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Concluding the year

So to round this module off to a neat end I wanted to conclude my year and my plans for next year. I learnt many valuable skills through the year, some were harder than others, and others were more successful. My introduction to Maya went really well and my love for animating and modelling in Maya has grown and continues to grow! also the construction of my stop motion sets was my absolute favourite part of the year, this came to fruition after my green screening adventure that i created for my presentation, I concluded that I am going to focus on the post production on small scales, so like creating the fire for my fire place in Meat the Cow. but after the presentation I was told to not beat myself up about the quality due to the fact I have only put in a few hours to it! My time management was the biggest bug bear in the year which has been reflected throughout this module, as I breezed through first simester but then let module stack on top of each other and delay the work I did for them. but I have really enjoyed this year, I feel I don't have enough footage of these new skills that I have developed so after third year I think that my showreel will be a lot better! and next year I will definitely go to more marketing events because going to the festivals this year was such a highlight of my year due to the valuable things I have learnt from practitioners some of which I got to know and even shared a few drinks with! but also learnt how the professionals advice us to progress in our marketing progress! bring on next year! although I'm in a bit of a pickle with COP3 because I initially wanted to do a case study of the aesthetically appeal of stop motion compared to CGI but this can be very opinionated and I feel I would be going in circles! so instead I'm teetering round the idea of how CGI has effected stop motion!

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Portfolio

I came across similar issues whilst creating my portfolio, the lack of work was making it quite tricky to fill my portfolio, but I think I did a good job of it! with most aspects of this module if I had more time I would have been able to create a much more effective portfolio, but I followed the guides from everyone that I saw at Animex and the creative practitioners that came into uni so I think its not a terrible attempt!

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Final SWOT analysis

I felt like I needed to do another SWOT to finish the module off

STRENGTHS

Set design

Modelling

Stop motion

Photography

Macabre

Rendering

Maya

3D animation

WEAKNESSES

Post production

Lack of footage

Time management

Green Screening

Audio

OPPORTUNITIES

Set design

Maya Animator

Stop motion animator

Prop maker

constructor

THREATS

post production stopping the final outcome

My lack of footage bringing my showreel down

My showreel design giving the viewer the wrong impression

I think I have definitely benefited from this swat analysis due to the length in which I went into compared to my one at the start of the module, It also helped doing one after the year to help me think of what i should develop on in the future and in third year.

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Business Card

I fairly enjoyed making my business card! I enjoy formatting simplicity, sometimes I find there is too much space to find the right placement for text, but this had the right balance, the only thing I'm not too sure about is my logo, its just my youtube thumbnail, I haven't formulated a logo as of yet so I thought this was the only thing I could use in the meantime! I chose a simple to read font, one that isn't too cliche either, if I were to do it again if I had more time I would definitely create my own font and my own logo to use for my Business card!

I think I definitely prefer the version without the logo, it looked too out of place and unprofessional!

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Showreel

This was not fun! I think I didn't enjoy the process due to the fact I don't have a lot of footage to actually contain in the showreel! I feel that my portfolio would be better due to the fact I can put individual frames from my animations and display some of my favourite renders from some of my briefs! the audio I hadn't really put much thought into, I think it could be too much for a showreel, I feel that potential viewers might look down on it! I will get some feedback to change it in the future after I have more material to put into it!

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Presentation

We were tasked with creating a presentation about our experience over the year, and there was emphasis on not making it just a presentation with words, it could even be interpretive dance! so I wanted to play with this a bit, try and get some learning in there but ultimately just have fun with it. My idea came around after modelling my windmill on an island. I could metaphorically represent the year using my island as my year, and super impose my on it. like with all my animations I love narratives, so right at the start I knew I didn't want to just have me talking about my year. so I created a quick storyboard to get down my ideas

The green screening definitely needed work, but it was purely because of my time management on this module. I am very annoyed with myself due to the way I let all my other modules stack up ontop of PPP and so it didn't leave me long at all to come up with this response. but this is reflected in the piece, the narrative explains how relaxed I was at the beginning of the year and then it gradually got more intense and I got more stressed as it got closer to the end, and now at the end I'm a wreck! If I don't want to feel like this next year then I'm definitely going to have to manage my time better.

But this is reflected by the soundtrack I used in the presentation. I used 'we'll meet again' originally by Vera Lynn, this has many motivations but mainly the way I say I'm going to do things differently but I will be met by this workload even more next year! so that's why I tried to make the events that happened in the video seemed to have happened before to the protagonist.

This brings me on to the choice of voice, I wanted an old croaky voice to feature because of the amount of times I've felt that my energy has been sapped by my time management making me suffer. and many a times I've felt like I was in an endless loop forever ageing but not progressing.

Here is the video

Again I must re-iterate that I am aware of the mistakes and the utter amaturity of this piece, but as previously stated I wanted to try it out as I've only ever touched on it, so I wanted to at least try it out. I think I could definitely use some training on it, but I think I preferred the green screen when it was just to use post effects in my Cow animation. so maybe its a case of just developing those skills before I try and run before I can walk!

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My social media

In this quick blog I'm just going to explain my current social media presence and why I am on the current sites as I am. First of all is Facebook obviously, this is where I share my animations through my other media sites, most importantly at the moment is YouTube, this is where I upload my animation first due to my familiarity with it, but as previously explained its seems too trivial now a days and not a good carrier for art so I will definitely look into Vimeo for its more professional appearance and functions, I go under the name 'Frame by Frame Animations' this is the name of my personal small animation company, just the beginning but I thought I should give myself a name for a more professional standing as just saying by Elliot Gascoigne seems very rudimentary. I will be including my name on my business cards! For images I mainly use Tumblr, this is for the sleek style it uses and the ease of use that it encompasses, its also a very good way of getting things seen as you can re-blog (like you can in many blogs) but I've also been advised to use Instagram as its very artist heavy, but I've always been reluctant to try it due to my previous vision of the site being for people who take selfies and want to put filters on everything.so I do need to look into more efficient ways of getting my work out there, this will be a summer task to open more doors as I go into third year.

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Pop up show

As a part of Applied Animation we set up a pop up show at uni to display all of the animations we had produced in the lecture theatre to an audience! we served a few snacks to entice people to come, but also included our ephemera around to add a little bit of creative spice to the show. the turn out was very good! despite the fact that due to all of our time management that the Facebook group the night before. It would have been more beneficial to have created it a week in advance! but despite this the turn out was good. and some feedback I got from the audience was that it was 'twisted' and 'dark' and this isn't a negative thing for me! that was the aesthetic I was going for. the constructive criticism was the audio, it had a few problems and issues but that is down to the after effects file shifting some of the audio for some reason, but it can be easily fixed! I think it is definitely a good thing to do, I think it adds a type of pressure that makes one want to finish the animation in time for the showing, but there were a few unfinished animations which is a shame but that was down to the amount of time we had and those certain animations being quite complicated! and being as though you are there with the audience there is a certain pressure to make it as good as you possibly can!

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My ultimate decision

So I have built various sets and created 3D environments and explored the advantages and disadvantages about the aesthetics of the different methods including lighting and practicality. but I think it was after my Applied Animation where I had to create two sets for two different scenes for my latest animation

the sets in this animation I enjoyed very much in creating. I previously started this blog with the question, what should I save money for, a fast computer or a camera. and this module decided for me, the camera is the one to go for due to my absolute love for the creation of sets and models, although I enjoyed the Maya side of it I still prefer the look of physical models and sets for there aesthetic appeal to me but also the way they do cling onto reality whilst still becoming quite abstract. where as 3D can open the doors for things far beyond reality, stop motion still uses real world materials and techniques to keep the illusion of reality, whereas there is always that feeling in the back of your head that you are watching a 3D animation. here are some of the things that I created to include in my research for my learning path.

Here is me exploring the ability to create an island after playing the game stranded deep

Obviously mine is just using a shader map so there is no depth to the ocean but I wanted to see wether Maya was the right method to use, and I thought that maya would be the best due to the way you can defy the laws of practicality with 3D software, but after seeing the fantastic work of Matthew Albanese

I find it incredible the realism of this work and its made me realise that I was wrong about physical sets being unable to defy the laws of practicality as 3D software does, maybe not to such a scale as what Maya can do, I think these images have opened my mind to the breadth of things you can do with physical sets

There are different methods of achieving these images, by filming different segments and compositing them, this also made me realise that the amazing realism that is possible with physical sets may only be possible with post effects, this came apparent when I included the fire into my animation above, using a green screen to achieve this.

So by far my favourite method is the physical sets, but its become clear that I will need to learn more about post production to make them more convincing. this will be my pursuit for my presentation. I will try and have fun with this, but I will try to include myself into my island using a blue screen for my windmill and a green screen for me!

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Lighting in 3D and Physical sets

There is a comparison I want to bring our attention to, and that is the lighting in 3D animations and physical sets. both versions have different advantages and disadvantages. here is a brief mock up of a scene that I created, it was based on a zombie setting after my sudden appreciation for the show the walking dead

here is the scene that I created to discover how certain lighting using Maya

As you can see there is a range of things you can do with lighting using final gather and such, but I wanted to explore things like volumetric fog to make a dark creepy atmosphere where this cannot be achieved with stop motion sets unless you use post effects. but as you can still see you can really tell its modelled using a 3D software!

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3D environment

As part of my Context of practice module I produced a 3D environment involving a hotel, the animation involved the point of view of the main protagonist as he explores the apparently abandoned hotel. Here it is

The problems I faced with this animation was that there was such complex lighting and texturing, so the render times were extraordinary! so you have to model it, texture it, light it, set the camera's up and then render it out. so the whole process takes a very long time! this compared to the creation of stop motion sets can vary, I think the creation of the 3D environment is a lot harder and possibly more lengthy. but this also gives the director of the environment freedom to use 360 degree camera's to explore the entire scene, this is becoming the most common pro of 3D environments. also the lighting can be more dynamic in 3D. but there is one gripe with 3D I have, and that is that you can always tell that it is so! there is always that knowledge that it is 3D, with the soft textures and the anti-aliasing when it doesn't quite soften the edges.

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Presents

Linking in with my last post, there are also certain times when you have to create a physical creation in order to achieve the results you want, for example, another responsive brief was a self set one where I needed to create Christmas gifts due to the lack of money I had. I decided to create some small jewellery or gift boxes in my own style. here was my plan

This is my favourite style of planning, handkerchief designs: where you rough out the idea on concept with no real focus on the artistic direction but instead getting the idea across easily and effectively.

Here is a few images of the process that I used to create these, bearing in mind I had about 48 hours to complete these so I had to think about time management in depth to accommodate drying times of materials, this helped me gain an insight into what it could be like in the industry where they have to turn out work at a moments notice.

This instance is easy to determine which method to use, I don't think that giving people a JPEG image of a render would be the same as giving them a physical object that they can interact with and keep precious items in. so there are definitely different opportunities in the commercial realm. this would effect me if I were either representing certain products or actually creating those products!

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Commercial

There are certain things you just cant do with physical creations, one being in the commercial realm. Another brief from Datomec was to create a virtual representation of the puzzles that are on sale, and if you were to approach this in a physical way then you may as well just photograph the real things! but this brief also showed me some skills in how to render out an image as if you were photographing real objects, setting up lighting and staging the scene with a ramped background and plinths to display the objects, here are my renders

So this method is to create certain displays that is cheaper and more effective than staging them in real space, if you really wanted you could display hundreds of objects with a photo realistic sense with the cost of just longer render times, where as in the real world it would be quite expensive, so from a commercial point of view 3D software is a much better option!

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Piri Art gallery

As a part of Responsive we were tasked with responding to a certain amount of live briefs, one of these briefs I answered was one from the company Datomec, they wanted a 3D rendered representation of the art gallery that they had put up in the Solihull arts complex. here are the source images that I was given along with some textures and floor plans to get the measurements accurate!

Here are my finished renders of the space. 

I am very happy with them, but I also wouldn't want to create this physically due to all the intricate details that are involved in the scene such as plug sockets and reflective surfaces, but also the paintings on the wall, these would be incredibly difficult without printing the little tiny canvases, this is why I would use Maya to create this, but also the importance of accurate measurements was really important, and with Maya I could control these measurements to the decimal place where as if it was physical then the measurements would always be a little off due to human intervention unless I got them automatically cut by the saw at uni, but some small things cant be sawed in this way so for this example Maya was by far the best technique due to the utter amount of control over all the values.

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Show reels

I'm a bit nervous about making my portfolio due to not having a lot of content to put in it, but this video helped relieve a bit of  stress as these are professionals from creative skill sets

So the main points that I gathered from the video was that to keep it short but sweet, quality not quantity and to not put all of my work on there which could confuse the viewer as to which animator I am. so its going to be tricky to gather the right bits of work to put in there but it is my first show reel at the end of the day so its not going to be amazing!

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YouTube is the future!

I had a brain wave which lead to an epiphany. after following certain YouTubers such as Vsauce,  Rhett and link, Machinima and many others, they started to resemble the style of TV ... everything from the thumbnails to the intros and all the way to the outro's.

The most true to TV like videos I saw was that of 'sorted food' where it replicated any other food program from TV

With their own kitchen that's kitted out a lot like any other television cooking show. this really made me think whether TV is going to be destroyed by YouTube ... A free service where you can monetise your videos if you're getting enough views and earn money, the most grossing you tuber is PewDiePie who earns on average 4 million dollars per year! this is astounding! so it got me thinking, where would animation fit in to all this? I did some looking around and I discovered that David firth (the creator of salad fingers and other weird animations) had racked up over half a million subscribers. but I feel that this is down to the vast amount of content that he has, producing various series of animations that people can follow and keep up to date with, this in turn made me think where do I fit in to all this?

Because I don't have a lot of content I don't think I would be that successful on YouTube, but instead should seek out a more professional streaming site that could be more of a portfolio rather than a social carriage for my work. I'm referring to vimeo, which seems a lot more professional and full of artistic videos and not just people playing video games. My house mate Jeremy also told me about a company that if you shared your show reel with them from YouTube they will instantly turn you down. a bit pretentious but these are some of the threats that might occur in the future!

So I think that you tube is definitely going to or already over taken TV for constant streaming of the same sort of content, but if I wanted to be more professional I should definitely look into Vimeo further.