Digital Portfolio

Digital Portfolio PDF Link Below

port

YouTube Channel (All Produced Videos) Link Below

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChXpdkosh_SPnilTlk0QtkQ

 

 

FMP – Peer Evaluation & Self Evaluation

Reynard Thomas

Positive

• Good animation, professional camera use
• Clean, use of Motion Graphics
• Showed creation progression, time lapse, motion capture

 

Negative

• You changed the lighting which had already been critisized before. Very good.

 

Self Evaluation

The task was completed successfully much like I had envisioned. The research task covered two celebrities who I thought would be appropriate for the part of the celebrity dancer. Both Michael Jackson and Chris Brown are commonly known and I wanted to produce a music video in order to replicate one of their dance videos. I talked about their lives and I went into great detail in doing so, talking about dramatic life events in both their lives like both of their criminal charges for assault and child abuse as well as their music careers from the beginning. However, I had to weigh out what was more important and take into account their facial features. I analysed their faces and their clothing in order to have a clearer vision on what would be more evident and easier to make. After comparing it became clearer that Chris Brown was the easier option and therefore I proceeded with the pre-development plan. I also analysed a similar animated music video as well as the method of the completion of my animation.

The pre-development would take a lot of time to produce as I had to create the character turnaround as well as create plans for each and every object that I had planned to include in my animation. This included the environment around the character as well as the character itself. I also made plans for the materials that I would of liked to use on the character or in the in the environment by drawing, sketching and actually finding a similar material to cut and stick into my sketchbook, like the texture of the jeans and bin bags. After this process I had made a storyboard that followed the duration of the animation, I created one similar to the video and one that had my own spin to it.

The creation of my environment and my character was created through ZBrush. This was the first time using the program for me so it took some time to get used to it however I managed to get a hang of it and produce the Chris Brown model successfully. Next, I had to create a UV map which required me to use the UV Master. After completing the process I had created a displacement map and exported the Chris Brown model as a OBJ. file aswell as a MTL. file for the material so the colour could be imported into external 3D applications.

When inserted into Cinema 4D, I had initially used the auto-rig tool to animate the character. I slowly developed the animation as it was being done manually and I managed to finish the animation. I then brought Motion Capture equipment (cameras, tripods, etc…) and set up the equipment in my living room. Using a mini maglite torch I managed to calibrate the video and perform the animation and import it into cinema 4D.

At this point I would bind the animation to the character and render it out. After this process I edited the animation in Sony Vegas with great success as well as including the related typography to the artist.

If I would improve anything it would be the quality of the entire animation in terms of visuals. Due to the lack of time I had been given I was unable to fully develop them to the wow factor that I had initially hoped to produce. However, as time progressed it didn’t seem realistic in the total time that I had been provided.

Overall, I am very pleased with the final outcome of my animation as I had done something I had never done before.

FMP – The Making of Chris Brown in 3 Minutes (Speeded Up)

 

Above is the week and a half development for Chris Brown speeded up to only 3 minutes. Here I decide on skin colour change and other forms of experimentation.

FMP Complete Versions and Development

Final Version Without Motion Capture

Final Version With Motion Capture 2.0 

(Improved lighting and motion capture quality)

 

 

Development Progress

INCOMPLETE DEVELOPMENT VERSIONS BELOW

 

Development Version 1

What needs improving:

• Street Lamp looks unrealistic

 

Development Version 2

What needs improving:

• Lack of camera movement
• Neon signs are not glowing enough
• No back up dancers make the video less lively

 

Development Version 3

What needs Improving:

• Contrast effect is over used
• Needs to be timed slightly better
• Associated Typography needs to be included as researched

 

Final Version – Version 1

 

 

 

 

Manual Animation Progression (no MoCap animation)

Although this video may just seems like the tests progress it actually includes more additional subtle improvements throughout every test.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using iPi MoCap Studio and Recorder Software

Calibration

Using

• Mini Maglite Torch in Candle Mode
• 4x PlayStation Eyes
• 4x USB Male to Female Extensions
• 4x Tripods

The small box in the video below detects light in order to calibrate the scene and region of interest. A cage must be made in order to do this as well as setting the capture to extra darkening.

 

When completed it helps to manually enter the distance of the cameras although it is very accurate in its predictions.

MoCap scene in iPi MoCap studio

(no hand movement)

 

 

 

 

FMP – UV Mapping

UV MAPS

UV mapping allows me to access materials through all external applications. This means I have to flatten the object to save it as an image in order for it to be wrapped around my model. These are the UV maps I have made.

Ear Rings

 

 

 

 

Hat

 

 

 

 

Jeans

 

 

 

 

Skin

 

 

 

 

 

Shoes

 

 

 

 

 

Nose Ring

 

 

 

 

 

Jacket

 

 

 

 

 

T-Shirt

 

 

 

FMP: Related Animated Music Video

In order to create an animation of a music video, it would help to look at other animated music videos that have been created in the past in the same category as Chris Brown’s music. The only video that falls into this category is one of the Kanye West Music Videos.

Kanye West – Heartless

The Heartless video includes rotoscoped animation in which people were actually filmed moving in a studio while animators would trace and draw over the video frame by frame and making sure that all the movements are captured.

The background however is an addition to the captured movement along with the mysterious space like background. This helps create special effects for the video without the need of the addition of any special visual effects through video editing.

Hype Williams produced this piece of work along with directing many other videos with many other artists including more work with Kanye West such as ‘Gold Digger’ and ‘All of the Lights’.

Hype Williams attempts to capture a particular atmosphere of the music and I think he does so very excellently. The mood of the video is well implemented as Kanye West is seen in the animation walking throughout the empty city emotionally and singing the lyrics. The high frame rate makes the movement feel very realistic which is an excellent touch to it. I was particularly drawn to the animation as thought it was very well done and I will aspire to create something similar.

This concept of drawing over a video is very time consuming however the final result is very interesting. I may take this on board when thinking about ways to produce my animation.

 

 

FMP

Final Zbrush Model

U62 U63: Task 4 – 200 word Evaluation

App Concept – Evaluation

Research Evaluation

I am very satisfied with the final outcome of my animation as I was satisfied with how I applied authoring principles from the initial research. During this process, I was able to view what professionals had completed such as BBC and Yahoo and took away some useful information and tips. I was able to apply some of the antithetical ideas from them as well as general application features such as GPS tracking and notification toggling. In addition the research enabled me to get into the mind into an interactive author and allowed me to discover the aspects of the design process such as the different types of interactivity I can implement allowing me to plan a head of the actual development.

In the end, the Yahoo app truly influenced my design as it appealed to me during my user experience. The app had particularly focused on the beauty of the app on the homepage and jam packed all the detail on a different page which is what I wanted to replicate.

The feedback I have received pleased me to great extent as others confirmed the professionalism in the design of the app as well as the decent interactivity of the application on Game Salad. They were pleased to see that a number of the application functions were added to the Game Salad upload such as button functions and full linking between pages. However, few functions were missing from the design due to the lack of knowledge of the software. On the other hand, people were not put off my this and seemed very pleased with designs outcome.

 

 

 

FMP: PROGRESS REPORT

A FULL WEEKLY DIARY IS AVAILABLE AT THE END OF MY SUBMITTED SKETCHBOOK

 

The progress of my FMP project is coming along very well.

I have completed the following tasks:

• Clothing Sketches
• Clothing Materials
• Associated Typography
• Environmental Sketches
• Environmental Drawings
• Environmental Object Sketches
• Environmental Materials
• Chris Brown Profile
• Michael Jackson Profile
• Michael Jackson Facial Feature Analysis
• Chris Brown Facial Feature Analysis
• Michael Jackson Clothing Analysis
• Chris Brown Clothing Analysis
• Storyboarding

0Furthermore the FMP can use further attention in the following areas:

• Further Character Profiling
• Stick in printed images
• Further Materials
• Dance Moves Evaluation
• Character Modelling
• Motion Capture
• Editing

By next week, I should be able to complete the:

• Printed Images
• Character profiles
• Dance moves Evaluation

 

 

U8 U52 – 3D Animation: Re-submission (OPEN PDF) Development

(View PDF File Below)

Pre-development work 

Mind Map 1

From my research I have developed my idea further using a gathering of my ideas.

Mind Map 2

Understanding meaning and purpose is important before creating a design.

Mood-board 1 (the car)

The type of car investigated is a Lamborghini.

Mood-board 2 (the environment)

The environment investigated is a desert and or mountain.

DEVELOPMENT IS DISPLAYED IN PDF FILE BELOW

Development2 PDF PREVIEW (open to view)

 

Please Note: The following development is available in the submitted sketchbook:

• 3 Storyboards with different variable scenes and endings

• 2 Mood-boards

• The meaning behind the animation

• Initial Story Ideas (notes)

• Other Initial Story Ideas (notes)

• Concept Vehicle Sketches

• Concept vehicle Drawings

• Environmental Drawings

• Other Object Sketches

• Texturing Ideas