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.

Week 12A

Today I had added a new scene to the animation. I followed the same idea of having the scene follow the car as shown in my storyboard, but this time I had decided to take a more interesting approach rather than having it be a flat graphic. I had used the effects in Adobe After Effects to create the illusion of a car speeding down a road while the view is top-down. I think this makes the scene a lot more dynamic overall and keeps up with the intense fast-paced animation that I was aiming for. Overall, i'm really happy with it. I do plan to fix the way the credits are animated in the car scene, but I had included them so you can get a rough idea of what it would look like once it's finished.

Week 11 Outside of Class

Outside of class i've corrected the small issues that I was told I needed to fix for my animation. I've completely tried to change the last scene, which is where the car pulls into the scene. I've decided to change it into a 3D view to make the overall animation much more dynamic and add additional depth. I felt like that scene was a little too flat, so I had decided to add a scene where it goes first person and the camera goes flying into the background approaching a cityscape. Unfortunately I don't have too much to show at this point since it's still very rough and heavily in progress, but hopefully the scene will be very effective.

Week 11B

Today I had got very useful feedback for my animation. While much of it was positive and saying that my animation was going in the right direction, I did have a few things that needed to be changed. The feedback that I had received was:

• Blur on moving lines are too intense.
• The type should be more dynamic. Having it remain static is boring in such a fast-paced animation.
• Silhouette of the female smoking is too "blob-like". Although she's a silhouette, her form gets lost and isn't very detailed like it should be. 
• Too many names in the scene with the woman smoking. Reduce this to fewer names. 
• Clarify what each team did. (i.e Art Director, Music, etc.)

Following this advice, I decided to fix the silhouette and simply and hair to it, which I thought was the biggest problem. When taking a second look, the model did look too blob-like, and I feel the cause of that was due to the hair on the model getting lost in the body. 

Week 11A

In class I received feedback on the current state of my animation project. So far I was told that my animation was going in the right direction, but there were a couple things that needed to be added/removed and changed. Some of these being:

• Blur on transition lines are too intense
• Credits need to be a bigger part of the animation
• The way the bar rises into the scene is too strange.

So far i've corrected two of the three problems, as i'm still finding ways for the bar to enter the scene while transitioning in a way that makes sense.

Week 10 Outside of Class

Outside of class I had worked more on the Pulp Fiction animation that I had been working on. So far i'm really happy with it, as I learned a lot of new tricks in After Effects. I had learned how to create different effects using the particle systems included in AE which allowed me to make the smoke from Mia's cigarette. In addition to this, I feel as if all of my transitions and the pace of the animation overall is very fast-paced and clean just how I had imagined it. I do plan to go back however and possibly add more detail to some scenes, as i'm not super excited with the scene that has Mia in it. Compared to everything else, it feels a little plain to me. But so far, i'm very happy with how everything is coming along.

Week 9 Outside of class

Outside of class I worked on a few more frames for my upcoming movie intro sequence. I wanted to try something new and stray away from fully vector-based graphics and tried to incorporate actual footage from the movie into my project. I want to really push this project and try new things I haven't done in After Effects before, such as messing with different effects like blur.

Week 9B

In class, we showed each of our three separate styles and chose which ones we thought were the best. A lot of people had really interesting concepts and ideas and it was really interesting seeing how everyone went about this assignment in their own way. When asking which style worked the best for my particular animation, it was suggested that I go with the black and white color scheme of my first style, but choose the more 3-Dimensional style of the second and third. I agree'd with this, as the black, white, orange and red color scheme reflect the mood of Pulp Fiction very well, as they are the colors used within their logo.

Instead of having work time in class, we did something out of the norm and did an interesting exercise that helped improve our skills in After Effects. In this exercise, we were tasked to recreate the opening to "True Detectives" following a tutorial. While I had mine working, I thought it was more fun messing with the settings and trying new things to create something completely different and nonsensical. Overall, the exercise was really insightful and a pretty neat lesson.

Week 9A

In class I had worked on the final frames for my upcoming project. I came up with three different styles. The first style is a completely flat, black and white silhouette style. When I think of Pulp Fiction and listen to the theme itself (which i'm most likely going to use for the final animation), I think of a fast paced,  graphic and silhouette style. For the second style, I chose a more three-dimensional approach with more murky and dark colors. The reason for this is due to the fact that Pulp Fiction is a pretty graphic and dramatic film. The last option is the same as far as composition goes, but I had changed the color scheme to something brighter. I used the exact colors from the Pulp Fiction logo itself. Since the song is quite fast paced, I wanted to make an animation that reflects that, getting the viewer excited and keeping their attention due to the various effects i'd use. Personally, I do think the last one is my favorite, as it would be the most enjoyable to work on and reflects the tone of the theme the most.

Week 8 Outside of Class

Outside of class, I created four different versions of how I may do the animation for my animated Pulp Fiction intro. These are all 10 black and white rough sketches to show different approaches to it. In all of them, I enjoyed the idea of having a repeated element throughout, moving the viewer through the scenes. I tried replacing this with different things, such as a bullet or drops of blood (as the movie is pretty violent.) Overall i'm really satisfied with my ideas and already have a decent idea as to how i'm going to approach each of them graphically, even though I only need to choose one. So far i'm leaning more towards style 1 as I feel like it's a good balance of both text and graphical elements.  I plan to use all silhouettes for whichever I choose, and as far as soundtrack goes I was thinking of doing the official theme for Pulp Fiction.

Week 7B

Below is the final animation that I had created over a 5(ish) week period. Overall, i'm very proud with how it had turned out. I enjoyed working on the project and adding my own artistic spin on the script. In the future, I may revisit this project to add more detail to some scenes. It did stray quite a bit from my animatic, as certain scenes weren't working out too well when fully styled and animated, but many of the ideas are still there.

Week 6 Outside of Class

Over the weekend, I had created a few extra scenes and graphics to use for my animation. There is a short break in the animation, but that's because I was skipping around the audio clip to test whether or not a scene would work. I do plan to go back and improve other scenes, as the truck segment that I had created previously was a little too static. Compared to the beginning of my animation which flowed really well, it seems to get a little less dynamic as the video progresses. Below is what I had been working on. If I have extra time when the animation itself is done, I would like to add more detail to the scenes as well.

Week 6B

In class, I've used the assets I've been creating to animate much more of the project. Unfortunately, I've been encountering several problems with specific scenes, as the previous idea I had of showing characters around the globe has been pretty difficult to execute. Because of this, I may scrap the idea all together and create something that's much more effective. I had also went back and changed small details, such as my new main character turning into a pirate to better reflect the audio.

Week 6A

In class, I started working on the beginning part of my animation. This time, I started at the very beginning of the mp3 and created my animation around it unlike my last video that I had posted. I experimented with different features like easing in and out to make my animation appear more smooth. In addition to this, I experimented with the 3D features in After Effects to animate my characters in a more unique way. After finishing my other scenes, I will go back to polish and possibly add more details such as animating facial features more or minor details.

Week 5 Outside of Class

Over the weekend I had created more final frames along with a short segment of what the animation will look like. I will go back to add more detail, as I want to add more things like lip-syncing and more fluid animation. At a certain point, I do feel as if the animation is a little too static, and I want to make it much more dynamic. Below is what I had worked on. In addition to this, i'd like to add more detailed backgrounds to my frames, similar to what I had done with the delivery truck scene.

Week 5B (No Class)

No class due to snow.

Week 5A

In class, we reviewed each other's animatics and were given very useful feedback. Some of the feedback I had received was

• Add more keyframes, some parts were too static.
• Try to make characters more dynamic.
• Good recurring elements.

We then received a brief lecture reviewing some of the features After Effects has to offer. This was also helpful as I haven't used After Effects in some time. The rest of the period was ours to work on our animations. I had created more final frames that I will be using in my animation. I wanted to keep the color palette bright and minimalist, while having somewhat detailed environments (i.e shadows) Below is what I had been working on so far.

Week 4 Outside of class

Outside of class, I created an animatic for my future project. The point of this was to get a rough idea of what is going to be happening along with the audio clip. When I begin working on the animation for the audio clip, I will refer back to the animatic. When viewing the finished product, it will look very similar to the animatic. Below is what I had worked on over the weekend.

Week 4B

In class, we reviewed the storyboards other students had created as well as three different styles they may pursue. This was a really helpful activity, as it allowed me to see which direction other students were going with their projects. It was also interesting to see how even though everyone had started with the same audio-clip, we had tackled this project in many different ways. In addition to this, I had also received helpful feedback on my storyboard and was recommended which style I should pursue.
After this, we had began working on our animatics. This is a short animation using the sketches from our storyboards to see whether or not our ideas will work. To create this animatic, I plan to sketch out more keyframes, then take pictures and upload them into After Effects to see what it will be like. As usual, my final animation may stray from my animatic slightly if something doesn't work or a better idea arises.

Week 4A

No Class.

Week 3A

In class, we reviewed the visual narratives that we had created previously. I've received some useful feedback such as:

• Include more content and goals.
• Include other parts such as how my visuals will relate to the message the audio delivers.

I had focused almost entirely on personality, meaning the style of my animation rather than the message. Afterwards, we began creating our storyboard for the upcoming animation. Although this isn't finished, I jotted down a few ideas and will receive feedback during the next class meeting. For the first part, I created two different ideas to go with since I wasn't sure which would be better. Taking the criticism I had received into consideration, I will use it to improve my storyboard and upload it once it is finished.

Week 3 Outside of Class

Outside of class, I had been working on full color frames for what my animation might look like. These would be what the final representation may look like, excluding the more detailed backgrounds. I've experimented with three different styles, going from more simplistic and easy to recognize figures to others that are more detailed. In addition to this, I had finished the entire storyboard for the audio clip. When I receive feedback for which direction I should go in, i'll continue to flush out the visuals and return with a more updated and polished screen.

                                   

Week 2 Outside of Class

Outside of class I had finished my visual narrative. Below is a video I had created going over some of my ideas and inspiration for my future project. In the video, I show various animations along with an explanation as to why it appeals to me. None of my ideas are concrete, and I may go in an entirely different direction. This was simply something to start getting ideas going and how I might approach this project. To summarize, some of the points that I speak about are color-schemes, smooth & dynamic movement, shadows and symbology.

Week 2B

In class, we had began working on our visual narrative. The purpose of this assignment as to start looking for inspiration from other animations and getting a vague idea of how we would style ours. Right now, i'm just looking and playing around with a lot of different ideas. The only thing i'm really set on is using a lot of symbols for my animation. When reading the script, I had got a lot of symbolic imagery appear in my mind. During class, we had also received a refresher on how to use Adobe After Effects since it wasn't a program many of us had been using often. We were reintroduced to the interface, as well as going over elements of motion design such as Pause, Duration, Rhythm, Pace and others. This was a very valuable lecture, as I was somewhat unsure on ho to do some specific things in AAE.

Week 2A

In class, we were given an option of two scripts to create an animation from in our future project. The script I had chosen was "How to be more Pirate" by Sam Conniff Allende. After choosing our script, our class was broken into groups where we were instructed to brainstorm different ideas on how we would tackle the project and what it meant to us. We were told not to worry about style, but to simply interpret the script and toss around ideas. We had done this with two different groups and gave/received feedback on each other's ideas. We had then taken it to a whiteboard where we jotted down our ideas. Below are some of the ideas we had came up with during our brainstorming sessions.

Week 1B

Today in class we had reviewed the syllabus and completed the student info form. In this form we described ourselves, our familiarity with adobe products, soft skills, along with our strengths and weaknesses.