In today’s session, I did yet some more work on our VFX sequence. Today I focused on getting the news broadcast done, so that the scene looked polished and more like a news broadcast. Anyway to start off with, I went into after effects and created a new white solid, this was so I could start on a blank canvas and add my shot footage into the scene later. Soon after, I began to actually create the broadcasts design. However just before I started creating, I considered designs that fictional and real life news broadcasts use and how they are effective on the viewer in terms of colour and so on…
Anyway to start off with, I created a new shape using the pen tool in After Effects. The shape was rectangular however, the end side of the shape was slanted. To give the shape a better visual look to it, I added different effects to it, those effects being: Drop Shadow, Bevel Alpha and Gradient Ramp. The Gradient Ramp I used on the shape went from a really nice rich red, to a really faint red so that the shape looked glossy and polished in a way, however the other effects were implemented to give the shape an even more polished look to it. The result is shown below…
Once this was done, I went and added more shapes with a similar design to the scene, as obviously one shape in the scene would be a bit pointless. So I went on to add 3 more shapes with the same effects applied however, two of the shapes were implemented in a different colour, that colour being black, but when adding the Gradient Ramp the start colour would be black going into a really light grey. The third shape was a smaller version of the previous shape but was placed in the top right corner. The outcome of them all set out together, is shown below…
So far, I had a nice looking layout for the News Broadcast and everything was coming together nicely. The shapes would be used to store headlines and etc. and the shape in the top corner would be used to display the word “LIVE”, to give the viewer a better experience. The next part of the scene that I added, was a News ticker. These are also known as news Crawlers or news slides and usually appear at the very bottom of the screen in a news broadcast, I wanted to add this into the scene so not only could the viewer be more intrigued in the broadcast, but so they could also Read more about the story. Before I actually got to animating the news slide, I created 3 shapes, one as a guide to where the news story would disappear off the screen, one which would contain the text ‘BREAKING NEWS’ and another with the actually news text inside of it. The result of the added shapes is shown below…
Once this was completed, I then went onto adding the actual text to the news crawler and animating it so that it actually looked like a legitimate news crawler. However to avoid the crawler looking tacky, I made it so that the news text went under the red rectangle showing ‘BREAKING NEWS’, making the scene look better. In order to create the movement of the news slide, I did a basic movement animation, key framing the position of the text, simply making the text come in from the right and making it disappear to the left. The finished news slide is shown below…
Soon after the news ticker was completed, I then went on to add the rest of the text that I wanted to, to the scene, which gave me this result…
I was almost done and the Broadcast sequence was almost complete however, I still thought that one more thing could be added into the scene to make it look even better, an animated version of the news logo. If you can remember from last time, I had created a logo for the broadcast, so that I could create an Intro for the News Broadcast…
Well, I had decided to create another animation of the news Logo, that would appear near the bottom of the screen to the left of the main headline, which was contained in the red shape. So, I hopped into Maya with my previously made logo and created another animation for the scene.
The animation I had created was very simplistic and was a spinning motion, shortly followed by a expanding motion. The overall animation is shown below…
Once the animation was complete and rendered out as a PNG sequence, I then went onto my After Effects project and inserted the animation into the scene where I desired. I then went on to insert the establishing shot into the scene to see what it looked like and I made some finishing touches to the scene. The overall result of my work is shown below…
Overall I was really happy with my work today and how well the scene turned out. Obviously there were some difficulties with layers and what not, however I still thought that I did quite a good job. I think that next time I will focus on colour grading and correcting the shot footage, so that the scene looks better and so the scene has an outstanding impression on the viewer.
VFX Shot: News Broadcast
The story is based around Michael De Santa, one of the main protagonists in Grand Theft Auto V. He wakes up one night to hear strange, loud noises from his front yard and investigates…
Michael discovers nothing, but suddenly see’s a bright light in the sky and gets abducted by Aliens! The Aliens experiment on Michael and inject an abnormal serum into Michael. Soon after they injected the serum into Michael, the Aliens ejected Michael from the spaceship, leaving him unconscious in the desert.
After a long journey home Michael discovers strange changes in his body and finds out that he has super human abilities that he never had before, due to the serum the Alien beings injected into him, when he was abducted. Michael decides to use his powers for good and save the people of Los Santos…
So far this is what the Storyline is like. Obviously there are a few adjustments to the story that I need to make, but so far the story has come together quite well, in my personal opinion. When coming up with this idea, I was thinking of all the possible effects I could use, such as heat vision, super speed, super strength. The main inspiration for this idea being Man of Steel, as I really liked the VFX used in the movie, especially for the fight scene in Metropolis between Zod and Superman…
I also thought that effects such as heat vision, would be quite challenging to do and would be great once the scene would be complete. Overall, I think that the idea I have so far would do quite nicely for the storyline, especially when I develop the story further. I think next time, I will focus on getting the storyboard and Pre-vis done, so that I can get started on actually recording the footage for the short film.
Once I had my reference image, I went on to 3DS Max and created the Logo design I had in mind. The Logo I created was for ‘Next Gen News’, the fake news broadcast station that would be used in our scene (that I came up with myself). In all fairness, I didn’t want to use a real news broadcast station in the scene as I thought it wouldn’t really appeal to the viewer and I thought that maybe if I had come up with a brand new, news broadcast station the viewer would be more intrigued in the scene. The logo I created is shown below…
Once I had this model made, it was then time to head into Maya to animate the logo so that the logo wasn’t static and boring.
Once I had created the animation, I then went on to export the animation as a PNG sequence so then I could put the sequence in After Effects for the finishing touches.
Once I had this done, I added the finishing touches to the animation. These finishing touches being lens flares. I did this so that the News logo looked more polished and also so that it was in the viewers face and interesting. I also added a light at the end of the news intro animation, so that it would transition to the next scene a lot nicer than just a simple jump cut, making the VFX sequence more polished. The overall outcome of the News Intro animation, is shown below…
Overall I was very happy with today’s work and also how the animation turned out. Despite some small issues with the animations rendering settings, I think that the outcome of today was quite good. I think that next time I will focus on actually getting the news broadcast done, so that the shot can have more of a realistic feel to it, rather than it being a plain bit of footage.
Concept Artists work on big budget sci-fi, fantasy or historical films where visual and special effects create design spectacles, fantastical creatures or other invented elements. There are usually a number of Concept Artists, each working on a specific element, e.g., a fantastical creature and/or scene.
If you are aspiring to becoming a Concept Artist, you must be able to:
You can study an arts school course with a focus on draughting skills, graphics anideas e.g., fine art, graphics, illustration etc. However, there is no formal training or qualification for this job.
As a Concept Artist, you will receive an average income of £50,491 or $73,152 annually, however the salary varies, depending on an individual’s experience and for the company an individual works for. Concept Artists usually work with Short Term contracts or usually work Freelance. However if a Concept Artist is hired by a company, their contract usually lasts between six months to a year.
An example of a Concept Artist can be Ralph McQuarrie. Ralph McQuarrie was an American conceptual designer and illustrator who sadly passed away on March 3rd of 2012. Ralph was best known for his inspirational work on the original Star Wars Trilogy and for creating the overall iconic look of the Star Wars Saga.
However, instead of having the Pixar Logo and Pixar lamp in the scene, I would have my own name and character assets in the scene instead.
Even though the image above doesn’t show this, I later gave the letters of my name a basic black texture, similar to the one used in the actual Pixar logo.
Jim Jim Bonks would be the character to start off the animation by bouncing from one side of the screen to the other, similar to the Pixar Lamp in the Pixar animation…
I animated Jim Jim in the opening scene, so that he hopped from one side of the screen, to the other so that he could prepare himself for jumping onto my name. Obviously when I was animating Jim Jim’s hop, I kept in mind the Squash and Stretch principle to make the hop more appealing to the viewer. The result is shown below…
Going back to what I said earlier, about breaking my name down into 3 different parts, I did this so that I could get a similar effect to the Pixar animation and so I could later add Jim Jim, bouncing on the ‘O’ just like the Pixar lamp, jumping on the ‘I’ in the Pixar animation. So with this in mind, I then went onto add the animation of Jim Jim jumping onto the ‘O’ and then an animation of Jim Jim bouncing on the ‘O’ twice, until he squashed the ‘O’ with his final. The whole sequence so far, is shown below…
As you can see I added the Squash and Stretch and the Anticipation principle into the scene, the Anticipation principle being the preparation of Jim Jim’s jump and the Squash and Stretch principle being used during Jim Jim’s jump and used when Jim Jim was bouncing on the ‘O’.
For those of you who don’t know, the Rockstar Editor gives the player the ability to create, edit and share videos of Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online. There are various editing tools at disposal, including camera filters, custom camera placement, and music to complement the recording.
So far I haven’t got a storyline or plot for what the short film will be about yet, however I am in the process of doing that at the moment. So stay tuned for more information in the future about the short film and what effects I will use. Overall, I think this will be a very interesting side project to work on and I can’t wait to get started!
The Squash and Stretch principle is based on observation that only stiff objects remain inert during motion, while objects that are not stiff, although retaining overall volume, tend to change shape in an extent that depends on inertia and elasticity of the different parts of the moving object.
Once I had done this, I then went on to produce another bouncy ball animation, however this time creating it so that the ball was bouncing vertically. The second animation I created is shown below…
Overall, I think that completing this task really helped me with my animating skills, as well as helping me understand the Principles of Animation further and implementing the Principles, into my own work, especially the Squash and Stretch principle.
I wont go into too much detail about the development over the weekend, but if you want to know more about what took place over the weekend and how development process went, be sure to check out the link below which will take you to my blog post about Gameblast 16, which goes into further detail about the weekend…
This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. Also squash and stretch is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions. How extreme the use of squash and stretch is, depends on what is required in animating the scene. Usually it’s broader in a short style of picture and subtler in a feature. It is used in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking. This is the most important element you will be required to master and will be used often.
This movement prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as, starting to run, jump or change expression. A dancer does not just leap off the floor. A backwards motion occurs before the forward action is executed. The backward motion is the anticipation. A comic effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that used anticipation. Almost all real action has major or minor anticipation such as a pitcher’s wind-up or a golfers’ back swing. Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless a scene requires it to develop a characters personality.
A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line. The effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. There is a limited amount of time in a film, so each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story. Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once. Use one action clearly stated to get the idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion. Staging directs the audience’s attention to the story or idea being told. Care must be taken in background design so it isn’t obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation. Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene.
Straight ahead animation starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a scene. You can lose size, volume, and proportions with this method, but it does have spontaneity and freshness.
Fast, wild action scenes are done this way. Pose to Pose is more planned out and charted with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene. Size, volumes, and proportions are controlled better this way, as is the action. The lead animator will turn charting and keys over to his assistant. An assistant can be better used with this method so that the animator doesn’t have to draw every drawing in a scene. An animator can do more scenes this way and concentrate on the planning of the animation. Many scenes use a bit of both methods of animation.
When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. 
Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. “DRAG,” in animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this type of action is done more subtly. Example: When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner. Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action.
As action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. For a gag action, we may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more snap to the scene.
All actions, with few exceptions (such as the animation of a mechanical device), follow an arc or slightly circular path. This is especially true of the human figure and the action of animals. Arcs give animation a more natural action and better flow. Think of natural movements in the terms of a pendulum swinging. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movements are executed on an arcs.
This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action. Example: A character is angrily walking toward another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the walk. Also, the possibility of dialogue being delivered at the same time with tilts and turns of the head to accentuate the walk and dialogue, but not so much as to distract from the walk action. All of these actions should work together in support of one another. Think of the walk as the primary action and arm swings, head bounce and all other actions of the body as secondary or supporting action.
Expertise in timing comes best with experience and personal experimentation, using the trial and error method in refining technique. The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement. Most animation is done on twos (one drawing photographed on two frames of film) or on ones (one drawing photographed on each frame of film). Twos are used most of the time, and ones are used during camera moves such as trucks, pans and occasionally for subtle and quick dialogue animation. Also, there is timing in the acting of a character to establish mood, emotion, and reaction to another character or to a situation. Studying movement of actors and performers on stage and in films is useful when animating human or animal characters. This frame by frame examination of film footage will aid you in understanding timing for animation. This is a great way to learn from the others.
Exaggeration is not extreme distortion of a drawing or extremely broad, violent action all the time. Its like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Action traced from live action film can be accurate, but stiff and mechanical. In feature animation, a character must move more broadly to look natural. The same is true of facial expressions, but the action should not be as broad as in a short cartoon style. Exaggeration in a walk or an eye movement or even a head turn will give your film more appeal. Use good taste and common sense to keep from becoming too theatrical and excessively animated.
The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into color and movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time.
A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audience’s interest. Early cartoons were basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of story telling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye.
So In this Blog post, I’m going to be talking about different types of loops in code and how they work.
A WhileLoop is a control flow statement that allows code to be executed repeatedly based on a given boolean condition.
A DoWhileLoop is a control flow statement that executes a block of code at least once, and then repeatedly executes the block, or not, depending on a given boolean condition at the end of the block.
A for each loop applies and executes code for each item in a list. In the example below, the code logs out each of the items in the list into the console.
After studying the different types of loops in coding, I now have knowledge of how they work and I also understand how I could possibly implement Loops into a game.
Josh CG-Next Gen Blog 