Wednesday 6 March 2013

Corfu Animation Festival

Just remembered this blog existed.

Latest news: http://www.betherefest.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=228&Itemid=203&lang=en

Scroll down to number 32.

AUSSIES REPRESENT!!!

Thursday 25 October 2012

Finishing off

Last day was spent fixing the colouring and masking out random noise. As I had left it to the last minute, the titles are very simple. I think it looks nice for the first few seconds coz you feel all moody and ominous, then it cuts to Jacque and music box and it completely throws me off. No time for anything more sophisticated however, so I guess it will have to serve to foreshadow his grim, grim end.


If I had to review my animation at this stage:

-aforementioned conflict with titles
-jarring and disorientating beginning
-laughs are a bit unconvincingly cut together, but otherwise alright flow for rest of scene 1-(oh and at the part where he jumps off the bed weird I added a blink in and it made such a difference)
-scene 2 feels good
-music good
-wut, random card
-not sure what to think of the solitary random card
-the director's idea of subliminal messaging?
-more like the director's miserable attempt to tie things together even when the absence of certain elements renders the effort absolutely meaningless
-anyway, still good up until they sit at the window
-there some animation needing redoing
-lighting is nice
-music not ideal, but not bad
-something happened now it looks like a climax
-music does not work to be honest
-no feel
-and yaaay it's over!


More evaluation:

I think the main problem with Slapjack as a whole is that it was built upon a retrospectively poor foundation. The story was weak to begin with, and would have worked better as a more stylised animation, but there was minimal work done for look and feel.

Some things to remember for future projects, KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. Like, actually simple. And do a lot of concept art and style frames. Since that's what I'm into.

I probably reiterate, but I think the best place for this work is online. Aside from the potential for a huge audience, there's that psychological aspect for me; online all of your work can be viewed together, whilst at a festival or something it's that one work representing you. It is something you have done, versus something you have DONE. And it really is too weak for DONE.

^Excuses

Anyway, I will be submitting this to festivals (bullied), but as the main place for it is online/showreel, again, online hand in tomorrow.

DONE!

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Glow abuse

Which level of glowiness?
Why, the level that most effectively masks the dodginess painfully apparent in a high resolution render.

low res, high res + small glow, high res + more glow

Background assimilation

Michelle's backgrounds:






I think I underestimated how difficult it would be to copy somebody else's style. Nevertheless, they were a massive help, and I managed to assimilate two of them with a quick blending & rendering job, plus some random texture/adjustment layers.



I am a bit irked by the bedpost colour on the first one, but I haven't had time to fix it, so hopefully I am the only one who notices.

Animation Festivals

Since After Effects is freezing up every five minutes (I should really learn to pre-render), I might as well take this time to update my log. I have been bullied into submitting my work to animation festivals, so here are some of them that I would be ok submitting to, I guess.

-2D or Not 2D Animation Festival
-Blue Mountains Film Festival
-Melbourne International Animation Festival
-miscellaneous free ones

Actually the only one I really personally wanted to submit to was the 2D or Not 2D one, because it was started by Tony White, whose books were an amazing resource for me trying to learn to animate traditionally. But I was searching for it a few weeks ago and found not much recent information about it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it hasn't died, but it is looking likely that it has. Grumble. I was also kind of interested in GRAPHIC, at the Opera House, but considering the due date is on Sunday, I wouldn't be able to polish it nearly enough by then, and anyway, looking at the calibre of previous animations done for GRAPHIC, it's kinda a lost cause.

The other two are because I prefer nearby locations I can get to, and they seem cool. Other than that, I am probably just going to go down the list of animation festivals with free submissions on that website I found, and just send it off randomly. I know I should prioritise the big/semi-big festivals, substandard quality or not, so I won't put it up publicly online too soon, on the off chance I catch myself in an optimistic mood. So for hand in, I think I will put it up on Vimeo, but on private, so it's sort of like, it will be public, but not yet... yeah.

Sunday 21 October 2012

Error 16

Today, Adobe CS6:

Please uninstall and reinstall the product.
If this problem still occurs, please contact Adobe technical support for help, and mention the error code shown at the bottom of this screen. 
Error: 16

And the hilarious thing is, After Effects CS6 files are not backwards compatible with After Effects CS5.5, which is the version installed on the beasts at COFA.

Yet another manifestation of Murphy's Law.

Friday 19 October 2012

Shadows

For dodgy, inaccurate, but passable shadows in After Effects:

-duplicate colour layer
-skew
-rotate
-scale
-fill
-ramp
-gaussian blur

For when animated masks just doesn't cut it.