JNG._.ANIMATION BLOG

My name is James Graham and I am currently studying Year 3 BA Animation at NUA (Norwich University of the Arts)

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8.13th Principle - 20/5/2021

Here is my fully complete 13th Principle Animation for my final submission for year 2 BA Animation.

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8.13th Principle - 11/05/2021

Starting my character animation, I went for the smaller parts first: The drawing shot, the bin shot and the end title shot.

The bin shot was done first, as I knew I would be able to animate the ball through easily and believably in After Effects. Which I feel i got the weight and feel of the paper down really well, also adding a trail line and bounce effects to emphasize the impact.

Second, I moved onto the drawing shot, which was very fun to create. It was also a mix of frame by frame in Photoshop for the arm, as well as some After Effects animation on the pencil drawing itself using the "trim paths" effect, I easily made it follow the movements of the pencil. Reflectively, I have noticed some issues with the trim paths effect not lining up correctly as in specific frames the path wont move. I have now fixed this issue, which was caused by an adjustment layer with a "posterise time" effect causing some frames to be still.

In the drawing shot, I also used a lighting technique, by adding an inside shadow to the colour layers of the arm and made it white instead to lighten the side of the arm automatically.

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8.13th Principle - 02/05/2021

Having made the move into After Effects with my first shot, I quickly follwed through with the rest of my shots and created a full background animation. Each shot is animated in 3D layers. My second shot, the top down desk shot, was very fun to add to, as it has a big mug of hot chocolate, which I added steam lines to in Photoshop. But in After Effects I was able to add a "ripple effect" with full wave height to create theses animated moving curves of swirling steam. I also kept the dust through each shot, apart from the dark corner with the bin, as there is no light to reflect off the dust there.

I'm extremely pleased with how this came out, and the mix media of Photoshop and After Effects really works well together, to create a 2D 3D scene.

I shall be moving into the actual character animation from this point on, which I shall be doing shot by shot, rather than all the way through rough, line, colour and final.

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8.13th Principle - 25/04/2021

Using my first camera shot as a start, I pieced together a 3D space in Adobe After effects using my Photoshop layers and animated a camera moving through. This camera movement gave off a real sense of parallax and depth to the scene. I also wanted to keep a stylised nature to the camera movement, so instead of animating it on 25FPS the camera moves with a "posterise time" effect, which makes it 12.5FPS. I much prefer its almost handcrafted look in movement. As a finishing touch to finalise the space, I added dust particles in the air to emphasize the movement through a 3D space. I shall be using these techniques all the way through.

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7.Character Adaptation - ??/01/2020

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7.Character Adaptation - 1/12/2020

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7.Character Adaptation - 27/01/2021

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4.Inanimate Objects - 10/11/2020

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6.Motion Graphics - 27/11/2020

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6.Motion Graphics - 24/11/2020

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8.13th Principle - 22/04/2021

Instead of animating my character work, instead I decided to take a different approach to animating my piece. As seen above I created style frames using our groups intended style based upon my animatic.

This is the first production of colour palette in my piece as well. I wanted to show off a variety of purples and blues as mentioned before, to emphasize the gloomy and depressive nature of the mid-teens character and their struggles.

As I produced these in Photoshop and made each "2D Asset" grouped in layers, I can move each object around. Combining this with After Effect's 3D layers feature, I can move all of my objects and environment around in a 3D space. This 3D space will extenuate the zoom in at the beginning of my animation, as well as create a nice sense of depth throughout the piece.

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8.13th Principle - 18/04/2021

Reflecting on my previous animatic attempt, I knew I needed to make some changes to timing and changes to some of the shots and general structure of the piece. I was given feedback on the timing being too long, and I knew this by the brief also. So, above is my attempted shortening of my animatic down from 24 seconds to 14 seconds. The brief outlines a ten, but as advised by tutors, a few seconds above is generally acceptable to contain the same story and message as before.

I generally enjoy how snappy this version of the skeleton to my animation is, however, I do prefer the stills and pauses I kept to hold emotion in my longer version.

I shall move forward using this shortened version as my base and build up a lined, coloured and shaded version in following posts.

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8.13th Principle - 16/04/2021

Here is my first animatic for my section of our group collaboration project “13th Principle”. It is very basic and shall be improved upon to resembled more of a first rough pass for the final animation. I have tried to keep to a decent timing throughout the piece, keeping stills to keep emotion and message behind the animatic. It shall be added as part of a larger sequence with the rest of the group, and sound shall be added as well. I have gone quite a bit over the time frame outlined by the brief, which was 5-10 seconds, where as mine is 27 seconds. I am going to attempt to cut out some unnecessary parts to get it shorter, however it may still be longer than the brief as its message will not be conveyed in such a small amount of time.

I am very happy with the way the animatic turned out, and I shall continue to improve on it by adding more frames and turning it into more of a rough pass for my final piece.

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8.13th Principle - 14/04/2021

Here are some storyboard ideas based on my personal principle for our group collaboration. I had three separate ideas, based upon two separate principles: Frustration and Isolation.

Frustration - I chose this word, as I chose to animate the 17 year old section for our animation. Frustration is something every animator has to deal with, as the process of animating is very long and difficult. Without patience, frustration can quickly ensue. I’ve decided to show this through our character not being able to draw perfectly, and getting angry, so they screw up their attempt and throw it onto the huge pile of previous attempts.

Isolation - Animating can be a very isolating job, as you are working alone, if you aren’t part of a team. Long periods of time alone can cause a depressive mind set, especially in a young teen. I’ve shown two different approaches to this concept. The first much similar to the Frustration storyboard, but ends with the character getting upset and heading off to lay mindlessly in bed, ignoring the world. My second concept has the same ending, but a different start. The character starts out by walking through their bedroom door, and passing their desk, throwing their bag aside showing their disinterest in drawing.

I enjoy my first idea (frustration) much more than the others, as I feel it relates more to the animating aspect of our story. Also, my Isolation ideas are too similar to another section within our animation, so frustration shows more differentiation.

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8.13th Principle - 02/04/2021

Here is my personal take on a character for my group collaboration project. Each of us within the group had made a character sheet for a character which will guide through our animation.

The character design sheet depicts each stage of the character’s life. I wanted to give each stage a different colour palette which aligns with their age and stage in life; 5yrs old has a basic primary and secondary colour palette with a high saturation. The next stage has a pastel-esque palette to show a brighter progression with a larger range of shades. The middle stage is the angsty teen, which I wanted to have a monotone colour scheme as to show a more depressive, sorrowful stage of life. 21ys shows a pick up back into the different colours much like 12ys but still a bit darker akin to the teen stage. Finally the last stage shows a new, more experimental colour palette, as to show a new life starting when the character reaches adulthood.

This is not a finalised version for our groups character, as we shall all decide amongst us some key ideas, and develop a character together, using these initial ideas.

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8.13th Principle - 26/03/2021

Here is some character/environment style research for our 13th principle collaboration work this unit. I had some specific shows and films in mind when approaching this project, however I definitely wanted to go for more teen directed TV shows and films, as they had a more mature art style and narrative to them, which is the same with our animation.

I first added an artist I have been following for sometime, Jake Morrison. His art style is really clean, with thin outlining and block colours and shading. It is very reminiscent of shows like Adventure Time or Over the Garden Wall. The use of washed out colours really help set the atmosphere in the world he has created.

When looking for specifics in shows, I really wanted shows with colorful palettes that represent the atmosphere they have. When deciding on colour palettes for our character/environment, I would like to have them represent each stage of emotion the character goes through. Inside Out uses its colours very literally, as each character represents an emotion and their colours depict that too.

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8.13th Principle - 20/03/2021

We have begun working within our groups for this unit’s collaboration project, and we have each started our idea generation for what we want our over-arching story to be and have boarded some general ideas. We are aiming for our sequence animation to be based off the concept of “Fascination”, and each of us have our principles linked to this theme to fit our story. Our story shall follow a young girl throughout her life, looking into specific years and her “fascination” and interaction with animation! We all agreed on having specific designs showing the character at each stage of life: 5ys, 12ys, 17ys, 21ys and finally 24ys old.

As seen above in the image, there are a few quick and initial ideas as to how fascination can be represented in a persons life, and what it might relate to. These were just for starting our path into what would become our story.

More blog posts shall follow updating on the stages of the group collaboration project. The next update will be on character development and design, as well as some art style research/ideas.