Lip sync test

Tadaaaa! here is my lip sync test! It actually turned out okay! i mean its not perfect but for a first time effort id say its pretty good! I found a couple things needed changing slightly to sound right with the emotion and the word but that wasn't too difficult. I am really pleased with the beginning but it gradually gets a little worse as I think i was getting tired. Might be a good idea to do lip syncing in shorter bursts. This took me 7 hours from figuring out the phonemes to this and i didn't take much of a break.

After playing it back I think the O sound with the lines on the cheeks make it look a bit confusing so i removed the lines and i think it actually works better now. Doesn't look like its gone wrong.

                                       

Phonemes

Today I have been creating the phonemes for the bat so I can do a test of 2d lip syncing which I have not done before. This is how they turned out. I think i got most of the sounds. I think it turned out okay but we will see when it comes to using them.

Test animation

Here is a test animation of my bat. I am really pleased how i am getting his emotion across. I also intend to do a test of flight and possibly lip sync. So far though I think this is going well. All together this took me 5 hours to animate including colour so that means it is taking me 1 hour per second of animation. That means i need 420 hours to animate all of this frame by frame but luckily it doesn't all need to be like that. But that is only 17.5 days which is time i definitely have but realistically 42 days of 10 hour shifts. Again i still have this. This means I am much less worries about getting this done on time as it won't all be animated frame by frame.

The animation

After a few talks with tutors we have discussed the amount of time left compared to the amount of work. I am creating an animation that is just short of 7 minutes long and I have just 10 weeks left 3 of which are the easter holidays and I also have PPP to think about. For this reason the tutors suggested I create more of a motion comic as my voice over is at a standard that can cope with this. It will end up being a little bit more like Jackanory. This means I will still get a finished animation ready for the deadline it just won't be as animated as I first thought. After this is done I will see how much time I have left and start adding more animation in. I think I will have time to do this on a lot of scenes but it won't even be needed on all of them. I will just chip away at what I can and start with the scenes that need the most movement in them. For the motion comic more looking animation I will be using a lot of after effects so I can do parallax and pan through backgrounds and use puppet tool and the transformation tools.
I am feeling a bit better about it now as I was getting a bit worried that I didn't have enough time left but now I actually think if I really apply myself I may even get it done to the standard I had originally planned.

Cave 2

So I added some extra bits and took away some outlines and i think it definitely brings something to the image. There is much more to look at which means it will be harder to focus on the bat but I can zoom in a bit on the image to cut all that out. This just gives us a sense of where we are in relation to everything. I think the greens really emphasise the beauty of the colour palette which is very warm as my research tells me that children are more drawn to warm colours. I think this is so much better than the previous. It gives a sense of place too, it is obvious we are up high but not as high as quetzalcoatl and it also looks a lot less flat now we have some foreground and background imagery.

Tutorial

Today in my tutorial we discussed some ideas to make my backgrounds a bit better for example with the cave one i need to show the ledge where the opening of the cave stops so we get a sense of space and also possibly a bit of extra cave or background to show a sense of place. Another thing we saw was the difference between aesthetics in my three backgrounds and that is that the forest has no black lines whereas the other two images do. Annabeth suggested getting rid of some of the black lines on the cave and adding more texture rather than it looking like a blob of poo. 
They both liked the look of my new pyramid so thats good I've obviously made some improvement and i am really pleased with it myself. They also like the forest image and we figured out that i had done right by layering the trees and each one having its own ground with it.

Cave

This is my background for the cave scene. I have added some cave paintings inside as i thought this would make it seem like it was a long time ago in an ancient mexican cave. I really like the background on this i think really captured the sunset look.

Forest

This is the background for my opening scene where we pan through the forest. I did this on all different layers so that when i put it into after effects it looks like 3d but isn't and can do a parallax. I also might put some butterflies flying through. I think the bat will be playing with the birds on the right behind the big foreground tree.

I used may research of mexican forests to put this together. I like all of the green colours there were many different shades. The trees also seems to be quite intricate and not as flat as the trees we have here so I used a more textured brush and a few different colours to give it a bit more of a bark look. I liked the parrot image so much I had to put it in the foreground. If i have time id love to animate something flying across but Im not sure. I think the parrot also gives some visual interest to the shot and a pop of colour. The leaves down the bottom came up in a lot of images so i think they are pretty native and again add colour and foreground which will help when panning through. Then in the background I added the river and mountains which helps us know where we are in other scenes.

Pyramid

I have finally drawn out a pyramid that looks right!! I was having trouble remembering how to use maya then realised i didn't have a mouse so i searched for ages on google until i found an image that was the right angle and perspective to copy! I was very lucky to find one! 
In this image i have also tried to copy the style of gold that is in cities of gold and i think it makes a huge difference to the quality. I also took some advice from people who said that the characters need to reflect the light and shadow so they look like they fit in the scene. Here is my modified version compared to the original and as you can see there really is a big difference and it makes it look so much more professional.

Original:

Modified: 

The pyramid

So I am having trouble drawing my pyramid/temple. I decided it looked really flat and that i needed to have it at a bit of an angle but when i tried i got totally confused!! I knew it wasn't looking right but my friend said it looked more like a tower.
After talking with mike i realised i am missing a vanishing point and all my lines are flat when they should be at an angle.

Anna suggested trying to use maya to create a pyramid shape and copy it but i was still really struggling to figure out things like the steps so i had another conversation with mike and he suggested going into maya and creating each step and putting them all on top of each other into a pyramid and them move the camera to where it needs to be and then it should be exactly what i want and i can just copy it. I think that is going to work.

The mysterious cities of gold

In the tv series the mysterious cities of gold, the gold statues and figures definitely look like they are made from gold whereas mine look yellow and flat. I think i am going to try and use this kind of colourings and highlights to make my drawings look better.

I like the way they use light in this and it is something i need to learn. Like the directional light. This is like the clouds i want to be using so i think it might be nice to have like a sunburst in them and stuff.

Aswell as these stylistic things  that i like, the whole show is actually based in Mexico so I will get an idea of another person who has done this kind of animation and the aesthetics. It is pretty much what I had in my head visually like the really pretty backgrounds with the slightly more cartoon like characters.

Mexican forest

Here are some images of forests in Mexico that will be used as reference for the opening scene where the camera pans through the forest to find the bat. 

There are often hidden cities within the forests so they will look like old ruins with lovely aztec patterns on them like this, i think that would be nice to incorporate to help set the scene.

I like the use of the red leaves in this to give it a more tropical feel.

I think having birds or something flying across the screen or sitting on trees would be really nice and add a bit of visual interest while the voice over is going. It also really brings us into their world.

This is a really nice clear image using depth of field, i like having things on different layers like foreground mid ground background and i think that will look really nice with the 2.5d after effects technique i intend to use.

This waterfall is lovely and if i can figure out how to make a waterfall look like its moving then i would like to have this in my forest even to just pan past as i think it will show how beautiful the forest is. I could even have a bird or something flying and slashing through it. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself...

Theres also the river with trees and mountains which i would like to have as what you can see from the mountain but i need more of i horizon kind of shot.

This is just a really cool picture i love the layering of like foreground background and everything in between with the bear as the focus.

I like that this draws you into the centre and you can see through like you are going through it.

This is a nice image of the mountains, river and trees. I quite like this composition but I don't think it would work from above.

This would be good for like when the bat flies up really excited about his feathers.

I think this kind of thing would work better for a view from a mountain but less city, more trees and water.

This is just adorable. I may think about having a monkey on a branch somewhere.

So theres a think in mexico called the butterfly forest! thats pretty cool! We were talking yesterday saying how it might be nice to have butterflies flying across the screen and as they are a big thing in the forest i think i might actually do that!

After effects

Each shot in after effects is a new after effects composition then edit hem together in premier.
do one long shot of each character while going through all the dialogue and cut it in premier.
Use anchor points on feathers
When easy easing turn on the xyz button on graph to edit the ease
Don't forget about 3d layers
Camera is in layer
lights in  layers
merge and name layers when creating backgrounds to take into after effects
bring in background as composition
turn all layers 3d

Concept art

I decided to do this scene as concept art as i was inspired by the photo with clouds and also this is something i wondered how was going to work. Originally I did this set up as i did it in my storyboard. I like the clouds and the temple and i think the colours are nice but it just looked so flat and strange. I like that you can see how high up Quetzalcoatl is but it doesn't have much wow factor.

I then tried it more looking over the bats shoulder so we can see what he sees and moved things around a bit so its not all so centred and uses more the rule of threes. I actually think this works much better and it also means we can see a bit more of the background. I can also see this working better with a parallax than the first which will give some movement.

Aztec temples

In aztec history, these temples were considered 'god houses' and people used to go and pray and sometimes bring offerings to keep the gods happy and still today, people visit them and pray to the gods or ask forgiveness.


"Often a whole area of a city would be dedicated to religious activities. Some monuments would be made to specific gods. Some were built for specific celebrations. The buildings you probably associate with the Aztec religion are the great pyramids. These were four sided, stable structures that can withstand the earthquakes that are common in the area. These would have stairs up one side, and a flat top, often with a shrine on the top."

For my animation I think it would be nice for Quetzalcoatl to sit a top his own temple only it could possibly be made of gold to show just how important he is. The stairs show that the bat could go up to see him but he doesn't because of the respect for him because he is a god. This shows status and power. It does however mean that there won't be any shots of the bat and quetzalcoatl together. 

This is how the temples look. they often have little statue faces up the side.

I really like how this sky looks, looks like the temple is in the clouds which i want it to be like in my animation. As you can see the colours are vivd and beautiful.

http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-temples.html

New animatic

This is my updated animatic using the new shots in the storyboard. I think it does make quite a bit of difference in visual appeal. This re doing things has set me back a little in my schedule but I believe I can make it up.

Modified storyboard

Here is the modified storyboard that i have adjusted after talking to peers and tutors so there are a few different shots to create more interest and also better idea of importance of characters and size difference.

Storyboard/ notes

Yesterday I received feedback from a tutor on my storyboards. The notes are as follows:
- When the bird flies up, make it go out of shot then come up spiralling toward the camera in a birdseye view
- When the condor is introduces on page 5 have a bat in the foreground with the condor large and towering over him maybe panning up to his face. This shows how big and menacing he is.
- Then when the condor is looking at the bat, the bat looks really small and looking at him from above with a shadow of the condor cast over him. 
- Have background features all on separate layers for parallax if needed. make sure you do backgrounds at 6000x4000 so you can pan around and zoom in and out
- In night scene, add a moon possibly quetzalcoatl constellation of stars.
- Like the colour scheme
- Do some shots in full colour/ proper line work to see how they are going to look.
- Make cave structure more elaborate 
- Look at tv shows and see how they frame conversations


Today I showed my animatic to this tutor and some of my classmates. When talking to them afterward I thought of the idea for the intro to be panning through the trees of the forest while the narrator talks until we find the bat playing with the birds. 
These were other peoples thoughts:
- Make Quetzalcoatls home more godly like give him a temple or a throne and use all the classic mexican symbols to make it look ancient and special. Maybe put this up some stairs so he is much higher than the bat.
- Show a shot of the mountains when talking about the condor living there.
- Think about music at the start and end and possibly as motifs for Quetzalcoatl and the condor.
- Make the bats feathers larger to contrast with the tiny feather the condor gives him.
- Make bat silhouette when flying at night and saying you can't see
- Make Quetzalcoatl have a bigger entrance shot.
- Think about use of close up shots and reaction shots.

Animatic

This is the animatic for this module subject to change when I get feedback. I quite like how it is turning out however there are a few bits that feel a bit strange like too long and boring. I am getting a feel for how I can make animating a little easier for myself though. As it is such a long animation with not that much time to do it in I am going to have to cut a few corners like using after effects for simple movements and things like that. Doing an animatic has helped me figure out which parts I will able to do that with. I personally think it flows nicely and doesn't feel too long even though it is quite long. I have managed to get to the stage i intended by the right date although I still need some alterations based on comments.