Assignment_2_FMP_Evaluation_v2
Above is my evaluation for my Final Major Project Animation; Interrogation, reflecting and reviewing all aspects of the production process. Here I have self evaluated my use of time management, organisation and overall production of my FMP. I have discussed the good and bad aspects of the project, as well as writing about how I can make improvements to my animation, for when I need to adjust my animation for OXO and New Designers end of year show.
Professional_development_Assignemnt_2_A4_folder_v1
Above is a PDF containing all my research and professional development towards getting a job in the animation industry. In this document I have written about a variety of subjects including; Self Promotion, Personal and Professional development practises that provide me with the skills needed to go into the world of work. Furthermore I have included the number of events I went to including; Vertex, Schoolism and the many animators and artists that came in to talk to us about getting into the world of work.
In addition I have worked on building my portfolio and CV, by applying to a number of internships to get me into the industry. This document shows all the research and evidence I have done in order to make a professional brand for myself in the hopes of getting a job in the animation industry.
Above is my final major project short animation called Interrogation. All of this animation was created in Toon Boom Harmony using my own reference footage as a guide to animating each of the characters. This animation has been a long process and has taken a considerable amount of time to animate in time for the deadline, unfortunately some days have been as long as 13 hours on my FTrack logged hours in order to get this animation looking to a high standard. But I think that time has paid off.Using the rough animation files I went through and changed the line colour to black and then filled the gaps using a vector paint bucket tool. However this process was not simple to do!
Firstly I thought it look more professional to re draw all my shots using vector line art, unfortunately due to the lack of time left before the deadline I realised I had to find away around this. The issue was that the vector line art was taking way too much time and was not being an efficient use of my time. Therefore I did some research into colouring in toon boom and realised I could keep my rough line work and then paint using the paint bucket, so that is what I did. Unfortunately this process took a lot of time because I had to go through each individual layer and re paint the line art and then paint using the specific colour palettes on each frame. Some shots were easier than overs because they were either shorter in length or had the same design throughout the entire shot.
I made sure that I referenced my character turnarounds to help get the colours I needed for each character. Furthermore, after colouring the line work and adding the colours to each of the characters I had to add some lighting, so using the technique I mentioned in the previous post I added the spot light effect to make that interrogation feeling. I like how this animation came out because the colours and lighting make a really nice aesthetic and the animation shows the movement I intended in the pre-production stage. However one big issue when rendering each of the scenes is that because it is a bitmap drawing some of the line work looks really messy which I do not like. Therefore I aim to go through this animation and fix the line work for the OXO and New Designers shows.
Above is a collection of all the shots I have animated for my final major project animation: Interrogation. Each of these sequences has been animated in Toon Boom Harmony using the coloured pencil brush and some reference footage that I filmed using myself as reference for each of the key movements.
In the video above I have put together all the different versions of my roughly animated shots to show the production process I have undertaken during this animation. However majority of the animated shots were uploaded to Ftrack, allowing my supervisor to express his thoughts and feedback for each of my shots so I can develop them further to meet the final production.
The different shots I animated include;
With the various decisions made to shorten this animation idea I have not animated all the shots from scene 1 because I thought it was best to remove scene 1 in order to animate a interesting product for the final deadline.
Each of these shots have been uploaded to Ftrack allowing me to develop each animated shot so that is looks visually appealing and the overall animation has the best possible quality to it. As a result I have made multiple versions (Seen in the video above) for some of the shots because I have used the peer feedback to improve the animation and some of the key moments that may not have worked in the first version. Furthermore this collection shows nearly the entire final animation but as a rough character animation, showing only the keyframes and inbetweens for either Carlos or Detective Taylor. Plus I have added some voice overs and FX (e.g) fire to help make the animation more interesting, as well as making it easier to animate the lip sync.
I have tried to make sure the rough animation has the most movement it can become I need to line and colour the animation, so that I only have to draw over the rough animation and not worry about keeping the design consistent. Following on from being consistent, I have made sure that with each new version I have tried to make the character designs consistent throughout the full animation. Looking back on previous animation projects I realised that I did not make the designs consistent, therefore this time I took my time to make sure each shot had the same design.
Each shot had its own difficulties and issues that I had to apply in order to make the animation more appealing but using my feedback on Ftrack and the reference footage for timing I was able to make a interesting series of sequences that tell the story I planned to make for this animation idea, allowing me to explore more comical and exaggerated animation techniques.
After exploring some different tutorials on Toon Boom’s website for lighting I found a tutorial for the simple method of lighting I was told about previously. Therefore I followed the tutorial and for some reason the lighting worked perfectly with the character/ drawing layer. Therefore I played around with some of the lighting tool properties and came up with this list of properties to use on each of my 11 shots.
Background shadow-
Light setup
Light shader
Normal Map
These properties may have been adjusted depending on the light source or shot but I have tried to stick with this setup to keep my animation consistent and so it does not take lots of time to make the lighting for each shot because I will have to repeat this process 11 times or more.
Very- Volume object
Nice- Normal map
Lighting- Light shader and Light position
Tutorial
Having a lot of issues with the lights not working properly in Toon Boom, we found another way to create a light source that includes these nodes.
Creating lighting masks
Light
Dark- shadows
For background
Developing my professional website I have added 2 new pages which include my showreel(s) and my professional portfolio. Here I have made sure that I apply my online materials to help get my work noticed by professionals and potential employers in the animation industry. I have continued to ensure this work is the highest quality and reflects my professional skill set.
Check out my website to find my showreel and Portfolio.
More feedback for each of my shots is on Ftrack
FOCUS! on Scene 2
Reference footage needed for Scene 2
Shot 2:
Shot 3:
Shot 4:
Shot 5:
Shot 6:
Shot 7:
Shot 8:
Shot 9-11
New ideas
Shot 3:
Shot 4:
Shot 2:
Scene 1- Shot 6 & 7
Scene 2 Shot 2
Scene 2- Shot 3
Scene 2 Shot 4- 8
Scene 2 Shot 8
Scene 1
Shot:
Perhaps cut down to keep Scene 1 shot 1
New order: Shot 1-2, Scene 1 Shot 5
After looking through my animation and realising the deadline is fast approaching I had to make a difficult decision and stop animating scene 1, I felt that the story would still work with this one scene, but also allow me to focus on quality and not quantity, allowing me to make a high quality animation for the hand in.
Dan Sanders Art & Animation 