Project Reflection

Throughout the second semester I felt the group communication in both groups was quite bad, the second group was by far the worst. When it came to developing and creating the animation I was left to do nearly all the work apart from Soils using the images from my story board to create an animatic. Supposedly Toria spoke to Soils about rejoining our group after she left because she didn't like our idea, but I tried contacting her over Facebook to invite her back into the group and I sent her many messages filling her in on what work had been done and what still needed doing. I got no response even when I tried scheduling a time that we could all meet up to work on animating the robot in After Effects.

For the timeframe I had to complete this animation after the group separation; and the work load I had from this and other modules I am quite proud of what I have achieved, especially since I haven't had much experience in AfterEffects and had to experiment with the program until I figured out how to animate certain parts like the 'wiggle' effect.

Final Animation

This is my final animation for this project. I added a camera pan to focus on each of the objects close up to show the detail, before panning out to show the rest of the body. I realized after creating the animation the bottles should also speed up when the cogs do before they lose control, but I was overloaded with work by this point because of the group not contributing enough so I didn't have time to fix it. To add some variety to the falling cogs I made one hit the exhaust and spin across it which I really liked and thought it looked good in the final animation.

Animation Without Camera

I've included a video of the animation without the camera pan to show the animation as a whole.

Final Character

This was my final design for the robot, but I added some more cog and a track for the conveyor belt later on after seeing it in action on AfterEffects. I also added some green lights to make seem more artificial. I created the glow effect around the lights by layering a low opacity brush with the hardness turned down to give a softer effect.

Body Parts and Containers

I created the body parts individually by drawing them in Photoshop and zooming in so I could add the small details. I lowered the opacity scale on the paintbrushes to add shading and to highlight areas. I had a problem with the body parts being too small when I tested them so I made them all a big size as it's better to scale down than up. I wasn't sure how to design the jaw so I tried out multiple styles with cogs or screws but I eventually settled on having one cog with another behind it. I created the drink containers by finding a free to use image of beer & wine then taking it into PhotoShop, I then added a black outline around the edges to give it a similar cartoon style effect. The wine bottle was too dark to see the outline so I turned the opacity down but when I put it into Aftereffects and animated I realized the opacity was set too low. However since I was the only person doing the majority of this project in my group I didn't have time to fix it. After creating the outlines I deleted the backgrounds and placed them onto the conveyor belt in AfterEffects.

Brain

Cog

Jaw with cog

Jaw with multiple cogs

Jaw with screw

Jaw without screws or cogs

Liver

Pump base

Pump stem

Complete pump

Robot back

Head

Beer

Wine

Character Development #2

This first concept was a rough drawing taken from the storyboard and I planned to develop it further.

I roughly sketched out how I wanted the robot to look, with added body parts and more detail.

I refined my previous sketch and cleaned up the lines so it would look tidier. I also added some more detail and a little shading.

For my last development concept I added some colour so I would get more of an idea for the finished product. I liked how the exhausts and body parts turned out with a steampunk theme, and I'm glad I matched the body parts with their organ colours; i.e. Pump is red for heart, liver is orange etc.

Second Storyboard and Animatic

This storyboard demonstrates how the bottles of alcohol will go along the conveyor belt towards the robot who's mouth will then open and pick up the drink. The robots body parts will all be moving so it's not too stationary, and once the robot has drunk a lot of alcohol the machine parts will speed up and then break and fall off showing that over time alcohol can destroy your body and that you can't control it.

Soils then used my Storyboard to create this animatic.

Character Development #1

These are my first character concepts. I planned to have the robot with a silver exterior that could slowly turn a orange colour as it starts to rust. There is a pump connected to the heart which will move in the animatic in a pumping motion. The brain will also start to shrink and darken the more alcohol is consumed by the robot.

First Storyboard

This story board demonstrates the weight alcohol has on the body physically and psychologically.

Animatic Sections

We started with the sections being split equally through the group but after I had done my section I also got given the beginning to do while others started working on the alcoholism animation. This ended up being the reason I was removed from the group as I couldn't fully commit to the alcoholism project while trying to get the animatic done

We decided to make to animation a similar style to the Monty Python animations by Terry Gilliam so the characters would move quite simply.

Unfortunately the animatic never got fully finished as I never got the help I needed to get it all done
.

Start of Animatic

the other two animatic files were too large to upload on Blogger so i had to post them through Youtube.

Nursing and Attacking scene 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NEnXPxa9qQ

Meeting soldiers scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvelsX0TpsY

Character Ideas

Before our group split up I made some character ideas for some organs to show the damage and effects alcohol can have on them. I wanted to make the organs look more interesting by adding characteristics to each of them; for instance the brain has glasses and a tie to make it appear smart and hard working, and the heart is muscular because it's always working out and is strong.

Alcoholism Ideas

In this first idea a mechanical figure (robot) will be walking along drinking beer every few seconds. Slowly you will be able to see the character starting to stumble and struggle to walk as it consumes more alcohol. The robot will also start to steadily rust to represent the long term damage that can be caused by alcohol. Eventually the character will fall to the ground and will still attempt to drink which will result in a lot spilling on himself. A text message would then appear reading "Don't end up in the gutter". This idea was to illustrate how excessive use of alcohol makes you lose control of yourself.

My second idea for the alcoholism idea was to have a robot holding a tanker as it filled with alcohol, but the robot slowly begins to struggle down to the floor as it tries to cope with the weight of the alcohol. This is down to symbolize how alcohol can take effect on a person by bringing them down with problems and also the negative physical attributes alcohol can cause.

We thought the second idea was too hard to communicate to an audience so I developed another concept that could better represent the consumption of alcohol. For this plan the main idea was to have a conveyor belt arm that feeds drink into the robots mouth as it opens and closes. The robot is similar to a zombies characteristics showing that alcoholism takes control of the body and mind like a zombie. The more the robot drinks the cogs and body parts will start to fall off. This is the final idea we decided to go with because we thought the position of the character was more interesting and different.