Alexʻs ACM 320 Production Blog

To the maybe one or two people still keeping tabs on here since class ended, hey what’s up! You are a beautiful person, and I thank you for standing by beyond the call of duty. To the rest of you, you’re dead to me. (lol jkjk)  So this week I had hoped I could have more to show, but it’s proven to be a very distracted one, for reasons I would never have encountered while at school. I alluded to some living space difficulties last week, and the situation has gotten quite a bit hotter since then. Let’s just say, someone is probably moving out of my house in the next week or two, but it‘s unclear yet who is going to be doing the leaving (really hope it’s not me.)

On the other hand, I finally got to see Avengers Endgame (wow, what an awesome film I gotta say. A near-perfect conclusion to Phase 3 of the MCU.) I also got a chance to hang out with some of my closest friends who I’ve barely seen in nearly a year. Plus, I got around to shopping at Barnes & Noble to pick up some books I’ve been dying to get all semester but didn’t have space to carry back home with me, had I bought them while I was in my dorm. 

I did get a little bit of work done for my animation. Here’s a sneak peak at the first shot of sequence 5 (I may go back and add more to it later):

I’m also itching to get to work on developing some ideas for 420, as well as the first volume of my Talvitra manga series idea (time’s a-waistin’ Alex!) Speaking of work, with the uncertain living situation right now, and since my morale is pretty high after 320, I’m thinking maybe it’s time I get a “job job.” I found a few quaint local animation/motion graphics studios in the area with contract-based job posting beings as recent as one week ago. My skill set is much stronger after this school year, so I’m thinking I may actually have a decent shot at landing one. So I’ve been working on putting together a new animation demo reel that demonstrates a little touch of my most recent (and strongest) body of works. I’ll post it here if anyone wants to check it out: Password is: “green”

 https://vimeo.com/337919728

Welp, it’s been one week as of now since the release of the film. In fact, as I write this post, I think back to how exactly 7 days ago, at this very moment, I was a sleepless zombie. I just slid in the final end credits and punched the render button. Since then a lot has changed - I’m back in Washington, yet I feel so out of my work space. My room was used for storage by family while I was at school, so I spent most of the week just clearing it out and moving my stuff in. Plus my monitor broke during the flight back, so I had to get a new one, as well as hunt down an adapter or two. My setup is a little awkward right now as I don’t really have a solid table to draw on, and my brother and his girlfriend are living here with three big hyperactive dogs as well, and I haven’t got a door. So it makes my work space a bit chaotic and unpredictable, but I’m trying to make it work.

As far as film progress goes, I’ve slowed down a little as you might imagine. I think for sanity reasons, I need a little time to myself, since I had virtually none all last semester (and really most of the year if the truth be told.) Having free-time is a dread in itself too now though, because I became so accustomed to working, I guess I forgot how to relax, and I feel guilty if I’m not working. Haha, not sure whether that’s good or bad. Probably not good. But even among all the hubbub back at home, I really am excited to “finish finish” the film. At least for now, my 3D references for the backgrounds of the final shots are done. Here’s a few examples:

Now I’ve just gotta overlay them with some 2D elements so they don’t look so bland, and we’ll be good to go.

I’m also in the process of building new references and color swatches for the two bonus characters as well. If all goes according to plan, I should be able to start animating tomorrow. From there it shouldn’t take too long to finalize the film I think. I probably won’t be pulling any more consecutive all-nighters for a while, but these shots are simple enough, so the work flow will balance itself out.

Well, today marks the end of primary production of the film. The last week has been one of the craziest in my whole life. I completed my 12 shots needed in just about six days. I’ve never been able to animate so much before in my life. But it did come at a cost. I’ve been getting only two or three hours of sleep a night, and as for last night, I got none.

Today begins the true endgame for this project... 7 days... 7 days of tribulation; Japanese tests, a presentation, a paper, packing and moving out, all in addition to completing this project, which has a minimum of 12 shots remaining, plus still requires audio editing. And on that last day, judgement will be passed as to whether I was in over my head with this project or not.  But it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, I don’t think I could be more proud of what I’ve accomplished so far. Despite being a busier than normal week, with assignments and tests sandwiched all throughout, I somehow managed to complete seven shots, and am well underway to completing the next one. Take a look at the progress I have so far: (WARNING - one shot is a little loud 8 seconds in. Sorry, I forgot to adjust the audio. I recommend turning the volume down a bit first):

Here is a preview of the next shot in progress:

I must say, this project has thoroughly kicked my butt. However, it has also pushed me to adapt, develop strategies, trust my colleagues and their critiques, build a workflow, and create an appealing aesthetic more efficiently than I ever thought possible. A year ago, this really would have been only possible in my dreams. Seeing how far I and everyone else have come this semester makes me so happy and excited for where we will go together in the future. At this point in time, I would say, do not expect the bonus scene to make it into the final in-class cut of the film. However, assuming I do run out of time, I will go back and try to add it as soon as possible. Likely within the first week of summer, to have a complete version to display for future film festivals, and I will post it here as well. My experience on this project has been a true roller-coaster of excitement and growing pains. Animation will probably never be pain-free, but even so, this project has dug deep into the core of my character, trying to uproot me, perhaps more than any other assignment I have ever faced in school. But I refuse to give up. Even if it takes days with no sleep, I swear I won’t let this project beat me. I’ll find a way to finish it, somehow. The major advantage I have now going into 420 and other future projects is hindsight; knowing the sting of this desperation to finish. I think every good animator experiences this at some point. For me, it is my stubbornness that prevents me from falling into despair, but it is also my stubbornness that caused my pain in the first place, since I lost weeks worth of progress due to my refusal to move off of paper and ink at first. Now that the switch has been made however, I think I have a much better comprehension of my workflow and how to be efficient, while still being effective. The delays and setbacks I faced with this project will be compensated for in future ones. 

The end of the tunnel is in sight - 14 days remain. I am proud of how much work I have been able to accomplish with this project in just the last week alone. However, it’s still not enough. While I will not allow this project to break my spirit, I have to face facts. Right now, I have more shots remaining than days left to do them, and with such little time, I don’t know how I will finish. It really will take a miracle to pull this one through. The stress of this project, two Japanese tests, two papers, and a presentation is pushing me to the edge of what I can manage. And that’s not even mentioning that I have to ship a lot of supplies home and begin dorm move-out procedures as the semester draws to a close. This will add more stress and limit my utilities, making work progressively less comfortable.  Here is what I have managed to finish this week. I am quite pleased with the aesthetics and color of some of these shots:

Twenty-one days: that is, as of now, the remaining time allotted to complete our animation projects. Indeed this is not much time - and of course, that’s disregarding the amount of work remaining for other classes and extracurricular activities. I feel so pressed for time, I often feel that nothing short of a miracle will get this project done to satisfactory completion. I often shared with my peers how I conduct my work; I boasted of a relaxing work environment with music, movies, or conversations going on in the background. This weekend however, I realized that although I *can* work with these things, they are too distracting. I need to achieve a state of perfect, unmitigated focus on the task. This weekend will be the last decent chunk of time I have to work until finals week. I MUST get a lot done.

When I arranged my work environment to be stale and unstimulating, I got into a mindset of ‘animation zen,’ where I could increase my output by nearly 150%. From now on, this is how I will need to continue working. I was able to complete these three shots, the last of which was completed in about a day:

This week has been a bit of a tossup, filled with twists and turns; it’s hard to put into words whether I feel accomplished or not. On one hand, I was regrettably only able to complete one shot this week, owing to several factors. I had a Japanese exam, a presentation, and several other extraneous obligations that ate up my work time (and before you say anything, no, Kawai-kon was not one of them... although I wish it were).  For the work time I did have, it was productive, but overall not very time-efficient relative to the amount of animation produced. I had to animate all three protagonists in this one shot, and Genron and Juna both jump off screen. I probably should have thought of this sooner, but from the moment they jump until the moment they leave the screen, I switch the animation rate from animating on 4′s to animating on 1′s. The result is a very smooth jump, where each frame is a unique drawing, BUT that ate up around 2/3rds of the total work time. So essentially in this whole clip, 2/3rds of the work is represented in perhaps only 1/20th of the total clip length. Next time, I’m going to need to be more watchful and consistent in the animation rate. As much as I would love to add complex details to every single frame, it’s a luxury I hardly have the time for. In any case, this is what I came out with. I’m fairly happy with it:

On a more upbeat note, I did FINALLY, FINALLY get the voice acting I needed done for the film. I corresponded with my voice actress, and she made a last minute message to me that she was available for recording. I will admit, that was one of the dilemmas I faced this week, as I scrambled to try and get all the documentation and recording equipment prepared for the session. It put a fork in the middle of my progress that day. But at least that weight is off my shoulders now, and I consider it to be a major victory in my progress towards completing my animation. At some point I will need to retroactively synchronize her voice clips to the animation clips which were based on my own sound recording. I did take that into account while recording, and attempted to direct her voice timing to be as consistent as possible with my own. I can go through and tweak the time-mapping of the clip for small adjustments, and if worse comes to worse, I can always manually adjust the timing of the mouth shape. I’m currently working on the next clip, and the rough animation without color is nearly complete. 

This week has been fairly ordinary progress-wise. I got a few shots done, although I would have liked to have completed the one I’m currently working on by now. As most of my shots this week were establishing shots, I put a heavier emphasis on fine-tuning the backgrounds/environment to get them looking as picturesque as possible. I also spent a decent chunk of time integrating composite effects into them as well, and I’m fairly happy with the look.  Check it out:

I will be honest, I’ve felt a little bit sluggish lately. I would sit at my desk, pen in hand, and I just feel like I can’t draw. Or if I tried, I would end up needing to go through and redo it. I get up, stretch, use the bathroom, listen to some videos, try to come back restored, but the animating just isn’t happening. If anyone else is feeling that way, maybe they can relate. Now, I don’t know your circumstances are, but I’m not gonna lie, I know why at least I personally am feeling so sluggish, and the reason is actually quite simple. It’s because I have poor energy distribution in my diet. I start the day hungry and unmotivated, and after I eat dinner, I feel sleepy and unfocused. Animation requires a maintained level of concentration and energy for your brain. So I may legitimately alter what I eat and drink, and when, for the rest of the semester, just to squeeze as much productivity out of me as possible (tell me that isn’t dedication to the craft!)  Here’s the shot I’m currently working on:

Still need to finish shading Juna, then go back and do the same for Genron and Choni. Lastly, as far as voices are concerned, the actress I am in contact with is... corresponding, albeit very slowly. I told her we need to pick up the pace and get these recordings done asap. I’m placing the solid deadline at two weeks from now. If I still don’t have voices clips for her roles by then, I’m literally recruiting anyone who could do it. Beggars can’t be choosers I guess. If any readers here know someone who may be interested, or anyone in class wants to try out, please let me know (there may be some cash involved for your help *wink wink, nudge nudge*)

Tomorrow marks six weeks since production began, and there are six weeks remaining until we showcase our films. Time sure does fly when you’re busy, doesn’t it? And although my production got off to a bit of a bumpy start, I am happy that I’ve managed to grab this beast of a project by the horns and wrangle it back on track. The past two weeks in particular have proven to be very productive for me. I’ve managed to complete animation for the first sequence of the film, which equates to roughly a third of the total length. I’ve managed to refine my work process to the point that I’m completing a shot once every day or two. As I move into my next sequences I believe that trend will likely continue, as the shots become more numerous and dynamic, but shorter and less animation heavy.  Here is the first sequence (aka roughly the first minute) of my animation:

Having survived mid-terms last week, I’ve managed to sleep in a little this Spring Break. But don’t let that mislead you into thinking I’ve been slacking in animation progress; quite the contrary.  Although not yet quite as fast as I had hoped, I am making significant progress with my work using the new animation tools and techniques I’ve acquired. Not a single day has passed since last week that I haven’t worked on my animation in some way. My first sequence out of the core four is nearly complete, and I expect will be done by the end of the day tomorrow (I’ve decided to sleep on a Wednesday night for a change.)  Also be aware that I’ve modified and applied some of the peer critiques and suggestions, which ended up altering the final product.

Here’s a few screen captures of my work so far:

In the image below, Choni now transforms into a weasel, as I thought it helped introduce his stature as a character, as well as display his powers early to make the connection to his actions later in the film easier.

The next image below is just one character frame from the shot I am currently working on. I know it’s not a lot to go on, but it’s actually been the toughest shot yet since I switched to digital. All three characters will appear in it.

I have good news and I have bad news. So, this week has been one of the most difficult weeks of the semester for me. Between midterms and the stress of trying to move this project along, my batteries are in desperate need recharging.  The doom and gloom of it is this, and I will be quite frank with you, I am not happy at all with the current status of the project. I have only completed two shots so far, and I feel a significant portion of my production time has been spent unnecessarily, trying to make progress working with a completely outdated technique in paper animation. It has worked for me in the past, but circumstances were different. I had less classes then, and I presumed a semester would be plenty of time for this project. I admit I was wrong, but I have grown more as a result of it now I think, as an animator, than ever before. 

So here’s the good news: as I mentioned earlier this week, I’ve moved to digital animation, and I have shelled out a lot of money and energy trying to upgrade and learn the latest software as fast as possible. I have always considered myself to have a little engineering blood in me, and I think it shows now with the method I have devised. In the span of less than a day, I have managed to compensate for, and surpass, an entire week’s worth of paper animation frames which I had to toss out in making this transition, mostly for aesthetic reasons. This is my first completed clip with the new animation method: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jOviP5j6kpf4m6BpknWWuk6sPo0lGdCJ/view?usp=sharing

My friends, after much time, thought, and consideration, I have made a radical change to my technical approach to this project. It is through the input of so many of you reading this that I have been brought to this decision.

I love drawing on paper, and I will never forsake the old ways of animation. But I acknowledge that we live in a more technologically advanced world than the days of my animation idols, and so I must set out to find my own way to adapt to the demands of modern times. The industry standard is digital, using advanced hardware and software, and if I want to succeed, I must learn and utilize those same skills.

Therefore, as of today I am announcing my switch to full digital animation. I will use Photoshop and Premiere as my primary generators for visuals. I have also gone out and purchased a new Wacom - Intuos Pro Paper Edition Pen Tablet. This will allow me to draw straight to digital, however if I ever feel the need, this tablet has the unique ability to transform physical paper and pen images to a digital format without the need for a scanner. A very cool feature that harkens back to what I’m familiar with.

That’s not the end of my tools list. I have received a great amount of well-deserved criticism for the slow and unnecessarily tedious nature of my drawings. So I am going to be utilizing a program called Design Doll. It allows me to easily sculpt and create 3D models in a visual style that is very compatible with my character designs. I can color, shade, and even add some small texture details to the skins of my characters, giving me an instant base to work off of, which cuts out yet another step of the process. And being digital means I can manipulate and add line-art on top of it and color it basically as I’m making it, just like I already do with my environments. 

This is the result:

This means I will be able to create aesthetically accurate character frames MUCH faster. By my estimates, I can now complete a fully colored character frame with some basic shading in HALF the time it would have taken me in the past to simply complete the physical inking and scanning of the character. With this increase in efficiency, I am hopeful to speed up the project’s production and stay on track for completion by the end of the semester. 

This week has been somewhat split for my attention between animation work and work outside of the class. In light of where I am in production, relative to the schedule, I have decided I have no choice but to adapt my tactics a bit to the situation.

As is, I have the first shot complete with color and I even added some additional features and compositing. Check it out for yourself:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QZDix5B42xL_-ZuYn53LY6CzS_cbekDl

Now, one individual frame of character animation (per character) in this shot required upwards of an hour to produce in full, not to mention other digital assets. During the process, I decided it would become necessary to fall back on a slightly less favorable but more time effective method of animation. That is, I will now draw only the rough animation (basically recreate the animatic but better quality,) and then use those as references for creating digital line art from those assets. No, I haven’t been shaken from paper animation yet. 

That being said, from now on I will also only allow myself one rough pass as opposed to two, and then ink the image right away. That helps breakup the monotony and keep the work flow fast paced. This image is an example of what I mean:

Any minor moving assets like her chest breathing or hair (which I originally planned) will now be done digitally, and so I will only be drawing major motions. I hope this will increase my production efficiency so I will have more to present as the weeks continue rolling.

I am also admittedly behind on getting the voice clips I need, but using this method will allow me to continue working regardless, and then focus on lip animation after the fact, so it works out better that way. But I will try to get the voice clips as soon as possible.

I am considering the possibility of going full digital, but for now, this is what I have. When Spring Break arrives, I will have no distractions; just one week of pure animation. That will be the turning point of that decision, but until then I will keep pushing forward, and I hope to have a sizable amount of content to share for next week.

So this week was packed with work, as always of course. On one hand I am fairly happy with what I’ve produced, but I do have concerns moving forward.

So first, let’s unpack the good stuff. 

Here you’ll find an updated view of the homestead exterior:

I added some new objects and a hole on the roof. There are some elements I am still contemplating adding. I know I will want more rocks and a dirt path, but it may be more productive and satisfying to simply edit them in rather than model and texture them, but that is a choice that can be implemented later.

Next, here’s the first modeled interior view of the homestead:

I decided it works better using a combination of 2D and 3D elements, and I may make some adjustments over the next week, but I’m overall pretty happy with this look.

Now, as promised, I have some character animation to show. It’s not much, just a walk cycle, and that will lead me to some of the concerns I have that I will discuss in a moment. For now, check this out:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lBPtz3pCJeM9MBjmZSqe2QwwH12LO9X5/view

It’s a walk cycle for Juna, from the very first shot of the film. I did go through the whole process of drawing, inking, scanning, digitally coloring, and finally assembling the frames - 15 in total. Now, I’m relatively happy with it; there is some distortion, but she will be quite small relative to the frame, so it will work just fine. 

My concern is that this is all I was all the animation I was able to complete thus far. Now, I didn’t plan on coloring it, but I wanted to go through the whole process at least once to get a feel for it. I am worried that the process of working tediously on paper, just to digitize it in the end, may be a bit too inefficient. Don’t get me wrong though, I love paper and will continue to work with it as much as possible. 

That being said however, I am considering going full digital for some of the shots. Perhaps the tougher ones at least, to save time. Now granted, this shot was ranked difficulty level 4- the highest difficulty on my shot list. So I can partially forgive it. But I have to add two more character walk cycles to complete this one shot alone. I am definitely considering cutting their frame rate down, but for now, this is what I have.

One last thing, here’s a revised Talvitra logo:

I tried to make the background a darker tinge to help differentiate it from the letters, but there is a color and style motif I definitely want to try and stick with here. I may make more changes down the line.

Well, that’s all I got for this week. Wish me well as I try to tackle the issues here, and get even more animation work up and ready for your viewing pleasure next week!

First week on production, and things are going relatively well, although I think more could be done. I will be frank, my work flow this week was constricted due to multiple extracurricular video projects that needed immediate attention. As a result, my production work was limited to finishing off the 3D environments. But that’s okay, as I needed to get them done first anyway.

Here are a few examples of what I have background-wise:

At this point I am about 80% complete with my 3D environment progress. Textures are basically complete. The last thing remaining is the homestead’s interior environment, as well as hammering out some lighting and shading details. But despite the minor setback this week, I am as excited as ever to bring you examples of my character animation for next week!

My goal for Friday is to finish the environments, and then dedicate the vast majority of my time from this weekend onward to character animation.

As a bonus, I decided to create a “Talvitra” title graphic included here:

And so, another week, here and gone. Expect some major updates in the weeks to come! 

So somehow I must have not looked at my calendar recently, because these last five weeks have whizzed by. But the good news is, pre-production is done! I’m now ready to move on to phase two; the part where I actually do stuff.

Now, before throwing the animatic in here, I will say, I back-tracked on my previous statement about cutting character... kinda-sorta. Well, I sort of added two brand new ones BUT... I promise they won’t appear in the short unless I am ahead of schedule by the end of final animation. If I have two weeks of time and am done or very near completion of my animation, will add a bonus ending with these characters that enhances the story (hey, hey, guess what I’m going to be working on all weekend, every weekend?)

In all seriousness, here’s their character designs:

These two are villains from the Cult of Abooza, and it is implied that they are the ones that started the fire in the Old Man’s homestead to begin with. Okay that’s all, I won’t add anymore characters, I promise.

Okay, so what have I accomplished besides that? Well, I have my finalized animatic right here, with sound included (although to give you fair warning, I had to voice act for it, and it’s pretty terrible, so please forgive the inconvenience.)

Here it is:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1b98Sgsq08xN9622nv3WbL53Jb8Rqt6FC

I’ve also got my finalized production schedule, script, assets, and shot list completed, so I’m ready to roll.

I’m tired from another long week, but thanks for sticking with me and being patient. I think the end result will be pleasing, and I’ll be sure to keep updating with news on the voice cast and production materials as they become available.

While not particularly exciting, this week has given me an opportunity to start working on modeling and texturing large-scale 3D environments for my animation. I am still experimenting with different visual effects combos to give the backgrounds a more cartoon/anime aesthetic as opposed to going full realism. Here are a few samples of what I have:

These are completely rendered in Maya with no added visual enhancements. The black outlines were tough to figure out, but I think they serve a purpose in helping make them feel more “drawn” than natural.

Aside from that I have a production schedule worked out for the semester, and my second pass of my animatic with all the most recent updates and changes to the story as discussed so far. Check it out here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=10VZXOGdKTJuzJtpVZQ1rS1BgGc4hlDOl

Well, that pretty much wraps it up for this week. You can expect a more refined animatic with upgraded sounds and visuals for next week. Looking forward to starting production. It’ll be a blast!