The Attack of 50 ft Alien from Toyland

Narrative Project: The Last Week

Last week of studio experience just past away and here is the last update on activitys done throughout the time.

The week was busy with getting the last animations ( the ones which involved toymaker's character) done.
There were quite a few of them :
toymaker in production line scenes

The scene of Toymaker meeting  his creation :

When Animation was completed , I've concentrated on postproduction, that is compositting and editting.
Main changes done in after effects were to achieve a certain look and feel , whether it meant to add noise, increase exposure, animate glow. All the scenes had their colours tweaked, most of the time ading 4 colour gradient to add some variety in other wise quit simple looking scenes ( such as marching army shadow on field etc.)

Heavy editting is what our project relied uppon from the very beginning, and that is where I found myself for .. 3 days. Weird enough, towards the end of editting each time  I'd have a headache, what isn't usual to me at all , so perhaps  these subliminal shots and  speedy sequences really do effect somehow :D

Here is a taster of the final product, a teaser trailer :




Appart from that it was time to wrap the project up, so here are the designs of DVD cover and DVD disc:

Ant the actual painting suggests the story of film itself. The toy which was created to bring happynes and joy and  was an inactive shell, got invaded by alien content and became  lost and  threatening monster.

There will be one last post, an overview of the project and the trailer itself :)

Studio Project Progress

 The latest achievement is to have scientist textured and ready to be copied for different scenes.

I did bare in mind which parts needed most of attention as they are seen the most of time or in a close up in our trailer. For example, majority of time we see scientist's chest and neck.

So the first scene with toymaker performing was 'there is a plan' scene. Where he is in a military base and analyses  ways to shut down alien toy.

Just a note, textures were created by Bob, cup by Earl. I've gathered those elemnts and created lighting, other details to create an atmospheric setting.

Aside to that I've finished the quit demanding scene of meteor's impact on dumpster and its content. I chose to animate each and every element in the waist disposal. The result is here as follows:




Since we are pretty much in postproduction stage I 've started preparing for ideas our group had in mind .
I took another, more in-depth look in our  referencing trailer of Super 8 . It was unbelievable to see what makers have "hidden" in them..


For example, the research showed the 1min 30 sec long trailer had 6 sequences of subliminal cuts. That is usually between 4 to 6 different and very abstract images per frame. This as I found adds to confusion also stresses out  and creates impact.
Similarly I thought to try and use this cinematic technique in our trailer in its post production. So these are  the following  images I've created  for subliminal cuts, one of which is alien's eye itself.

Soon more to come. Watch this space.

Studio Project Progress

For some time now I haven't blogged about progress recently. All focus now is on Void canvas Studio Project.
So first o some Playblasts of  scenes I worked on:




We have Scale of Monstrocity Shot for only couple of frames, but  to add some elements in it I've animated a cable being "electrified" ( it will be glowing) and cut to fall by  a supposed monster lurking in the desolate city.







Test Renders of what was shown in the brief sequence:

For the past time I'm working with scenes seperately by making reajustmens on texturing, lighting, geometry or anything lese.

So from Factory's  establishing shot  this is what is left for the previously seen Abandoned toy scene:

Anyways, here is the set readjusted:

Only main box is missing... :)

Also I went to preparing the toymaker fully by adding facial blend shapes and texturing the character.
Currently I'm experiencing some problems which I've described in our studio project. But it seems its not much of a deal, so I'm solving them as I go.

Transparent face was/is one of the problems.. :D

 

More decent renders should come soon.

Week's Progress on Studio Project

From now on I was  free to concentrate on studio project, after having postmodernism and character design out of the way. So one of the main focuses was to finish  the toy maker's model.

And here are the layed out Uv's. Mainly his head and costume needs hand painted texturing, other bits ( shoes ect.) will do fine with procedural textures.

Apart from working on character I further developed the texturing of the set.

Paying close attention to the stylisation and colour palette of selection.  Since the scenery is mostly green the design was to add some complimenting blood red which would both signify danger and add some visual interest.  

Likewise, textures are dark, high in contrast, harsh. Even if we see "only" film announcement or cute toy's commercial, it should message it's danger or unsafeness

this is the window texture sheet. Again, introducing some complementary colours, treating red like a seasoning.

One of the last bits to have sorted was the poster/toy box wrap of the cute toy Harpo which then goes on to bring chaos.

All of the efforts and intentions so  far shaped into one of the settings. Also other group members of Void Canvas  have presented other atmospheric settings .

At the moment I'm in the most wonderful lands of skinning and rigging... Not rushing myself with it even a tiny bit, since I've already experienced the bitterness of doing so and how badly it affects further processes ( or nerves...)
 My biggest joy would be to finish the preparation of the character before flying back home :/

Narrative Unit Week's Progress

Its this time now, when juggling with few projects becomes more and more challenging.. So this week I worked on Toy’s poster/ package design. We are using the texture to tell the story. So here are the two versions Harpo poster’s. One o a common cheerful-looking toy, another when he’s being neglected .

Also studio reaches to create impactful sets wit minimum time/resource expenses. So best solution was to use matt paintings. Near in the future I should post the stills of city set finished.

And it was about time to start working on scientist character I’m responsible for. Alan’s tutorials were a life saver, though still I’m not rushing myself with this, I just don’t want to struggle in the future because of the mistakes made in the very early stages of character’s pipeline. 

Animatic for the Attack of 50ft Alien from Toyland ( "fixed")

This is the preproduced trailer of the Attack of 50ft Alien from Toyland. Hopefully all Void canvas intentions are projected in this animatic clearly.

Baby Dinosaur

For our Studio experience project we needed a concept of toy. The baby-dinosaur is supposedly a first fully mechanized toy in 1950's cute and adorable.

This one soon turns into a threatening 50ft Alien after a meteorite crashes. 

More on Void Canvas .

Week's progress (!)

To summarize this week's experience... It was one of the most productive as well as the most hectic week this year. Didn't have time  to upload anything since apart from project work,  I worked  for University,  at career's  fare in Brighton (It looks like there's an expansive interest in CG Arts and Animation) and an open day at Rochester. So after all last week's fresher balls, house parties, pubs and festivals this week was all about concentration towards "the serious“

Most of the attention was given to our Narrative unit, studio experience.

 I was responsible for creating the concept art, animatic and script as well as fully resolving storyboards with additional panels and character design of the alien (this one still to be done soon).

I started with the military base concept. 

This is one of the most impactful shots in the trailer. I wanted the Military base to look cold and very inorganic as it is an institution of brutal force (at least that’s the perception we want to bring across in our trailer)   the progress of the work can be seen in the additional picture.

Second concept came for the abandoned toy scene outside the factory. It should capture the eerie and a changed atmosphere in the air as the meteorite is about to fall down and transform the silly-putty into the alien.  I tired to emphasize the “abandoned toy” theme in this concept.

Lastly, there is the concept of the city. We were researching Doctor Caligari’s cabinet  and some of the more contemporary animations (like Samurai Jack) so got some inspiration and a direction for this concept piece.  Its all covered under the eerie green sky and windows only further reflect it, one of the buildings actually reflects the monster in a very subtle way (red eyes ). Our world is stylized but still doesn’t lack of realistic details here ant there, in every corner.  

The quick video showcasing the making of:

This week after long formation of our idea, finally A script was written. (sorry for the spelling errors,  a foreign sitting late  is not the best speller :/ )

And finally,  I should be uploading the animatic, but considered not doing that, cause it's under developments, also its boring, cause there is no sound. I'll surely post it soon.

So there you go, pretty much all the secrets of The  Attack of 50 ft Alien from Toyland are uncovered :D

(In case you wan't follow our progress here are some links:

Blog address: http://voidcanvas.blogspot.com/

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Void-Canvas-Studio/160833670612543 

Storyboard for The Attack of 50ft Alien from Toyland

Nothing much to add here, except hopefully it conveys the sequence of the trailer. Also some changes are taking place as we work on the project.