BA1BAnimated-Emotion

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The Knight & The Orc - My Final Animation

After some sound recording in the recording studio on the ground floor of the Media Lab with Aaron and Ryan, I was able to piece together my final animated short for the expressions project!

During the recording session, I gathered all of the vocal and foley sound that I needed, such as footsteps in a large gravel pot and sounds of effort/pain. All additional sound such as the thunder and the sword slash are from various free online sources listed in the vimeo video description. I also helped Aaron and Ryan gather sounds for their animation projects whilst we were there, as we had around 3 hours booked out.

^ Recording sound effects and vocals in the recording studio 

Though I feel the animation could still use work, and wish I could use the rest of the animation as it is around 23 seconds, I think that this segment for submission is relatively successful. I am particularly fond of the walk cycle scene, as this took the longest to produce, as well as the backgrounds I drew out a few weeks ago.

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Animated Expression Change - The Primary Scene (In Progress)

After a long day working on aiming to finish my expressions animation or at least get close, I animated the primary sequence for my character’s expression change (which is the focus of this project brief in particular). It took a long time to make, but I feel as though the sudden shift into anger and the quick draw of the sword works relatively well, though some of the facial features of the character’s face do shift about unnaturally, making for a figure that looks slightly inconsistent.

In this scene I’ve made more use of the ‘cartoony’ animation technique of smears, to illustrate the sharp movements of the character and accentuate the (later) speed of the sword draw and slash...

^ The resulting one frame slash motion does look rather odd.

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Progress 3 - March 14th 2016

At this point I’ve reached a full 15 seconds, but as I’ve said before, I plan to eventually turn this into a full 30-40 second animated short for my personal portfolio, social media pages and showreel. This segment, however, I am quite happy with, and may consider submitting when the time comes around and I have received feedback on it in tutorials. 

Since my last progress update, I have extended the animation, introducing Hammer The Orc in shot and really starting to build on the humour. When Hallsy walks closer towards the orc, he hears him grunt, and stops in his tracks. When he opens his eyes and sees the menacing giant before him, he looks up and smiles in a frozen moment of fright.

A number of motion tweens are used throughout this sequence, which can be seem in the flash timeline in blue, giving that impression of motion parallax, as well as creating some effective comedic timing (such as where he stops and looks behind him, then looks at the camera)

The next shot was difficult to draw because of it’s playful perspective, I ended up literally sketching on top of the frame I used in the animatic - I really wanted to exaggerate the height difference, and give the illusion that the audience is looking up at the orc and cowering at his might.

All that was needed to bring this section to life was a blink in the eyes, at this point I used another motion tween in the background layer to darken the sky in a moment of pathetic fallacy - enhancing the feeling of threat and expressing the emotions not only in his appearance, but in the environment itself

I had a darkened background drawn out for this exact moment, but didn’t end up using it as it wasn’t needed after I realized I could simply darken the background in production - I also removed the clouds

When we cut back to Hallsy, the same feeling of dread and threat is visible, as we look down upon our hero from the eyes of the antagonist Orc. Hallsy’s comedic expression of dismay is now completely visible, and it almost looks as though he has sunken into his armour, cowering in fear. At this point the Orc is going to breathe down on Hallsy through his nose, causing Hallsy’s helmet “Plume/Galea”, sideburns and soon his hair curl too to get blown behind him in another comedic moment of physical contrast between the Orcish giant and underdog Knight...

Several repeated frames are used here which ease in and ease out with the gust of the Orc’s breath. Hallsy blinks but his actual expression remains largely still, as though he can’t take his eyes off of this threatening monster and is frozen solid for the moment in a spot of pure discomposure.

I plan to add sound by recording in the sound studio with some friends after the Easter Break, this will hopefully include some Foley as well as sound effects to really flesh out the character’s emotions at the key points - doing this will also make some sequences make a lot more sense to the audience (like when Hallsy looks behind him after hearing a ‘rustling’).

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Image I found Inspiring

Source: https://www.facebook.com/RatchetandClankMovie/photos/a.171395026352034.1073741830.168423053315898/557775657713967/?type=3&theater

I found this picture inspiring, not only because I’m a big Ratchet & Clank fan, but because it demonstrates the production process of animation and the development and changes in quality that a piece undergoes through each stage of the pipeline. The bottom section is taken from an early storyboard (2014) of the Ratchet & Clank movie (coming in April 2016), and the top section shows a fully finished frame from the movie almost ready for screening.

The emotion is distinguishable in the original source frame, but it’s inspiring to see how the progress and final cut of the initial intentions have evolved to create something that looks truly cutting edge.

^ My first doodle and one of the final designs for my Expressions Project Protagonist “Hallsy the Ballsy” taken from his character model sheet

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More Progress on Animation

with some progress and finalising details on the walk segment of my expressions animation, I thought I’d take some time to reflect on how this was made, how it’s going to be improved and what needs to be done next to lead on from this scene. 

Since my last post, I added some further timing to the walk, in which the character hums instead of whistles with a smile on his face - this illustrates his content expression more effectively until it quickly drops from his face in realization of something (yet to be animated) in front of him. 

The background is drawn in Photoshop, making use of a larger palette and more brush styles than my previous attempts at drawing backgrounds. I think this works well, especially in the river, as it communicates a nice bright sunny day to reflect Hallsy’s cheer. What I’ve tried to express is a sense of aerial perspectives - notice how the figures further in the distance appear paler and shift closer to the colour of the sky. The castle makes use of a much more comic, bold, block coloured style similar to the other background designs I made, to keep the house style and theme consistent

^ Figures further away appear lighter and paler, which helps to set the scene in the opening sequence and demonstrate the brightness of the daylight - which symbolises Hallsys cheerfulness at this moment in time

Additionally, my background design is layered and exported as individual assets for more convenient animation. This is because I wanted to create a sense of motion parallax as the side on camera track appears to move with Hallsy’s cheerful walk - Each of the assets will need to move at different speeds to effectively express this motion.

Once again in accordance to art/animation techniques of both aerial perspective & motion parallax, the tree trunk that moves in the foreground of the camera’s eye is much darker and moves much more quickly than assets further into the background...

So far I’m quite happy with my progress, I just noticed that I have to move the castle slightly more to the right as it appears to have been cut off slightly where I have exported the film (shown below). This is only a slight issue but also one that I’ve found quite consistently with animating in Flash: assets and images especially tend to show too much or too little when we actually watch them back in an exported film, meaning I should pay closer attention to the actual resolution of my movie and the assets I’m animating with...

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Walk Cycle/Initial Sequence

Here, we see a development on my original walk cycle that I made this afternoon, in which Hallsy quickly turns in response to a rustling sound he hears approaching him, only to see nothing, look at the audience, and return to his merry little walk.

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Starting the Animation Process - The Introductory Walk Cycle

My condensed version of this animation for the brief will be around 15 seconds long, taking only the main events from the animation as I plan to animate the full 30 second short for use on my YouTube channel, an online Portfolio and other social media. I have now begun animating, the process of which I am doing in Flash CS6. 

Originally, I wanted to animate this project in TV paint to try out a new software and experiment, but in the end I did not like the interface, I found it far too frustrating & complex where it did not need to be and lacking in features that flash has which I have become largely attached to.

This walk cycle in the exposition of the animated short sees Hallsy walk across a castle landscape whistling merrily until he bumps into Hammer the evil Orc and his expressions begin to change. I have decided to limit my use of very bold lines and focus more on the individual block colours for an effective, stylised cartoony finish that I am happy with. I’m also happy with the cycle, despite it only being a medium shot of the character, as I feel as though it demonstrates effective use of secondary motion, highs, lows and squash/stretch, emphasising Hallsy’s chubby and squishy design.

The background in this video is simply taken from the animatic, but I plan to draw up an animated background with layers that scroll across the screen at different speeds to give the impression of movement (as Hallsy walks) as well as a dynamic backdrop which I hope will demonstrate phenomena known as “Aerial Perspective”, in which objects closer to us appear darker and objects further away appear lighter, often blending with the colour of the sky when we’re outdoors, and “Parallax”, in which objects further away from our position appear to move more slowly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parallax-scroll-example.gif

This should be a relatively easy effect to achieve as long as I layer each of the elements of scenery on top of each other and then simply move each at different speeds. The scenery in my animation will be some trees or pillars in the very foreground (even in-front of Hallsy, these will be extremely dark in colour), the castle itself with a bridge and a river in the midground, and some trees and landscape in the background (which will be much lighter in tint and perhaps even blend with the blue of the sky).

http://www.explore-drawing-and-painting.com/painting-landscapes.html

An example of the phenomena known as “Aerial Perspective”, an important characteristic of perspective and an artistic technique for representing large landscapes, in which scenery further away from the viewer become less “saturated” and shifts towards the background colour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_perspective

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Background Drawings for Final Animation

These are some backgrounds I have drawn up on Photoshop and coloured for my final emotions animation. I took inspiration from the fantasy works of Tuetron as well as the artists on the indie video game “Indivisible” in order to create a colourful, bold and cartoony fantasy setting for my characters to interact within.

One important note is that these backgrounds in particular have been drawn up as they can stay static for the piece, but some backgrounds such as the one displayed in my animation that moves with the walk cycle section will need to be drawn up in the actual software as they need to shift perspective and move with the character as they walk.

I’m happy with the designs I have, as I tried to find a suitable style for the aesthetic I wanted to achieve, finding myself a suitable palette and combining this with distinct line-work:

^ My palette for the backgrounds, showing a range of bright colours with soft tints and attention to discord colour

Originally, I tried to go for a style that just didn’t fit the ‘cartoonish’, over the top expressions I want to convey in this project, as I ended up trying too hard to make it look semi-realistic, demonstrated more professionally in a tutorial video by Jazza I was using as a guide:

This is the design I made whilst following Jazza’s tutorial, but I was not happy with it at all. So I completely discarded it, but kept the image just for this blog to demonstrate how I I shifted the style to fit more appropriately with my exaggerated, cartoony characters...

^ My characters, Hammer! & Hallsy in size comparison

I think that I am now ready to start using some of these backgrounds to begin testing my shots and ultimately develop an animated sequence that will demonstrate a dynamic and ambitious change in expression

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As a test for transitions in emotion for my character, I developed a sequence in which my main character “Hallsy” would loop through a sequence of emotions whilst tilting his head in different directions to give the impression of a consistent flow of expressions.

I shot the sequence using around 30 hand drawn frames on F12 paper and a peg board, which attempted to make use of various animation principles including smears and secondary motions (particularly in the ‘squashy’ elements such as the helmet feather and Hallsy’s big nose) to create a dynamic change in emotion, which I would benefit from when trying to create a change in expression for my character in the final animation. 

This was mostly conducted as good practice to really flesh my character out and get used to drawing him several times, as then I will be able to keep a consistent look for him when creating the final animation, something which I was encouraged to improve on from the first unit on the course.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/champion-update/dev-blog-animation-poppy

http://news.cdn.leagueoflegends.com/public/images/articles/2015/december_2015/PANIM/poppy_faceTest.webm

This once again was inspired by the animation of Poppy in League of Legends (the link above is to the video of her expression changes), in which the animators separated her face into individual moveable joints in the rig and moulded her face into certain emotional states like the ones you can see in the second image above...

“Just to get technical stuff out of the way, Poppy’s face is only 11 joints in all:

3 per eye (pupil, upper eyelid/eyebrow, and eye shape)

3 to shape the mouth

1 for the upper bridge of teeth

1 for the jaw”

One thing that I feel my own animated expression test lacks (after filming it in sequence) is  “punctuated moments” to really develop those expressions and make them visible and distinctive before shifting to the next one. “Expressive timing” is something the developers of the character mention, which I believe to be a useful technique to develop for my own, more traditional style, animation -  as the expression changes should be fast and slow, prepare, act, and follow through at different speeds with differently timed aspects to the face and body in order to create an animation that we say is “DYNAMIC”.

^ Some of the individual emotions within my test are hardly even noticeable, such as the moment when Hallsy appears happy, because the sequence moves and flows too quickly and fluidly, it needs more “expressive timing” to really illustrate those emotions as they happen by pausing them just for a moment so the viewer can see them - this is something I must consider when developing my final outcome.

This last quote is extremely relevant for my own purposes and planned actions within the animation:

“When you only have a fraction of a second to sell an attack, communicating a clear change in mood is really important.” -  Paul “PartiestCat” Jarvis, Character Animator for Riot Games, developers of popular free to play online ‘Moba’ game “League of Legends”

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More Hammer Swing Tests - Experimenting with Smears (Click to Enlarge gifs)

These tests develop on from the poppy animations, neither are traced but both take inspiration from the develop of the character. The first is influenced by Poppy’s “Ultimate” Ability where she delivers a crushing downward blow, I added a little crack in the ground to flesh it out and make it fit in the space.

The last two gifs set the scene for a potential animation, adding my main character into the stage for a violent little test to visualise the crushing Hammer blow on a figure...The effect is pretty...Brutal. Oh and I also added some blood fade to appear as though it were on the screen when Hallsy gets smacked in the face, which I think worked quite well, I might do something similar when Hallsy attacks Hammer as I like how it works (it’s been used in games such as Call of Duty before)

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Hammer Swing Test 1

In the early stages of production for this animation, I developed some Hammer Swing test to get a feel for how Hammer’s Warhammer could demonstrate dynamic weight and effort in its swing - Something I tried to achieve last unit which I don’t think worked particularly well.

http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/champion-update/dev-blog-animation-poppy

A large amount of my inspiration came from “League of Legends”, partiularly the developer blogs and animation tests for the rework of in game character “Poppy”. The developers wanted to make her “energetic and punchy” whilst exaggerating weight and effort in relation to her tiny size and massive weapon using “Squash, Stretch and Smears”.

The use of such exaggeration, tiny frames, and highly emphasised weight and power seems very cutting edge in cg, especially to such a high quality finish, as the character is fully designed in three dimensions and still maintains principles of traditional animation to a very high standard, demonstrating the talent of the 3D artists and animators. 

“quashing, stretching, and smearing is just as important for the hammer as it is for Poppy, so we needed to crank it up to 11. The head of the hammer scales to cartoonish sizes for single frames so you can really feel the force behind the swing, and the neck of the hammer bends to compensate. With a little sorcery and a lot of clever rigging we were able to build really clean smear trails for the hammer that gave us a nice, stylized alternative to motion blur. It’s a more traditional animation method that meshed really well with how we normally animate our champions.” 

I found these early tests for the hammer rig really fascinating and exciting, you can even see in the second image above that the character’s arms even appear to stretch to inhuman proportions just to overly flesh out that immense power. The combination of realistic, well lit rigs with cartoonish animation principles works so well together that it inspired me to recreate something similar using smear work in my own animation, despite the hammer idea seeming a bit too far fetched for a project on emotion - so I may incorporate the principles elsewhere and leave out the hammer for now. 

The original gif animation was completed in flash, where I literally worked on top of a clip created by Riot (developers of the game) to get a live feel for the number of frames used and how each frame works. What I found was that the majority of frames were used for preparation, perhaps too many in comparison to the swing itself and the slow to a halt, but it ended up working really well; the anticipation combined with the arc, squash/stretch and follow through all combine perfectly, with the actual swing only taking about 3 frames!!

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Mabel - Change in Expression from “Gravity Falls”

Instant Regret - notice the use of squash/stretch in the eyes as the gif plays, as well as the secondary motion in the hair

Original Post by: https://www.facebook.com/stanleypinesiscool/

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Final Animatic of “Knights”

The finished animatic uploaded to YouTube, the sound is courtesy of “freesound.org”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Q4R_8Ux1U&feature=youtu.be

I want to record my own sound for the final animation, but these sound effects were useful just for putting together an animatic, especially since we have an upcoming review for this project in which I can get feedback on my ideas and timings presented through the animatic. 

However, overall I am happy with the outcome, and look forward to animating it and bringing it to life with a better sense of movement, colour and general expressiveness (after some tweaks from the feedback I get of course).

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Knights - Animatic Walk

Here I animated the frames of Hallsy (who was on a transparent layer) where he appears to walk against a moving background. It was animated in Flash, with the background and the characters drawn in Photoshop CS6. 

The humour in this is supposed to be the fact that Hallsy is blissfully unaware of Hammer’s presence until he is directly in front of him after taking a quick glance back at where the rustling came from earlier. Hammer is not easily visible, but when fully coloured he should stand out more. Finally, when Hallsy reacts to the sight of Hammer with shock, I want this movement to be fast and expressive, likely making use of the smeared animation I spoke about before.

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Knights - Final Animatic Frames (Click to Enlarge)

These frames show the climax and conclusive scenes of my planned animation, laid out as frames for an animatic. In this scene, we see Hammer’s horrified expression as his entire body slides in half as a result of the blow the knight Hallsy just dealt with his sword. As an added emphasis on the cartoon style this animation adopts, I added a fountain of blood from Hammer’s severed upper torso. From here Hallsy walks off as if nothing ever happened, returning to his original content whistling self, but covered in blood of course. Finally, we see a little dark gag that I threw in, where Hammer’s arm lies seemingly lifeless in a pool of blood on the ground, and a finger twitches. After this the clip fades to black, and ends.

This is where the dark humour and cartoon violence plays it’s part in the expressiveness of the animation, and the part I’m most looking forward to animating, combining my obsession for fantasy with my love of black comedy. 

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Knights - More Animatic Frames (Click to Enlarge)

Here, we see Hammer introduced, I am really happy with the shot in the second frame especially, where we see Hammer towering over the short and pudgy Hallsy. Hammer looks down at Hallsy with a mean, threatening and scheming look in his eye. 

Hallsy’s reaction and resulting expression change is from a look of fear/shock, to a look of determination and anger as he begins to draw his sword for an attack. The solely black frame is merely a background frame for an animation of a sword slash I’m going to layer in flash, nothing particularly impressive. 

The kind of animated sword slash I’m looking to recreate in the final outcome is inspired by an animation in the “TV Paint” Gallery called “Oni”  (Augustin Clermont, Guillaume Dousse, Thibaud Petitpas, Adrien Gromelle, Cyrille Chauvin):

http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/article/community/gallery.php

https://vimeo.com/33396456

The motion is very fast (possibly 5 or 6 frames long), but is very professionally made, as the white slash effect gives the impression of a cold metal blade with it’s bright center, glowing edges and fading tail as it appears to strike.

The piece is of course made in TV paint, a professional piece of 2D animation software that I am considering using for my own animation, as it gives so much more freedom in painting tha the most current version of flash.  

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Knights - First Animatic Frames  (Click to Enlarge)

My expressions animation is going to be a 30 second animation, with a 10 second animation with the most climatic and appropriate parts fit for the project brief.

I’m choosing to do this because first of all, I really like the characters and the plan of my animation, so want to turn it into a proper animated short than I can use as part of my showreel and portfolio, and secondly, because the sequence needs to be longer than 10 seconds to set the scene and plan out the humour - 10 seconds is enough for the expression change itself, but for the full entertainment value and story, I want to make it longer and just take parts where appropriate for submission (I’m going to make a second animatic demonstrating the timing for this version too).

In this sequence of animatic frames, we can see Hallsy introduced, a knight on patrol around the castle. He hears a rustling behind him, perhaps something following him, but shrugs it off and carries on walking until something suddenly shocks him...

The clips with the white background are done so because they are actually drawn onto a transparent layer. They are on a transparent layer because in the animatic, a slightly wider background layer will move behind him as he appears to walk (this movement will be animated just quickly in flash).