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.