Unreal_assignment 3

For our third assignment, we were to make a simple animation in Unreal game engine.
I partnered with Alexandra for this project. We started with making the character in Adobe fuse. The character is set in a T pose by default.

The character was then imported to Mixamo for rigging and animation. We arrived at the following animations to export to unreal.

So the idea is that the character walks toward the spiral stairway like a zombie, runs up the stairway, all the way to the top of the tower, does a little Macarena dance and trips and falls to a gory death.

Shown below is an unfinished movie, previously we got the character to run all the way up the stairway but then the software crashed. On reopening the software, we chose ‘restore files’ when asked, but it somehow opened the very first iteration of the video. Turns out we had lost all saved progress. We have re-started the video and should complete it within this week.

 

Update: Finally managed to recreate the scene all over again and animate the character and camera. video below.

 

After effects_assignment 2

NOV 10

For the second assignment, we are to use Adobe After effects to create a 30s collage animation.

I am thinking of a surreal flight sequence, framed through an airplane window. As you ascend through the sky, you see birds and clouds. Different characters can be seen inhabiting these clouds. Their actions leading to more clouds and birds.

For example the first cloud has a person sitting on it and smoking a pipe. He blows smoke which turn into clouds. Further up, you see children shooting paper planes which turn into birds to decorate the horizon. Next, you see children throwing snow balls at each other, the ones which are missed, turn into more clouds. And finally you see a painter painting the sky green, which resets the animation back to where it started.

This is a basic story board for the short, but is still being revised.

Draft video:
I made a quick visualization of the storyboard in AFX.

I wasn’t happy with this version, it wasn’t very appealing visually and the vertical flight motion didn’t make much sense.

Update

I started thinking of another idea, something along the lines of an infinity zoom, the best example of which is the opening sequence of Limitless (2011).

The new idea was to merge scapes of nature scenes and geometric forms to create surreal visuals and move the camera through them. The camera zooms from one shape to the next, cycling through different worlds. Shown below is the final movie; Some of the assets were downloaded from You-tube and were only available in a limited resolution.

 

Stop motion animation

As part of our 1st assignment for animation class, we were to make a short 30 sec stop motion animation using Dragon Frame. I partnered with Andrew for this exercise.

The only starting point for this narrative was a vague idea of using a mirror to split a single character into two. The rest of the story really just evolved as we went along.