Part of the brief encouraged us to work on other projects in our specialised area. As my main skills are in animation, Matt Bayfield had asked if I could animate a few characters that he had created for his project called 'Psychadelic Panda Launch'. The rigs and characters that I was given to work with were great fun to use and I am really pleased with the animation that I produced.
Panda getting shot in the shoulder.
Mushroom bobbing to the music.
First edit of film.
Storyboards and Animation
Example of planning for routine3.
When I first started animating I worked by stepping the characters which can make the animations look robotic. After trying different techniques and watching tutorials I discovered many ways in which Maya can help visualise how my animation would look. For example, I used Animation snapshot which allowed me to see the exact route my hoop was taking, and when I adjusted the curves the snapshot updated allowing me instantly to assess the results. When I came to animating the scenes towards the end of Hazel's routine, I tended to used clamped curves which I found was easier to see the animation working. I also tried to use the front and side views as much as possible so that I wasn't animating too many rotations or movements at a time.
The clip below shows my first attempt at routine1 and also shows some examples of sketches I did to help with timing and visualise the motions of each scene. There are also some images from a book about rhythmic gymnastics which helped me to think about possible moves that I could piece into my routine.
The idea for the rhythmic squirrel came about during a formative review on the 18th of December. During this review I was showing the 2nd idea that I had produced called 'Mr Pennel' after viewing the animatic and receiving feedback, we discussed ideas that could be more benificial to me. One of the tutors taking the review, called Les, pointed out the squirrel from the beginning of my animatic expressed how something nice and simple like what was shown might be a simpler idea.
With all the feedback I had received I had decided to use the squirrel rig available from CreativeCrash.com and had the Christmas holiday to produce an idea that I could finally get
in motion.
I returned in the New Year and had decided my squirrel would definitely be doing gymnastics so that I could push my animation skills to hopefully show an understanding of body motion and reaction. Also with the Olympics being held in London in 2012 this would be a subject that is of current interest.
The images above were for one concept in which the coach accidentally enters his male pole vaulter into the female rhythmic ball section and he had to compete and pretend he is female.
Whilst thinking about what the squirrel's story would be, I tried to take the opportunity when I could to familiarise myself with the Squirrel rig and carried out a few animation tests.
Modelling the Stadium
As I continued too visualise my film I started to design and create the scenes and assets that I would need.
Finally I had settled on my final idea which was going to be about Hazel Williams, she is competing in the final of the rhythmic hoop section and is Britains best hope of a medal. With all the pressure and the home crowd watching can she handle the pressure?
I did have a few pressures myself along the way in my final year; changing my film concept twice and in the final high pressured weeks of production deadline my hard drive was damaged and I lost a month's worth of animation files!! Shock horror!! After explaining this to my tutors they gave me an extension. Even with this extra time I was unsure how many scenes I could recover and reproduce. On the positive side using this high pressure I was able to animate more efficiently to the tight deadline and actually feel pleased with the final outcome of my film!!
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