Module: NCI547
Compositing evaluation

For this project we were asked to animate either a 2D or 3D object within a live action environment.

To help plan out how we could begin our animation we were reintroduced to the 7 basic story plots comedy, tragedy, overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return and rebirth. For me I chose comedy, voyage and return and rebirth as my main source of inspiration, spawning many ideas from the spider-diagrams that could be related to anything to do with the themes such as the life, death and resurrection of a phoenix. Eventually I settled on producing a monster rising from the water, the evolution of a velociraptor in to a modern day bird and a giant creature flying up the river.

We were then given a few CAAD sessions where we once again tried compositing shapes with different backgrounds resulting cubes in forests, cubes surrounding buildings and my personal favourite placing a large doughnut shape around Big Ben.
Then there was creating a floating ball in Photoshop that once animated could have been edited in After-effects which once again I had difficulty in operating.

Cubes in forests attempts

Box surrounding buildings

Big Ben Doughnut

Attempt at animating a ghost ball

Before I used a digital camera I walked around town with my phone to look out for areas that were related to my themes such as the Leases Park lake, boats around the river Tyne, the band-stand in Leases Park, snakes in the Hancock museum shedding their skin, a field of grass with trees in the distance, the Odeon cinema, the Theatre Royal and Central Station railway.

Leazes park lake

Boats on the river

Leazes park band-stand

Snakes in the Hancock museum

A field of grass with trees

Odeon cinema entrance

Theatre Royal entrance

Central station railway

As for my research I looked up eight examples that could have helped influence my work. Most of the advertisement’s featured stop motion techniques along with added effects such as 2D and 3D animation. Even though I found most of these examples very interesting I figured it would have taken too long to animate and rig a character in 3D so I settled with a simple 2D animation such as the Nickmad commercial. 

I was also introduced to new software known as Premier that could  be used to help change the colours to great affect on the background along with blending the animated object. On my first attempt I ended up transforming the entire background of the river Tyne into pure bright pink just to test out how the controls worked. 

Premier color experiment

After some searching around the quayside we were able to collect a mixture of photos to choose as a background such as the river Tyne, bridges, old platforms, arches underneath the bridge, an arch that lights up at night, a giant acorn made out of metal and a fungus infested area.

As for my final pieces I was only able to composite one voyage and return and one rebirth as my animations since I found it difficult in producing a character for my comedy theme. For my first animation I produced a giant octopus’s tentacles slowly rising from the river wrapping its limbs around the support beams and other surroundings. I was able to change the colour of the background a little, to make it look like the scene was taken as an ancient aging photograph; this was achieved through the use of Premier.

The kraken rises

As for my second animation I produced the evolution of a velociraptor in to a bird while using a grassy area around the Quayside as a background. I was hoping to use a sandy beach for the background instead, but since Newcastle doesn’t really have any beaches near by I settled with what I had, plus with a sandy environment it also helps represent how ancient evolution is and since prehistoric findings have been found in the sand over the years. To help structure the evolution cycle I sketched a frame-by-frame sequence that was influenced by an ostrich running cycle since they have the same leg length that is similar to a raptor’s.

For both pieces I didn’t bother going in to full detail and had them illustrated as simple 2D silhouettes slowly moving in the specific background. I did have plans to create a 3rd animation that involved a massive creature flying up the river Tyne that represented another voyage and return theme since many creatures how been know to migrate over great distances and eventually return home, sadly however I didn’t have time.

Overall I have found this project quite interesting and challenging learning how to composite an object with a live background and how to use Premier to experiment with colours. I believe I could have done much better with my projects by adding more detail and to plan extra time, I hope to improve on this for future projects.

 Twice weekly report

These past two weeks have been quite challenging with compositing an object within cinema4D. First off I have researched a total of eight animations that I particularly like due to their styles and colourful appearance. There were 6 2D animations involving metamorphoses and 2 3D stop motion animation portrayed by carved out models and combined with CGI effects.

As for the CAAD sessions I have been trying to independently produce 3D shapes either merged or surrounded by a nearby building. On my first attempt I have tried to make a 3D cube emerging from a building along with trying to animate it but had a little difficulty with it. However my second attempt has turned out more successful where I have been able to place a colourfully patterned donut around Big Ben.

Swot analysis

• Little bit rusty with using Cinema4D and After-effects to form and animate objects.
• 2D animation and metamorphosis still updated could be improved a little more.
• Newly introduced to the Premier software, need to experiment with it more in personal time.