Portfolio website update

I'm satisfied with the home page I created for my portfolio and I'm now in the process of designing the "my work" page and I think I'll have my work dynamic scroll horizontally. This would make the page seem less crowded and is easy for the user to navigate the page contents. I'm pretty happy with my current workflow which initially starts with me creating a page mockup on Photoshop and then importing individual graphic elements into Flash CC. This enabled me to convert graphical elements into dynamic symbols such as movie clips and buttons. I'm hoping to create my own image gallery which will function much like a scroll gallery where the central item will reveal more information and then the information will be hidden as you highlight another item, this will ensure that the content isn't cluttered and the user doesn't have to scan the page for different information, everything of interest will be presented centrally. In the feedback I received the feedback suggested that I have less pages in my website so to acknowledge this feedback I'm planning on having the CV and portfolio content on a single page and the contact and blog link on another so my website consists of 3 pages.

History Of Animation

In this blog entry  I will be discussing some of the key events in the development of animation from the early 1900’s to current day.

Before motion picture films there was animation and one of the first ways in which animation were produced was through a device called a Zoetrope. A Zoetrope is a device where the frames of an animation would be printed on the inside of the circular drum of the zoetrope and then the device would then be sped round in the opposite direction of the frames which gives the visual impression that the images are dynamically changing. In 1917 the first animate feature film was created which was called El Apóstol which was created in Argentina, the film was just over 70 minutes long and consisted of just under 60,000 frames.

The next key development in 2D animation was in 1928 which introduced the synchronization of sound with animation. This was the first animation by Disney which introduced Mickey Mouse in a 7 minute animation called “Steamboat Willie”. This development revolutionized animation thereafter as animation previously were just moving imagery without any sound.  

The next revolutionary development was in 1932 which saw the introduction of Technicolor which enabled animations to be shot in colour which added a new dimension to animation, as animations and feature films were previously all done in black and white.

In 1980’s movies started implementing computer generated imagery into their scenes and one movie in particular called “Tron” is very iconic for its extensive use of CGI throughout before Tron CGI was barely used in feature length films.

In 1995 the first completely computer generated movie was develop which was called “Toy Story” the movie was developed by "Disney which also created the “Steamboat Willie” short animation. The movie didn’t require any physical acting and only required voice actors to perform the voices for the computer generated characters

Types of Animation

There is a common argument that animations that a compiled of drawings are much better than computer generated animations such Finding Nemo.  Animations which fall into the hand drawn category are animations such as Beauty and the beast and Dumbo where the whole movie is made up of hand drawn frames, hand drawn animated movies were a common trend in the early 90’s and most of the successful ones were created by Disney.  In modern days computer generated animations are much more popular and Pixar movies such as Wall-E and Finding Nemo always do very well at the box office. There are various types of animation which can be identified by the unique techniques used the make them, for example “stop motion” animation consists of capturing physical objects such as figures and models in a particular pose and then repeating the process multiple times to create an animation. A really good example of this type animation is robot chicken which is tv show which is basically a tv show made up of toy figures in a stop motion animation. 

Another popular tv show & movie franchise which utilizes stop motion animation is Wallace & Gromit where the characters and scenery are made out of clay. Wallace and Gromit has won several Oscars since it was created and meaning that this type of animation is still favoured by a particular audience over animated movies which have a heavy use of CGI. Developing an animation such as Wallace and Gromit is quite a time consuming process and some other types of animation such as 2D animation would take less time as all the frames are developed digitally. An animation like Wallace & Grommets would undergo an extensive storyboarding process which shows what happens in every other frame.

2D animation consists of drawing bitmap or vector graphics digitally on a computer, there animated file types such GIF which enable a number frames to be stored therefore enabling you to make animations. A common piece of software you would use to create a 2D animation would be Adobe Flash.

3D animation is a slightly more advanced technique of animating as it consists of firstly creating 3D Mesh for an object and then adding a texture on afterwards

This technique of animation is very modern and in movies such as “Rise of Planet of the Apes” a process called motion capture is used in which an actor would act out some physical movements and then that actor’s silhouette would be remodeled into a 3D generated character as seen in the picture below.

Performance capture has also been implemented into video games and in the Rockstar game “LA Noire” has been used extensively. The way in which it was done was by using a rig made up of a 360-degree set-up of 32 cameras grouped into pairs to capture the performance of an actor from the neck up. The footage creates an exact 3D mesh overlay of every facial expression meaning what you see isn't strictly animation, but more like a converted film sequence. The reason performance capture was sued on this game was because the reading of expressions on the characters faces serves as an important game mechanic when deciding a character is lying or not. LA Noire is the only game really to utilize performance capture this heavily however I predict in the future it will used a lot more. 

Revisiting My Portfolio

I'm currently in the process of redesigning my portfolio website  due to feedback. I'm going to use less colours in this design while at the same using implementing more dynamic effects such as mouse over events and slideshows. I think my previous design was quite cluttered particularly the portfolio page. I think instead of all my work spread onto one page I will instead have my content disappear and appear in a gallery, this will ensure that the audience doesn't struggle to navigate my content like they previous would. I think this redesign would make my portfolio more interesting and more functional.

During the testing of my design I have noticed that there is a slight delay before my website loads, this is because I this design uses significantly more graphics than my previous design so doesn't load immediately. I think i'm going to need implement a preloader to ensure that my website is functional. 

Animation Workshop

In today's workshop we learnt more about the history of animation and some of its key developments for example we learnt about "Steamboat willy" and "Tron". We also looked into modern animation such as the movie Avatar and the performances of Andy Serkis as computer generated characters. A practical exercise we did in the workshop was to create a short 12 frame animation on a strip of paper which flowed correctly. The aim of the workshop was to in the end take pictures of each of the individual frames in the animation and then import them into software such as flash or Photoshop so they can be modified digitally.

This gave me an understanding of some of typical workflows which digital artists may undertake when creating productions.

Channel Project Summary

Yesterday we presented our finished channel projects and I have mixed feelings about our project. I was really pleased with website Alex had created for our brand and it clearly showed how much hard work he had put into it.

 I was also pleased with the logo designs Tom had created, as they had developed quite nicely since the one day project and we ultimately ended up with a logo which I think conveys our company's values as well as looking professional.

 One aspect of the project I wasn't so happy with was the videos as they were rushed and poorly edited by the person assigned the role from the beginning of the project. I think the videos significantly hindered the quality of the project as they weren't a consistent resolution or aspect ratio and the video was compressed way too much.

In future projects I think its important that all members of the group contribute equally and to ensure this happens I think we should set mini deadlines for each group member to ensure that the project's development isn't hindered by other group members which was clearly the case in this project.

Channel Website Production Progress

I have recently been working on some of the animated sequences which will be used in our videos. I have created a line graph sequence in after effects which will be used to illustrate what our Nyto-Elucidate treatment does which would be shown in our video supported by a voice over.

Channel Project Filming Review

On Wednesday 29th of January we undertook the filming process for our production. Every member of the group arrived at the filming location relativity on time and was able to get all of the equipment set up pretty quickly. Before we could start filming we needed to write the scripts for the videos which wasn't very difficult as the product descriptions I had made for each product had information we could easily throw into the script.

Sophie was our actress for our initial video and was clearly very nervous so we were required to re take her scenes several time however we did in the end get a take we were all happy with.

I was in charge of the audio for our shoot and basically had to hold up the boom mic during the shoots. Alex was in charge of operating the camera and did a very good job throughout the shoot. Lauren was our director and also helped produce the scripts.

I overall think our shoot went pretty well however I think the filming process could of been done a lot quicker if we had produced storyboards and script before the shoot as the 3 videos took 6 hours to complete.