Time-lapse

A short time-lapse, this was a 9 hour animating session for about 8 seconds of animation.

Robot in motion

I've finished two new shots this week!
They are the first shots I animated with my robot puppet. I try not to show too much, so instead of showing the shots, I will show you one of my test animations as a teaser. I will try to post some time-lapses too, when I get the time to edit them a little.

It's not much but that's all I can show right now without spoil too much.
I did some more little tests like this to get a feel of the puppet. The animations in the final shots will be better :)

Set Building & Animating 3

I feel really original making up these names for my blog posts.

I've moved from my father's studio to a room in my school, I had to move ALOT of stuff, materials, props, setfloors, equipment, etc. This forces me to leave my house to actually work on my animation, instead of sitting at home like a hermit. So I guess that's awesome!

I've animated a few scenes so far, still too few according to my "schedule", one I haven't updated in weeks since some stuff happened that "slightly" delayed my shooting schedule.
Anyway, here are some obscure (and blurry) photos of the studio and the set.
I try to resist to not post all of my final shots, since that would ruin the final animation I guess.
So that's why I'm posting these here photos instead, yes!

Animating a warning sign for my first shot.

Setting up a post-apocalyptic shot in the city.

Unpainted city ruin props, I already have alot of them (both foam and paper), but I still needed lot's to fill shots and for matte paintings.

Set Building & Animating 2

Some photo's of the set from the previous post, from a different angle.







The size and proportions where all done by hand, looking through the image capture application. For the dirt road I used string and needles so I could adjust the road to get the right false perspective, before actually painting the road.
For this shot I had to create some mini props, like the rocks you see in the distance, and the streetlights. The most fun however was trying to make an even thinier car wreck than my other car props.



The material is quite delicate, so cutting out the tiny windows was quite the challenge. If I had the time I would have put some wheels on it, but the car is too far away to notice that anyway.

Set Building & Animating

Finally, animating!
I started building the first (and might I add the largest) set for my film a few weeks ago, unfortunately I got ill for a few days, so the process was a bit slow.
It was quite tricky because it's a false perspective shot :)

The following shot is the first shot of my film.



To show you the scale of my set.



It's still the raw unkeyed and uncomposited version of this shot, but here it is, I animated the focus-pull by hand. Check the full HD version!



My next post will feature some making of pics of the set, to show you how the set looks from different perspective.

Props

I've been way too lazy/busy (yes, that sounds very contradicting) to post lately! Some more props and buildings were made. I made two checklists, one for my storyboard (of which I finished the final version about a month ago), and a how-many-thing-do-I-still-have-to-build checklist.
The latter is almost finished, and soon I will start setting up the sets and props in the studio. I still have some setbuilding to go though. I need to paint the boards for the setfloors, some additional props and mess around with the greenscreen/lighting set-up some more.

My estimate is that I will be animating my first shot in about 2 weeks.

Here some props:

A radio tower.


And a building, there will be little dancing people in it.

Back to zhe storyboard

Well, back to storyboarding!
The last time I checked my storyboard I thought, damn, there's still alot of boring shots in it! And since I will be making use of the green screen alot I can make some shots even bigger en better :)

I'm not really a fast storyboarder though, and I tend to overthink alot of shots and choices. I'm lucky that I already had a decent board lying before me, but there's still alot of shots who need to be redone in different angles, or where some elements have to be added.

Here's some of my new shots (just imagine the first version was pretty boring, can't be arsed to post the old ones):

Bleep

Update time! New robot pictures!
Ofcourse it's not done yet.. this is just a dry assembly, I need to gleu some of the joint parts to the puppet and make sure the joints are nice and comfy/tight.











As you can see I still have to finish the mouth replacements, and the eyelids.
I'm still surprised that I made the robot so heavy, shouldn't have used that much wood. I'll need to build a supporting rig in case the robot needs to stand on one leg.

Also, I had my first exam last week, but they gave me half a year extra to finish my film. Which I'm glad about because I became too stressed out lately.
It's good to know that I have enough time to animate properly and fine tune my film :)

Post Annecy update

I'm back on track a bit, had a few busy days not working on my project. I'm still working on the puppet ofcourse. I picked up the armature supplies at the Animation Supplies at the MIFA in Annecy. Got to speak with Andrew who designs the armatures himself. Nice guy, I even got to buy the armature for a lower price :)

Anyhoo, here's a pic of the robot so far.



I'm still working on assembling the joints. Been glueing and sawing like a mad man for the last two days. My first deadline is next tuesday, I hope to get some animation tests ready with soundeffects before that time.

Pre Annecy update

*EDIT: added some more photo's*

Well, the puppet's not finished yet. I wanted to finish it earlier this week, but I've gotten pretty tired with working on this film the last couple of days. I wanted too, but I could only pull off a couple of hours a day (instead of like 8 on a normal work day).
But luckily I'm going to leave for the Annecy festival today, I really need this vacation, RIGHT NOW. So I'm glad my little "setback" in working on this project came now, and not 2 months before or after the festival.

Anyhoo, here's some pictures of the robot so far.









I rigged the legs, but I discovered the puppet's body is actually a bit too heavy to support it. It works fine when it's standing on both legs, but when I need to animate a walkcycle or a dance, it tends to get a bit wobbly. So I decided to order a ball & socket armature at Animation Supplies. I started using aluminum wire because I thought a professional armature was too expensive.
But since this is my graduation film, and I want the robot to animate properly without falling over, I decided to order one.

I should have avoided using wood for the torso, but I couldn't really find a material that was easy to handle and as sturdy as wood. All the other parts are quite heavy too, it was a bit naïve of me to think the robot wouldn't get too wobbly this way. At least I learned something :)
Hopefully the re-rigging process won't take long!

Well, I'm off to watch animations and enjoy the sun in France.

Au revoir!

Puppet preview

Yes yes yes YESH. Zhe puppet is almost finished!
I only need to work on the head and torso, and maybe glue a few wire plugs, but still, ALMOST FINISHED.

Here's a small preview:

Shiny update

Yesh, more props!!
The tank can actually rotate it's turret! It won't animate in this film, though I will use it to animate for funsies later on.

Robot Update

Small update, the puppet is almost finished!

I am le tired

I finally started building the puppet. Most of the time I start with building the puppet first, but for some stupid reason I didn't have the right equipment and materials yet.
This is also the first time that I use wood for my puppet.

I started on the head and torso today, the white objects are part of the arms and fingers. They're made out of apoxie sculpt, there's KS tubing inside them. I use the tubing for a simple plugin system, so I can replace any broken aluminum wire.



As you can see I'm not that far yet, but it isn't bad for just 1 day of work.

Moving on to the new set pieces. These are the miniatures that I use for shots of the city in the distance. I will recycle the buildings in post production. Parts of the set will be bluescreened, which allows me to make the city a bit bigger. Saves me alot of time building props :)











I'm inspired by all kinds of stuff when building the props, post-apocalyptic movies, real life disasters (the ferris wheel for example, Prypjat, Tjernobyl), comics, etc. The set is going to contain some little hidden references to my sources of inspiration.

Not really sure if this is interesting, but here's a pic of some of the templates I use for my buildings:



I trace them, and then change them a little so I have a new and different building. Works like a charm!

I'm sorry if this blog post seems a bit incoherent, but I'm really tired and it's late. Time to go to bed.

Kasper out.

Buildings

Some set pieces!

Shiny

Another done, last one. Now I'm off to build the set and props :)

New Props

A new car and some rusty/broken car props:

Miniature Cars

I spent the last few days building little car props for my graduation film.
Here's a few photo's of the process:


I started  with cutting out the outlines of the car into foamboard and glueing them together.


I made the little wheels and headlights out of black and yellow fimo clay.


The red car is almost finished, you can see the blue van in it's early state in the background.


Et voila, the finished cars. The green van is probably getting some hippie decals, although the small scale makes that a little difficult.

Storyboard Roboto

Small update. These are two shots of my graduation film. It's about a lonely giant robot discovering music.
Progress on the storyboard is going a tad slow, although I'm getting a bit faster at storyboarding now.
But I'm almost getting there! Can't wait to start building the set and the puppet :)