Midterm revisions:

The Lazy Construction Worker from Michael Shaw on Vimeo.

"In construction, teamwork is necessary. If one refuses to do their part, the foundation of the team, as well as the building , may collapse."

I took the input from class and made a lot of changes to my animation. The panning shot in the beginning has be omitted, instead starting with the workers working at the construction site. Issues with objects popping in and out improperly have been fixed as well. Depth of field has been removed after comments that it conflicts with my flat, cutout style. The cranes now move with the building without any odd perspective shifts.

I've redone the building sequence, instead focusing on a gradual construction of the building as opposed to an instant cut to the end of the day. I received a lot of different ideas on how to fix it; I tried to reach a solution that best incorporates elements of those ideas. Now the camera cuts 3 times, to emphasize his laziness amidst many workers, yet the camera keeps him at the center of the frame, emphasizing the importance of his work to the whole. The building is erected over the foundation until sunset, where the building is almost complete.

Does this new sequence work better than the original, or does it need to be further tweaked?

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From there, the animation follows the same sequence as last Thursday's iteration, although the camera angles have been altered, the background is visible, and the timing has been elongated a bit.

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Does it work better overall? Or are there still parts that are hard to understand? Is the construction being performed believable?

Are there still any major issues?

Midterm Project: Rough Cut

Midterm Project: Rough Edit.

In this rough edit, I have experimented with transitions between scenes and actions, as well as using depth of field to shift the focus of the animation itself. Currently, despite redirecting my focus on more realistic construction, the story told is the same as the one discussed in class. The lazy worker ends up causing the entire building they're working on to collapse.

I feel that a few of my shots are a bit too long. I want to take another pass and speed a couple of areas up, while addressing pop-in and awkward perspective shifts. The positioning of the cranes is still a bit suspect, and I wonder if I could reanimate a scene or two to make the story more concrete. In addition to it, the worker with the blue hat has an extra arm that pops up in what little is rendered of the animation.

I've been trying to render my work in After Effects prior to this morning, but I think the size of my files is restricting the output of the render itself. I've currently tried to render on my home computer, and is trying to render another one in the macs in the lab. My next step is to render the video in parts, and compile it in quicktime for today's presentation.

I've been wondering if I should add sound to the animation, but I want to focus on getting my animation out of the computer first.

project revisions:

NOTE: EVERYONE IN THE ANIMATION WILL HAVE BLUE CLOTHES, AS OPPOSED TO THE DISTINCTION MADE BETWEEN RED AND BLUE BEFORE.


I did a bit of research into construction roles and edited my story to fit a more realistic construction setting. The basic plot is the same, yet there are a few changes made to the logistics of the story that make it easier to understand.

"
We first see an establishing shot of a skyscraper being constructed, cranes moving steel reinforcement bars into place. Upon zooming in, we see a group of workers securing the reinforcement bars to the rest of the structure. They are all busy at work, except one.

The camera zooms out to reveal one individual not working like he should, sleeping on the job instead. The supervisor (indicated with a blue hat) the lazy worker up, and hurries the individual back to work. We see him begin working again, until the supervisor leaves, where he drifts back to sleep.

Time passes, and the rest of the building is erected by day's end. Workers are still adding the final touches as the lead engineer checks the blueprints to make sure everything looks as it should. Suddenly, the ground begins to shake.

The camera zooms in, and we see the rivets the lazy worker somewhat completed popping out.

Everyone currently on the building panics while the lazy worker is fast asleep again, not even noticing the beams under him falling apart. The building collapses, with everyone in it.

midterm presentation

My midterm will be based on the Grasshopper and the Ant. It involves a group of construction workers trying to complete an entire building by sunset... all except for one incompetent worker. I intend to push character design, as well as my overall storytelling ability in this animation. The storyboard and synopsis below convey my current story ideas, although i'm still open to revisions and a final tweaking.

----------------------------------ENVIRONMENT-------------------------------------
I've done a few demos for it in the past, and the aesthetic will be similar to the pictures below. There will be a change of daylight to indicate time in the animation. There will be more cranes in the background, as well as a few other in-progress buildings.







----------------------------------CHARACTER DESIGN-------------------------------------

I think i've found a way to push my character design, while sticking to my flat, simplistic aesthetic. The red one will represent all of the workers, except the lazy blue one. His lazy and absent-minded tendencies will be indicated through actions in the animation. When they walk, they slide across the screen, while their bodies squat up and down.





----------------------------------------STORYBOARD---------------------------------------------
I hope the storyboard is graphic enough, but if i were to sum up the story, it goes like this:

We first see a sihlouette of the workers, hammering out a round piece of metal. (textured as such) Upon zooming in, there is a step by step proccess showing how the workers make the parts needed to construct their building.

The C shapes are connected with long rods, requiring two people. Everyone connects theirs, except the lazy worker, who upon being woken up (thanks to a hammer tossed at the worker's hard hat) scrambles to produce the same piece of metal. In his frenzy, he forgets to catch the metal as it falls and it cracks. Instead of making a new one, he looks around, and brings the broken metal to connect, hoping not to be spotted.

Everyone connects their pieces, which end up erecting the massive building that stands before the lead construction worker. (indicated by the white hardhat.) He checks his blueprint to confirm everything.

The ground begins to shake.

The camera zooms in, and we see the crack spreading to the beams around the original broken one.

Everyone currently on the building panics while the lazy worker is fast asleep again, not even noticing the beams under him cracking. The building collapses, with everyone in it.

I am currently wondering if I should have the lazy worker die. The original grasshopper and and fable only had the grasshopper suffering due to his incompetence. However, society today revolves more around the group as opposed to the individual... (at least when menial labor is concerned) and we often find a select few crazy individuals screwing life up for everyone.

Any ideas?

Bottomless Pockets (Mattes Demo)

Bottomless Pockets (Experiment with mattes) from Michael Shaw on Vimeo.

This animation is based on "The Dog and His Shadow," a fable about greed and possession. The individual reaches into a drainage ditch for some new found money, despite carrying a case of valuables already. In his quest for additional riches, his suitcase is stolen. To top is off, the flash light he uses to search for the money goes out.

My first use of mattes is probably obvious; the spotlight that reveals the money. The second one, however is not as direct. I wanted to mask off the drain on the side of the road so it appears as if the individual is reaching into a hole.

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I've begun thinking about possibilities for my midterm project. My current idea deals with wanting to do a longer, more fleshed out version of one of my fables, focusing more on character and less on a fast, direct interpretation of a moral. Currently I have 3 ideas:

The Grasshopper and the Ant

The Lion and the Mouse

The Wolf in sheep's clothing.

I'm currently attracted to the grasshopper and the ant, expanding on my other test animations and my construction environments. I also really enjoyed the typography assignment and may incorporate that aesthetic in my midterm somehow.

I'm also considering pushing the overall look of the characters themselves, although i have received comments in the past that their simplistic look works really well with my subject matter. I'm inspired by the character designs of Wayang Kulit plays.

Any ideas?

Puppet Tool Experiment

Puppet Tool Experiment: Walking Construction Worker from Michael Shaw on Vimeo.

Still wanting to make an extended animation based on the Ant and the Grasshopper, I expanded on one of my older ideas and created this construction worker carrying a bunch of boxes. I tried to specifically use the puppet tool to give the character a bit of a stride, shifting his weight to accommodate for the movement of the boxes in his hand.

The puppet tool worked out decently at best. Although I can see the benefit to working with the tool, especially for small movements, overall the user has a lot less freedom to animate how one sees fit. It takes a lot more tweaking to get the specific movements needed, and there is the risk of pinching the figure animated, as my character's leg has been. I could use it to some effectiveness, especially since I usually work with solid figures. However, I would rather have total control of my figure and create a complex hierarchy of layers. The puppet tool creates too much sliding, and I dislike having every object on my character move in response to posing one limb.

In other words, the tool is decent, but I would rather animate by other means.

Audio to Animation Tutorial

After gushing over all the tutorials on the site, I wanted to try the Audio to Animation Tutorial. It pretty much works just like an I-Tunes visualizer. Despite that, it is an amazing thing to learn for a number of reasons. For one, it gives some good practice with learning a few expressions in after effects. For it to work, I converted an audio file to keyframes, created two null objects from the audio file (one for bass and one for treble,) then created two solids that used the Trapcode:Particular plugin to create a particle effect that moved based on the audio's bass and treble.

I went ahead and downloaded the free version of the Trapcode: Particular plugin that was used in the tutorial just because I thought it would be a great thing to learn... even if I did not have the money to buy it myself. It puts a giant x on the screen unfortunately.

Video Copilot Tutorial Response: Audio to animation from Michael Shaw on Vimeo.

However, while i haven't figured out a way to get the exact effect without the plugin yet, (maybe use the pen tool to create a set of points?) i was able to use the tutorial to create the same effect with a masked solid.

Audio to Animation tutorial from Michael Shaw on Vimeo.

The greatest thing i probably learned from this tutorial is that the values of one layer's attributes can be set to match the values of another layer's attributes. Beyond that, there is so much potential for creating animations based solely on a soundtrack.

What is even more amazing is that this opens up a world of possibilities for direct lip syncing that could save me a bunch of time.