The first step of our synoptic project was planning. We took Alex's pitched idea and adapted on the story and design. Everyone contributed their ideas to the animation and we worked together to eventually come to a final story and design we were all happy with. We also discussed the strengths and weaknesses we saw in ourselves and each other and spoke about what area we would each be comfortable working in; for example I work often in art and animation so those were the areas I wanted to contribute to in the project. From this we assigned project roles based on the person's strengths. Jake was put in charge of the art and look of the project, this meant he monitored the concept design, storyboards and how everything looked coming together. I was put in charge of animation as this is something I wanted to do in the future. I've worked closely with everyone while in the animation stage, helping with reference and how the character should move from a simple walk cycle to the character's characteristics and movements. Luke was in charge of 3D assets and rendering and Alex was labelled 'Project Lead' as it was his pitched idea, but he wanted everyone to take leadership in their chosen areas as we each had different skill sets.
We then moved onto pre-production where we took all our ideas and started to bring them together into a clearer image and get ready to start production. Jake and I worked on the storyboard and eventually Jake turned that into our animatic. We also worked on concept art for not only the backgrounds, but the design of the animation. From the start, the group were heavily inspired by the styling of 'Spider-Man: Into The Spider Verse' for not only its unique art design and colouring, but the technique of making their 3D animation look 2D.
To help with the backgrounds and setting we took a trip to London to take some reference.
We also filmed some references in the classroom for our animation:
Once we got the storyboard and animatic sorted, we assigned set scenes to one another based on confidence and skill set, this was so the more challenging scenes were given to someone who was more able and confident and the 'simpler' scenes were given to someone who may not have as much practice animating, especially in Maya, but retrieved help and were able to add more onto their scene such as facial movements and more characteristics. We settled on Alex doing scene 1 (the walk cycle), Luke doing scene 2 (spray paint), Jake doing scene 3 (chase + fall into the hole) and I would work on scene 4 (slow motion free fall). I think we all found this useful as we could all contribute to animating and could work on scenes we were comfortable with. We actually got given the character model and rig by BlueZoo but we wanted her to fit our character bio and style so I drew up some concept art which Jake then took to retexture the model.
It was now time to move into Production. With our individual scenes assigned, we set of animating. As my scene was the character free-falling in slow motion, it was a lot hard to find and film reference and to animate but after lots of research and trial and fail I was happy with the final product. Other then the points mentioned, I didn't have any difficulties with my animation. The only real issue was due to Covid-19 and the lockdown which took place as although I had Maya at home, it was my Dad's work computer which left me with limit time to use it myself but I managed to arrange days where I could work. This however left me limited as to how much I could add to my animation as I wanted to get a decent, useable piece which displayed what was happening in the scene. I'm very impressed with the outcome of my scene, despite the complications and it was my first time animating a complex scene a person. I also experimented with camera movements; I knew I wanted it to pan from the side to on top of her, but I didn't know wether to then zoom out or in. After testing both ideas I thought the zoom into a close up would work better and the reach at the end would be more effective.
Zoom Out:
Zoom In:
While animating, I was also given the task to design and expand the city skyline background. I chose to work with Jake's concept art which was used in the storyboard and animatic as this would save time and I already thought it matched our idea perfectly. I went in and made some small changed like the colour palette from blue and orange to neon pink and purple as I thought this would contrast from the background in the first scene which was warm tones, and I felt that this would suit a city more and had better styling. From that I sectioned off buildings and scattered them randomly down their row. I did this multiple times, doubling the page length as I went, and later on designed and added neon signs throughout.
Towards the end of our Production, we were lucky enough to be part of an industry professional critique call set up my NextGen. We were joined on the call by Will Cook (BlueZoo), Robbie Raio (Framestore) and Alper Aksit and Bernard Wicksteed (ILM). I found this call really insightful as it game me a look into how the industry works, some useful animating tips and professional feedback. They gave a couple of small suggestions for the running scene but over all gave positive feedback and praise.
Once rending began, Jake and Luke took over as Alex and I had limited resource, knowledge and our computers wouldn't have worked as well. As of writing this, we are still waiting for our scenes to be rendered but below are some test renders we have:
(The rails were modelled by Luke and the ground was modelled by Jake)
Throughout the project I think we worked well as a team, although we often had clashing ideas and occasional communication issues, we are all happy to help each other and are always open to giving and receiving suggestions. During this project I feel I have improved on my pitching and presenting skills alongside learning different animating techniques, such as graph editor, and animating styles. I also learned the process of making a long piece of animation and how to work in a team in a professional way.
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