It has been over a year since I graduated but at long last, our fantastic 3D animated film "Kernel" has now been released on Youtube! Be sure to check it out with the lights turned off, the sound turned up and in full HD!
Synopsis:
Film:
Team:
Olly Skillman-Wilson: Director, Writer, Lighting Artist (3rd from right) Laurence Nairne: Creative Producer, Script Editor, Animator (1st on left) Charlie Minnion: Lead Compositor, Editor, Storyboard Artist (5th from left) Hugh Herbert: Writer, Animator Dan Emmerson: Animation Director Luke Jefferson: Rigging, Texturing, Technical Director (5th from left) Kai Fraser: Dynamics, Stereography (2nd from left) Liam Fraser: Dynamics, Stereography (4th from left) Jake Jones: Modelling, Texturing, Compositing (4th from right) Ryan Mace: Modelling, Texturing, Compositing (2nd from right) Nigel Kitts: Lead Texture Artist, Animator (1st on right) Alan Matthewman: Fluid Dynamics, Cloth Simulation (3rd from left)
Here is my dissertation. In it I relate art to modern forms of commercial animation and digital media. My argument is that audio visual areas of commercial digital media and animation could allow for the most 'artistic freedom'.
I enjoyed writing this. I found it interesting learning about and applying the fundamental attributes of art to contemporary and commercial animation/digital media.
Some of the music videos I referred to in my dissertation are the following:
Everytime (2009) by Oi Va Voi. Directed by Kijek and Adamski.
So So So (2011) by Rone. Directed by Studio Funf.
Frozen (1998) by Madonna. Directed by Chris Cunningam.
Joga (1997) by Bjork. Directed by Michel Gondry.
Yes I Know (2011) by Memory Tapes. Directed by Eric Epstein.
There is also this great web page which documents in detail the making of Jonsi's live show visuals: 59 productions.
Kernel progress
Things are getting pretty busy at the moment as we have less then 3 weeks left to complete our final major project. Kernel - our CG animated film which is looking fantastic. My role on this currently consists of overseeing the compositing and editing. Below are a few finished stills - Its an exciting time!
32 bit colour implications Heres a little 32-bit colour related compositing mystery I recently stumbled on whilst analysing the final awesome touches Olly added to the first city shot shown above. This may look pretty boring but it was quite intriguing from my point of view!
Other stuff
I'm currently working on a website, aiming to promote myself and my skill set (a mixture of concept art, storyboarding, compositing and animation.) Here is a screenshot of the current layout.
Furthermore, I'm hoping to create a business card, C.V. and up-to-date showreel all in time for the Annecy animation festival which I'm greatly looking forward to! Woop :-D
I have been very busy since my last blog (hence the lack of blog posts.) I am currently working solely for Kernel which is the main 3D animated film being produced in our year. Since completing a lot of concept design work I have also created the new storyboard for Kernel. From this, I have been able to develop an animatic that has progressed through 6 stages (from an epic 6 mins 38 secs down to a more realistic 4 mins 11 secs.) In the process of refining the animatic, I have kept the essential story information, cut out whats not needed and maintained a good sense of pace and rhythm.
From the animatic, Olly and Hugh have been creating block-throughs in Maya. These Maya shots - that dictate basic animation and camera moves - are being carefully timed to fit with the animatic. (I have also helped by going into Maya and adjusting the camera sequencer lengths to block-through shots that were completed prior to the final animatic.) The idea is that people who're doing the animating can work within the appropriately timed shots that maintain the correct pacing to the film as a whole. Its an intuitive process and of course, the animation will probably not stick to the frame counter exactly - so long as it roughly fits with all the original timings then we're on the right track!
My roles on the project have extended to editing and compositing for which I have been getting to grips with Adobe Premiere (CS5.5) and The Foundry's Nuke (6.3 v2) software. For both of these I have been working my way through some helpful books - 'Adobe Premiere - classroom in a book' and 'Nuke 101' by Ron Ganbar. Both of which, give you files and exercises to work through. As the editor, I will be constantly updating a premiere project file, as the shots gradually progress from the block through stage to animation and eventually the final composited shots.
The image below shows what I have learned most recently in Nuke. Using a rendered 3D sequence of exr images, I have rebuilt a basic beauty pass which mirrors the way a beauty pass would be created in Maya. The advantage here though, is that the beauty pass has been divided to its essential elements - which I can tweek independently. Working this way should prove highly efficient as it allows one to have good aesthetic control over the shots and save on the lengthy processing and rendering times Maya would incur. The bonus is that the files that Ganbar has provided with his book is of a lemming 'road-skiing' using a car. Amazing!
The Kernel team have been working really well together and it feels like we're building up a creative symbiosis of all our talents. If we maintain this kind of momentum then we should have something good to show by the deadline which is now less then 100 days away!
Aside from Kernel, I have been working on the dissertation and am currently 2 weeks away from completing a Web Communication Dreamweaver AQA course. Busy busy busy!
Wow, what a busy term it has been! I think things will only get busier as well - but that's cool as I enjoy all the work that I'm doing and have never in my life worked on such an exciting group project. It would be amazing to get 'Kernel' finished and it seems like we are off to a strong start with a Pre-Production bible consisting of 79 pages.
At the start of the term It seemed like I was destined to work a tiny bit on many different projects but as time has moved on I have found myself getting more and more involved with 'Kernel' which we have just found out, will be the only 3D animated short film going through to Production. Olly (the Director) and the rest of our team are very keen to get it finished so it is pretty important that we aim for less than 3 minutes long.
Our Lecturers have said that the Storyboard must be made clearer and suggested that Dan, Hugh, Max and myself have a go at editing the Story and Storyboard to make it clearer. Whilst this is adding significantly to my Christmas workload, I am happy to have this opportunity as I really enjoy Storyboarding. For anyone curious about how the Kernel Animatic is looking at the moment - see below.
Other work I will be showing on this post will include work for Shell and Paddy, Fentil and Box Boy. Out of these 3 projects only Shell and Paddy is going through to Production. Having said that they are still allowing Dan (Director of Fentil) to produce one polished shot for his project. My background for Shell and Paddy will probably not get used as I have only produced the one - which would break the consistency of Joe's backgrounds.
Here is all of the work I have done so far (since my last post.)
Kernel
The 'Cathexis Tree.' Reference, Concept and Design.
'The Shed.' Reference and Designs.
Plants that will be placed around the Dome shaped Greenhouse. Reference, Sketches, Photoshop experiments and Final designs.
Final Designs.
Top view of the Greenhouse. This shows the colour range of the Plants and where the plants will be placed.
Side views of the Greenhouse. These concept shots show the placement and size of the plants on both sides of the Greenhouse. The other 'green-ness' will be built up with long grass, and generic foliage, this will help unify the plants.
Fentil:
My job for this project was to produce a Matte Painting. For this I speed learned some techniques and covered about a 1/3 of this book. Thanks David B. Mattingly :-) Very helpful.
It was useful following along with the techniques outlined in this book and interesting building up a photo real image from scratch in layers. Here's my work in progress leading up to the final piece:
A quick 20 minute concept sketch:
Line Drawing:
Adding in the Tones - Light, Dark, Core, Cast Shadows and another layer (Final Darks) which is like doing an Ambient Occlusion pass in CG:
Applying a texture:
Here, I have warped a couple of textures to fit more snugly on the bottom centre-right side of the Rock. This has made a big difference but I felt with my time schedule and with what was required that it wasn't necessary to warp every bit of texture.
I repeated the process above to the other rocks, layed down some Colour Correction and a bit of clone stamping to neaten things up at the end.
The rocks were the main thing Dan wanted me to produce so the Ground, Clouds, Sun and Moon received much less attention. I learned a few more tricks and useful Hot keys with Photoshop doing this piece.
Shell and Paddy:
Here is my initial layout:
Final background (produced using Photoshop):
Box Boy
Darrien asked me to do the Bus Interior for his project. This was the last bit of work I produced this term and I did it from start to finish in about a day.
Sketches from Reference:
Final Layout:
Final Piece - here I borrowed some colours of Darrien's Concept for 'Box Boy.'
Added Graffity and Shadows.
Added Depth of Field (just for fun ^^)
What lays ahead...
So the 3 main areas of work that I would like to cover over the Xmas holiday are:
-The Storyboard for 'Kernel'
-The Draft Dissertation - Planning and Writing
-Making a good start at learning Nuke
