Madness-GFX

  KNB123 Animation and Motion Graphics at QUT, with Adobe After Effects

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KNB222 - Week 12 - Flags/Cloth

Recently found a way to have real-time cloth working in Unreal, so I went on to create some textures and models for the flags as well.

I used these two videos to get the cloth set up, using the Nvidia Apex/Physics plugins (version 3.4.0) for Maya 2017.

If I have time, I might figure out a way to get the tatters to appear in Unreal through green-screen, style opacity masks.

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KNB222 - Week 11 Progress Report

Google Docs Management Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qQm7uybqzzA7rCj2ENTONFeMYw2nriXJHOFqqvjLQ2c/edit#gid=1238990205

This week was a bit of a shock, when I realised there was still considerably more modelling work for me to finish off than I remembered. I quickly set off to finish off the additional set dressing models, such as the smaller sun shades and the support beams/wires that bridge the two wings of buildings. shock, when I realised there was still considerably more modelling work for me to finish off than I remembered. I quickly set off to finish off the additional set dressing models, such as the smaller sun shades and the support beams/wires that bridge the two wings of buildings. 

Note the relative extra detail I gave for the support that holds the smaller, curved sunshade given the time remaining.

I also decided to fix the UV map for the large pipe, that connects the buildings, although it turned out too late for that, since John was able to manage that himself. It’s just nice to know that the straighten UVs feature in the latest version of Maya 2017 can be surprisingly useful sometimes.

I then set out to start and complete work for the signs of the buildings, which I’m responsible for both modelling and texturing of. I spent some considerable extra time making the base/strut of some of the signs appear more detailed than just rectangle. A process that really complicated the UV maps during such a tight schedule.

I used Substance Painter and its smart material presets, ranging from rusted steel to used/dirty plastic to produce the base textures and materials for the signs.

I then used Photoshop to add text and graphics to the sign texture, using UV snapshots to help me if necessary. This is complemented with a grunge paintover, using brushes made by Aramisdream on Brusheezy, so that the graphics fit with the wear and tear/dirtiness of the sign.

I used crudely translated Russian text from Google Translate to produce the words on the signage, which isn’t meant to mean anything particularly too deep but to rather imply it. 

An open font, called “Fyodor” from 1001Fonts was used to create that near-futuristic, Eastern European setting that I and John were going for. Although there are a few times, where I did use some stock Adobe fonts for the text.

Some of the signage has graffiti on it, most of which is intentionally vulgar to reflect the fact that most of the inhabitants are unrestrained children/teenagers, who mock the former values/staff of the (once) abandoned school.

There’s also a variety of former, student-run businesses in the establishment.

I also did the texture work for Thomas’s sign models, which I, unfortunately, had to go over with better topology, since he only had the basic shapes modelled down. The UV faces were also not oriented in the ideal direction, but I was able to manage by rotating the canvas in Photoshop. They’re a bit noticeably rushed, since I was running out of time and ideas and use images that I looked up on Google.

We might not do much in the way of lighting them up, since they’re not lit up in the concept art and because the place has been abandoned in war-torn territory, with only emergency/essential lights continuing to function.

I also had my first proper crack at lighting the level in Unreal. I added some slight fog so that the further part of the environment blends in more with the background. I’d say it’s pretty spot on, in regards to the concept art except it’s darker and has more contrast. Especially with the lack of artificial light.

As a last minute addition, a fire extinguisher model was relatively quickly put together. There’s something odd about some of the faces, that doesn’t seem to appear when the mesh is smoothed. I can’t seem to pinpoint what’s wrong with it.

About 9 hours of work was done this week. Most of it on texturing the signs, followed by UV mapping.

I’m planning on working with John and Thomas to bring it as close to completion by Thursday. I’ll be focusing on finishing the lighting and producing surfaces that contain emissive materials for artificial light sources.

I feel that had I gotten more work done, especially last week, I may have had a better opportunity to add flags to the level. Although they’re probably going to be more complicated than regular ones, since they’re likely tattered. 

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KNB222 - Week 10/Mid-Semester Progress Report

Google Docs Management Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qQm7uybqzzA7rCj2ENTONFeMYw2nriXJHOFqqvjLQ2c/edit#gid=1696681773

Throughout the mid-semester break, I focused on crunching out as many of the remaining high priority models as I could. I ran into a few moderate setbacks that resulted in some progress hindered until this week, such as pipes failing to extrude properly along an entire curve, while I was modelling the sunroof. 

It was later discovered that I needed to rebuild certain long, complex curves in order for the extrude command to work. This took quite a while to figure since Google results were more about extrusion not working at all. It actually required intervention from another tutor in week 10 in order to know this.

Other setbacks involve deciding how a certain object was to be modelled, such as the entrance shade on the 3rd right building or the support beams/columns for the sunroof, which did make me somewhat reluctant to continue working on certain things.

However, my biggest setback is probably how I spent so much time creating incorrect UV maps for the buildings, because of my unsubstantiated fear of seams, from me overthinking the process and developing the false belief that they’ll ruin potential bakes.

Thankfully, John was mostly alright with what Maya’s auto UV options had to offer, probably due to the relative simplicity of most of the models. However, I am concerned that he might encounter a tough situation that’ll require my intervention.

Besides that, time spent this week was also on reorganising my work file, so that the models were ready for export and properly centred. I also spent time finishing off the large, pipe model that sits between the two rows of buildings.

I did an approximate 13 hours of work during the mid-semester break, mostly on the rejected UV maps, unfortunately. About 5 hours were spent working on this week, mainly on export preparation, finishing off the sunshade and large pipe.

Next week, I plan on giving John the latest copies of my models and doing a proper lighting pass on the environment; give it a nice (and polluted) foggy sunset, with the lights placed in and around the buildings. Me and John are probably going to do some work on luminous maps for the building's lights.

I’m also keen on doing the signs for the environment, which I plan to have convey a Korean-Slavic vibe to the environment. If I also have time and or if it hasn’t been done, I might model out a fire extinguisher.

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KNB222 - Week 09 - FoTF progress report

Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qQm7uybqzzA7rCj2ENTONFeMYw2nriXJHOFqqvjLQ2c/edit#gid=675584718

This week, I’ve been focusing on getting the first series of buildings of the right side of the concept art complete, so I can move onto modelling the large, sun shade, the furthermost right building and then move onto texturing the signs.

I almost forgot to model in the deck area on the top-most segment of the first right buildings I’ve been producing. I did this by adding extra edge loops and moving faces down, as opposed to booleans, so don’t have to worry about edge loops so much at this point in time.

I’ve also started working on completing the UV maps for the buildings. I feel that I’ve learned the hard way, that I should do the UVs once I’ve got the basic shape of the building down rather than when the modelling is almost over, since a lot of the extra edge loops you make will transfer to the shells a lot nicely than you’d expect.over, since a lot of the extra edge loops you make will transfer to the shells a lot nicely than you’d expect.

I’d assume it’s only when booleans are involved, where the UVs would get broken and when you’re still using booleans, you still probably haven’t got the basic shape down.

Also note how I’ve stretched my UV shells, so I can maximise their space (and thus their detail/resolution) on a 1:1 square. Hopefully, this doesn’t cause any stretching issues with texturing, since I’m making these UV maps with Substance Painter in mind.

As part of the second floor of the building series, I’ve also attempted modelling the large, aircon fan, using cylinders and extruding faces out of them.

 However, quite to my surprise, one of my team members, John had already modelled a fan blade for the aircon unit, which I’ll probably incorporate into my model of the fan housing.

I’ve used an 8 sided cylinder for the fan housing, since I’ve learned that it’s the most efficient number of sides for modelling circular objects in low poly.

I’ve also begun modelling the large, sunshade area, since it’s one of the top priority assets. I used the ‘mirror’ tool quite a number of times with it, since it saves time with the geometry and it would be tricky to make all sides parallel, since it curves downward. 

This limits my options for translation/moving geometry without changing the shape. I also had to avoid making edge loops in between, the 4 edges that make up the curve, or else it might appear wonky when smoothed.

I’ve also started to delve back into modelling with cylinders and curves, aka pipes. This is so I can model the support beam(s) that hold the sunshade up.

I’m looking for ways to snap the centre of my cylinder to the curve (circled in red), but it looks like I might have to eyeball it, since the snapping functions on Maya won’t seem to cooperate. Hopefully, that doesn’t make modelling and editing the beams too difficult.

I’ve probably spent about 5-6 hours working this week. About half of it on modelling and half of it on UV mapping, since I had some catchup to do with what I’ve got for the first right buildings.

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KNB222 - Week 08 - FoTF - Right Building 01 Progress

GOOGLE DOC LINK: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qQm7uybqzzA7rCj2ENTONFeMYw2nriXJHOFqqvjLQ2c/edit#gid=675584718

Spent whatever remaining time I had available for this week on modelling Right Building 1. It’s taking far longer than what was initially idealised due to how reliant I am with booleans for producing this set of buildings and the tendency for things to go wrong when working with booleans.

I’ve been dedicating most of my time working on the edge loops and making sure the geometry fits together and looks right when smoothed. Especially since, I used booleans quite frequently to block out the shapes and create holes for the beams. I focused on doing the second-floor structure first, because I feel that its design has the most ‘neutral’ and thus, easy to modify shape and geometry.

I was able to make the other parts just duplicating and modifying the second floor, since it inherited the general design of the porthole windows.

I was able to get the second and third-floor buildings mostly complete, with the general shape of the top one blocked out. I’m planning on doing the bottom one quite soon. I’m quite reluctant to begin work on the UV maps because I’m afraid that I might need to change the geometry considerably on some of the models at some point, thus resulting in me having to redo them too many times.

Overall, I’ve probably spent about 3-4 hours working on the project. Most of it spent on the getting the second building right, with work on the third building being almost as long. Next week, I plan on hopefully getting the third building entirely complete so I can move on to the sun roof and the large pipe, as well as the third right building.

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KNB222 - Week 07 - FoTF - Preliminary modelling setbacks

As a consequence of me not doing any proper 3D modelling for a few months, it appears I have forgotten some fairly basic techniques to help get me pass some of the seemingly simple problems I might face.

In this particular instance, me figuring out a way to model a column, that ‘shares’ sides with three different surfaces on a rectangular model without having any conflicting faces.

I’ve tried using booleans like I did to cut out the shaded area, but the ‘union’ command results in the entire model basically disappearing when I attempt to add the column through that method, as seen below.

Extruding the column out from the model itself would just result in conflicting faces that are probably not easy to fix and would give me issues with the UV mapping process.

I’m reluctant to begin adding the circular, porthole windows because of concerns over potential, edge-loop corruptions if I were to add the column over them.

Speaking of porthole windows, I’ve began attempting to model the buildings with said windows. I managed to find some success with one building, and decided to get all the edge loops done only for me to have it corrupted at the last second beyond all recovery when I was almost finished. This was due to me testing out how it might look with smoothing on. I swear I saved it before this happened.

Fortunately enough, it suddenly went back to normal after using the smoothing command on it again.

Only to break again, while adjusting the edge loops and for the smoothing command be unable to fix it. Restarting Maya did the trick, though.

I’ve been experimenting quite a bit with the edge loops, looking for ways to have the edges more evenly spread, however my approach in doing so resulted in them becoming quite dirty.

So I decided to change them back by hand, as seen below. If I recall correctly, there might’ve been a faster way of doing it, involving one of the settings for the move tool. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but if I remember, it allowed you to move multiple vertexes to be flush with one another for the axis you’re moving them from.

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KNB222 Virtual Environments - Week 06/07 - Fortress of the Flies

Fortress of the Flies is a level based on Gray Shuko’s concept art, seen below.

It’s a rundown, dilapidated, cyberpunk boarding school in a war-torn country that’s supposed to be to Eastern Europe what San Fransokyo is to California. A South Korean-occupied Vladivostock, perhaps? As the name kind of suggests, the school has been taken over the children and they run their own society in all its savage, kratocratic glory.

Most of the time spent for Virtual Environments in Week 06 was on the project document and getting Week 07 planned out. In the middle of week 07, I began preliminary work on the large metal pipe that goes from up to down, left from right, in the centre of the concept art.

I uploaded whatever I was able to get done before my brief, informal presentation on Thursday. Available at this Sketchfab link: https://sketchfab.com/models/f19f55dd09844b8db36c38a9f1571e25

I used the technique demonstrated in this tutorial video to achieve my result and to serve as my primary means of modelling pipes in Maya.

I soon plan on doing the UV map on the pipe based off of the technique in the video below. Especially once the rest of the team has approved the model.

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Bonus mockup of possible improved version of outcome.

Here is a mockup I made, showing what an improved version of the final outcome might look like, had I used 3D parallax and individual layers for each of the words.

It’s a bit rough around the lines and generally conforms to what I made previously. 

Although this animation itself isn’t really the best example, I learned that I can direct the flow/direction of the animation by using the ‘swing-door/blind animation’ in relation to where the next words/graphics are.

22/01/17

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The Final Outcome

Looking back, I feel that the project could have been improved had it been put together with 3D parallax taken more into account. 

This could have been achieved by moving the (3D) text’s Z-axis; complemented by having each word in their own layers/composition, as opposed to using a series of animators in clustered, text layers.

This would’ve allowed more control over how the text was animated and used to compose the collage. Thus, allowing me to achieve more, dynamic visuals, reminiscent to Patrick Clair’s TED talks animation (2010).

21/01/17

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Behind the Compositions

CAs a tribute piece of L.A. Noire (2011), it was no doubt that the animation would have to take upon the aesthetics of the Film Noir genre, that saw its prime in the 1940′s and 50′s.

Film Noir is a genre defined by its strong themes of crime; mystery, and it’s use of dark, black & white low-key lighting, as well as its neon-light aesthetics. Something that’s particularly characteristic of L.A. Noire’s menu screen and described in the first few minutes of BBC’s “Rules of Film Noir” film.

The concept for a kinetic typography-based piece was probably vaguely inspired by LA Noire’s use of text and fonts in its options menu and mission title sequences.

Despite the use of pure, black and white in both the text images above and Film Noir itself, I’ve decided to deviate a bit and add a bit of a warm, orange tint to the whites in my animation. This decision was likely characterised by the warm appearance of L.A. Noire’s logo, and I probably felt that it would better fit the upbeat, relatively lighthearted tone of the song. I also feel that it added a bit of a warm, luxurious feeling that fit with the glamour of the jazz song.

Interestingly enough, much in the same way my project had a major aesthetic overhaul (from white text on a blue, leather background to a black void with lights), the L.A. Noire logo also had an overhaul during its development, going from a cursive, car logo-look to the warm, block letter neon lights we saw in the final product.

I feel that both overhauls, improved the legibility and conformity to the Noir genre for their respected outcomes.

The way the neon light text/imagery would appear in my animation was based on how the neon-light sign behaved in the Team Bondi logo sequence that appeared in LA Noire’s startup. Note how the outer parts of the sign light up before the inner (play at 0.25 speed); this is something I intentionally tried to reflect in my animation.

The drawings of the imagery (except for the ‘Magnum Force revolver’ and the playing-card style heart shape, which were obtained online) were done with the pen tool in After Effects. Initially, I tried doing it by hand in Paint Tool SAI or Illustrator, because I thought it would be faster, but the potential quality loss and or lack of precision would turn me off.

The human figures, are based off the characters in the Saul Bass-inspired, “Catch Me If You Can” title sequence (2003), with the graphics shown on the screenshot of the film’s website menu, below. 

My characters have been drawn with clothing/fashion that is more appropriate to the 1940′s theme/setting, as opposed to the 60′s setting of the former. I considered adding shadows to the ‘detective’ and the ‘singer,’ but I wasn’t quite happy with how they turned out, so I left them out.

All other graphics (skull; hourglass; key; neon lightbulb, prison bars) were referenced from various stock imagery found on Google. This is unlike the handcuffs, which were traced.

In the aspect of kinetic typographical animation, I was primarily inspired by Patrick Clair’s earlier works, such as ‘Google “Trying not to be evil” (2010),’ and ‘Serco. The Biggest Company You’ve Never Heard Of’ (2010), both of which conclude with the text/graphics accumulating into one large, collage symbol at the end.

Seeing the Google animation, makes me realise that I forgot to add any ‘ horizontal swinging animations’ to the text/graphics in my project. I’ll assume it’ll probably ruin the performance to unworkable levels, otherwise. (Or perhaps the opposite, since AE might be better suited to handle large numbers of individual layers as opposed to several layers with clusters of text).

Another example of the ‘collage symbol,’ kinetic typography project, would be “Language” by Matthew Rogers (2010), centering on a monologue by Stephen Fry.

Note its thick, highly accentuated vignette, to create extra visual depth in an otherwise, very plain white background. 

My animation style for the text is probably most comparable to this one, as most of it is comprised by ‘sliding into place.’ However, unlike “Language,” I tried to refrain from having the animated text overlap already placed text, as I felt that it might create confusion and less visual clarity.

Another kinetic typography project of mention, would be the lyric video to The Chainsmoker’s “Closer” (2016).

Although I was unaware of the video, until my tutor showed it to me. It should be noted that the way the ‘camera’ moves in my project is very similar to how the text is animated in the video.

The fonts that I used for producing the visuals, were:

“Market Deco” for the primary text. This was selected because the Art Deco style would fit with the 1940′s aesthetic and because the block forms would produce a stronger shape for the collage, love hearts at the end. I originally considered using “Bebas,” which L.A. Noire itself uses quite often, but the curves would make the composite image less defined.

“Mexcellent” for the neon sign “AGREE.” Also served as the basis for ‘tick sign’ drawing as well.

“Banana Yeti” for the “FREE” text. An old-timey cursive font, that’s good for applying a stroke effect to.

“Depressionist 3″ for the “CLOSED” stamp. Has a nice texture, for that rugged, stamp-look. There were some other textured, ‘stamp fonts’ that I considered, but Depressionist’s blockier form made it more appropriate for a text collage.

18/01/17

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Style boards for the finalised project. Some of the style frames (especially in the last two thirds) indicate a scene with ‘scrolling’ text.

 A higher resolution version of the ‘collage’ has also been added for extra reference, showing some of the changes I’ve made from the previous version (e.g. the “CLOSED” stamp).

15/01/17

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First final render of project.

Still some mistakes present (like the drawings of the lady and detective not being hidden during the camera transition) and the timing isn’t exactly the most ideal, but nonetheless I’m quite happy with how it turned out.

I’ll be making a few tweaks as necessary (I reckon the ‘stamping’ animation could be improved for “CLOSED;” give it some rotation perhaps) and based on the input of my tutors, if they respond within the timeframe that is.

15/01/17

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Description of Animation (written treatment)

My motion graphics project is a kinetic typography-based, animation that narrates the lyrics to Claudia Brucken’s “Guilty, “from the 2011, 1940’s detective game, L.A. Noire.

The vocals of Claudia Brucken serve to ‘form’ a series of contextual kinetic typography and imagery, that produce the aspect of visual engagement to the project. In which the camera will pan around accordingly as the typography progresses.

Based on the events of the game’s plot, the song likely relates to the adulterous relationship that occurs between the main protagonist, a respected detective, and a femme fatale jazz singer. However, it may also just refer to the insidious seduction of femme fatale characters in the Film Noir genre in general. 

As thus, the typography and imagery is composed in a way that leads up to one, big cumulative image in the finale. With the text and pictures forming two large, love hearts that make up the holes for a pair of love heart-shaped handcuffs. This is intended to be symbolic of the insidious effects that the jazz singer character has had on our detective protagonist. That this is one big, forbidden affair that he’s succumbed to, that’s going to have looming consequences in the end.

The visuals are intended to be minimalistic, to make them easily readable, yet still designed in a way that conforms to the 1940’s and 50’s, Film Noir theme of the game. The font used is meant to be appropriate to both the era and the context of the lyrics. The ‘common’ font, that’s selected is blocky and angular in a way that makes it appropriate for composing the shape of love hearts. Variations in the font and visuals are used, depending on the amount of emphasis needed and the context of the lyrics.

12/01/17

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Mindmap + second motion test with animated text in very rough quality

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but I’ve recently resumed work on my assessment.

Here is a second motion test with all of the text animated, but without almost all of the graphics, which are yet to be added. The one animated image of the revolver at the beginning, is actually derived from the Magnum Force intro, with Clint Eastwood holding a revolver in a red background. 

I used a keylight to remove the red background; masks to remove the text; curves to make it pitch black and inverted it to get it to match up with the white text.

I’ve changed the project’s aesthetic from that of a ‘leather sleeve’ to white text (with a slight, orange tint) on a black background. I felt that it would fit the Film Noir theme better, as noted on my mindmap. It would also make the ‘neon-light’ appearance of the “AGREE” text appear more convincing.

Originally, I just intended on making it black and white, giving it an aesthetic similar to the L.A. Noire loading screen image, shown below. But the change to glowing white text in a black void, would lead to more concise visuals that would stay truer to the Film Noir genre.

Since the text is generally done, I just need to focus on drawing up and animating the graphics. I’ve already got references for the “Cops, Judge and Jury” segment in mind, shown below.

My main concern would probably be that the images and the animated text might come into conflict with each other, when it comes to visual composition and ‘area of attention.’ Some of the text is animated/placed in a way that might draw attention away from the graphics, so I’ll have to be conscious with the timing and placement and make tweaks as necessary.

During the animation process, I had to redo the text layer for the second love heart, due to a large, saturated text layer having a highly counterproductive impact on performance. Splitting it up into six layers made it feasible to continue work on the animation; 6-12 frames per second up from 2 frames, during previews.

I used scale controls to create more of a ‘smear frame’ appearance for fast, upwards moving text. It doesn’t work with horizontally moving text, due to the way the scale controls work, unless I put them in a separate layer and scale the respective transform controls instead. Something I find more inconvenient than necessary.

12/01/17

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Initial motion test of camera and updated style frames for the ‘Guilty’ project.

Due to my right scaphoid injury taking its toll on my ability to concentrate with motion graphics on the PC and a month’s long extension being given out; development has been relatively slow lately, but I have nonetheless continued some work lately with the kinetic typography project focusing on the L.A. Noire song.

I have concluded that the ‘text-mosaic’ would take the form of the handcuffs’ love heart-shaped holes, as I felt that the cuffs themselves were far too restrictive (no pun intended) to convey an effective mosaic shape. I have also changed the font on certain words, as I plan to have different, specific animations for how they appear (e.g. “CLOSED” is supposed to appear like a stamp, “AGREE” is supposed to appear like a neon sign, alongside a flickery, tick sign. Paul, the tutor also suggested I should also experiment with changing the font for other large words to produce more appealing animation and design.

To plan out my animation, I have produced a draft, motion test of how the camera would move during the video; with the compositions of the handcuffs and text converted to 3D objects. I was thinking of rotating the camera a bit on an angle to make the visuals appear more dynamic, however Paul has suggested that I should move the Z-axis of each individual word to create parallax instead. Also, note how the camera moves in a smooth, natural fashion (as opposed to just staying completely still for each segment of text) thanks to the smoothing on the bezier curves.

While making the basic, initial keyframes for my camera animation I ran into some problems, namely the “Boomerang” effect, as demonstrated in the CreativeCow tutorial video below:

By watching the video and its second part, I was able to find solutions to the boomerang effect such as ‘toggling hold keyframe’ and changing the interpolation modes of the keyframes from ‘continuous bezier’ to ‘auto bezier’ or ‘linear.’ I also got word from some Adobe forum posts that I can enable bezier handles for the position controls of the 3D camera by separating the dimensions, thus giving me more control over the animation.

To animate the camera, I would use the position and point of interest controls to move the camera around in relation to the composition, mainly using the XYZ arrows. I also used two viewports, one for a ‘third person, work camera’ and the other for the actual camera, to achieve the level of control and observation I found useful. This can be seen in the screenshot below:

21/10/16

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Here are the first two, draft style frames for my kinetic typography music video animation. These style frames concentrate on the ending of the animation, which concludes with the compilation of the typography of the song’s lyrics fading to an image of heart-shaped handcuffs.

I have used mask paths to shape the text to the profile of the traced image of handcuffs.

To improve the visuals, I feel that I should brighten the appearance of the handcuffs for more contrast, in relation to the navy blue, as well as add variation to the size of the text to allow it to better fit the profile of the handcuffs and to make it appear more visually engaging. The text on the right spelling out “case” could also be fixed as well, probably through the use of spacing.

08/10/16

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Proposed Concept: “Guilty,” a kinetic typography music video

Because of the technical issues encountered with my 3D motion graphics concept, that I cannot circumnavigate without neutering the visuals’ effectiveness, I have decided to focus my attention to a somewhat more humble and less ambitious project.

In this project for assessment two, I will produce a kinetic typography music video for the song, “Guilty” performed by Claudia Brucken, from the 2011 Rockstar Games title, L.A. Noire.

Because the song is approximately two minutes long, while the assessment is meant to be one minute maximum, I have produced an abbreviated edit of the song (with the Bonnie and Clyde, the “love is the judge” references as well as the instrumental break removed), which brings the whole thing down to approximately one minute and six seconds.

My plan for the animation is to closely focus on the text, and other possible complementary imagery, only for it to reveal a larger image related to the theme of the song at the end. This idea was inspired by this anti-Google motion graphics animation from 2010, made by Patrick Claire, who in general is going to be a major source of inspiration. 

The concluding image I plan on using is a pair of heart-shaped handcuffs, which suit the song’s themes.

I plan on using similar, ‘hinge-style’ animation for the text in my project, in addition to other techniques such as ‘fly-ins, grow-ins, and pop-ins.’ All as required in relation to the pace of the music. Below is an example of a kinetic typography tutorial that demonstrates the types of animation I can use to deliver an engaging visual experience.

Because of L.A. Noire’s setting of 1947, the animation itself is going to have a bit of a 1940′s to 50′s theme to it. To achieve this, I intend to use era-appropriate font, which I have settled on ‘Broadway’ (shown below), and a leathery background to give a more ‘traditional’ feel to the animation, as opposed to minimal. This is somewhat inspired by the loading screens of the 2007 game, Bioshock, which also has a 1940′s/50′s style.

08/10/16