Back to business...

Hi everyone,

Hope everyone had a pleasant and productive Christmas. We are back into Hey Negrita full swing now so lets make the last final push to the finish line.

In terms of footage we are not dreadfully far off completion. I'm sure some of us will be able to animate some more shots before we start back at uni on the 4th. Dave, if you want I will be able to come round tomorrow afternoon, and Saturday and Sunday evening (after 5pm) to animate some more shots, but while you have access to the set it would be obviously be worth you doing some more yourself.

Grace, your shot looks very good, although the jump is quite evident in the middle, but that can be easily fixed. I think you just need to shift the image down in After Effects so it is aligned with the frames either side.

Myself, I have been finessing shots that we have completed so far, by which I mean adding eyeballs, eyelids, and where necessary freezing backgrounds to stop the trees falling over. I'm not doing any colour correction for the moment because we can do the lot in one batch near the very end of the project to get a consistancy. Please could this apply to anyone who is working on their shots at home, do everything to it that it needs, but leave the colour correction for later.

Talking of eyeballs, we have a lot to add. Most shots are filmed without the physical drawn on eyes, so this means we'll have to add them all in post production, some frames involving 5 characters. This is a time consuming but key step, and after a little research me and Dave discovered that tracking a black dot to characters' eyes in After Effecs is the quickest and easiest method for doing this. Hopefuly one of us'll get a step by step tutorial of how to do this up on the blog, for everyone's use.

So not much else needs to be said... apart from let's all be in Monday morning at 9am (you may have all got the same e-mail from Jordan telling you this), and it will be very important so we can collate all our shots and have a looks at where we are and what needs to be done. Basically we'll have a week after we start back to have the film all but finished.

Let's keep going, I salute you all and trust our finished film wil be excellent.

- James

Late Merry Christmas to all...

I hope everyone had a very merry and relaxing Christmas, i didn't do any work in the end, between travailing home and back and seeing friends there really wasn't time for anything but sleep. It was nice to have a little break though.

Yesterday I set up the cabin set in its new location (my room) and then James and Ben came round and did some animating. James got one shot done and Ben got three so we had quite a productive day.

Hey grace, it’s nice to hear from you. I think the effect you’re looking for is the 'simple choker' under the 'matte' option in the effects panel. The shot is looking good so far. A few things you might want to consider though; there seems to be a frame that jumps a bit at around the 1second mark (you’ve probably noticed) (we found out the other day that if you hold ctrl and press the direction buttons, on after effects, you can scroll through the clip frame by frame), maybe try adding a pause at the start and when bill is at the window so that its clear bills looking out the window and play about with the lighting and colour a little bit, the shot takes place around about afternoon time, if that’s any help.

Looking forward to seeing your other shots, keep us posted.

~Dave

question to dave

hey man, merry xmas to all!!
i just want to know whilst blue screening on after fx where do i find that tool thats like a tighterning for the blue screen?do you know what i mean? Grace

a test.

i done this test of bill, let me know what you guys think. i have been working on the shots we have done over the holidays. my after fx is abit slowand crappy been having trouble with the raw files cus they so big and blue screening. Grace

Its been quite a while since my last post, the vids comming along well, although a bit behind schedule (which was to be expected) we're over half way now and overall its lookin good.

Today me and james did more of the boat scene, 3 quite long shots which involved a fair bit of action and a camera move (i had hoped to get these done last fri but due to camera and lighing issues they took longer than expected) whilst james was animating i made a few more engine parts for the next shots.

We also had a little play about with adding in pupils on after effects, which i think will work quite well. This has also made me realise just how much post production work there is to do, finishing the animation is just the beginning of a whole new world of work.

(I'll try and post more next time).

~Dave

post number 60 whoop whoop!

where to start, its been a while since i last posted.

feedback:

Hayley's post #1...
firstly as you know we have been using both the background for the set, so it wasn't a waste of time for either of you, which is always a good thing.
yeah it is aparent that we have been a bit ambitious, and there are many ways in which we could have aproached the project that might have been easier, but who knows. we're here now so lets just work with what we've got. the stuff we've produced so far, allbeit minnimal, does look pretty good and if we work hard hopefully we'll get it done.
sorry about the camera hayley, i didn't actually mean to leave it in uni, if i had i would have left the charger, but done well for gettin on.

Jordan's post...
i beat you to it with that little gem of a music vid, was one of my first posts i think.

James's post...
those dungerees really did the trick, bills looking sutably awesome, which is nice.

i think if we put a bit more time into it, that float shot could work, but as grace said we might avoid this shot if it becomes too much work, good job for such a short amount of time.

Grace's post...
the boats lookin good, although as we found out the depth wasn't figured out correctly (sorry about that), but thats been sorted out now.
One thing about Paul S's walk is that it needs arm movement, that aside, nice work on the animation.

Hayley's post #2...
I do agree with hayley on the shirt, they shouldn't have been cut off so hastely. but i don't think there gonna fall apart and there would be no reason to point figures if they did, everyones doing the best they can with what they have and learning as they go, and that all you can really ask of someone.

Grace's post #2...
good job on the turn arounds. and its nice to see some of the trees, the only thing is if we're wanting to use them for blue screening we might have to do them again, as they might need to be from a lower angle and off the set so that theres no twigs in the background.

That shuffle walkin came in handy the other day, i agree with grace that this is the way foward for alot of the shots with most/all of the band in, although it woul be nice to have some full band walking we probably don't have the time.

What have i been doing...

i've been workin on the schedual quite a bit lately, and although its been hard to keep to it for the past couple of days, i'll e-mail everyone an updated version by the end of today. also, i was thinking its gonna be very hard to complete this by the 23rd so i think we should be prepaird to move the sets to another location and continue after christmas. The options we have here are either Ben's spair room or my room. I'm lucky enough to have quite a big bedroom and i think it wouldn't be hard to fit one or both of the sets in my unused floor space (i also have a spare table to put it on already in my room). So we can either have one at mine and one at bens or both at one persons, the only thing is that we only have one set of lights. what does everyone think about this?

Bill's head development....


Heres a test animation of Bill, firstly the aspect raitio is wrong because i shot it with the camera too close, so when i re-scaled it too much was cropped off, also the table props and chair move at points, so i need to make sure to stick everything down next time and it could do with a few more inbetweens. Overall, although it has its fualts i am quite pleased with the outcome.

Well heres a test i've done for the blue screen walking camera pan shot, i used the animation hayley did of Niel walking in front of the blue screen, a photo of the set i found on my hard drive, and the foreground trees from the animatic with a few ajustments.

As you can see its far from perfect but it only took a max of an hour to complete, from figuring it out to final render; and as you can see, i used quite a poor image for the background with terrilble lighting and the foreground trees are 2D, so with a little bit more work i think it could work really well. what does everyone think?

woow that was a long post for those of you who made it this far, thanks for puttin the time in.

i forgot this test.

i done this test of them walking by shuffling, i think this technique will work for medium shots eg waiste upwards. let me know what you guys think.

james and hayley have started shooting now and we will continue into next week and as long as it takes for everybody to shoot really.

Grace

tests and turnaround

here are the turn arounds we done , me and hayley done them, i done the trees.

Grace

Character Line Up - Responce

I love how prolific the stop motion team is, you are certainly the most active on th blog

Live is really coming together.

I'm sure you have noticed/worked on many of teh things i am about to say but here they are anyway.

All charcters need hands
Armature can been seen on PROFT T's leg and neck, fix some how
Felix could do with some dark red braces (or other suitable colour)
Ogre is awesome, head needs to match hand skin tone

Another photo with instruments and completed characters would be great.

Jordan

Nice

Also, in next line up add digital pupils so I can show client

Accident?

Firstly I was disapointed to see that my 2 hour effort on Paul's shirt had gone to waiste as someone seems to have hacked at the sleeves with a pair of scissors to shorten the metal armature. I take alot of pride in my sewing so I'm not mentioning this to be anal but it reflects badly on me as it looks like I've been lazy on the sleeves when actaully they were hemmed so they didnt fray. Now someones cut off the hems, I won't be suprised if its still me who gets the blame later when the clothes fall apart.

I respect other people's work and possesions, I don't touch without asking permission first. Please show me the same respect. I don't understand why the sleeve wasn't rolled back and the excess metal just clipped off, or alternatively I was in there all day today and didn't leave till 8.30pm when we got kicked out, I only ever left the room for toilet breaks and to get a USB stick from the vending machine in the libary, someone could have asked me to roll it back and hold it up with some stiches. Now it looks a mess and by the end of the animation would probably have frayed noticably up his arm, it wasn't even cut straight.

I have included a before picture when I was making it last night and an after picture of how I found it not long before leaving.

On a more positive note we now have a fully operational team of armatures and the day ended with a nice photo of them.

I think on the whole everything is looking good from what people are posting.

~Hayley Warner

this is the boat. what do people think?

This is my turn around for razor. i think the shirt is terrible so i am going to make another one tomorow. also here is a walk test of him. terrible lighting i know.

.

In reply to James's posts. cool man, nice dunagrees i like teh fact that the teddy fits in the pouch :) if you can get that shot to look good and it doesnt ruien the whole feel of the thing it maybe worth a shot but i know your aware of my feelings for cgi... but your blinkin an such looks good so. but maybe time wasted adam C did say no point in havin close ups we maybe better off cutting that shot out all together, we speak tomorow bout it i am sure. also i have made the boat as you can see. we shall talk tomorow as im sure everybody accept dave is in bed :P

also Hayley i sorry but im to tired to read your post tonight.. i hope to read it tomrow or you can speak it to me. we have that stop mo guy at like what 11-3?'till then.

Grace.

Gone Fishin'

I whipped this crude composite up quickly to assuage certain anxieties we all had about this particular shot:



THIS IS NOT A FINAL SHOT. It is a crude mock up of the idea I had on how to complete it. It didn't take me very long, and while the results are far from perfect it's pretty allright for the time I spent on it and bearing in mind that I didn't touch After Effects (which is a necessary tool for making this shot look really great).

Additionally, since we havn't made the boat or float props yet the individual elements of the above composite are all wrong (e.g, the boat in the background is some random Google Image search result); our photographed boat will of course be inserted in its place.

But basically I put this up to show one way it could be done. I'm all for using cling-film ripples and waves if we have the time and if it looks convincing.

And just so you know what my above shot started out like:



Yeah. Exactly. So now imagine how much better it'll look when we construct it using our real props and sets, and give it proper lighting.

TTFN.

- James

Clothes make the man (or ogre)...

Forgive the poor quality of my pictures in this post, I didn't have my tripod and anyway, these are just progress pics.

What you see below is Billy's Dungaree's as expertly made by my mum and as weathered by myself. They are in fact hard to photograph well and look much better in reality:



A few points:

in the above pics the dungarees are very loosely hung over Bill's portly frame. They are not yet sewn onto him but they will have a lot more form when they are. Additionally his trouser legs are going to be tied at the ankles with a length of rope to conform better to his skinny little legs, and finally of course the dungaree straps are going over his shoulders and will clasp at the front.
I will give the dungarees a final layer of ageing (i.e fray them up, add specific splots of dirt/mud) and they should look awesome.

Note Bill's little teddy bear at his feet, (I've discovered the bear can nicely ride along in the pouch at the front).

Stay tuned for a look at my cardboard double bass...

- James

Fleet Foxes - Stop Motion

Here is a stop motion music video for Fleet Foxes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQRS40OKNE&feature=PlayList&p=116F80290BCD3028&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1

Might be worth a look for you guys

Jordan

How I feel (Hayley Warner)

Unfortunately I think I over complicated my point about the background. I just personally never saw the point of those trees painted delicately on the background board. I painted a black background it was done, and a waste of time as James’ went and painted a new background with the trees. Yes it is very pretty and a work of art and I do take back what I said about the patterns as it was proven once the camera got it in focus it did add more depth, I was proven wrong and I’m very sorry.

Though the point remains what is there a point of having a background with pretty trees painted on it when we already had backgrounds and I believe we are missing two sets, don’t have a fully operational team of armatures raring to go and probably will not have all of Jordan’s requirements for character spins ready for Monday morning. Basically James time I feel could have been better spent whenever he was painting that doing more important things first then going back and doing nice touches like that if there was time later. Not everything can be perfect and of Harry Hausen quality. I believe we’ve been given insufficient time and guidance from the teachers to achieve anything of that level, but we still seem to be aiming for it, but if we hadn’t we probably would be animating by now. That is just my personal opinion.

As for the armatures I think there is a world of pain ahead. I’m ignorant of what to do with the feet, Ben’s ideas for those are the best I’ve heard. My only suggestion would have been those magnetic footed armatures I mentioned at the start of the project (see near beginning of blog) but that’s much outdated as the budget and Adam C advised against it. I tried to do a spin on Neil and I had to pin his feet onto the disk, but the clay heads are too heavy for the wires he falls over every five minutes. I’ve noticed this to with Grace’s completed armature but the head wasn’t glued on at the time so it came off when I saw her animating with it. This sounds bad but I think we need something of ping pong ball weight to fix that instead of a clay head or the rigs idea, but we don’t currently have any rigs and smiley faces on ping pong balls I admit isn’t very appealing.

I have done half a spin for Neil however the batteries on the camera died in the stop motion room and I don’t know how to charge or change it so it will have to be done on Monday as I don’t have an SLR here. I would have borrowed one from the uni, but it was coming to chuck out time at 8.00pm when I thought of that so I missed the boat.

I think the best thing to do would be to get Adam C to have a look or Jordan and ask them how to fix the problem with the resources we have available to us. I have emailed Jordan already about Neil’s weight problem but have yet to receive a reply. To be honest as a group I think so far we’ve done an amazing job considering we were handed an empty room with a table in to begin with, had to resource everything at our own cost so far (I will say own until and if we are reimbursed) and I think as a whole we haven’t been given any credit for the amount of running around Southampton and time consuming buying things is without a car. I think for next year’s stop motion group a little welcome pack should be in there at the universities expense with some wire and wire cutters etc so people can get started straight away. The 3D max people don’t have to go and buy and install 3D max onto the university computers, the need of tools and physical objects to make our sets is our equivalent of software. Ben pointed out the university had a tool cupboard all along, where we informed of this by the uni no.

I do feel annoyed when Adam C came in to complain about the mess. I do agree that room has been in a horrendous state and health and safety could have a field day. I am only annoyed because the uni couldn’t provide a dust pan and broom even when I asked a cleaner and tried to find a cleaning cupboard it seemed to fall on deaf ears and Adam C said for me to go to ASDA and buy one and add it to the budget so I did. That took 10 minutes to cross the roads to get over there, 4 minutes to go find them in the shop, 10 to queue and another 10 to walk back because of all the traffic lights. So that’s 34 minutes wasted getting a broom and dustpan and £2.74 more that even with receipts I have the feeling I will never see again (I think I must have spent over £20 now altogether David has them written on the budget sheet) on something that could have been provided by the uni in five seconds had anyone truly helped me, when I walked round saying where’s the cleaner cupboard etc. Am I over reacting or does anyone else feel incredibly frustrated by such things?

Mon 7th Dec...

Just incase people haven't read their e-mails this is what needs to be done by mon:

Photographs/turn arounds for completed Reverend puppet
Photographs/turn arounds for completed Prof T. puppet
Photographs/turn arounds for completed Mattord puppet
Photographs/turn arounds for completed Razor puppet
Photographs/turn arounds for completed Captain Bliss puppet
Photographs/turn arounds for completed BILL/Ogre puppet


Finished Hut set

Finished Boat / engine set

Finished foliage / trees / bushes etc for replacement in shots

At least One Walk Cycle or Shot for each of the Main characters

Each animator should do at least 1 animation with the chacaters

Photographs / turn around for all characters lined up with correct costumes / hats / instruments

After Effects compositions for each shot…with correct length, aspect ratio

As much animation as possible so it can be added to the animatic.

Each Animator must have copies of the current (dated) schedule, animatic



It would be good to see everyone tomorrow to talk this over and sort out jobs for the weekend. if possable we need the armatures by friday so that everyone can have a go at animating before monday, i don't know what facilities for stop motion everyone has at home, but i'm assuming we won't be able to animate over the weekend.

the armatures are coming along well most of the heads have been sculpted now and steven started on the hands today, which were lookin really good. i'm still a bit hazy on the feet front but i think we are goin for Ben's disign.

we'll go through the rest tomorrow.

~Dave

Post a la Dave...(does that make sense)

Blogger By Ben...
those test animations are a great start ben, the only thing is, as you were sayin today, they could do with more inbetweens, but the key frames are very strong (shame this isn't 2D). also the feet you've designed seem to work really well.

Hayley...
sorry hayley, but i agree with ben, the sky isn't just black and also i feel, from the photos, if the background board was painted with the suggestion of more trees it would add more depth to the set rather than overwhelm the viewer.

Grace...
those posable leaves seem to hold there pose well in your animations, although i'm sure you noticed the rest of the environment is a but twitchy. this a problem i had aswell when animating a test today, so we will need to secure the trees down and be extra careful in future.


Although we didn't get the schedual done the on monday it was good to see everyone in.
i've mostly been organising our after effects project and working folder so that everyone can understand it when we come to uploading shots and editing.

On mon made another head for bill this time out of clay, using a beed for the small eye and clay for the large eye.


me and james also did a couple of tests with one of the armatures on the forest set. heres mine...

As you can see i crush the plant in the forground which is annoying and the end i tried to do a little look round but i needed loads more inbetweens for it to work. Also, i've found the body rocks a bit as he walks, so keep note of his posture. The lighting could do with a bit of work, and there is a bit of flickering from my shadow in shot, so, obviously, we'll have the make sure we're not obscuring any of the light sources when we animate. any critique would be great.
I think we're all in agreement now that blue tack really wont cut it. i found it very hard to keep the armature stable throughout and the un-even forest surface didn't help matters (this might need to be ajusted somehow); and although the feet ben has made are far more stable there is still the problem of how to hold the the figure in the passing position of a walk cycle (and other actions in which the character is falling/off balence). one solution was mentioned by Adam O, that we could use rigs to hold our characters up. which would mean we'd have to remove it from every frame but we would of had to do the same with the blue tack anyway. the other option is pushing pins through the feet and into the set. are there any other mothods people can think of?

~Dave

Yesterday

This is the head i made for the armiture i made for Razor (paul sandy). i also made his clothes.

Dave making Bills head out of clay.

Heyley making more clothes for the puppets.

Im sorry but coudn't resist the urge to put this of adam C up...

James starting on the cabbin walls

The armetyre lineup feat dave steven n guest star laura we hope to have her featering more oftern from now on.

dave + line up.


Plus a short test i done as the last one was so rubbish. James's tests are awsome so are Bens, my armiture has yet to have feet to test walking ect.