Evaluation OUAN505

This module was an interesting one. I put off most of the work I had to do since I had so many other animations to work on and I didn't have time to focus on a 5 month long project. I also had enough time to do that since I was tasked with the Production and Post Production of the project. It gave me ample time to do what I needed to without having to become anxious over whether or not I would finish the animation. The only thing I really had to focus with early on was collaborating with my friend on getting a BGM track for the animation, and maybe getting a voice actor to do some narration for it. In the end neither of those ventures ended up producing anything, but I still plan to work with both of those people on a different project. I chalk this one up to some bad communication and planning on both ends.
In terms of production, I had an easy enough time finishing my scenes on time. Each scene brought with it a different challenge and I feel as though I succeeded in each adequately enough. In terms of intercommunication with my team however, I feel as though that left me wanting. I felt as though instead of collaborating with one of my partners, he instead tried to command me to do work and he scolded me when I was taking breaks. Not exactly the best situation to be in but I tried to deal with it maturely enough. I wish there was more of an equal feeling among my partners but that didn't seem to be happening. My other partner was good in terms of teamwork, he gave me good advice and helped me along with some critiques of what I was doing. So it wasn't all bad, but like I said it left me wanting.
I feel like I needed to do some more in terms of Post production. The stuff I dealt with ended up failing halfway through the project so I wish I could have worked more on the post production end of things, but my partner took over some and handled it very well in my opinion.
Overall I would say that this project went on a lot better than my previous partnered project. For one my partners actually got their work done on time, so that was a big plus. I'm not stuck with a half done animation by the end of the module. I don't know whether or not ill be putting these scenes into my showreel but I'm considering it. I like a lot of my other work much more and although Ive warmed up to the idea of an environmental animation, I'm still not sure if I want it to represent my work as a whole. Overall I would say I enjoyed the work in this project but not any more or less than any of my other projects. If you asked me whether or not I would do it differently if I had a second chance, I would probably do some things different, but I like what I did for this and It's good enough to that I can feel proud about what I got done.

Animation Post-Production Pt.8

We all decided to use the Epic Mountain song Into the Wild for our audio track on the animation. Joe contacted them for licensing and got permission to do such and I think the song mixes with the narration very well. to listen to it you can go here:
https://soundcloud.com/epicmountain/sets/direct-music-licencing/s-xWkPQ

Along with that we also decided on what font to use. Although it was the last decision we made I think that the font we used worked very well with our animation the font itself was ADAM from DaFont made by Adam Free. On the website it says that it's free for personal use, so if we wanted to use the font in a commercial setting we would need permission to do such. Since this is a school project however and no such permission is needed we decided to go ahead and use it since it worked so well with our animations aesthetic. We finished the titling and the sound three days before the due date. I'm glad I'm going to be able to enjoy my weekend for once.

Animation Production Pt.8

This is the last and final scene I had to do before I was done with my scenes for this project. It was a scene of a forest fire, which I thought was simple enough to do. I didn't know what I was getting into though. Getting the scene together was easy enough, the hard part was putting in the animated fire everywhere. I had to first cut out all the fire pieces from the vector trace they were made from. Then I had to import them to after effects and put each of them in their own composition. I needed them to be animated so I put each frame down and I realised that it only lasted 8 frames.

I used this technique to make the pre-comp repeat itself after the animation was done. Once I got done with that I had to duplicate each of them, and then change the frame they started on for each of them so I wouldn't have the flames all repeating at the same time. I moved them in and out of the trees, and added a noise effect onto them to make them look like paper. I'm now finished with all the rest of my scenes for this project.

Animation Production Pt.7

 This next shot I had to make was about the logging industry. I needed to show how the logging industry can help attribute to the causes of deforestation. I needed a log so I put in a vector trace into photoshop, since no one decided to laser cut a log for an asset. I wanted it to look realistic so I put in rings on the log and bark on the sides of it. Then I imported it into After effects and got to work on the scene. Luckily I had enough assets to make a chopped forest scene and thats what I put together first.

Then I added the logs by fade in over time so It looked like more and more were piling up as time went on. This scene was done as successfully as I it could have without real paper cut logs being used I think.

Animation Post-Production Pt.7

My friend told me today that he won't be able to get the music done in time for the turn in date. Apparently his computer has been crashing repeatedly whenever he tries to open any of his music software. I'm really bummed that I wasn't able to work with him for this project considering he's my friend but I hope I'll be able to do a project with him sometime in the near future. He told me he's going to work on getting a new computer so he'll be able to work again. I might get him to help me one a project over the summer if I can.

Animation Production Pt.6

I was told that the scene for this was supposed to be a shot of the four pre-comps I did breaking apart into the next shot. I wanted a break from that so I decided to use the earth shot from the beginning of the animation and break it into 4 pieces. I did the other scene just for good measure but I didn't want the scenes to feel like they were repeating. This scene was simple enough to make since joe made the scene in photoshop so I could just chop it up any way I wanted. I just edited the photoshop file and imported the pieces of the earth into after effects. I also decided to make my own space background for the stars. I used a custom brush to make the actual stars and through adding and erasing I managed to get it looking the way I wanted. After that I put in an overlay of colour to the stars of light red and blue. I imported all this into after effects and put the scene together. I don't know if it will be used in the final animation but I like how it looks.

Animation Production Pt.5

 I finished the rest of the forest biomes and pre-comped them into a larger Composition. Callum asked for me to make them come in from all sides and into the frame simultaneously. This part was as simple as moving solids around in After effects. After that was the hard part. I had to sync all the pre-comps together and have them all changing colour at the same time. So I went into each pre-comp and slid the key frames around until they were all starting and ending together. It wasn't difficult so much as it was tasking.

Then I had to sync up all the video with an audio bit for the Outro. I shortened the composition to 15 seconds and had to re-slide all the key frames in place. The end turned out alright.

Animation Post-Production Pt.6

We still haven't figured out a typeface for our animation. But Joe and Callum have figured out a backup plan if my friend doesn't finish the song in time, he told me he would figure out whether or not he will be able to do it by Wednesday of this week so I'll wait and see if he gets it done. Otherwise there hasn't been much going on in terms of post production. Me and Joe have started to put scenes together for the final cut and its been going well.