[Studio 1] WIP Week 3-4

Script
Hi, my name is Daien Lyu, in this video, l’ll cover the related work, my progress and my future plan for week 5-6.

First off, the related work. This video is a 2D motion graphics animation made by krystfrr (Christopher). As for the narration, the video simply tells the audience the quotes and the some arguments of life. What’s more interesting is the visual demonstration of explaining these arguments. The character is circles, and various circles interact with each other to create chemistries. I always get fascinated by how simplistic shapes are capable of being recognised. For example, I can quickly recognise it as an eye with an oval stroke adding shrinking circle layers, which looks intelligent and cool. The most factor is the motion pattern, the detail covers in acceleration, elastics, trimming and more, these are the details that emphasise how realistic these minimal shapes are and referring to. And the animation inspires us not to heavily rely on effects but to deconstruct objects in reality to create the sense of subtlety.

Next up, the progress. The character’s depth has been enriched with more details when compared to week 2; also I’ve added more emotions to the character; and to make an easier comprehension, I’ve added an brief introduction of Dotte for the audience. And this is the animation I’ve done so far.

Also, like I mentioned the theme of retrospecting the design history, I’ve designed a more flat version of the character. The purpose is to pin this shape state as a morph key frame.

Advised by Kate, to implement a more specific bundle of animation, in week 4, I have completed an extra major task, which is learning Toon Boom Harmony in LinkedIn Learning. Although this task has impacted my original timeline, which replaced some critical tasks in After Effects, I can benefit more from the software, including storyboard importing, masking and drawing. Now I’ve hand-drawn the character in Harmony and ready for the further animation.

The solutions to the challenges and future steps. It breaks into 3 major sections: 
animating - how to make the character alive instead of stiff, for example the bouncy animation route;
script - how to fill a pellucid and simple narration to the animation?
modelling - how to refine a 3D object without complex tweaks?

After plenty of experiments and lookups, I come up with these solutions and I’m ready to put it to practice. First off, I should look out for a reflective curve and non-linear route in the parameter. And this depends on the mind state of the character itself and how I put the character to. For example, If it’s sad, it should be a slow ease-in; if it’s sneaky, it should be a bounce with an ease-out.

Next, scripting. Originally the script contains a long journey of the behaviour change through the character, I said to myself “if this is the best way to narrate for the audience, it would take a year for me to finish.” So I’ve transformed clutter scenes into subtle elements such as boom effects and glitterings conveying the anger and the playboy persona of the character.

Finally, modelling. I’ve talked with Max about this question, and since collaborating with photoshop file is more seamless in a 2D animation, so I decided to migrate to photoshop to create a 3D feeling of an object, in this way, I can design both a foundation and a variable object. 

In the next 2 weeks, I will simplify the script into bars, and define all the time slots and animations, and put the pedal to the metal to animate them all. And also the sound composition and voice over.

Thank you so much.

Downloads:

Download File: wip-week34.mp4