A Fairytale Ending

All done and dusted, BB has been handed in to Jared as well as the special edition copy to Paul! We really did push it to the last minute to get this thing done. On thursday Alec and I were still rendering, and yesterday (Pauls meeting) we were still burning it to disc and making the dvd case! We slightly ran over time on friday for Jareds deadline, handing it in at about half 5, so not too bad.

Well, as always, start with the negatives. The animation was rushed big time at the end, and I think I echo everyone in the class when I say that was down to conetexual studies and ROA depriving us of 2 weeks or more. So yes, the animation was not as high quality as I feel we could have achieved, however for most of us the cupboard exit and aniamtion before ROA was great. It was only like the last 10 seconds of each of our scenes which was quickly done.

Secondly the music. Again a rush job on the last day, and something myself and Alec have a tendency to do to our projects. We always slap a piece of unsuitable music at the end because we have nothing else and we're so sick of the project we dont care. Not a good attitude, or result - as is evident with eminem in "Im a gorilla", and now night at the museum in "Bare Bear". We must find music earlier in a term next time.

My final gripes are the bears texture and the book intro. Unfortunately due to time we had to completely change daves dump from an animated scene to a number of faded stills in a book sequence. It was the best option we had with the time left, however if we were to do it again I would make sure the dump scene was fully animated, full screen like ours. It still did the job in setting up the demo story though, and as Paul said yesterday could be substituted for the nice pop up book idea we had before.

Oh and lastly, the bears texture. We ended up settling for a wicker basket texture we found online, edited in PS abnd given a bump. Hmmm, not great I know. We would have loved to of achieved a slightly softer and fluffier looking texture, with the UV's better mapped out - Blue Zoo quality basically. Also as legend Tony Trimmer said, the wardrobe could do with one more layer of dirt or moss in PS to add depth and realism to it. I admit its a bit flat and cartoony at the moment.

Those are all my negatives though, which is a heck of alot less than "If I were a Gorilla". There are many more positives such as our environments - I love the texuring, modelling, and lighting that has gone into all of them. I'm especially proud of my woods scene, and the time I managed to create it in. Parts of our animation are better than anything on kids TV at present I feel, such as Phils cupboard exit and walkcycle - adorable and proffesional. Alec sorted it out in the end and produced some quality animation of BB checking out his suit and sniffing the bamboo in a matter of days - awesome stuff. I love most of the animation to be honest. I'm really happy with the tumble out of my closet particularly as well as my CLASSIC BB POSE! The animation wouldn't have been possible without daves legendary rigging skills though, so congrats to him as well. Oh yeah and the intro is sweet, I love the bear footprints and title.

So we had our meeting with Paul yesterday, and everything went great. He loved the work and complimented us on the standard of it. He is pitching the demo to the BBC in 3 weeks and will let us know how everything goes.

All in all, a great term and a winning formula as far as a team goes. I definately will be working with these guys again next year, and we have all agreed to turn it up 20 knotches for our film. It's going to be the best thing we've ever done, and hopefully a landmark in ravensbourne animation! We're aiming for gobelin standard, so watch out! ;)

Deadlines looming...

Today I finished the animation for the woodland scene. I am not too happy with it as the ending has been rushed in order for us to render and finish on time.

From when BB wiggles his bum onwards has all been done in just over a day, which, lets face it.. isn't cricket. Anyway, yeah so its very blocked out and made up of pose to pose stuff. He gets up from his bum wiggle, spins around, takes a few toddler steps, looks around the woodland for a bit, and then nods to the camera in approval of his new suit and environment. All of this came to approx 7 seconds of animation. I know I can do ALOT better, but again time is too tight to be tedious and finess. One day I hope to go back to this scene and animate it properly, however for the purposes of the demo Paul asked for, it will have to do...




I really wanted to have BB skip off down the woodland path and into the distance for the end shot. Again because of time I will have to end it on him nodding to the camera now. I did start the skipthinking it would be quick to knock out, but as we all know to perfect a decent walkcycle takes at least a few days, so I was simply attempting the impossible with the time left...



I gave up as you can see. There are more important jobs to be done over the next few days before hand in. Tommorow I will send the scene to render (widecscreen - unlike our ROA version). I will then begin gathering sounds and preparing titles and the dvd cover. I will also help my disabled team mates. They are taking far too long to sort it out.

I have learnt alot about my animation technqiues and style lately. I really really need to use the graph editor more... well I say that, I actually need to use it! I hardly touch it, which is bad. It means I use far too many key frames to achieve principles that can be done with few keys and different tangents.

I feel a TEENY bit disappointed with some of the decisions made in the team today. I understand time is of the essence, but it seems like massive shortcuts are being made to reduce the amount of animation needed. Kind of a cheat really. Finessing is not priority at the mo. I hope it all cuts together well otherwise the story will be inconsistent and the tumbling out of the cupboard in my scene will make no sense. Phil and Alec have tomo to sort it out. Dave will be working on his book intro which will hoepfully look good if the renders are smart, and the book page presented well.

Its been a while . . .

Friday 22nd may was my last post. Its been far too long, however I have good reasons as to why I haven't been updating as regualry as I had beeen. Firstly ROA happened. This was a massive event in which I had to produce a showreel, business cards, dvd's and prints to display on my stand. Unfortunately bare bear had to be put on hold for a week or so in order to get all this sorted and promote myself successfully at the show. As well as this I helped Mr Grigs in setting up the room, badgering people to put work up, and preparing posters and name tags for our event. All in all it was a great day and everyone who helped did a great job. Made a couple of good contacts on the day and was complimented on my work by many visitors which is always good to hear!

Not only did we have ROA, but the following week we were all bogged down with a contextual studies essay and presentation. Again this took up the best part of a week to write, prepare and present. Not to mention a small PPD essay I had to complete amongst the madness of ROA.

So all of that leads me up to now, 3 weeks since my last post. To be honest theres not much to update as work only commenced again yesterday! It is the final week of the project now and we have been in contact with Paul to discuss a final meeting. We have sent him concept art and clips from our different scenes to which we have had great feedback. He loves the work and has arranged for us to meet up next Monday when the dvd will be complete.

So where are we all at? Well for my scene, animation is still priority. I am nearly finished now, all that is left is for BB to skip off down the forest path - a perfect ending.

Phils is still p****** about with his arctic scene, and now has the bear in a postion ready to be blown back into the cupboard. I think he SHOULD be done by wednesday - latest!

Alec has suffered lately from some serious roatation problems and an unfortunate save overide (my mistake). The bear is still at the cupboard doors, however Mr Smith has assured us he will not let us down in the next couple of days. He stayed late tonight beginning the walkcycle over to the bamboo.

Dave has not been in lately due to his contextual essay taking over, however today he returned to work on BB. Unfortunately his scene is probably the furthest from completion because he had to rig the bear and finish the dump. Today we considered turing the dump scene into a short book intro as we feel the animation simply will not be done in time, to a high standard. He has a mammoth 30 seconds worth of animation still to do - in 2 days! I hope dave begins the book idea tommorow, otherwise it will be a real shame to see his dump scene fail in the last week.

With 3 days left we are really really tight for time now! We still have to animate, render, composite, edit, add audio, titles, burn, and make a case for!
Cmon guys - we can do it!!!!!!!!!!