1 becomes 2 Summer Project: Let the fun start!!

Two weeks ago, during our fourth week of the Commission unit, we were given a brief on what this summer project might have in store for us especially with the dreaded blue box. This time, only given a short piece of music we would have to "interpret" this into a animation sequence. This can be in a range of art styles from Norman McLaren's work to Fantasia style.
So picking out from the box, I've picked out "Soundscape 3". This is quite an interesting piece after hearing it during the preview in the brief. Sounding quite exotic, it reminds me of aboriginal tribes with their bright colours.

Here's Soundscape 3's piece

After hearing this piece, I thoguth it would be a good idea to post up some videos of what this music piece reminds me of.


The beginning of the piece strongly reminds me of the music from The Lion King- Be Prepared





The vibrant strong coloured tikki masks from The Princess and the Frog





I could see this being in the style of Norman McLaren with the lines/ shapes forming tikki style.


Something like this (where shapes pop up at random) :





and this (the border and the tikki statue design style) :

Though its early stages but these are just first thought initial ideas!

Unit 6: Commission: Bone Cancer Complete

Using the feedback I got from the crit, I thought I could make a few changes to the film including adding the special effects and re-render some shots. 

Unit 6: Commission: Art of Bone Cancer

The Art of unit 6

Unit 6: Commission: Bone Cancer Animation

Bone Cancer Animation

Unit 6: Commission: Disk Cover Art

Keeping with the branding theme of my animation, here's my disk art.

Disk Art

Cover Art

Unit 6: Commission: Pre-Viz

Here is my completed pre-viz with music along with narration by Jane Farnham (Thank You!!). Apologies this pre-viz is only just uploaded at the last minute, I haven't been able to add in special effects but they'll definitely appear in the final animation but please let me know what yous think!! ^_^

Unit 6: Commission: More Concept Art

Two more concept arts made whilst rendering. :D

This one is dubbed, "Two Halves- Change and Hope" meaning the normal cells (left) can become the cancerous ones as symbolized with the green background and with the cancerous cells (right) though they can't change back, there is hope that the cancer can be removed as symbolized with the yellow background.

This one is just showing the cancer cells in the body

After Effects Class: Week 4: Rocket rotation and banner

Experimenting with keyframes and making objects to follow paths/ tracking motions.

Rocket

Banner

Unit 6: Commission: Minor changes to cells update

Here is the latest update to the characters. I've tweaked around the colours and desaturated the cancer cell slightly to give off the sickly look. I've also re-sized the cancer cell to keep in shape with the normal one, but made the small feature slightly smaller. I've also played around with the lighting and turning the ray tracing on or off but the results of this didn't look too satisfying. So in the end, I've kept the ambient light on but turned the ray tracing off (as the reflections made the overall look weird) and another without the ambient light or ray tracing on. Personally I like the second image as it suites the idea of cartoon world but with the first image it gives the solidness of the character. Would really appreciate to choose to either go with the first image or the second!!

Without ambient light or ray tracing  

With ambient light on but ray tracing off

With ray tracing on but no light

Before

Unit 6: Commission: Normal Cell complete

Made some few changes to the normal cell on Maya, creating a jelly like effect similar to the cancer cell and adding a mouth. So here it is along with the cancer cell together.

Normal cell with minor changes

Together with the Cancer cell

Unit 6: Commission: Cancer Cell complete!!

After many days of working with the cancer cell, its now complete!! At first, with the last post being the near complete- cancer cell I'd then realized that it was much far from complete after being told that it was messed up in most places!! But thankfully after some clearing and fixing this big one is now completed!! Unfortunately the downside to this is that the legs cannot be joined to the head due to the way the character was built but this can be sort of blended together using shaders. With the help from Alan, the cancerous cell can have this jelly-like look to it as well as blending with the legs and showing the nucleus at the same time. So here's the latest rendered image of the cancer cell along with the playblast video of the cancer cell in motion! ^_^

with ambient light added

Without light

Wireframe

Playblast video! :D

Unit 6: Commission: Maya Normal Cell update

Here I have updated the look of the normal cell, adding a mouth and slightly changing the baby blue nucleus to a slightly more purple colour just to match the turnaround palatte. Strangley when rendering them, the colour appears to be more different compared to the making version but hopefully with a few more fix changes I could get the character to look more like the screen grab.


Screen grab version



Rendered version



Unit 6: Commission: Cancer cell animated test

Here it is!! The animated Cancer cell rigged, skinned and now a floating test to see would the joints work well. At the minute it looks well but again the top of the legs still needs to be joined to the main body. I'm very happy with the way the joints worked out!! ^_^

Unit 6: Commission: Maya cancer cell rigged and skinned

At last I have managed to rigged and skinned the cancerous squid cell. The main leg geometries still needs to be joined to the main body which can be done later. Now onto animating!!

After Effects: Week 3: Scripting Effects

Experimenting with scripts to create effects on After Effects.

Unit 6: Commission: Updated character designs

These are the updated versions of both the cancerous and normal cells. I have included some minor changes to these character just to show more expressions in them like mouths in both characters and lengthen the tentacles on the cancer cell.

Unit 6: Commission: Cells with mouths!!

Based on the feedback from today's Pitch, I've went back to add some changes to the characters. It was noted that a normal cell shouldn't appear to be sleeping or calm if its a cell that does a very active job on cell dividing and others. So to make the normal cell appear energetic/ happy/ active, I experimented more on the expressions, this time adding mouths. At the moment I am liking numbers 1, 3, 4, 7 and 12 on the normal cells and as for the cancerous ones I am liking numbers 3, 4 and 5.

Normal Cells

Cancerous Cells

Unit 6: Commission- Pitch Presentation

Unit 6: Commission- Pitch Presentation

Unit 6: Commission: Animatic and Pre-viz

Animatic:

Pre- Viz segments

@Phil: Green go,go for Pitch!! :D

Just need to finish up a few things and everything's pretty much go go for tomorrow!! ^_^

Unit 6: Commission- Maya cancer cells update

Here's the latest updated versions of the cancer cells. They're just models before getting them to be animated for the upcoming weeks. So far, I've fixed the body so it should pretty much the same as the concept version. The legs are made longer but this still needs to be tidied up when it gets its joints and rigs, etc put in. The top image shows the character in four legs and below is the slightly updated version which has the fifth tentacle included though this caused some dodgy problems which again needs fixing when joints and stuff is put in.

Without the fifth back tentacle

Fifth back tentacle included

Unit 6: Commission- Maya Cancer and Normal cells turnarounds

Cancer and normal Cells on Maya.

Cancer Cell

Normal Cell

Unit 6: Commission- Normal and Cancer cells pop art

Having some fun in Photoshop and created Andy Warhol's Pop art version of the normal and cancer cells. :D 

Unit 6: Commission- cancer and normal cells concept

Cancer and normal cell concept art where the cancer cells are beginning to spread and turning the normal cells into cancerous ones.

Unit 6: Commission- Market Research

Market Research presented on an influence map looking at different art styles and cartoons that are suitable for a general audience.

After Effects: Week 2- Doom title practice

Experimenting with After Effects with layers, 3d cameras etc. (Harry Potter Style!!)

Unit 6: Commission- Art Branding

I've managed to create a branding logo to go with my project. I've based the font on the very first font used for the cancer cells design on Maya and I thought I would used them again as I felt it quite suited the characters especially when they're sitting on top or in front.

Let me know what yous think!! (> ∀<)/b

Main Branding logo

Small logo

The font inspiration

 

Unit 6: Commission- Normal and Cancer Cell Character Turnarounds

Here's the character turnarounds for both cancer and normal cell (also the two cells together!!)
*UPDATE: with fifth tentacle added at back*

Cancer Cell Turnaround

Normal cell Turnaround

The two together

Unit 6: Commission- cell cycle concept art

Here is a cell cycle concept just before the cancer begins...

Unit 6: Commission- Storyboards

The completed storyboards split into 3 acts (with text narration below each image).

Unit 6: Commission- Script Draft 2

Script Draft 2

Unit 6: Commission- Cancer Colour test sheet

I love this bit!! ^_^ Playing around with colours to find one that would become the opposite of the normal cells. I have made different sizes of the nuclei for several designs. I've played the colours around, from pale, dull and vibrant colours to see would there be one that would suit. I've also tried inverting the normal cell's colour pallete only to end up looking like number 15. So far I am liking numbers 2, 12. 18 and 19.

And here's a reminder of how the normal cell looks:

Unit 6: Commission- more cancer designs

Here are more character designs for the cancer cell. I've based these from the latest influence map, looking at the simple octopus symmetry designs. I've repeated design 1's outline quite a lot because I am also focusing on the expressions of the face. So far I'm liking number 2 and 3. 

Unit 6: Commission- simple octopus/tentacle/ squid influence map

Looking at simple octopus/ squid design.

Unit 6: Commission- More Cancer cell designs

Here are some cancer cell designs, I thought about trying to keep it simple in design similar to the normal cell. After discussing with TutorPhil, it was also decided that rather than portraying the cancer as a villain way, I almost forgotten  that the normal cell "malfunctionally changes" into a cancerous one. So rather than being evil, it should be in pain as it reluctantly changes. So here are the designs along with the normal cell in the top right as a reminder for style.

Unit 6: Commission- Maya floating cell

Just thought I could have a play on Maya on how these normal cells would play. I've also added in the "calm, sleeping" idea in as well just to see how this would look. The character design still needs some tweeking but this is just a little experiment!! ^_^