Taxonomy - Animation Test with Colour

Animation Test with colour: 

Taxonomy - Animation Test Final

Final Animation Test for Waiting Sequence (in Alpha):

Taxonomy - Test Animation 1

Here's a Test Animation Scene for Taxonomy Project:

Drip, Splat, Boing - The Story

The story for Drip, Splat, Boing is based on the following Indian folktale from the South of How Coconut Got Its Face:

There was a young man from Kerala, born into a fisherman’s family, did not know how to catch fish. He tried all the ways, with poles and nets, but he never caught any fish and he got poorer and hungrier. Everybody in his village laughed at him. So he decided to learn some magic. He went, to a teacher of magic and learnt how to remove his head from his body. When the beach was deserted in the evenings, when all the fishermen had returned to their villages with their daily catch,he would come to the beach and, in a secluded corner, take off his head from his trunk and dive into the water. The fish had never seen such a strange sight and they always clustered round. All the small fish entered his body through his neck. The man would then swim ashore, take the fishes out, and replace his head. He would go back to his village and show the villagers all the fish that he had caught.

He told no one his secret. The villagers who saw no poles or nets in his hut nor caught sight of him at the beach grew exceedingly curious. One day a little boy followed him to the shore. He saw him take off his head and dive into the water. The little boy darted forward and snatching the head ran away. After a few yards he found it too heavy and threw it into a bush. The man came out of the water and could not find his head. He searched all over and then, because his magic was running out, he threw himself back into the sea and became a fish.The little boy brought all the villagers to show them the miracle of the head. But when they came to the bush at the side of sea, they found that it had already grown into a tall and slender palm with nuts on it. Each nut had the man’s face on it. And thus the coconut tree was created.


Image of Coconut depicting its face:


 

The story and the technique to be used for my animation exercise, is inspired from one of the animation videos I saw during the screening in Bristol Animated Encounters..


 

Drip, Splat, Boing - Cutout Animation

With my earlier post about the project of Drip, Splat, Boing - I've finally decided to use Cutout animation as a technique. This is solely going to be an experimental project before I choose 3D as my prefered style of animation from the next semester.

Cutout Animation:

Cutout animation is a technique for producing animation using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper,fabric,stiff paper,cardboard and even photographs.

Examples of cutout animations: 

Layouts

Layouts relates to making & designing the various characters & the backgrounds that are later to be passed to the artists along the animation & background departments.

The layout artists design the model sheets of characters along with various poses & actions.

Example of a Model Sheet:

The layout artists also design the various backgrounds.

It is always to be understood that, layout is not a phase of production that generates the finished art. The value of a good layout is not in its rendering but in how easily can it be reproduced by the artists & how each layout fits in the final animated film. - H&B Layout Notes

Good sense of planning & design are one of the important abilities that a good layout artist should possess.

Layout defines the spatial relationships between the various objects in a scene, including its location & its size.

RedBull Canimation

After the Tutorial with Charles on Thursday (03/11/2011) , here's the model I built for the competition along with texture and few test Blend shapes..

These are the Front, Side & Back View of the Redbull Can.

I used  Blinn Material (because metal cans are shiny) and applied the texture file in the color option.

Here's the image for several blend shapes.

The one in the centre is the base model of the can.

File Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?dorwttd94ms4ccf

Transition Of Emotions - A Taxonomy Project (Part 2)

Continued From: Transition Of Emotions - A Taxonomy Project (Part 1)


Emotions is a very very vast subject in animation to explore and portray. As a part of my taxonomy project, I would like to depict human emotions via animation.

As a part of my research, I stumbled upon this video from youtube:

This part of research also helped me for Redbull Canimation Competition, where I've to show various emotions in a can of Redbull Energy Drink.

To express emotions in an animated character, it is very very vital to study the body language. Body language of an animal is what gives away the underlying feeling of sadness, joy, love, fear, etc.

Transition Of Emotions - A Taxonomy Project (Part 1)

A battle fought..neither with weapons nor with life, still lost and destruction following its everlasting glory..Destruction of a mind and a soul..Is this what makes a loss??Is this the reason for feelings to be so morbid and morose???

Emotion without a corresponding behavior, maybe considered the behavior not to be essential to the emotion. Emotion is the essential aspect of any life form whether expressed visually or not. The amount of emotions a life form can express depends on the biological development of an animal. Emotions form the driving factor for any task that an animal does. Emotional expressions,coupled with others is what puts a human in continuum with other animals - Charles Darwin

The quote above that I came up with once when I was on my bed, lying down reflecting upon my life was the direct relation to emotional upheavaling I constantly felt around in my surroundings, maybe in my personal life or in others.

Watson came up with the fundamental emotions based on the behavior. They were Love, Fear & Rage. Any other emotion were based on the combination of these fundamental emotion. These fundamental emotions are present in any animal life form and is expressed in different forms.

Emotions are very strongly linked with our past experiences & our conscious and get reflected the strongest when one dwells upon his life and consciously thinks about it. I guess, for me the strongest feeling of emotion would be that of love, even though it sounds very mundane, I connect to it very very strongly. The quote below is the result of yet another past dwellings recently..

With every night's sleep, I guess its jus one of those few moments where I re-live a life perpetually yours..For these are the moments that are scarce & are running berserk, love & frenzy in their eyes...

Continued in Part 2: Transition of Emotions - A Taxonomy Project (Part 2)

Drip, Splat, Boing - Continued

One thing I thought of deciding first with this project was to choose between the medium of animation – 2D, 3D or Stop Motion.

I’m more keen on doing this in 3D. One reason to do choose so is to put all my bookish knowledge on modeling, texturing, rigging & animation into actual practice of some sort & this would be the perfect opportunity for me to do so.

I am a little more focused on the underlying concept & the storyline.

The three animated movies for Research on Timing are:

• Planet Hulk
• Presto
• A Christmas Carol

Drip, Splat, Boing - Initial Concept...

One of the ‘no-answers’ philosophical sort of question of my life which I’ve been looking forward to get some answers :“Why is it so hard to build, where as so easy to destroy?”

In other words put, if you would have ever noticed, it is very very difficult to build anything, where as it is very very easy to destroy. Doing something negative/evil is always easier. Being positive/good is the hardest part. This particular thing relates to every thing you see around, be it in friends, dating, trusting someone or even something like technology,architecture,etc..it is always always has been easier to destroy rather than keeping and maintaining it. The funniest part is that it always becomes like a never ending cycle.

For Drip, Splat & Boing, I would try and portray the same. Initially I’d problem relating these three words with the complete concept. After talking to Matthew & Leoni, I think I’m a little more focused on how to  delineate it.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

• I’ve to stop being technical in every approach towards any form of art.
• Definitely need to think outside the box.
• Meaning of the 3 words:
• Drip can be defined as a drizzle (as in drizzling of rain),boorish, stupid & boring person. After consulting a thesaurus, it seems that the word drip is associated more with negative characteristics of a human being.
• Splat (splatter) can be defined as splash, douse, make something wet. It can also be linked with making something dirty,smear. Splat is also linked with the word Drip.
• Boing is a versatile word. It can denote a bouncing action. It can also be linked to sexual innuendos, a male erection. It also relates to an expression or sound effect of showing something interesting.
• A quick tutorial session with Leoni helped me to make the concept a little less vague. She gave me some really good ideas on how to relate these words. One of them was showing the formation of Stalagmite with dripping of Stalactites. It was a wonderful thought – simple yet intriguing enough to transcript the underlying concept.
• I’m still on the process of researching & coming up with ideas on depicting it with some form of emotion based on relations.