced the image using the tool ”create polygon” and extruded it to create leaves. The autumn tree doesn’t look perfect, but at least I am happy that you can tell it’s one.

I traced this leaf shape with the ”create polygon” tool and extruded it.

Week 6-8: Character animation block-out + Animation

This was my official first time animating a character in 3D. I realised that it is critical to initially block out the key poses before moving on to the animation’s in-betweens. Even when I animate in 2D, I’m not used to blocking out the main poses since I’m more comfortable producing animations with the “straight-ahead” method. Being exposed to and learning pose-to-pose animation is still new to me, but this extremely technical method allows me to anticipate ahead of time what I expect, and I can block out my character in more dynamic postures to generate stronger character-body language.

What I struggle with the most is that Maya does not appear to have the onion skin tool, which is commonly used in 2D animation. I’d sometimes use the time slider to go back to a prior frame to look at my character’s postures, but I become very frustrated when I forget to switch on the automated key frame feature and entirely lose my later key frame. So the most important takeaway for me is to constantly remember to activate the automated tool. I was also astonished to see that Maya has “stepped” and “spline” choices. I think the spline tool is really useful since it can produce interpolations between key frames, and it is quite a beginner-friendly tool.

Playblast demos:

Character block-out in spline:

Character block-out, stepped:

Stepped and spline work processes are really different, and I’m still learning how they function and which I prefer more. When I wanted to switch the stepped keys to spline, it loses its original snappiness, which was a bit upsetting. Nonetheless, I chose to do it fully in spline this time because I am conscious of my limitations in terms of skill-wise in 3D animation. The automated interpolations helped me realise how the spline process is considerably faster than stepping, but the quality generated appears to be lower as a result. However, I’m sure selecting either one of these approaches is a question of personal taste.

Later on, even though the animation came out like I expected, I realised in the later weeks that my animation consists of more than three shots. But I was really thankful that my teacher advised me to merge some shots together as one.

I painstakingly examined my whole animation and created an improved version of my storyboard. I had one aim in mind while drafting the new storyboard: salvage the story while I condensed some of my animation. I kept asking myself if these three pictures or shots I’m drawing are clear enough for the audience to understand them. This was really challenging, as I needed to sacrifice some other shots I worked really hard on. Hopefully, it will be a better version after some moderation.

Animation Struggles…

I discovered that some of the issues I was having while animating might have been related to the auto-keyframe feature. I was really frustrated when my character’s limbs would occasionally twist and turn abnormally in a certain area of my animation timeline. In addition, my character would occasionally dart around as though it were glitching. Eventually, I discovered that the reason this was happening was that occasionally I would fail to keyframe the entire character’s body, leaving some body sections unlocked from a previous frame I was meant to create.

This is an example of what I encountered that stressed me out a lot:

Mr. Buttons is supposed to fall down from the sky from one scene with his belly facing downwards.

But when he free falls, a long section on the animation timeline shows him falling with his belly facing the wrong direction. This looks like as if he is a dead goldfish. It was a pity that this was the only issue I encountered that I wasn’t able to fix but I was very thankful to have saved a backup version of the file. Phew!

The emotion I get when I realise this and can repair it is both strange and pleasant. I now see that there is a high learning curve in 3D animation, which I hope to avoid with my future project and instead aim to achieve better outcomes. In addition, I patted myself on the back and felt pleased of myself for using the animation graph editor to resolve the “limb issue.” The graph editor is a tool that lets you adjust your animation more effectively, however I usually find it to be incredibly difficult for beginners like me.

Updated storyboard:

Visual Narrative

Lip Synch Elective- Living Voices!

Post author By Wai Sum Amber-Rose Liu
Post date 31st May 2023
No Comments on Lip Synch Elective- Living Voices!

————Week 1————

Introduction:

In the beginning, we were told that we would be creating a short 10-15 second animation with an audio of our liking. There were a handful of audios to choose from but I wanted to search for one that I like on the internet. After finding one that matches my taste, I waited with anticipation for approval that would be granted by my teacher. My tutor liked what I have chosen but to my dismay, she pointed out the down sides of choosing a soundtrack from a previously animated cartoon series after knowing where I got it from. She added that it would be hard for the audience to not think of the original character from the animated series behind the voice of the audio. I agreed with her point and went on another journey to find a “better” audio as I accepted the hard truth.

After going home, I continued a four-hour search on the “perfect” audio but it felt like luck was not on my side. Knackered, I decided to give the sample audios a listen to see if any ideas would spark up. As I listened, I tried sketching out random doodles that’ll pop up in my brain. Slowly, I came to realise I started to fall in love with one of the audios. In the end, I chose the second audio.

The audio I picked:

Brainstorming & doodling rough ideas:

Mood-board designs:

Background/ Environment idea designs:

As I was listening to the chosen audio multiple times, i find there is an indescribable tranquility or softness in the tones of how both characters speak. It quickly came to mind that using comforting colours or art mediums like soft pastel might be suitable to match such an audio.

I tried to create a background scene of a park after rainfall during sunset times, just to visualize how I would want my backgrounds to look like. The style I used was hugely inspired by the artist- Louie Zong who is famous for his utilisation of soothing brush strokes, calming atmospheres and cozy hues, as if being served a cup of hot cocoa when you look at his works.

Primary Character Designs:

The Protagonist (Bunny):

Some more sketches and doodles of the loveable and round cuddly bunny! Isn’t he very loveable? : )

The Antagonist (Hyena):

The audio has a captivating clarity of tenderness, but I wanted to add an element of surprise to the tale instead of merely making it really wholesome with beautiful pastel surroundings. Consequently, I chose to create an antagonist to liven up the narrative.

Storyboards/ Animatic:

I produced two storyboards just to see which one is stronger. the first storyboard has a twist to it while the other is just wholesome. Both storyboards feature the lovable bunny character.

The Narration: Characters: Mellow the Bunny and Gunner the Hyena

Mellow and Gunner are both waiting for a bus at a bus stop as the sky darkens and the rain ceases. Mellow is alone, and Gunner observes this, making him extremely vulnerable. The hyena smirks and engages Mellow in a conversation, scrutinising his body language and pointing out any possible weaknesses in him. Taking note of Mellow’s youth and naiveté, Gunner takes his chances in luring this fat bunny into his arms for a satisfying feast.

This is the initial animatic of the first storyboard created.

————Week 2————

Revised Character Design & Turnarounds:

Bunny:

I stuck with the initial design of the bunny and gave him simple colours for me to work with. His curious yet slightly oblivious expression matched with his huge round body makes him look very adorable AND a bit blockheaded. I’d say he’s pretty aDORKable.

Hyena:

I did some sketches of my hyena character with a combination of basic shapes just to experiment whether I could improve on my charcter design of him and make him more malicious, dangerous and menacing looking. The sketching exercise helped me step out of my comfort zone and provided me a better vision of how much my art style could be stretched.

Revised Animatic:

After getting my animatic reviewed, my teacher encouraged me to strengthen some of my camera angles so that a feeling or mood could be pushed and the message could be expressed more prominently. My teacher aided me in pushing the hyena to be more of a dominant character who doesn’t give you enough enough space to breathe, by changing some camera angles. The experience once again concretes the fact that good camera angle usage could provide a better story experience to audiences as messages are conveyed in a clearer manner.

————Week 3————

Learning about backgrounds, Colour Theory & X-Sheets:

It was genuinely quite hard to paint a background with a limitation of just the colours just o black, gray and white since I’ve never done a value painting before. The exercise helped me realise the importance of colour usage to avoid having an over-saturated drawing.

I wanted to see how would my painting look like with colours so I tried adding some just for fun. I chose the darker hues of blue, purple and pink. The tone suggests its cold, mysterious environment where one could expect danger pouncing out at them at any time.

Background designs:

I tried to create a background scene of a park after rainfall during sunset times. The style I used was hugely inspired by the artist- Louie Zong who is famous for his utilisation of soothing brush strokes, calming atmospheres and cozy hues, as if being served a cup of hot cocoa when you look at his works. This atmospheric design practice introduced me to a better understanding of how colours can be manipulated to make people feel certain ways. I desire to apply this in my animation.

Overall, having to paint backgrounds with my newly acquired colour theory knowledge assisted me in paying more attention to whether my paintings would be “low-key” or “high-key” in context of lighting. I also avoided choosing overly saturated hues, which might clash with the intended depressing mood. Designing background scenes is not my forte, but painting was an enjoyable experience that pushed me farther out of my comfort zone to test my abilities.q

X-Sheets:

Constructing X-sheets was one of the most boring, irritating, and aggravating aspects of an animation‘s pre-production process to me.

Despite the drawbacks, the x-sheets give a clear breakdown and layout of when the characters would begin speaking each syllable or phrase, so I wouldn’t have to guess how their mouth shapes would operate. I’m confident that the x-sheets made animating lip-syncing a lot easier.

Creating Mouth Shapes:

Although I have been doing quite a lot of lip-sync animations over the years, this elective challenged me surprisingly. The audio I chose does not have an easy script. The conversation is very fast-paced, so even by scrubbing the audio at a slower pace, it still required great effort to grasp the sounds or syllables in each frame. In addition, I am not particularly used to animating with 24fps. Therefore, even with the help of X-sheets, my characters’ lip-syncing to the audio would sometimes be slightly inaccurate. To improve, I plan to spend more time practicing animating lip-syncing on twos and developing stronger skills in drawing mouth shapes that match up with the phonetic units of the audio.

————Week 4————

Let’s ANIMATE!!!- Work In Progress:

Animation Key Frames:

Line Art Cleanup:

————Week 5————

Coloured Animation w/ background:

FINAL ANIMATION- w/ colour grading + editing + sound effects:

After colouring my animation, I added some sound effects, colour adjustments and video effects to it. With all of this hard work done after weeks, I am very content with my final outcome! : D

Version w/o Subtitles:

“How long did it take for you to animate this?”

“One eternity!” :,)

Visual Narrative

3D Retro Device Elective

“Brewing some Positivi-TEA…☕️”

————— Week 1 —————

Mood-board and idea development:

For my 3D elective project I would like to make a retro machine that brews coffee AND tea. While I was putting my mood board together, it was quite interesting to look at very diverse possible designs of coffee machines. In my head, I could visualise a sort of old coffee machine with some rust and scratches on it that I’d like to model. To idea of being able to bring an imagined idea into a 3D model hypes me up a lot.

Scratched-off ideas

Originally, I wanted to make a retro camera, but I struggled to formulate the whole idea how it would properly function in the old times. Besides, the design looks quite modern and new so I ditched the idea instead.

Sketches and drafts:

I’d like to believe this machine is introduced to the markets in Hong Kong during the year of 1960, when HK was still colonised by the British. It could be observed that there are numbers of British influences that contribute to the unique identity of the petit city that still exist today. So I think it would be a good idea to leave traces of the Brit’s love for english tea onto the machine, as a mark of the city’s colonial past. The english tea “trend” then filters down to local tastes and becomes Hong Kong’s famously known milk tea, which could be found in local “cha chaan tengs” (HK style cafes).

Learning Maya with a Lego man:

It was great to model again on Maya after a long time. I find it very helpful and useful that we needed to model a lego man to get familiarised with the functions of Maya after a while. I was pretty surprised I remember the basic functions of the program. However, I did struggle on creating the lego man’s arms. It was surely a bit of a challenge but still very enjoyable.

————— Week 2 —————

Work in Progress in Modelling my Cofftea Machine:

Front view:

Low-angle view:

Low-angle view:

————— Week 3 —————

For this week, I continued to work on my 3D model. I proceed to add on the tubes that connect the water glass jugs to the containers with coffee beans/tea bags. The tubes were very difficult to construct, so one of my tutors suggested me using the curve tool and the sweep mesh function. It takes patience and skill to use these tools but I am glad how the tubes looked like afterwards.

In class, we also looked into the functions of UV wrapping. The lessons were very challenging to follow, but I am certain UV wrapping is a very useful tool.

Later on during the week, I added a few more things to my model. I added some local food you’ll normally find from chinese restaurants (cha chaan tengs) to compliment the scene. I also modelled the mixing part where the coffee, tea and milk are going to be blended together. Furthermore, I added extra room that allow you to put two extra cups at the backside of the machine.

————— Week 4 —————

Further into week 4, I have completed modelling and stepped into the stage of UV unwrapping. Here’s some progress of me UV unwrapping while I tried to not lose my sanity over how hard it was for some objects.

————— Week 5 —————

During week 5, I started to do some texturing for the objects of the model after UV unwrapping everything. I quickly picked up Substance Painter and was glad that it wasn’t too difficult to understand the interface and the tools available for use. It was super fun!

I actually also contemplated whether I should use z-brush but I think it wasn’t necessary for this project and learning it would not be be an overnight thing. However, hopefully I would be able to utilize the powerful software as well as mastering it in the future!

————— Week 6 —————

Adding textures to my model…

————— Week 6 —————

Final Rendered Stills:

This is my favorite rendered still. Look at that reflection! : D

Final Outcome: Animation!

Playblast Version:

Rendered Version:

It was unfortunate that the render farm failed and broke down twice during my rendering progress for my 3D animation. It upset me that I couldn’t render my entire animation as a whole at first, so I also uploaded the playblast version to show how it was meant to look like. However thanks to a few kind technicians that are always wiling to help me out, I was able to render my final piece in time in the morning! What a crazy surprise! I was so happy to be able to get the final outcome. I just feel so grateful that these technicians didn’t mind how hard it was for my project to be rendered or no matter how many times the render crashed, they just kept trying for me. I just felt so touched that there are people out there to lend me a helping hand even when they have more important things to do. I am truly just so thankful that I got so much support and love from so many people throughout his project. It made me realize that sometimes, all we need is some support and encouragement to get to where we want to. We can’t always do things alone! : ) Even though I was able to render my project, the experience still taught me an important lesson. Many things are beyond your control, regardless of how anxious you are or how much time or effort you put in. Some things are simply inevitable. Looking at my final rendered animation in a positive light, I strive to accept all of the errors and lessons I’ve learnt in order to be a better animator in the future. I am glad I gave it my all and tried my hardest without giving up that easily. Also thanks to the people around me that have been cheering me on all the time. I’m pleased I took this 3D elective so I can prepare for what’s to come next year. Bring it on! : D

Production Principles

Out Of Your Head- Stenellar

Post author By Wai Sum Amber-Rose Liu
Post date 25th January 2023
No Comments on Out Of Your Head- Stenellar

To start off, we were given a big word cloud which consists of a diverse number of words. We had to choose five words from the word cloud or to think of our own words. We agreed on extracting five words from the cloud and got an interesting list:

Dolphin
Space
Shadow
Light
Diamond

Mind-Mapping on Story Development:

Upon brainstorming for the plot, we came up with two groups of dolphins, which are the light and shadow dolphins. The light dolphins are always happy to an extreme while misery is always in the heads of the shadow ones. The two pods are basically polar opposites and we wanted the two parties to find balance between them.

Creating the Storyboard

We devised a preliminary tale based on dolphins in space using the words we chose: The narrative is set in outer space, where debris rocks float aimlessly. Perhaps an old space battle created the current debris. As the massive rocks float away from the background, a gleaming diamond appears in the centre of the screen. This is followed by a brief entrance, or the so-called introduction scene of the light dolphins. They whirl around in a delighted manner, swimming towards the diamond, which first drew them to it. A shadow dolphin appears behind the diamond. The cheerful species are afraid by its alternate form due to its dissimilar traits to light dolphins. The joyful dolphins swim towards the unhappy dolphins in the direction of the diamond, and the shard swiftly vanishes. Ignoring the sparkling object, the light group shifts their attention to the dark group and begins to advance towards them. One dolphin from each pod steps out, and their rostrums contact. The brief touch makes them switch colours. They quickly become shocked and pull away a little to take in what has transpired with a tiny contact between them. When they combine or fuse together, they see they might become something more. They rush together and swirl in a circle. With a large explosion, the two fuse and achieves balance and oneness with their opposing form. It becomes transparent. The translucent dolphin then exits the scene by swimming away.

Revised version:

After receiving feedback from our instructors, we recognised there were several problems in our concept that needed to be addressed. At first, we intended the diamond to be the only reason the two groups met, and its presence would be overlooked afterwards. We discussed how the shard should play a larger role in the tale after receiving helpful input from our tutors . Instead, we kept it in sight, just below where the two dolphins merged. Perhaps part of its reflecting light energy contributed to the two becoming one. We also deleted some extraneous sequences so that we could devote more attention to the most vital aspects in our animation. The feedback session was very informative and it guided us on a better way in telling our ambitious tale!

Designing Moodboards

To have a better and clearer picture of what we are hoping to see in our animation, each of us created a moodboard for a specific region of our 20 second video. In our moodboards, the categories include character design, colour design of characters/scenes, camera position, and backgrounds/ atmospheres (from left to right).

Character Design of Dolphins

We studied the exact colours of light and shadows in real life while deciding on the colours of both pods of dolphins. We picked colours that were noticeable in terms of highlighting their look. I think that colours may reveal a lot about a character’s personality, how they feel, and how they behave. Colours surely play a huge role in animations.

Character Reference Sheets:

It goes without saying that as a group of four, we all have various yet distinct art styles. As a result, we needed to construct a character reference sheet so that we could maintain a consistent style throughout the 20-second animation. We didn’t want our varied art styles to be obtrusive in our film.

Light Dolphins (Happy Dolphins):

Shadow Dolphins (Sad Dolphins):

Animatic of Story:

We thought as a group that doing a preliminary animatic to evaluate the timing of each scene would be a good idea before animating. It is also an excellent technique for us to assess which portions need more attention/screen time than others; in other words, the animatic assisted in determining whether further changes were needed. Furthermore, the animatic assisted us in selecting and contemplating various composition and camera angles. The main lesson from this brief animatic was that I could see the usefulness of creating rudimentary animations beforehand. It taught me that animation cannot be rushed, and that good works require patience and time to make.

Textures and Colouring:

We created some simple textures for the two groups of dolphins to serve as clipping masks when we add the colours. We also gave the shard a diamond texture and gave it a little amount of sparkle and shine on purpose.

Dolphin References:

Obviously, I am not a dolphin specialist, and drawing dolphins is not something I do on a regular basis. It was challenging to get their anatomy correct, especially from certain difficult angles. The struggle prompted me to look for resources online, which are only a click away. Being able to look at references benefited me tremendously in drawing dolphins better and faster.

Sound Design

We created music using the Garage Band software. We were able to create a soundtrack that fits our space atmosphere by merging several electronic music instruments. We were pleased that the audio sounded precisely as we had hoped: tranquil, mysterious, and a little hypnotic.

About the title name:

We wanted to be create yet funny at the same time, so we put the two words- ”Stellena”(dolphin) and ”Stellar”(star) together. Since our main themes were dolphins and space, we thought the combination of words would be quite fitting and definitely make a good title!

Final Product:

Key Frames:

Finally, we finished by applying a vhs filter and experimented with camera motions in After Effects. I think the entire thing had a nostalgic feel to it because of the grainy texture. I really like how the space textures and motion flow turned out. Also, the fact that we have finally completed our project brings me joy, despite us being coated in our own blood, sweat, and tears. Everything was really worth it. However, I am aware that our narrative is not entirely clear. This was our biggest struggle, especially because we only had 20 seconds to tell our story. Despite our inability to adequately communicate our message, I appreciate the full process over the finished product, and I have gained so much from this wonderful experience. I am thankful for such great teammates to. I look forward to creating more works in the future! : )

Intro to Animation

Point of View Film- Finished/ Unfinished-Periwinkle-d

Post author By Wai Sum Amber-Rose Liu
Post date 5th December 2022
No Comments on Point of View Film- Finished/ Unfinished-Periwinkle-d

Storyboard & sketched ideas

3D glasses are one of the main themes/ focuses in our film

Character Designs

The squirrel is designed by my very talented partner- Justine! 🙂

Scribble the squirrel and Scratch the cat are both origami puppets that correlate with our paper-themed project!

Inspiration:

World Designs

Pink represents Scribble and blue belongs to Scratch. The two distinctive colors represent they are polar opposites.

When their colors and worlds combine, periwinkle purple appears.

One of the most difficult aspects of constructing their sketched-up worlds was imagining how the two perceive the world from their viewpoints while working with restricted colors. We wanted to show the audience what makes Scribble and Scratch’s beloved things so magnetically appealing to them. It was also difficult to strike a balance between connecting the two worlds and without overcrowding them with distracting elements.

Inspiration & references:

Work in Progress & Music Design:

We used the app Capcut to join our videos together, as we split the 30 second animation in half and animated our parts separately. We also shorted some of our scenes with the help of the software, so that we could make the film exactly 30 seconds.

My partner Justine and I created our own music using the Garage Band software. We went back and forth to decide on which musical instrument we should use. We tried violins and cellos, but the lovely melody they generate does not fit our animation style, it was too elegant to our liking. We also looked at other instruments, such as electric guitar, but we thought that the sound was too harsh and forceful at first, which may be distracting. Finally, we decided on a whirly piano to complement our lighthearted yet bubbly animation approach. We also added a second instrument, the drums, to liven up the beat and to give it some ‘texture’. In the end, we reconsidered the electric guitar and added a small part of it for the fight scene, so to show the intensity between the two characters and how much they want to be the better one.

We are not music professionals, but the process of composing music with my partner taught us the necessity of matching a decent audio soundtrack to animation or films, so that the audience can dive into the story and be able to comprehend what type of emotion is extruding from the animation based on the soundtrack.

Key Frames

Final Product: Periwinkle-d

Short Summary of Story-line:

Scratch the cat and Scribble the squirrel have extremely distinct personalities and enjoy/value various aspects of the world or the cosmos. They express their passions by sketching expressively on paper walls and wearing single-colored 3D glasses to see their work come ‘alive.’ Scribble draws in pink, while Scratch creates in blue, symbolising they are total opposites. Scribble appreciates nature and the fantastic city vistas. On the other hand, Scratch is fascinated by outer space and the ocean, both of which contain many unexplored mysteries.

They realise they drew in the same space with their artworks merged accidentally. Dissatisfied, they start a fight to convey their severe disdain of each other’s interests.

Their respective 3D glasses fly off and crash on the floor as they beat each other to a pulp. The blue and pink colours from the 3D lens soon seep out and begin to flood and fill up the drawings they made earlier. PERIWINKLE purple emerges from the sea of blue and pink as the colours blue and pink mingle and blend like a smoothie. The two cease arguing and start to realize their differences compliment one other’s perspectives and that breathtakingly lovely things may happen when you least expect them.

Scribble leans down and picks up a two-colored 3D lens that appeared out of nowhere with both blue and pink colours on it. She tries them on to see how their united worlds might come to life through the lens, as both characters’ features change into astonished looks. The scene abruptly cuts out to allow the viewer to imagine what they saw through the glasses. Were they amazed, or were they mortified? I guess it’s up to you to decide now!

The message behind the story hints that resplendent yet extraordinary things could happen when we respect different people’s Point Of Views. : )

Production Principles Rotation 4: Storyboard (14/11-25/11/2022)

Week 1-2: Storyboards, Storyboards & Storyboards!

Post author By Wai Sum Amber-Rose Liu
Post date 24th November 2022
No Comments on Week 1-2: Storyboards, Storyboards & Storyboards!

Week 1: Mini Class Activity:

A one-panel storyboard of a guy running late for a job interview.

In-Class Assignment:

Our group chose the prompts: Alice in Wonderland with a teenage, psychedelic and modern twist to it. We attempted to make the mood board as trippy as possible which resembles drug abuse and addictions. The colours are sharp and eye-straining that hints-”We’re all MAD here!”

Making a 20-panel Storyboard

Looking through various types of mind-boggling composition and cinematography in well-known films in week 1, it dawned on me that camera positioning is of paramount importance when you aim to tell a compelling tale. Choosing a specific angle to shoot a scene would be difficult for me when I am quite a picky person. How do you know what exactly is right or wrong? However, I reflected upon the informative lesson. I am pleased to have been taught that a change in composition could lead to a dramatic shift in atmospheric mood or character emotions. I also agree with the fact that when we create multi-panel storyboards, it is noteworthy to keep the drawings or characters concise and precise, so that we save time. To put together a good storyboard, one has to be artful in managing all of the rules and aspects of storyboarding! What a challenge!

Week 2: In-Class Observational Drawing

Textures

Contour Drawing of an Object

Contour Drawing of My Hand

This was a very interesting exercise. It pushed my brain to unite my hand and eyes together. It was so tempting to look at the paper while drawing! I think it was genuinely quite fun to look at what you have drawn after you are done. It always felt like a mini surprise for me and I get to have a good laugh at my own work in an easygoing way.

Location Drawings

In the end, I chose the sketch of a mother and daughter drawing together as the subject for my 3-panel storyboard.

Final: 3-Panel Storyboard

A three-panel narrative about a daughter and mother who spend their quarantine time sketching together. The two envision themselves on a lovely beach, enjoying themselves as if they were on vacation. “If it can’t happen, why don’t we try imagining?” the short narrative suggests. The drawings they sketched “came to life,” and they end up having fun on their pretend-trip.

Production Principles Rotation 3: 3D worlds (31/10-11/11/2022)

Week 1 & 2- Creating 3D Worlds with Maya (Toastie Stall)

Post author By Wai Sum Amber-Rose Liu
Post date 11th November 2022
No Comments on Week 1 & 2- Creating 3D Worlds with Maya (Toastie Stall)

3D World Mood-Board & Inspiration

My concept was to create a pop-up food truck or bakery on a local street or small town that offers baked products or patisseries. I want it to seem nice and friendly, like a place to celebrate the wonderful things in life. It’s where you bite into a fresh-baked, sizzling slice of bread while the heavy-sweet fragrance of coffee fills your mind. I used the intensity of warm hues like yellow, orange, brown…etc., that correspond with heightened emotions like excitement and warm fuzzy feelings, to give off such a mood.

Initial Sketch/ Concept & Design of the Toastie Stall

I didn’t want the shop to look like any other. I want creativity and want it to be evident that it sells bread or toast without using the precise words -bakery. Perhaps the bizarre mix of a toaster and a bakery/café/food truck might imply such a concept.

You might also wonder why I’m interested in creating a bread-related theme. Well, a strange thing about me is that I adore having bread, but after discovering I’m gluten intolerant, I can no longer consume them. : ( As a result, my method of coping is to design a toaster stall for my 3D world project in order to devote my unbreakable attachments to bread! 😀

Work in Progress….

I had a blast modelling and enjoyed using the tool- “bevel” repeatedly. Bevelling allowed me to smoothen out any shape or object that I desire, so that the objects like the toaster, fences…etc., have a more realistic look without the roughness that tends to destroy the apperance of it.

Later on, I decided to replace the flat, boring and ordinary surface/ floor into something atypical- three slices of bread. I desire to uplift unconventionality and that quirkiness could spark intriguing ideas that make heads turn.

As you can see, even the trees are made up of mouth-watering bread. The table is a rich and slightly sweet slice of creamy butter that we all adore. I heavily made everything bread related to emphasize my fondness towards bread through my eyes, presenting how the doughy goodness of it is such a huge blessing to humans- at least to me!

During the process of applying colour to the surfaces, I considered sticking heavily to a warm colour pallet. I want the colours to explain itself, that it offers an atmosphere that’s warm, calming and a bit of tranquility too.

To give the bread pieces a grainy texture, I embedded a noise texture to make them look more convincing.

Design of Signs!

I also did some illustrations of signs on the app Procreate so I could insert them as pictures and turn them into signs in Maya. I used the function- UV.

Character Design

Something seemed to be lacking as I peered at my 3D environment. Perhaps a character or two could compensate for the void. Because my universe is about bread, I thought some birds would be appropriate. The yellow buddy is composed of basic shapes. Yellow is used to represent its peaceful and joyful demeanour.

Close-up of birds

Oh to be the birds just enjoying cups of coffee and loafs of bread : )

Final Product (Three final shots) +extra shots

After rendering the three shots:

It was genuinely quite interesting to shoot my final shots at different angles and how they’d feel in certain perspectives.

The narrative: I awoke one day with a chilly shudder running from my head to toe. I instantly discovered I’d mysteriously transformed into a bird! I stood up and took in my surroundings while being very puzzled how this bizarre situation had come about. From a distance, I notice a platter with a couple pieces of bread. I walked closer to it, desperate for nourishment. It was then that I discovered the three toasts were not regular bread! They were heaped together to make a little habitat with a café for other small birds. I dashed inside the café for a bite after noticing the comfortable ambiance it provided. I went through the menu and decided on a slice of bread and a cup of steaming coffee. A euphoric sensation came over me as I chewed on my slice, and I thought to myself, ‘Gosh, it feels so nice to finally be able to eat bread again!’ I don’t have to worry about my gluten allergy now that I’m a bird, as I did when I was a person!’ I grinned because I could live here forever and eat bread or toast pieces! Seeing other birds that enjoy bread too helped me feel understood as well. But was it all just a pleasant dream? Or was it actually a nightmare or trap when the café was placed on a plate… ready to be consumed by someone else one day? … x_x

Extra shots:

After the first two intense yet informative lessons of the introduction and basics of Maya, I mustered up the courage to crafting up my 3D world from scratch. During the introductory lessons, I had a painfully hard time trying to keep up with the stressful pace the class had. The pressure grew as my peers were able to demonstrate their understandings towards 3D modelling effortlessly, while I was drenched in my own sweat, struggling to figure Maya out. It was a challenge to remember all of the details and the functions here and there in Maya, especially when i had absolute zilch background knowledge of the compositions of 3D art. There was a lot of trial and error during the process, but that didn’t stop me from reifying my grand ideas in the form of a low poly 3D world!

Week 2: Learning about camera Shots/ Narrative Elements

Plot strcutures

In week two, I was taught what the structure of the narrive typically consists of:

Expostion
Rising action
Climax
Falling action
Denouement

The understanding of plot patterns allowed me to think on the art of storytelling. Reflectively, the audience’s ability to take something away from the experience or to feel something later indicates that they have connected with the story/film. I also believe that the teachings or purpose behind a narrative are helpful for creating the storyline of the story and enabling the artist to interact, and connect with the audience in an indirect way. However, whatever the artist wishes to express through the tale is ultimately subjective to the audience.

Styles

In class, I was introduced to notable artists with well-known art styles such as Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, and others. Their styles are so unique that it’s difficult not to notice them. People could identify which mastermind was behind the scenes developing a finger-licking excellent narrative by their distinct visual style. An art style also aids the viewer in determining how to perceive a film. But one question that sprang in my mind was if people, or we as artists, would become bored if we used our individual styles in our works over and over again. Is too much of a good thing… a bad thing?

The essentials of composition

I was also taught the many ways of shooting a film or particular scenes and they include:

The rule of thirds
Depth
Leading lines
Creating movement and interest

It certainly takes time to understand why some scenes are diliberately chosen to be composed in a particular way. Some camera angles could control the mood of the narrative, whereas some has the ability to lure viewers to pay attention to certain points in the film that has great amount of importance. It could be a character, what they say or the little details that the diretor wants us to notice.

These images all have one thing in common: they all have a main focus that draws attention!

A trial on film compositions

In one of the small activities we were instructed to perform was to choose three particular shots from a movie of our desire and to figure out the film composition used in that scene for a better understanding of the rules of it. I chose the scene- “Planetarium” from La La Land and tried my best to sketch out the leading lines in this beautifully shot scene.

Chosen scenes:

With leading composition lines:

These leading composition lines are often imaginary. They hint to us where the eye is usually led to in a specific scene and they are the key elements that draw one’s attention. This rule of composition that artists and film makers use is quite handy when it comes to associating a specific character with the atmosphere, certain objects, feelings, colours, situations and sometimes even secondary objects.

I struggled a little with drawing out the leading lines from the scenes. I wasn’t sure if my responses or interpretations were accurate. I kept reminding and asking myself where I would glance first in the scene, where my eyes would be drawn. The inner query allowed me to clarify my response. Understanding many different camera shots with composition principles is difficult, but I agree on their utility when we want to express our tale in a certain way. I’m still wondering if those fictitious composition lines are subjective because we all view things differently. Is it true that there are correct and incorrect answers?

Production Principles Rotation 2: 2D Motion Graphics (17/10-28/10/2022)

Week 2- Process & Making of- “Missing You” (2D Animation)

Post author By Wai Sum Amber-Rose Liu
Post date 28th October 2022
No Comments on Week 2- Process & Making of- “Missing You” (2D Animation)

Soundscape Inspired Mood-board

_{Having four unique yet chilling soundscapes to select from, we needed to choose an emotion to do a 10 second animation on, inspired by the audios. With careful consideration, I settled on the audio of calming ocean waves with seagulls squawking in the background. The waves of the ocean stirred up an inexpressible ache within my heart, so I was inspired to create a mood board to translate my complex feelings into pictures. The relaxed ambiance gave me a quiet space in my mental state to be at peace with my emotions, where my thoughts were loud and clear. I conjured up a little story. The soothing sounds reminded me of a beach with an exquisite sunset- if only you had somebody to share the scene with you. As the gentle waves crawl toward you, you think of all your loved ones and the dear memories you created with them. Adrift in a turbulent sea of emotions, you get lost in the crimson colors of the settling sun as the warm sensations of being loved start to flood you. As the waves softly drench the sand, it reminds you that nothing stays the same, neither the ocean waves, yet there’s beauty to that. As the night comes with a blanket of stars, you only get lonelier. You miss and reminisce about your loved ones. I crave to explore the true feelings of nostalgia that tug at your heartstrings. That’s why I chose “nostalgia” as the featured emotion of my project initially.}

Idea Development

I included old-school technologies like mixtapes and record players to the mood board above to convey the recollections of culture, representation, and memories. I had the weird notion of merging mixtapes with chocolate bars when brainstorming how the animation plot would play out. Mixtapes and chocolate bars are both rectangular and have a certain “sweetness” about them. The idea is that everyone who eats it will go on an emotional trip in which all of their memories will play out in slow motion in front of them, allowing them to see every hidden detail. What would your reaction be? Perhaps some bittersweetness? You may rewind and repeat select sounds or visuals that dig up and reproduce old events in your head, similar to real-life mixtapes/VHS tapes. Along with the highly addicting chocolate components, you may want to go back for seconds simply to recapture that fleeting pleasant sensation.
For the third draft/sketch, I let my imagination go wild and drew a bear. It’s not a typical bear. It has a large stomach and a rudimentary rotary dial telephone wheel is imprinted on it. The bear could dial whomever it missed whenever it wanted by turning the wheel. My intention is to demonstrate that the technology used by the bear is already in the past; cellphones are the new black. How are you meant to call someone using an outmoded piece of technology when all of your “friends” have smartphones? The message implies that the bear’s links with his long-gone buddies are past.When nobody is there to pick up on the other line, the indescribable pain gets more unbearable as it is unable to move on.

Character Design

I wasn’t satisfied with my primary concepts, so even after the first few drafts were finished, I was still eager for more brainstorming. I wanted to add a new twist to my narrative. As a result, a cat with syrupy tastes, simulating colorings, and enticing gooey cake bits was formed! I’d like to introduce you to Miss Birthday! She has the DNA of a cat mixed with cake. Yum.
Don’t let her sickly-sweet smile deceive you. Miss Birthday is full of bewildering thoughts, and her head brims with unspeakable secrets yet to be uncovered.
Like a regular cake, you won’t be able to comprehend where her mind is wandering off to unless you cut it open, literally!

Concept Art

Who are you thinking of, Miss Birthday?

As mentioned, Miss Birthday would have to be brutally sliced open, to reveal the secrets she possesses in her chiffon-cake-filled head. I drew out a variety of ways to how we could see the innards of her brain. My main goal was to disclose the special yet dear “somebody” she misses all the time that resides in her head. Care for a piece of cake with a strong taste of sentimentality to it?

Miss you s’more than you think!

Although good ol’ S’mores won’t have a lot of screen time in the final animation, I still wanted to dedicate some time to designing the appearance of Miss Birthday’s beloved friend.
She has the eccentric fusion of an ice cream sandwich as her body and a head composed of irresistibly sticky toasted marshmallows.
S’mores being her ever-so-adorkable bulky squared self, how could Miss Birthday not love and miss someone as sweet as her? ^ ^

Background Design

There are various ways to shake off unpleasant feelings of despair Or loneliness. One of the unhealthy ones is comfort-eating. The background exploding with sugary sweet foods symbolizes a type of destructive coping mechanism. As one attempts to indulge themselves in wolfing down a tremendous amount of sugary goodies, they wish to suppress the overwhelming feelings of sadness. In this context of missing someone, we desperately yearn to find something else for substitution to make ourselves feel better. Comfort-eating boosts one’s mood and fills that emptiness in their chest temporarily, rather than to satisfy their hunger. The distorted and unfinished desserts also represent the concealed feelings of incompleteness without your loved one. The background may not be as sweet as it seems.

The Final Product-“Missing You :(“

After learning the 12 Principles of animation, I tried to implement some of them into my final animation work. They include:

Squash and stretch
Anticipation
Straight ahead action
Follow through & overlapping action
Ease in & out
Secondary action
Exaggeration
Appeal

The animation starts off with an ever-so-melancholic Miss Birthday. Her right hand holding a birthday knife covered in pink frosting, while the other hand starts to wind back a little bit. In a heartbeat, her left hand then strikes her own head vigorously and manages to withdraw a chunk of cake. The empty space where the piece of cake belonged reveals her dearest friend- S’mores. The background becomes a shade of gray, correlating with Miss Birthday’s pained expression. She recalls the past memories created with her friend while being fully aware that those times have passed by already. She resents as the memories flood her head. Unable to bear the throbbing in both her head and chest, she gets a bit dizzy as the awful feeling slowly consumes her. The added glitchy effects exaggerate the turbulent emotional roller-coaster Miss Birthday is on. The video ends with her putting back the cake into her head, forcing herself to stop thinking about her loved one. The pain shot up to her eyes like spreading fire in a forest. Miss Birthday can’t help but let a single tear shed down, it burns as it travels down her cheek. It was definitely very satisfying to see the end product of this!

Intro to Animation

Psycho-geography Map

From my room to the hallways and to the kitchen…

This was a nice little assignment I had to perform during class where I had to walk around my flat and draw what I saw. It was wonderful to practice going about, pausing, and allowing your senses to be filled by the environment around you. It was certainly an adventure to sketch how I felt, to convert my sensations onto paper. It was enjoyable to consider how to capture the noises I heard. People normally sketch what they see, but seldom depict what they hear, which I believe is a creative approach to art.

The activity helped me appreciate my surroundings, and I am grateful for the five senses that allow me to absorb everything around me. It was an exercise for me to go for a walk outside of my room, but it seemed more like I was strolling around my head, attempting to figure out how I might sketch noises, movements, or even sensations.

Production Principles Rotation 2: 2D Motion Graphics (17/10-28/10/2022)

Week 1- Cape Jump- PP exercise

Post author By Wai Sum Amber-Rose Liu
Post date 21st October 2022
No Comments on Week 1- Cape Jump- PP exercise

Photoshop introduced us to hand-drawn animation. Our objective was to add clothing and garments to the provided leaping figure animation base frames. I made the decision to challenge myself and do something novel by picking out a piece of clothing to animate that is uncommon to see on the streets. A hero cape sounds like a lot of adventure.

After learning about the 12 principles of animation, I tried to follow them as closely as possible. The greatest hurdle was imagining how the cloak would trail behind the guy as he jumped up and down. I wanted to give my work greater substance to complement my hero persona. Without further ado, I created some burning fire flames to add whimsy and excitement to the animation. They, together with the flaming brilliant lights in the background, emanate the hero’s might and strength.

I enjoyed doing this tiny animation exercise since it stretched my imagination and allowed me to explore the deep oceans outside of my comfort zone. This task will undoubtedly contribute to the development of my animation capabilities. Despite its time-consuming nature, the activity taught me to appreciate the beauty of hand-drawn animation more.

If I had the chance to remake this, I would add extra frames to make the finished product seem smoother. Perhaps some colour would be more appealing as eye candy as well! This class taught me the importance of the golden rules of animation. I would surely include them into my future animation films and works in order to achieve excellence.

Initial Sketch/ Concept & Design of the Toastie Stall

Character Design

Concept Art

Who are you thinking of, Miss Birthday?

Miss you s’more than you think!

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories