Premise - Toon Shader Test

Today I tried using a toon shader on my character. My main character needs to look somewhat 2D as they are a 2D drawing, But I think after my experiment with Adobe Animate, I definitely want to animate the character using 3D animation. I like how the Toon Shader looks, But I'm a little unsure about the look of the character. I think the shadows look a little strange, and so does the plain white color. I think It might look better if I applied a paper-like texture to the model, or painted a different texture to make the model look more illustrated as I think the toon shader outline looks a little too thick and neat. I'm also still unsatisfied with how simple the character looks, so I'll try and develop them more so they're a little more interesting. Although, a lot of their character will come from the way in which they are animated and their interactions with the artists, so I need to run some animation tests too to see if this is a design issue, or just because the character hasn't been brought to life yet (or a bit of both).

Premise - Adobe Animate 2D Animation Test

Main Character 2D Animation Test

Today I played around in Adobe Animate and created a small animation of the main character of my premise project. It's been a while since I've used 2D Animation software so it was a little challenging to create this animation. I decided to choose some of my storyboards as a reference as I thought it was important to create my animation tests based on scenes that might be in the final product.

StoryBoard Referennce

 I think 2D Animation could be a really fun way to bring my main character to life as the character is a 2D drawing and I feel like it would make more sense to animate them using 2D rather than 3D. However, I did find this process challenging and time-consuming. I found that I kept changing the proportions of the character and everything in general looks a bit sloppy and messy. I think a sketchy/messy look could fit the aesthetic of my film quite nicely, but it still needs to look somewhat more polished and smooth. I'm a little undecided on how I feel about 2D at the moment. 

If I were to go forward with using 2D animations for my main character, I would have to learn how to become more proficient in using Adobe Animate for sure. I'm going to be carrying out a few different tests using different animation styles and techniques using this same scene so I can easily compare the different styles and techniques.

Lighting and Rendering - Mesh Lights

In this tutorial, I learned how to create mesh lights. I experimented with using a different colour on some of the ramps on the different orbs. I learned more about ramps and projections and I'm feeling more confident in understanding sampling, although I'm only noticing just now that the top of the image still looks very pixelated, however, the quality is fine on my computer, it only becomes pixilated when I upload it onto here and I'm not sure why.

Finished Render

Colour Experiment

Premise - First Storyboard

I've finally finished my first storyboard! Now I've got to neaten some things up and resize images so I can make my animatic. Drawing out the storyboard using the original script I wrote highlighted a few inconsistencies in my story which I've tried to resolve, but as this is only the first storyboard, I'm expecting to make quite a few changes in the future.

Premise First Storyboard by on Scribd

Premise - Main Character Block Model Turnaround

I've created a block model for my main character so I can test out toon shaders and see if I want to animate the main character in 3D or not. The model is very simple at the moment, as are the designs of the main character. I'd like to experiment with the design of the character more and look into making it a little less simple but for now I'll use this model for my 3D tests. I'll also be adding in facial features with animated textures, but this is something I'll also be experimenting with. 

Premise - Storyboards for Animatic

Story boarding: First Attempt

On my schedule, I had put my animatic later on in my project, but Phil suggested that I create an animatic now so I can figure out if the story is readable. I wasn't happy with how my first attempt was turning out. I was struggling to figure out what I wanted the shots to look like. So I wrote down a list of what I wanted to happen in each shot and tried again. 

Story boarding: Second Attempt

Story boarding: Second Attempt

Story boarding: Second Attempt

For my second attempt, I knew what I wanted to draw, but I was drawing the storyboards in way too much detail.I decided to stop and just try and draw the storyboards more rougher and more quickly as I was wasting time spending so much time on storyboards that I potentially might not even use (especially if they're in my first animatic) 

Current Storyboards

Here's where I'm at right now with storyboarding. When I've completed the rough storyboard, I'll neaten it up a little bit so the quality of my first animatic isn't terrible. 

Facial Animation - Added Eyebrow Animation and Cleaning Up

Today I focused on adding in-between animation between the extremes on the eyebrows. I added a little bit of bounce to the eyebrows rather than the eyebrows just slowly shifting to the next pose. I also cleaned up the lipsync more. I feel like my lip sync still has that 'machine gun chatter' look to it, so I'll work on it at a later date if I've got the time.


Lipsync - Eyebrow Animation from NoahGeeCG on Vimeo.

Jet Pack Jones - Part 4: The Mouth

Three Quarter View

Side View

Front View

@Phil @Alan Premise - First Script

In my schedule, I was going to make changes to my script today, but I thought it would be wiser to get some feedback first before I get any changes as I'm not sure what I should change yet. I wasn't sure how to write a script for an animation that has no dialogue, but I wanted to have a general idea so I don't waste a lot of time drawing storyboards I don't need.

Premise - Adding Facial Expressions

I've taken some of the designs I liked from the previous developments and added facial features. I'm not liking most of these drawings, but I wanted to experiment with different eye shapes and mouths. I wanted to see if the character even needs eyes and a mouth, and I feel like the character looks better without a mouth. I think that without eyes, the character loses a lot of emotion, but I'll be adding a lot of emotion in the animation of the character as well so I'm not worried about that. I like thumbnails 2, 3, 8, and 21 the best, and I feel either indifferent or unhappy with the rest. Some look rather scary in my opinion. I think simple is better when adding facial features as the shape of the character is also very simple. My worry is that the character looks a little boring because it is so simple.

Character Development #6: Adding Eyes #1

Character Development #7: Adding Eyes #2

Character Development #8: Adding a Mouth #1

Character Development #9: Adding a Mouth #2

Premise - Character Development

I’ve drawn a few thumbnail sketches of the main character of my animated short. I’ve opted to draw the character cute and small so that the audience can feel sympathy for the character and possibly see its vulnerability more clearly. I think making the character very small and cute will add to the comedic side of the story, especially when it’s standing up for itself in front of a giant human. I wanted to mainly explore shapes in these sketches, but I’m also figuring out how I want the character to be drawn in term of style e.g will I use a dark, sketchy black outline for the character to show that it has been drawn out of pencil, or should the outline be softer. I added some shadows to try and make the character look a little less 2D. I plan to explore how the character would look in 2D and in 3D to see which one works better, so I’m aiming to reflect that in my concept art/research work.

Character Development #1: White Outline

Character Development #2: Softer, Lighter Outline Filled in

Character Development #3: Harsher, Darker Outline Filled in

Character Development #4 : Added Shadows with Lighter Outline

Character Development #5: Added Shadows with Dark Outline

Premise - Interim Crit

Premise Interim Crit by Noah Greenhalgh on Scribd

Project Schedule:

Premise - Art vs Artist Influence Map

Premise - Storyboards

I’ve drawn out two initial storyboards for the beginning of my animation as I’m not sure how I would like the short to start. I know that the scene needs to end up with the main character being the only character on screen (not including the artists hands). In the storyboard above, the main character gets half of their body rubbed out, this alarms all of the other thumbnail drawings and they flee the page, leaving the main character by themself. In the storyboard below, the character starts to get rubbed out, but quickly grabs the legs of the character next to it and flees, pushing past the other characters and leaps onto a clean page. My worry with this is that the main character is supposed to be like able, and the viewers should feel sympathy for them, so I’m not sure if stealing another characters legs is the best way to show that, but I want my animation to be comedic and I personally thought that was quite funny. My worry with the first storyboard I drew was that I would have to animate all of the characters, but I was thinking of making some 2D animated experiments, so I could always animate the main character in 3D, and the side characters in 2D.

Premise - Concept Art

This piece of concept art shows the main character and the artist interacting. I really want my animation to have an ‘Art vs Artist’ feel to it so I thought I’d draw some concept art showing that. I also included part of the artists desk in the frame which is something I’d like to explore more in terms of what I would like the composition to look like.

Premise - Developed Thumbnails

These are some drawings of the art interacting with the artist. The artist draws the character, but then rubs it out and draws it again but with over exaggerated feminine features. The character is shocked and redraws itself. I drew this out so I could get a feel for the character. I will develop the design later, but for now I want to work on the script as I've focused on the design area too much, and I might have a clearer view of what I want the character to look like after I write the script.

Premise - Developing the Thumbnails

The image above is a set of drawings I was creating alongside the thumbnails,.I took a few of the thumbnails I really liked, and developed them a little. At this point I still wasn't sure if I was going for a very humanoid character or something more basic. I will be taking forward the more basic/cute designs, as I feel that they will fit in with the story a lot better.

Premise - Thumbnails

As I was struggling so much with how I wanted my character to look, and also trying to develop my story into something that made sense, I drew a page of thumbnails to explore basic shapes and different ways of designing the main character. When I showed these drawings to Alan, I explained that I was finding it difficult to convey the message of not wanting to conform to mainstream expectations, and he suggested that I try and think of a different method/metaphor to base my story on. He also suggested that I could make an animation using one of the characters from this thumbnail page in a meta art vs artist type of story. The drawing isn't happy with the artist messing around with it, it's happy with how it looks already, but the artist tries to change that. The artist goes on to fight the drawing in an attempt to alter its appearance.

Premise - Further Exploration

I drew this picture when I was really struggling with what I wanted the animation to look like, so I just drew whatever I was picturing in my head. This page is a little chaotic, but it helped me to realise that I needed to look into the basic shape of my character rather than trying to go into too much detail too soon, which was one of the reasons why I was getting stuck.

Premise - Early Exploration

I tried to visualise my lab/experiment idea by drawing a small comic expressing that the character can change into different things, but was not allowed to change into anything other than what the screen tells them they can change into. I ended up using this cute style of drawing later on in my designs as Alan said that they have a more relatable look and that people watching will feel more sympathy for the character.

Premise - Initial Concepts

When I started to think about making a short film about my gender identity, my mind immediately tried to think of ways that I could symbolise my story with metaphors and narratives that were a less direct way of telling my story and without it becoming too personal. The idea I fixated on was the idea that a character was trapped in a lab and forced to conform to a stereotypical feminine appearance, but they end up escaping the lab and are free to be who they want to be. The issue I had with this idea was that I continuously found myself stuck, my story had a 'and then, and then, and then' quality, and I couldn't simplify the message of my story into a sentence, I couldn't really figure out what message I really wanted to convey with this idea, and I hoped that trying to draw out what was in my head would help, but I couldn't organise my ideas very well. The drawings above were my first attempt at drawing the lab/experiment idea.

Facial Animation - Eye and Eyebrow Extremes

Lipsync - Eye and Eyebrows Extremes from NoahGeeCG on Vimeo.

In today's Maya session I've just added the key poses for the eye and eyebrow movement. I also spoke to Alan about my premise project, which I will be posting about promptly :).

Lighting and Rendering - Part 14: Physical Sky Light

In this Maya tutorial, I used a Physical Sky Light alongside a SkyDome Light. I learned that this is a great light to use to add realistic sunlight to a scene and that you can also change the attributes to make the scene a little more unrealistic by changing the tint of the sky and sun. I also looked at changing the sampling depending on how much light is in the scene and learned that by increasing the exposure of the scene, you can get rid of some noise, although your scene might not look so realistic anymore. I experimented with the Elevation, Azimuth, and the sun and sky tints in a couple of my renders. 

Midday - Sun Overhead

Mid Morning - Sun Rise 

Evening - Sun Beginning to Set

Sun and Sky Tint Experiment

Changing the Elevation, Azimuth, and Sky and Tint Attributes