Telling Tales// Strike a pose! Part1

'Strike A Pose' 
This week I plan to complete a small task set by my teacher. The task involves selecting 5 emotions from a list and expressing those emotions with the pre-made Maya model we've been given. The list of emotions are as followed; Fear, Anticipation, Shame, Happiness, Bravado, Envy, Exhaustion, Sadness,Pity, Confusion, Sadness, Pity, Confusion, Anxiety, Amusement, Timidity, Hunger and Awe. I've decided to select Anxiety, Shame, Surprise, Exhaustion and Pity from this list. I've chosen these 5 because I think they cover a wide range of possibilities for posing, so I can have more fun with this task.

Today we also briefly spoke about why reference material is so crucial to refer to when animating, in particular the video reference footage Disney used as early as their first motion picture 'Snow White'. I wasn't aware Disney studios filmed reference footage for most (if not all) of their movies scenes, filmed similar to a theatrical play rather then having the references being entirely dedicated to the storyboards. The references footage they filmed weren't so much to capture the placement of the characters entirely, but to capture their gestures. Commonly the studio would hire the characters voice actors to act our their characters movements, simply because that actor is already familiar with that character and how that character perhaps would move.

As part of this task we are expected and reacquired to take reference photos inspired by the emotions we have selected, in preparation to later recreate those poses in Maya. I'm going to be using myself as as a reference model tomorrow, hopefully I'll manage to make a start on posing the model too.

Telling Tales// Why, hello again Maya

Today was a wonderful day.

I was re introduced to Maya after a 4 month long break and I must admit I've missed Maya. Sure, sometimes it pointlessly freezes and crashes resulting in losing all of your work (which honestly is your own fault because to be fair, you really should be saving your work more often) But 3D animation is the future of the animation industry, if not is already and despite my love for hand drawn animation I must admit I am developing an interest in continuing to animate with Maya in the future past this project.

Anyways, back to the project at hand;
Despite finding maya enjoyable and fun to craft with I still get a hint of intimidation from the software every time I boot it up, but today we've been introduced to a pre made model that we then were free to animate and pose as much as our hearts desired. I really enjoyed animating gestures, a great deal more then I expected! The joints of the rigged model I found very easy to use and made positioning the model any way I wanted a far quicker process then I previously predicted. The point of this days lesson was to familiarise ourselves with software, but I managed to animate a very simple gesture.

I began with experimenting with a sassy pose for the model but then remembered how to animate using keyframes within the timeline feature. After applying a basic texture onto the model and creating a simplistic lighting effect; I then quick timed it as evidence instead of rendering it completely.

For a first attempt at animating a humanoid character in Maya, I'm satisfied with the animation. It's not very fluid, but the rough gestures are there. I can't wait to work more with maya now!

Telling Tales// Developing ideas

Below are very rough drafts of possible storylines for this project, inspired by the conversation with my work partner yesterday and the brain storm we produced;

'The Message'
-A note passed in the classroom that turns out to be comically misleading, for exsample someone receiving a note from their crush and hoping its a confession of love. When in reality their crush is simply asking them for a pen

-A simple message being misunderstood between two friends, that ends in slap stick comedy. 

-A reacurring annoying email or pop up pushing someone to their sanitys breaking point.

'Last Chance'

-A character panics as they approach the front of a queue, because the opportunity to pick up a Chocolate bar before paying is getting smaller and smaller; but the character cannot make up their mind.

-The last opportunity to confess something arises for a character, but they miss it; because the other character confesses it first. 

- At a vending mashine two friends put all of their faith in the last coin they posses to finally knock their packet of chips down after failing time and time again.

'Adrift' 

-A cast away floats across the oceon after a shipwreck, some form of sea creature helps the cast away to shore. 

-A character detaches from reality and is unable to call out to their friend; but their friend reaches out instead and reassures them they're here for them

Telling Tales// Think of an idea, THINK!

Brain storming with Jemma yesterday resulted in very promising options for our animation; we first pointed out the title options given to us in the project briefing that captured our attention the most, discussing the possibilities of using each in our project together.  The result of sifting through the titles resulted in singling out three that we both really wanted to work with, those three were 'Last Chance' 'Message' and 'Adrift'.

Below are scans of the ideas that popped into my head whilst discussing the options with my work partner...

Right now we are both leaning towards using 'Adrift' as our stories title. We're currently viewing the term 'Adrift' in relative to mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. Rather then something more comical we've spoken briefly about approaching something more emotional, perhaps even visually representing the sensation inside someones head who suffers with mental health disorders. We'll continue to develop other ideas along side the vague 'adrift' idea we have; jumping straight on the first idea you have isn't always the best way to work, it's far better to expand all the options before throwing yourself head first into a project.

Telling Tales// Introduction

This morning I received a project briefing, which in my eyes is much like a blessing from the heavens; considering that all I've been doing over summer is accomplishing small simplistic tasks around the house, things like unpacking and cleaning the same lot of clothes over and over. I couldn't wait to gaze upon the juicy details on our first project as second year animation students earlier today, the title popping up reading 'Character+narrative' was enough to get me excited about working again! However, I must admit being informed this projects character design/concept work would result in a 3D Maya animated piece did fill me with fear for a moment. The last time I have had contact with the lucrative Maya program was a few months ago, to be honest I had already begun to feel confident using the software so I did warm to the idea of revisiting Maya towards the end of the briefing. 

The project briefing itself consists of working in pairs; each designing and professionally producing one character each, then incorporating these characters into a 3D animation using Maya along with a designed environment. We are also expected to include some sort of narrative, not necessarily dialogue but some form of sound.  As far as story plot options we were given non, rather we were given titles instead which suggest a plot option which consist of 'Happy Days,Opposites Attract,Last Chance,Predator Prey,Road to Nowhere,Adrift,Leap of Faith,The Message and Rivals'. Glancing over the options for titles I was already leaning towards certain options such as 'Last Chance' and 'Adrift'. 

My work partner for this project ended by being Jemma Tegg. Well I say 'ended up being', in fact we both gave each other the 'creative eyes' from across the room then ran into each others arms with great passion and joy. I'm talking a very delicate and romantic moment between two artists here... Brings a tear to my eye just remembering it even...

ANYWAYS. I can't wait to start working on this project and learning to use software like Maya more effectively.