Storyboarding - Act 3, Scene 2

There were a few additions to the main script in the shot script, and so I have added those panels in to my storyboarding, so that they can be removed or kept if need be. The extra shot was that the scene  would be introduced with Lilith drinking, and then she would chug the bottle and then throw it to the side before dancing with the others. Reading the script, I noticed that the scene before ended with Lilith drinking, and so i thought it might confuse the audience to have her drinking in the same setting. So to set the time of day in this scene, I started the storyboard with an establishing shot of the moon, to show the late hour before we see just how late this party is, with the clock shot. This then pans down the building to a window and zooms in to it. As the window just flashes in bright colours, it will make an easy transition to Lilith in the party, drinking. Or equally, to her dancing in the party if we choose to remove the drinking shot. 

In shots 2a and b, I think the character on the couch's belly should gently move up and down like breathing, so it feels like a live party. 

I think the hardest bit to animate will be the bottle smashing, which equally could also be removed and we could have the sound effect of a smash in shot 3. 

One of my ideas for the wide shot of the party room (3 and 6) was that we could have the opening photos from Act 1 in the frames on the wall. We had discussed as a group making the opening shot a family photo wall and panning across them, so featuring this wall in the design could be a nice nod to our 'one time use' drawings. 

For the dances I drew, I was mostly thinking Lilith would be doing some sort of rock and roll head swing, and jumping up and down, and having another character doing a more subtle dance with less noticeable movements to keep the man focus on Lilith in the size shot. 

I think the shot I am possibly the most unsure about is the clock, just because I think it looks too plain for a teenager's desk. But I suppose when we add more feature in a room design - then we could think of a better angle on the clock. 

I think the most important feature of this scene will be the sound design, as it will control the intensity felt by each character and the audience. At the start, the muffled music will show that this party is disturbing, even from the outside, wrecking the tranquillity of the shot of the moon. A slightly heavier version of the music at a normal volume will show how drunk Lilith is, supported by the pulsing camera. The shattering will show how out of hand Lilith is and showing how disturbing she herself is without all of her party friends behind her. And then finally the slightly quieter but still loud version in Sandy's room will cause sympathy for Sandy. Us students have all been there at some point. As there isn't any dialogue in this scene, emotions will rely a lot on sighs, and throat sounds like the intense chugging of the drink and thudding as Lilith jumps around - with a harsh huff as she hurls the bottle to show violence. 

COP 2 - Study Task 3

 [Figure 14]  Polar Express. Available at: http://coloradorailroadmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PolarExpress-SecondaryHeroImage2.jpg (Accessed: 25th October 2020)

[Figure 15]  Motion Capture Face. Available at: http://kinectic.net/motion-capture-face/ (Accessed: 25th October 2020)

Menache, A. (2011) Understanding Motion Capture for Computer Animation. Second edition. United States: Elsevier, Inc.

This book shows the extensive history of motion capture, from it's early starts in medicine and military performances, to rotoscoping, and finally the advancements in tv, film and animation. The end of the book explains the coding, mathematics and scientific understandings of body anatomy that you need to know to understand the depths of motion capture. 

I found this book really interesting, as it not only explained the creation of the traditional motion capture suits that most people know today, but also how this originated from using puppets. It also showed the controversy behind the earlier stages of motion capture, rotoscoping, and how it was seen as cheating. Another good argument was that the motion capture industry is taking away jobs from traditional animators, as you can just use the technology to copy the recorded motions. It also dehumanises some of the people in the work space such as the actors - not giving the motion capture artist as much credit as say the voice actor. 

On of the main points that was reinforced throughout the many interviews in this book was that the Polar Express helped to pave the way for many of the other key films in mocap history such as avatar. The book explained the production and the great turnaround of the Polar Express production in extensive detail, to help me to understand the fragility of the old software; the complexity of the software, and how every member in a production can cause such a critical turnabout to make or break a production.

Harmony Induction

reaper

I designed this character to match the ghosts in the first Storyboard pro induction. I like the way the cape hits up in to his knees and the bounce on it. I think I should have drawn one head and kept it still so that the lines didn't become jagged and and solid mask quite out of shape. I also feel like I had cheated myself out of doing the arches in an arm swing by making the character zombie like in his heavy walk. I went back to uni to finish colouring this file and accidentally forgot my pen drive, so I ended up making a new walk cycle, the stickman. 

stickman

I feel a lot better about this walk cycle, as I personally think it is very smooth. I think this was a good practice for the final animation , as it taught me how to use points on the lines to my advantage and also taught me that using smooth also lessens the amount of points in the line - which some of my teammates didn't know. I was quite proud of the arch on the arms. I think EBI would be adding facial features to see how they move/stay in place. 

Lilith

Jack Skeleton was a good example to look at for expressionism, as he's typically a material that shouldn't be able to move much, and he has big eyes and a big mouth that takes up a lot of his face, a lot like Lilith. I liked his angry expression, as this worked well with Lilith's face shape. It also gave me the inspiration to upturn (flare) the nostrils on Lilith when she is angry. King helped me with the stop motion aspect of the character. As much as I wanted to keep the legs noodles, like the arms and like the Luci inspiration Charlie wanted. I know it won't make a stable puppet. King showed these sturdy rectangle legs can looks good with a character made of so many curves. 

Pokémon, especially Allister, definitely helped me to personally understand the character's dynamic in the short and how the expressions need to be big. This character may be the shortest of all of them, like Allister is the shortest pokémon trainer - but he is the audience favourite and has the most power and presence behind him. 

As Lilith is quite animated, I like the small animated bubbles to show the difference between her being tired and drunk - like how disney uses bubbles in Dumbo. 

Because I drew Sandy with two teeth, I gave Lilith four, just to further exaggerate how Sandy is in the middle; not quite a demon.

One thing I'm not overly certain on is the closed eyes. We will be doing replacement animation though, and I thought this would be easier to hide any marks, rather than just two simple slits. Also as much as I like the Simpsons burn reference for the purpose of the mood board, I think this will also be subject to change depending on the animator. 

Sandy

Looking at Ayesha's drawings really helped me to understand what was wrong with my original design and how to alter it to fit the brief that our Director wanted. My hair definitely needed to be redder, and Ayesha had a better understand of visco girl styled clothing like what my group wanted. I also like the idea of the horror coat trope. I think the rounded head and large eyes is very common, so it was quite easy to find inspiration for a Tim Burton kind of style girl. I think my main issue was trying to make this simple enough that the others can also draw it, but not skinny and simple enough that it was hard to make (/make look interesting) as a puppet. Lots of these examples have limbs that are too thin, so I think the thick coat could help hide some armature things to help sturdy the model. That's why this was the original turnaround outfit. The outfits may change depending on what materials the model makers have. 

Because Sandy shows some of these expressions in different locations, I tried to make her look different in each. For the cross strapped party dress, I took inspiration from Ayesha's crop strapped tube tob and the colours on that. I also used a demonic summoning symbol on her arm for a tattoo, one that was simple. This one summons Adnachiel, The Hunter Demon. 

My team instructed to add things to make her seem more tired/aged to show a time difference. The messy strands of hair and drooping eye lids help with this, also the red bloodshot eyes. I didn't want to make them too bloodshot so they didn't blend with the mass red colour palette of the entire animation - I also didn't want to hide her angry eyes if she was ever mad whilst tired, which is the most plausible. 

To save us designing a costume for a small scene like when she is in bed, I decided to have her not wear anything if she never leaves the bed anyway, but the change of her hair shows she was ready for bed without seeing what she's wearing under a duvet. 

Therapist

The inspiration for the final therapist was mostly based off of the semi circle shape. He is very tall, but he will be sat down for the animation, so this will make him seem taller than the other two, even when sat down. 

Even though he has the most dialogue, he is a passive character, who is just calmly trying to understand the situation - so he is mostly based off of the equally passive Tim Lockwood. Finding a film version like Robin Williams was useful for clothing inspiration and a good possible reference for the quirks in his office, and the voice.

The other two characters are much more expressive than the Therapist, so I was trying to find good ways to exaggerate his expressionism. I knew his moustache would have to move a lot to hide his mouth, so I made this part of his expressions, wiggling side to side. His monobrow also has to be able to hide his eyes, so that curves and bends - and can even turn sharp when he's angry. I like the little detail of the strand of hair reacting to his emotions: flopping when he's sad, angular when he's angry, straight when he's shocked.

Micro Task 3 - Soundscaping

 Ambient noise - You're not quite sure where it comes from. Eg. When you record something and you hear a low humming in the background, it's friction off of the speakers. Using this in an animation: Usually when a character has a halo over their head, there is a magical sound that sounds like it's glowing, even though it isn't a sound in real life, it's recognisable in animations. 

Humans can't hear silence, we always hear something, whether it's our own breathe or our pulse in our ears. 

Archipelagic listening - The philosophy that sound doesn't exist without a listener. In the film industry, people leave sound to people's interpretation of what they think they are hearing. The most common example is people using coconuts to create footsteps or horse clops. 

Relocating sound - Places the viewer in the setting. Immersive. Transporting someone to your imaginary setting, so they'll know where the character is, even if they're watching with their eyes shut. Eg. Rushing water; birds chirping; wind blowing and leaves rustling, all indicate the character is in a forest by a river.

[Figure 13]

https://youtu.be/0prGk3XQJFo

How I created my sound: For the aerosol, I used an actual aerosol can. I tried one next to the speaker to drown out the speaker friction, and one a little further away - both short sprays and a longer one. The one near the speaker was too long and had a lot of feedback. The further away one had a little speaker friction, but it was drowned out by the second sound of the fan. 

The second track was the water dripping and the fan. In our flat, we have a fan that turns on with the lights, so I stood in the room closest to the fan, and took a bowl of water in with me and a wrung out rag. I could have made the actual tap drip but I feel like it would have been too fast and not as ambient as it's a main water source. Filling the bowl with water helped so that the drips from the rag didn't echo too much or make a 'ping' sound off of the ceramic bowl. 

Micro Task 2 - Animism Week 2, Sentient Spaces

 Sentience - Is the ability to feel, understand or experience something consciously. The object is influenced by personal emotions. Therefore a sentient space is a background with a conscious, cities with faces, items reacting to the main character's action. 

Sentience vs animism. Animism is giving an object, place or creature human features. Sentient items have self knowledge. 

Just the background

[Figure 9]

https://youtu.be/v1BZ3YJRvPs

[Figure 9] is the blast for the background. Overall, I liked the framing of the piece. I didn't want it straight on like it was in the animism task, as I wanted to show off my mirror technique in the background, so I framed it so you can see the reflection. The only thing I don't particularly like about this framing is that the taps aren't really a sentient background as asked for, but I thought the best location for an aerosol can would be the bathroom, and on a shelf against a wall felt too constricted for other characters. 

Spray 1st Attempt

[Figure 10]

I thought this attempt was very short for the amount of time that the spray was going off for. It's very quick and very straight, as if it's coming out in a hose of water and not in a spray. There also isn't much gravity or a sense of evaporating. 

Final Product

[Figure 11]

https://youtu.be/hMXAHqD4X0o

I like this take as it's over exaggerated and easy to see despite the speed of the sneeze. I used three layers of water to show depth and weight, which helped show the water thinning out as it falls. I think the mirror effect worked well, but because I added the water effects in photoshop, I had to add the reflection in as well, but I kept this as one colour to maintain the focus on the front view aerosol. 

I like this loop because you get to watch each person in turn as it repeats, which is unique and not something I usually think about. This was a good exercise for me, as I haven't created anything with multiple people in frame yet. To improve this, I probably would have angled the characters and the camera a little better. But because of the way I had created the eyes and mouth covering in front of the aerosol's body, i struggled keeping a good frame on all three characters. The computer also crashed and somehow deleted some of my saved data so this was actually my second attempt at creating the taps. 

[Figure 12]

[Figure 8] is the only documentation I have of the original. The image [Figure 12] was actually taken as a finished model but looking between the two, this definitely looks unfinished. I think I found a better reference for the second set of taps, as these 1st handles don't look ergonomic and they are not scaled right against the size of the aerosol. I'm also happy that I added in the tiled wall feature. 

Character Design Session 2

 

In our latest call, we discussed that the favoured design for Lilith was the best but everyone imagined her a little shorter - so I looked back at my very first design and used Luci's body type, so she still looks slender and not as short and stubby as the other short designs, but comfortable enough that the horns reach up to Sandy's shoulders as directed without a shrunken head. 

We decided that the t shirt and trouser combination might be a better outfit for the stop motion portion of the animation, and so I combined both Ayesha's and my own design together. I like the calmer looking eyes that Ayesha used, as mine looked permanently frightened. In the emotion sheet, I will incorporate the wispy hair strands to show how stressed she is.  I also combined the demon nose with Ayesha's pointed nose design to create a nice combination of human and demonic. To improve this design, I might make her hair a little brighter and lighter but still keeping it in the same red tone - so her hair doesn't blend with Lilith in a side by side.

These are Sandy's parents. My group liked how they both looked. The mum was mostly inspired by Lydia in Beetlejuice (the musical version), as her character will only appear in the 2D stills, we thought we would give her a complex outfit. With these two, I referred back to the basic form shapes from the Addams's Family 2019, mostly the parents. I made sure to use the circles on the father and the sharp triangles on the mother. I think to improve these, I will redraw the mother with better arms that are less muscular and more thin like Sandy's. Whilst trying to maintain the sharp shoulder angle, I think I made the arms look too irregular. I will also get rid of the demon nostrils in her nose and make it solely pointed. To show Sandy's heritage, I gave the mother a human hand, and the father three fingers. I also incorporated the swirls in to the mother's dress and will add some to the father on his stomach or knee caps. 

Character Ideas

 

As the Director, Charlie already had a few ideas for his star character, Lilith. The character of Lilith and the pre made puppet he had produced were the main influence for the script - so it was a big feature in my design. He said he imagined the character like Luci from Disenchantment, and so I tried to merge the two together. My first attempt took the long noodle arms from Luci and used them in a Dr Seuss way, which I liked as it complemented the curved horns and large eyes - which were inspired by Tim Burton. My second attempt was elongating the face, but with the Tim Burton eye shadow and the horns, it looked more like a cow skull head rather than a creature like in the model. 

My final take was inspired by Luci's small height and the idea that lots of the powerful sidekicks in films are short and round - such as Pikachu from Pokémon, or King from The Owl House. I thought this design was too short and won't fit in some of the frames we had planned in the script - such as them all sitting at a table. 

I decided I liked the original the best as it merged all of the concepts nicely.

The Therapist was mostly based off of a design Naomi had made during our call as we were discussing the script. Both of us had used semi circle features in our design so we decided to maintain that. Her idea was based on the Dad from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs with curly hair and a monobrow. We decided that the therapist had lots of complex dialogue in the script that would all be during our stop motion portion - and so we thought a large moustache would be good to save us from lip sync. Charlie thought the nose Naomi had designed was too reaper-like and so I used Gru as a reference for a good size in their kind of face shape. I also used Gru for an alternative more therapist like clothing design - but Charlie wanted a suit shirt and pants, which is what we ultimately went with. 

As a group, we had already planned out that Lilith would have red skin and Sandy would have pink skin to be a mixture between an irregular demon tone and a human skin tone. And so, I knew our therapist was our only moment for inclusion in our animation.

All of the characters have curls on them, in their ears, Lilith's belly button and the therapist's hairs to show cohesion to the Dr Seuss and Tim Burton styles. 

The only directions for Sandy were to base her off of Tim Burton and to give her red hair, but we decided to make her skin pink too show her mixed household. To show that she was a mixture of both houses, I gave her the demon nose, as well as underdeveloped demon horns. Her ears are the same as the therapist's with swirls in the centre. I gave her three fingers and a thumb on her hand as opposed to the human therapist with four fingers and a thumb, and Lilith with three demonic fingers. Sandy's fingers are pointed and long like Lilith's, but they have knuckles. With the modern time frame, Sandy became an e girl, very on trend, and so the converse and the dress were a big part of the design and one of the main ways to bring in the red colour palette of the Hazbin Hotel. Hazbin were also a main reference for me to learn how to position women's faces, as I mostly draw men. 

Moom Rig 2 - Animation

moom rig

 We had a lesson learning how to insert references in to Maya through using the moom rig. This was fun as i hardly ever use pose to pose animation rather than straight ahead, and it came in useful for the group animation. I also hardly use curves, and though I didn't really use a curve to animate my shots in Harmony, it helped me understand Harmony's easing ins and outs drop box which shows a bunch of curves. Especially for our opening shot and the moon house shot. 

During these two years, I feel like I have done a lot of walk cycles, and i think this one went quite well. but this is the first one where it needed to look correct from every angle and i think I haven't had to truly master the head movement like this before. Though it does look like it's pecking forward a bit, I think the head bob added character. 

Character Design Sketches and Basic Form

 

One of the references that the director really wanted me to look at was Tim Burton, so I maintained the round eyes with small pupils throughout the character design stage. Similar to burton, I gave both of the mains round heads and pointed chins. The top right design was the director's favourite as it was very close to his original plasticine figure which shaped the animation's script.  

The girl had no real designing discussion at this stage, so I experimented with the sharp triangular features. After showing this, we decided that Sandy should have long, straight red hair, bags under her eyes, and frizzled hair to show how exhausted she is. At the start, I was very conscious about needing these characters to be reflected in stop motion, and so they had quite big feet. But these shrunk over the design period. 

To start my character design process, I started looking at shapes. A good example I found that fit our spooky reference material was The Addams Family 2019. Every character in the film has a different body shape, so I decided to use this in my own character design. I gave the demon (Lilith) a short body made of circles, because the 'sidekick' character is usually short so they don't outshine and out stage the main character - as we saw in class in UP with Russel and Dug. I chose triangles for the girl (Sandy), as it helps to make a thin feminine waist, whilst also giving off sharp features to show her power as a demon/human hybrid, and her powerful personality. I made the human therapist of semi circles because it's a combination of the two sharp and soft features, making him clear to be the least important of the three characters in the room, despite his height. 
 

Storyboard Pro Induction

 

This is a quick storyboard plan that I made in class, which started with the two ghost designs above, based off of the 'Ghost Choir' animation on social media. 

The story is about one ghost pranking another by possessing a pumpkin in a garden patch. 

What I changed from this original was the pumpkin having no eyes at the start and them fading in, which is what impresses the first ghost, and then they glow and scare it. The glow inside the eyes isn't in the animatic or the storyboard, only in the stage directions. I also got rid of the lump on top of the pumpkin, and removed the leaves from underneath. 

ghost

I really enjoyed working in Storyboard Pro. I found the features were a lot like photoshop, which is what I would usually work on, on the computer. I also found the storyboard/ script layout very useful. To improve, I would add motion lines for the purpose of the storyboard. I would also try more ambitious camera shots and movements. Overall, I think my story is legible, especially with the script, and I think it translated well from the very quick sketchbook trial. 

My Question Title - Study Task 2

Work in progress:  "What are the advantages of 3D software becoming more integrated in film and animation?"

2.0 Starter question "What are the advantages of motion capture becoming more integrated in to film and animation? "

COP 2 Research and Study Task 1

 LINKS

• Dinh, C. (2019) Making Of: How VFX Transforms Mark Ruffalo to Hulk in 'Avengers: Endgame'. Available at: https://www.marvel.com/articles/movies/how-vfx-transforms-mark-ruffalo-to-hulk-avengers-endgame (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

How Marvel decided to consider human features more in the face of the hulk. 3D mapping Mark Ruffalo's face.

•  Industrial Light & Magic. (2020) Achieve. Available at: https://wIndustrial Light & Magicww.ilm.com/archive/ (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

Links to documentaries of the production process for ILM's different projects. Avengers and Hulk for a hulk evolution from live action filming, to beginning CGI. 

• trueblue26 (2008) 'The Incredible Hulk: Making of the Monster' Youtube, 16 October. Available at: https://youtu.be/HWPJO3e2NoI (accessed 5 October 2020)

Marvel didn't want an actor to play the Hulk, only Bruce Banner but Edward made the decision to give input on movement. ILM 

• Corridor Crew (2020) 'VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 35' Youtube, 24 October. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADr3r_mM5h4&list=PLoQebOr539lXyhXT01rihKRtFlkdi3jM1&index=10 (Accessed: 24 October 2020)

This is something I'm naturally subscribed to, and I was amazed when the crew started looking in to the evolution of the Hulk, after I had done my research in to the subject of the MCU movies. They actually introduced me to the fact that there is a Hulk movie before Norton's which is a lot closer to a comic book style. They personally thought that the original 2003 version was better than the Norton version with hyper realistic human anatomy, as they showed off too much and they didn't like that you could see every vein tensing. 

• Vfx Breakdown (2018) 'Making of Thanos In Avengers: Infinity War' Youtube, 10 August. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmz2VmPMgRI&list=PLoQebOr539lXyhXT01rihKRtFlkdi3jM1&index=2&t=1s (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

Making Thanos in Infinity War. Helmet capture. Screen test with a fake script - tests lighting. ZBrush model of the head, and one person goes in and adds all the details like wrinkles etc. 

• Gray, A. (2014) A Brief History of Motion-Capture in the Movies. Available at: https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/11/a-brief-history-of-motion-capture-in-the-movies (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

Disney Christmas Carol 3D - Jim Carrey motion captured scrooge at every age in the story, as well as playing all three of the ghosts. 

• Milligan, M. (2019) 'Ziva VFX 1.6 Introduces Automated Anatomy Transfers' Animation Magazine. Available at: https://www.animationmagazine.net/technology/ziva-vfx-1-6-introduces-automated-anatomy-transfers/ (Accessed: 5 October 2020) 

Automated anatomy transfer - revolution helping to speed up production by months. Stops people individually recreating every piece of anatomy for every background character in a shot. The anatomy can now be mapped on to a completely different body. 

 [Figure 5]

• Autodesk (2010) 'Avatar presentation at Autodesk University' Youtube, 4 February. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmPitTWKudI&list=PLoQebOr539lXyhXT01rihKRtFlkdi3jM1&index=5 (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

Companies using Maya - Avatar. A big turnaround in motion capture. Actors in suits - polygonal triangles. 

• Le Blanc, B. (2019) 'Lighting in Arnold for Maya | Lighting Tutorial' Youtube, 12 January. Available at: https://youtu.be/iUfCRXbL9ZM (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

The importance of lighting and how it can be demonstrated in Maya. More for personal use during practical responses. 

BOOKS

Understanding Motion Capture for Computer Animation by Alberto Menache (Second edition) Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.  

HARVARD 

Menache, A. (2011) Understanding Motion Capture for Computer Animation. Second edition. United States: Elsevier, Inc.

• Page 3 "Motion capture in the entertainment field is the descendant of rotoscoping" 

• Rotoscoping was invented in 1915 by cartoonist Max Fleischer

• "Walt Disney Studios used some rotoscoping in 1937" partially on Snow White and the Prince

•Page 4 not many companies admit to using rotoscoping in their animations because people "consider it cheating".

• Current motion capture was used in military and medical practice before it was used for film, as people thought they were a long ways off understanding the human figure. Only to have a Director appear with six human figures made using technology,  a week after this public announcement.

• Page 10  In 1988, Pacific Data Images asked Rick Lazzarini to create a device for the upper body and head. This was called the exoskeleton. It was used in the movie Toys, which was "the first motion picture in which a digital character was successfully created using motion capture."

[Figure 6]

• Page 30 Digital armatures 

Key framing armatures are "not considered motion capture systems because they're not driven by a live performer" but their movements translate key frame in to digital software. But some of these are used as real time armatures controlled by people like a puppet. The DID (Dinosaur Input Device) was used on Jurassic Park to animate some of the dinosaurs. 

The character in the animation always had a similar structure to the armature. (Where as we can now scale people up and make people taller than the motion capture data - as shown in the Maya Avatar video link above.) 

[Figure 7]

•Page 47 Start of Chapter 2 "Motion Capture Case Studies And Controversy" 'Satan's rotoscope' is a name used to define motion capture. 'less technically oriented people's could start finding jobs in animation thanks to the rise in softwares like maya. 

Page 48, Video games were the first to sign up for the more cost effective electromagnetic and optical motion capture. They still have "70% of the total usage" today. People thought "Motion capture can replace character animators" 

Page 49-50 Though Avatar broke box office records, "none of the actors on Avatar was nominated for an Oscar", as people disregarded the people behind the motion capture as an acting job. And I still believe that that is true to the day, especially in things like Guardians of the Galaxy, where you have the characters of Kraglin and Rocket Raccoon. One physically played by, and one motion captured by Sean Gunn. Most people I know didn't know he was the motion capture, nor took his role seriously as Rocket - as Bradley Cooper the voice actor takes all of the credit. Usually people who motion capture also do the voice, so Sean was disregarded until around End Game's popularity.

• Page 67-71

Polar Express production started with the idea that they would film actors on a green screen and then overlay with the same kind of painted art style of the books. During the production of this, a small team were given a few minutes with Tom Hanks, where they tested motion capture. Expecting this to be a failure, one man went ahead with testing the data from the motion capture, whilst the rest of the team were overlaying with a green screen. The green screen tests failed as they "looked like they had a skin disease", but they kept trying. Eventually, the motion capture results were shown to the Director and the green screen was scrapped , and the work load of the animation relied on the original small team. 

They needed 70 plus cameras on a person to make this work in such a scale, but the technology wasn't available. Companies thought they were crazy and refused to help, besides Vicon. They created a "daisy chain" by essentially stitching together the calibrations of five systems in a particular order. They had to do this in a sound stage, as one problem with the setting would cause a malfunction. They had to make up a "dance" to calibrate the systems every time they wanted to use it.

They ended up with 84 cameras in total in just one of the three motion capture stages, 70 from Vicon.

Most people were trained in motion capture during filming because no one knew what it was. 

Placing 152 markers on up to 24 different unique faces every day of shooting. 

There were three post production groups: one put the clips together to understand the order and real time. Second was data trackers, delivering the facial data. Third brought every shot in to maya and made clothing and colours and effects. 

People were aware that Polar Express was "probably the most ground breaking" piece if motion capture (- Jerome Chen, visual effects supervisor). They are aware not in terms of their visual display, but they paved the road for new camera integrations and technology compatibility.

Maya for Games: Modelling and Texturing Techniques with Maya and Mudbox by Michael Ingrassia. Focal Press. (READ BUT NOT USED - TAKEN FROM LIBRARY) This book focuses on tutorials. How to make a realistic hand, face and how to map textures might be useful when thinking about motion capture or at least mapping. 

HARVARD

ArtMZ. (2019) '3D modeling human's face, head (Autodesk Maya Tutorial)' Youtube, 21 November. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blgs8-Z5Z7c&list=PLoQebOr539lXyhXT01rihKRtFlkdi3jM1&index=3&t=257s (Accessed: 4th December 2020)

Final outcome help - making a face. 

(All of the above links dated 5th October 2020) 

(Motion capture book, all dated 12th of october besides the polar express chapter on the 18th) 

[Figure 8]

At the moment, my ideas are very confusing. As much as I have a lot to say about history and social views within animation - I think the problem might be that i have too much to ay and too little to show. Last year, my feedback in most topics was to stop hiding behind my words. I'd like to do something visual topic, with a very visual media for the essay such as a comic. I know I would like Maya to be a final outcome, which is why I looked a lot in to visual effects - which is something I am very fascinated in as little as I know about it. So I would like to learn more. 

Micro Task 1 - Animism

 Animism - Giving an object/ animal/ landscape human characteristics. Derived from anima, Latin for breath, life, and spirit. Believing everything has a life.  

Anthropomorphism - The interpretation as to what has human characteristics, what is actually human and what just has personal emotions. 

[Figure 1]

My initial idea was to have a garbage can eating trash off of the floor, with bin handles flapping around like arms, and a jaw full of sharp teeth with a tongue. I decided not to do this idea as I thought adding legs would make it hard to animate the can bending over to eat, because of the material. I also thought that a really long tongue would be too alien and not human. If the can was on it's side, it would be licking up the food more like a cat. 

[Figure 2]

I decided to go with an aerosol can, because I thought that this was something I could make in Maya - and it will help me practice my picture wrapping in the later tasks - to add in a logo and patterns. My plan was to have the can sneeze, do a little jump, and land back in the same place. I will be adding the spray in the colour stage - which will be a fun learning curve if I attempt it in Maya. 

[Figure 3]

[Figure 4]

I think the hardest bit about this animation was the lip syncing. What went well was accomplishing the lip sync and the action that I wanted, as this is my first time animating something that wasn't already rigged. I could improve this by attaching the mouth and eyes to the actual main body. Using the camera perspective, it's hard to currently tell that the eyes and mouth aren't attached - but I think adding any front lighting might give this away. To move forward, I will add the smoke either in 2D or Maya - and try to blend the different body parts together. 

Practice Treatment (Before group work)

 The Deep / Shore line / Horizon

Logline: "A boy searching for a great adventure, falls deep in to the ocean after a yearning wish on a constellation. The darkness unveils a new world like Kane had never known, and friendship that could only be written in the stars."

Summary: Kane's family are sea merchants, delivering goods between the two islands of Leia and Mobano. Kane finds the view of the same ocean horizon dull, and longs for an adventure - so when he sees a constellation in the sky, he makes his wish. The tentacle of a kraken tips the boat upside down and knocks Kane in to the ocean, before pulling him in to the deep. The ocean is dark and the kraken glows, looming over him so he's blocked out in shadow. He reaches out and touches the kraken and then the two children become friends. The Kraken introduces Kane to a whole new world under the sea, with them both swimming through coloured rocks and glowing coral.

The climax would be a much larger tentacle hitting Kane away from the kraken and back in to the darkness. The audience now know the first kraken is a child by size comparison of the large tentacle. Kane becomes winded, and then the vision of the audience becomes hazy with Kane's P.O.V. There are small shots of the Kraken pulling Kane to the shore, to the now upright boat. The Kraken stares at the glow of the sunrise, also being lonely like Kane was in the complete darkness of the ocean. Kane is pulled in to an embrace by his parents, and he looks over to watch the glow of the Kraken swimming off towards the sunrise, glowing under the waves. 

  

Characters: 

• Kane Kaiwi: 12 years old, protagonist. He wants an adventure, he's helpful on the ship and very smart, but he's helpless against the krakens. He's not as prepared for adventure and danger as he thought he was.
• Kraken, female: Bane's ocean counter part who just wanted to play with the humans above the water. You think they're large until you see the parent's giant tentacle. They live in complete darkness but she glows pink. She stands out against the ocean with her glow, so she's a wonderous sight for Kane and the audience - but she blends in with the sunrise to show how Kane's life above water was just as magical. Her bright glow also makes the darkness of her home in the depth look really dull.
• Kaiwi parents: Older adults, who are quite short, and not as well built as a life on the ocean would suggest. They have rough close to show how hard they work to get by. Their ship is handmade with straw and fabrics.
• Kraken parent: Only a tentacle - thinks Kane is going to hurt their daughter which is why they attack. 

Possibly 2D/ human world and a 3D world under the water to separate them. Kane always stands out even in the darkness of the water because of his 2D style. Hawaiian inspiration designs for the islands and clothing and the boat.