Week 15A

Today I had finished my morphology project. It had came out really well in my opinion. I was able to find a fitting soundtrack, create a matching style for all my objects and transition them between each other pretty smoothly. I feel as if the strongest part to my animation are the graphics themselves, including backgrounds. Together, they create a nice style that make each scene "pop" and seem more dynamic as opposed to just flat graphics on a flat background, in my opinion. One thing I feel like could have been added and improved were the animations on some scenes. I feel as though my existing animations are pretty strong, but I felt like more could have been added to make it more dynamic. For example, in the scene with the controller, I originally wanted to have retro video game characters and ships flying past, but couldn't due to time. Below is the final version of the animation.

Week 14 Outside of Class

Outside of class I began animating my morphology project. Although it isn't far yet, I decided to put a lot of attention and detail into what I do have so far which is the Dragonball. Using the effects present in After Effects, I was able to bring my graphic to life, giving it an aura and a sheen to represent a super saiyan powering up. In addition to this, I also added sound effects to accompany it. The background isn't final however, and I still plan to add music that sounds good enough to loop. Once I finish adding the effects on the Dragonball, I plan to have it morph into the controller next. I already have the backgrounds finished, I just need to animate them.

Week 14A

In class I started working on the final vectors for the morphology project. I'm still working on the objects themselves, one being the Dragonball, another an SNES controller and a comic book. In addition to this, i'm also going to work on backgrounds which i've also started on. For the background of the SNES controller i'm planning on using a Space Invaders background. Below is what I have so far. I'm paying a lot of attention to detail and focusing all of my efforts in making my graphics as clean as possible since they are the main focus of this project.

Week 13 Outside of class

Outside of class I created a short storyboard on our next project. The next project is a morphology assignment, where we were supposed to create three objects that reflect our character and have them morph into each other. For this assignment, I chose a game controller, dragonball and comic book. Since I was a kid, i've always loved videogames, shows such as Dragon Ball Z and comics in general. Below is my storyboard demonstrating how I think these elements should morph into each other.

Week 13A

In class we had watched a series of insightful videos centered around graphic designer Rick Morris. It was interesting seeing into the life of an actual successful graphic designer and hearing their thought process, freelancing, tools among other things. After watching the videos, I had spent the rest of the class finishing my animation. I had finished the entire animation and had fixed previous issues that I've been experiencing with it. I had managed to make the head recoil in a more realistic way as well as having the cigarette in his mouth react accordingly. I had also added and animated minor details such as blood splatters and gun smoke at the ending. Overall i'm quite satisfied with the animation. Although I didn't follow my storyboard exactly, I took ideas from each of them, tweaked them, and put them in motion. My only regret with the animation itself is the ending, as I feel like it may possibly be to abrupt. Due to time constraints, I wasn't able to start an entirely new scene and thought it'd be best to polish and correct other parts of the animation. Below is the final product.

Week 12B

Class was not mandatory. Instead, we were given scheduled times to meet with our instructor and given suggestions on what to change. The biggest thing plaguing my animation was my type. While I was told my animation was pretty good, the type is too uninteresting. Some of it appears and vanishes too quick, while other names clutter the screen and are hard to read. I had attempted to fix this by removing some names on screens and animating others. I had also went back and clarified what task each team had done. (i.e Music, Director, etc.) I thought this was very effective and made the credits much more interesting to look at, as it isn't simply random names remaining static within the composition. In addition to this, I had begun working on the next scene for the animation. For the scene below, I plan to have the firearm shoot a bullet which travels to the next screen. To create something interesting for the type, I plan to have it fire out the gun as well, just to make it a little more dynamic.

Week 12 Outside of Class

Outside of class I spent the weekend making the suggested changes that I've been holding off. Over the weekend I had:

• Fixed a bit Pulp Fiction title in the beginning still showing at the top of the screen.
• Lessened intense blur of transitional lines.
• Animated the "Starring" credits. I had also removed the rest of the names on the screen and kept it to only two.
• Fixed credits from jumping on car chase scene.
• Other minor details such as timing

I had made a lot of progress on the rest of the animation as well. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the names to shoot out of the gun like I had mentioned in a previous post. When doing it, I just couldn't get it to look right. Having two names flying out of the barrel of the gun was too awkward no matter which approach I used. In the end, I decided to use the approach of having the names come in from the corner of the screens like my other credits. Although it isn't exactly what I had wanted, I do think this may be better as it's consistent with the rest of my credits. 

As mentioned before, I had added a completely new scene to the animation also. The scene is still in-progress however. In this scene, the bullet travels across the composition and strikes a man through the head. I wasn't completely satisfied with the animation however, as I thought it was a little awkward how the bullet traveled through the figure and he didn't react. Currently, i'm working on making his head and neck react to the impact of the bullet, which is a task.