BSA324, Jellybean roll-up in colour, 31 July, 2017

Standing Jellybean is 4-banded and the rest look 3-banded- or DO they?  Not going to worry about that right now.  

.5, .2, .1, .2,.5 seconds per frame.

And look!  It's Prickles having a shit fit!  Why, it's almost like a SCENE is developing!  Ha ha!  Looking good.

.5, .1, .1, .1, .5 seconds per frame

Another reason these gif experiments are good: it's letting me test timings quickly and easily before I get into the big software programs.

BSA303, dissertation outline, 24 July, 2017

For my next one-on-one with Ruth (I've missed the first three), I need to have a one-page bullet pointed revised proposal AND develop a brief outline (couple pages max) of mydissertation (title, main focus/question, main parts/content- just bullet points – using any template (or part of)  in workbook to help or develop my own structure.

BSA324, Jellybean unrolls, bw, front view, 31 July, 2017

I've experimented with the timing on this gif:  .5, .2, .2, .5, and 1 second per frame.  Now that I'm nearing graduation, it's time to draw back into past lessons and actually put them into use: namely, the 12 principles of animation.  This is ease in, ease out where the first and last frames are slow with speed at the middle of the sequence.

This gif starts and ends on .5 with .2 second frames in the center.  

 This gif has frames of equal length, .5.  It isn't as interesting to look at as the varied speed gifs.  

So what's the point of all the gif experiments?  These are good to put online on social media sites to help promote what I'm doing, and their a super quick, easy form of animation that I can do as long as I have access to Adobe Photosop.  And it's an excellent way to procrastinate, put off animating, while still animating.  Brilliant.     

BSA324, new pitch bible content, 29 July, 2017

I went back and did some basic painting on the Girl reactions page.

Musicians poster relaid out to go in, maybe, across from a story summary page.  I added in a background, Jellybean's area, and Dr. Picklesniffer on tambourine and triangle.  In future, I might go in and colour it up so it's a full illustration.

Illustrations and text explaining how the characters interact with each other will be helpful, as will more information about their likes and dislikes.
refined sketches that could go into pitch bible 002:

More moods and active poses for Girl

Girl's outburst may require a "time out" in a straight jacket if Flash has anything to say about it.

Jellybean rolled up.  I made the executive decision to remove the tail from the sketch because it could be interpreted as "something else".  If you can see the problem yourself, why not solve it right away? A series of Jellybean rolling up sketches would look good in the pitch bible...

I've decided to change Goldie's eyes to black almonds like the other characters.  It'll solve the lack of expression problem that the meatballs have had and will bring design cohesion.

To do 29 July - 4 August, 2017

BSA303
apply for TaleEnders and Sit Pro internships (talk to Reuben about SitPro)
bullet points of proposal for dissertation for 10.45 with Ruth Monday
Read and take notes on:  Social tv:  how to reach through social media, imagination and play in electronic age, children and formal features of TV, G is for Growing: Sesame St, children and the Media (no, change tack to new research avenues suggested by 3rd critique)

BSA306
rough 3D model 3 characters in Maya and refine in Zbrush

BSA324
clean up warehouse scene- save objects into their own files
finish first pass of revising pitch bible 002
mock up children's book of the first episode
add new Jellybean looking for sock scene to animatic
seminar powerpoint due Friday 4/8.  To be delivered next Tuesday at 12.30.

BSA326
experiment with fur in Houdini, Zbrush, Maya, Mari (no, concentrate on getting 3D environment modelled)

BSA324, pitch bible reflection, 28 July, 2017

I showed my pitch bible around as much as I possibly could while in Auckland and got good feedback.  The dark backgrounds are perfect for showing off the brightly coloured characters who are lots of fun.  Nobody really did a lot of reading so more illustrations would not go astray.  I opened the files up yesterday and made some adjustments:

• the white boxes are 25% opacity (so the white is stronger) instead of 12%.  I will test print one to make sure the text is more legible.  If it isn't, I will ever move back to 12% opacity and change the text to white or move to 50% opacity.  Something will work!  Maybe I should print all three of those options and ask around.  
• I added 4cm to one side of the image depending on where it is in the book.  I didn't allow for the bind last time and this should solve that problem.  
• I moved any white boxes and text on pages that appear on the left to the outside margins so nothing gets trapped in the binding.  

In addition to fixing technical issues, I am doing more research on what pitch bibles can look like.  

Adventure Time pitch bible

The Adventure Time pitch bible does something very interesting- it's full of illustrations and concept art and lots and lots of text about the feeling of the characters and world.  By the time you get to the summary of 4 episodes, you already know what to expect from the show.

Bravest Warriors pitch bible

This one is fun and funny.  It starts out as a comic, showing most of the main characters, then moves into the pitch.  There is lots and lots of back story and explanations of people's emotional arcs over the series.

What's great about both of these bibles is that each page is different- you keep reading to see all the possibilities.  Mine follows a pattern and it's easy to do one quick FLIIIIIPPP and then move on.  No reason to examine anything very closely.  

BSA306, Stop Motion practitioner Lauren Horoszewski and Supermansion/ Robot Chicken, 26 July, 2017

Here's another stop motion show to check out:  Supermansion.
http://au.ign.com/articles/2015/10/06/robot-chicken-producers-on-the-differences-youll-see-in-supermansion

When I started researching it, I found this woman's online portfolio and resume:

http://www.laurenhoroszewski.com/

She has lots of good process shots of her work for the show and I was amazed to find that she had gone to University of Connecticut and studied sculpture and puppetry.

Not everybody likes the jokes on Supermansion but the puppets look really good and Stupid Buddy does good stop motion animation.

BSA306, 3D short Extinguished, 27 July, 2017

http://www.iamag.co/features/animated-short-extinguished/

Extinguished, by Ashley Anderson and Jacob Mann Created at Ringling College of Art and Design.

I'd really like to know how long it took them to make this.  It's really sweet.

BSA326, Houdini fluids, 27 July, 2017

Fur tutorial: 
hair and fur masking

Fluid effects for foods like soda and chocolate can be achieved using a variety of software packages.
KFC Krushers TVC

Examples:
Realflow software showreel 2017

Melt liquid showreel

Maya Bifrost

We're messing around in Houdini today and for the next few weeks.  It's been described as Maya and Nuke had an ugly baby together.  

Water simulation- I've been touching buttons and have added more particles than are needed for "thin" water, so mine looks rather foamy.
L on keyboard sorts node map out so it looks cleaner.

The sphere at the start of the simulation.
Always go back to frame one to make changes to particles or it will crash.

Why do I have a sphere, a water bubble and a blob of spores?

a "block" of water crashes over a sphere while a sphere of water puddles nearby.

frame one

frame 24?

A bounding box/flip tank has been added and you can see the layer of water just behind the sphere is restrained.
Work from auto dop network view to see everything that's going on in the scene.  one click gets into auto dop and two clicks get into individual nodes to make changes.  Again, always make changes at frame one!  otherwise, crashes.

Where can I use this in my project?  I don't know yet.  In future, I could have it raining in the IW or they could be playing in water or something that acts like water.  More experimentation will probably point me in the direction of possible uses.

BSA326, maya crash fixes, 27 July, 2017

 If maya is crashing without opening, this could be because there H drive is too full and there is nowhere for the temp files to go

·         If maya window are not opening correctly the should delete the maya folder system in their documents and this resets maya to factory settings.

·         If they have extension 3 and Maya crashes each time they set their project they must change the preferences to let windows 10 control the file dialog boxes as below

BSA324, storyboard development, 26 July, 2017

My script is still in development, and probably will be until Kingdom Come.  I came up with a sequence just after the opening credits to introduce the conflict between Jellybean and Prickles.  It opens with Jellybean sitting amongst the flowers under the home tree.  Jellybean is putting on a sock and then a shoe.  A sock is missing and Jellybean gets up and starts to search for it.  A close-up shows the sock slowly disappearing under a shelf.  Girl walks in to find a very confused Jellybean walking in circles.  She suggests they go on a hunt through the Imagination Warehouse for it.

BSA324, character sketches, 12-22 July, 2017

I am NOT doing much on my project while I'm in Auckland.  Shame!  Hopefully, it'll all work out when I get back and the wild hedonism of lying in bed, sick, watching tv will not come back to haunt me.