DIGITAL LIFE

Today, we can live in another universe of our own imagining from various mediums of technology. That is exactly what Digital Life does, where I am launched into a Mac and surf the internet. This lifestyle I portray has major flaws, where I am required to jump back and forth from the world to use the keyboard, and I function as the mouse.

The scope of my project was to place self into a scene where humans can act in worlds of their own imagining, whether realistic or not. 

PRE-PRODUCTION

Digital Life's story originated from another idea of mine that never came to be animated. The original idea was to have a computer mouse transform to an actual mouse that spends it time on the computer with the help of the keyboard. He then runs into trouble as he searches for a way to click a link. The mouse is supposed to do this, but realizes he must turn back into his mechanical-self to accomplish this task. Eventually, the mouse goes haywire contemplating over the situation and faints. I didn't end up finishing this idea since it seemed a bit too complicated for some to understand, and I could't figure out a way to implement green screening techniques to this idea.

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IDEAS AND CONCEPTS

Instead of using a mouse to hover around, I then thought,"Why not do it yourself?" I spend several hours on the internet, and don't see myself on the screen. It came to me that I had to put myself on the screen to understand this idea as a whole for me and to meet the requirements for this project.

Digital Life's actual project is about me logging on to a computer, and getting sucked in. I am then aborted to the desktop questioning why I am monitoring the computer from the inside, not the outside. Afterwards, I then go on the internet using myself as the cursor kicking icons and links to open them. Like the mouse, I have to use myself to type on the keyboard by jumping back to the real world and stomping on each key one at a time. I then have to climb to the links I want, and eventually fall when the internet load because the loading page is blank and I have no way to support myself. 

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BEGINNING STAGES

Digital Life began with me taking screenshots of what I would see when I was inside the computer. Every image had to be uniform to the point where I couldn't have extra links open and had to do it in a short amount of time. I also gathered images of the Mac login screen, hoping to use this for when I filmed myself. 

Following my storyboard sketches above, I went out to the green screen room and got a classmate to help me film my actions like waking, jumping, and hopping. My whole body had to be shown, and my shoes had to be covered as much as possible due to a black shadow appearing on the bottom of my soles. Below here are some shots of me acting out in the green screen room.

Walking

Falling

Looking Above

EDITING

After filming the footage came removing the green background from each scene learning how to use Keylight, Color Key, and Simple Choker. By selecting a few shades of green, creating a garbage matte around myself, and adding fine details missing, I disappeared from the green screen and enter the computer world. After this and correcting my skin tone with the Curves effect, I keyframed myself to move across the screen wherever needed and timed out the footage. The transitions from each film footage looks very choppy and lacked natural movement. I wish there would've been an easier way to fix this, but I had to use my resources wisely with the lack of time available.

Effects

Jumping to Safari

Sound effects and background music were also included to fill up the dead computer space. Ambient electronic music fills the environment as boings and swooshes are heard from my actions. Their volumes were also adjusted so each sound effect could be heard form the airy background music.

REVISION

As always, There were positive and negative thoughts of mine on this project. I really enjoyed using green screen techniques and the plot of my project, feeling simple and complex at the same time. There were also some flaws within the project.

Looking at the Internet

When rendering out my animation, the lock-aspect ratio wasn't turned on, and the final render did not appear as it was shown in After Effects. From what you can see above, the whole Mac desktop screen isn't showing, and cuts out portions from the hover bar like the Apple button, file, the time, etc.

Along with this scene, when I am teleported to the technological world, I was intentionally going to appear and flash back and forth, similar to that of Star Trek. Instead, I enter the computer screen from the edge of the screen without flashing. This happened due to the lock-aspect ratio not working properly, and my video recording movements remained intact. If I were to fix my positioning, it would take me lots of more time since I would have to keyframe every scene again in accordance to the new layout dimensions.

Jumping to the Keyboard

In this scene, where I jump out of the computer and land on the keyboard, the Mac's monitor appears blurry and slanted with the desktop screen. Some feathering was applied to the computer from a mask, but is very faint to see from the whole project. I made the transition scene by moving both the desktop image and the monitor image pan down to the keyboard in a vertical motion while I laid on top of those layers jumping my way from two realities.

SEMESTER REFLECTION

This semester has been a long road. I have felt that for each new start, I would end up rushing everything at the last minute, even with my good pacing. Improving my skills on After Effects and using them for green screen and 2D Animation are wonderful ways of learning that After Effects is designed for all forms of animation, even 3D Animation, something I don't have that much strength in. At the end, I believe having this kind of experience this semester from these projects will help me in the future, whether or not if I continue animation.

"O" BIRD ANIMATION UPDATE 1

After working during animation, experimenting with shading, using different brushes, and making bird animations, lots of progress has been made. The bird animation sequences have been rendered out, and puffy clouds are now clearly visible in the blue sky.

CLOUDS

Designing clouds took some creative thinking strategies I've never used. The clouds were constructed using several reference pictures from drawings or photos. Each cloud started out as a rough sketch of jagged edges or natural curves, then got shading with lighting sources based on where the sun would be in the sky in accordance to each scene. Several cloud types were experimented with different brush strokes and resulted in their puffy textures below.

Cloud Rough Sketch

Worms Eye Altocumulus Clouds

Realistic and Cartoonistic Cumulus Clouds

Cirrus Clouds

BIRD SEQUENCES

The black birds of this animation will be flying from many perspectives-our perspective mostly. From up above and from side to side, a flock of black birds will fly in a uniform triangle. Take a look at the sequentially birds and note their details: how they fly, the way their wings flap, their main body's position.

Back View of Flying Bird

Worms Eye View of Flying Bird

Side View of Flying Bird

TREES AND GRASS

Mulberry and Oak Tree Mix

The most important part missing besides the blue sky and flying birds is a natural part of the scenery-trees.Trees were created to fill in the large blue skies and form a natural environment. I focused on two types of different trees and adjusted their size by length and height so no two trees have the same height dimension, despite their only being two tree prototypes.

Eastern Pine Tree

Two tree prototypes have been constructed, one similar to the Eastern Pine, the other to a mixture of an oak tree and a mulberry tree. They were constructed to have leaves connected to branches, and shaded based on where the leaves are located. Leaves were also included in the front of the bark so the whole tree is coated with leaves, and made visible with each layer of leaves having an adjusted opacity.

Complete Tree Scenery

Various grass bases were also added for a natural base for the trees and will be implemented for their appointed scenes. Light stroked brushes and low opacities were used to have noticeably crisp grass blades of 

Diagonal View of Grass

Side View Grass

Now that you have reached the end of today's blog post, I want to point out something. Have you noticed the big picture? Slowly scroll down this blog post, focusing on each section, and what they all add up together to when combined together... It may take a while to put together, but the result will shock you. The surprise is that you have been seeing it this whole time.

SEVERAL UPDATES

Lots of positive news relating to my work have recently come to me, and I'd like to share them with you!

eMagine

The Notebook Stop Motion project I worked on a few months ago was nominated for eMagine, a city wide event where students in a digital arts program at their school compete with other students on their work. These entries are divided into several categories, and get ranked by judges.

Judging each entry can be rigorous due to the fact that the finalists were decided by mere decimal points, which raised the skates for earning a top spot for each category. Unfortunately, The Notebook didn't win an award, but it was great having this animation featured as an "honorable mention for several s to witness.

O BIRD ANIMATION

The birds have been outlined from beak to tail! Here they are below. Colors will be added later on.

I also have my animatic of the animation rendered out! They consist of my rough draft sketches and cameras that show what the final animation will appear like. Take a look at it yourself below!

"O" BIRD ANIMATION

THE BEGINNING SPARK

Black Bird

For the past year or so, I have gained an interest in birds for no apparent reason, specifically black birds, ravens, and crows. But after gaining more exposure and interest to these creatures, I have found their color and nature relatable to my inner self.

All of Coldplay's Albums (2000-2014)

Coldplay, an influence of mine, wrote two songs about birds that stood out to me. The first one being "Up With The Birds", on their album, Mylo Xyloto; the second one being "O", on their latest album,"Ghost Stories".

The idea to make an animation involving black birds and Coldplay came to me one day while listening to "Up With The Birds". My ideas for it then were still very abstract, but came clearer to me when I listened to "O", which motivated me to get rolling on my animation. Because "O" brought the most vivid images to me, I chose that song for the animation.

ROUGH DRAFT

During spring break, I made rough sketches of what I visioned for the animation. Each part of the song has its own unique scene and drawing perspective. I even wrote notes on the margins of each scene as a reference for what movement needs to be done in After Effects.

Worm's Eye View Flying Birds

Birds Forming Together to make a Heart

Night Sky

Man Watching Birds From A Distance

Sunset

Back View of Flying Birds

Birds On Pole

Birds Leaving Pole

ANIMATION SKETCHES

Bird Animation Loops 1

Bird Animation Loops 2

The birds will be animated sequentially since animating them mechanically with key frames would take away their natural wing movement. Various sketches have been made with their own wing cycle at different time rates.






Most of the animation cycles will be repeated in order to save time for other parts of the project. Their modifications will be made with After Effects such as scaling and rotation.




I am pleased on my current standing for the "O" Bird Animation. With the beginning stages set, I can now turn my animation recipe from scratch to a wonderful masterpiece. More updates on my project will come as my project progresses.

Animation Title Cover

TEN APPLES UP ON TOP SELF REFLECTION

Finishing my Ten Apples Up on Top animation made me feel like I had to balance ten apples up on me while working. I ran into major conflicts along the process of making this animation. Let's just say my "simple" animation turned out to be very "complex".

In my last post, I mentioned how coloring took lots of time. This apparently turned out to be the case for everything else; the drawings, setting key frames in After Effects, backgrounds.











Staying after school almost everyday for long periods of time was the only way to get ahead. That also meant sacrificing homework and studying time, eventually dropping my grades. I was not on track, and knew that a new plan was necessary for me.

With this cut that had to be made, I finished up as much as possible and rendered the first third of the animation, the part that was fully completed without any rough sketches.







Although I did not finish my project, I learned a valuable lesson. Don't go too far and beyond on projects. For my future projects, I will look for shortcuts to use and avoid complicated ways to animate. Here is my final product of what I had for the animation.

Ten Apples Up On Top Final Entry

TEN APPLES UP ON TOP

Remember when you were young and you read children's books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Cat in the Hat? What if those childhood stories came to life on TV, and you actually engaged to them while reading the book? That can now come true to some kids today.This quarter's project involves animating a simple storybook to life with movement. The book I chose to do was "Ten Apples Up On Top", by Theo LeSing. The interesting thing about the book is that it is considered a Dr. Seuss book because Theo LeSing is the actual name of Dr. Seuss. The reason why the author title is different is because he published this book to be illustrated by others, not by Dr. Seuss himself.

MAKING PROCESS

One of the first steps of mapping out the scenes for the project was to scan the book pages, and imagine what the characters would be doing. For example, on this page, the lion's feet are up and appear as if they are moving. I decided for this scene to integrate a walk cycle to the walking as he is walking to the tree.

The project is mostly hand drawn to keep the illustrated book drawings intact and feel as if the style hasn't changed a bit. All of the characters will be hand-drawn with Photoshop, and the backgrounds and other objects will be done in Illustrator. I chose to have the backgrounds in this programs because I haven't done much with Illustrator in the past, and decided to improve my skills on Illustrator.

Besides having the characters drawn in Photoshop, the main characters were also animated with sequential animation in order to give the characters natural movement that makes sense to young children. With there being limited time to make the story, the hand animation has to be simple and not very time consuming or complex. This challenge makes me rely on After Effects for a majority of the animation movements. 

Here are two gifs of my animations. The lion on the bottom is blinking as the dog walks towards him comparing the amount of apples on top they possess. I've also learned that from making these animations that coloring takes forever! Any artist can agree with that phrase, no matter what form of art they practice. But with this conflict, I feel comfortable relying on two programs as a way to simplify the animation.

AUDIO RECORDING

The voice present in any kind of audio file gives life to what is being visualized. Along with making the animation, I also had to record my own voice and follow the script (book) to narrate the story. Tone was included in the narration with crescendos during the climax of the story, and my slight attempt to make each character have their own voice- or sound like one group. The recording was done in one try, a mistake of mine for not being able to edit individual parts very well. Plus, while making my rough draft, I found out I had missed a few lines near the end (when my voice got tired of speaking) and realized I should've read the script carefully. 

ROUGH DRAFT

The rough draft was simply, a rough draft-full of imperfections. Like the rough draft, I was also full of imperfections while creating the animation. Each rough draft scene was pulled of from the book pages, and added in a camera for indicating when different shots would be placed. Most of the scenes, however, appeared as if they were wide screen. I fixed most of this by putting my focus on characters as they speak, or act. Parts of the setting were also introduced so a viewer may understand when the location of a scene changes. I also included zooming, panoramas, and other kinds of camera movements.

STOP MOTION PROJECT (THE NOTEBOOK)

WHAT WAS THE SCOPE OF THE PROJECT?

The scope, or plot of my group project was about a group of office supplies, consisting of a highlighter, notepad, and stapler remover. They reside in an average cubicle office where they have fun adventures together when their human leaves the desk. One day while the human is away grabbing his Hot Pocket, a nearby composition notebook swallows the gang into a hand drawn world of graphite sketches. In this hand drawn world inhabits a tribe of scribbles, hairy like pencil drawing that attack the office supplies. An army of scribbles storm and attack them. The office supplies then make it to the edge of the paper world, into a portal back to their home world. Everyone then celebrates for making it out alive, until the human opens the door to return back to work. The objects freeze into their normal positions closing their googly eyes to sleep.

WHAT WAS YOUR PROCESS OF MAKING THIS PROJECT?

My process of making this project involved many stages; pre-production, idea and concept, storyboard, sketches, production, editing, and revision.

Pre-production: For the pre-production, a plot had to be formed that would make sense that would take about a minute or two to tell, like reading a children's storybook. Which would have to include an exposition, rising action, climax, falling solution, and resolution. My group thought that if the story had to be simple, the characters should be as well.

Idea/Concept: The original idea came together as a spinoff of another idea. One of my group members original ideas was to use water bottles with goggly eyes having a business meeting and getting into a fight. Branching from this idea came the concept of using writing materials and office supplies coming to life. Thus, our plot was made.

Storyboard: The storyboard involved switching from stop motion, live action, and 2D animation using After Effects. Each sketch had to made very quickly due to the lack of time given to have the project be the best it can be. The storyboard was used as a guideline for timing every composition in After Effects and as a template for drawing the office supplies in Photoshop.

Storyboard Page 1 

Storyboard Page 2

Storyboard Page 3

The three storyboard pages indicate the different scenes. The first page majorly sets the stage for the cubicle office and the typical office life, with office supplies springing into life.





The second page mainly features the notebook world that the object mysteriously enter into; only to be encountering rough black and white sketches. Conflict then approaches as the characters meet the scribbles. One of the rough scribbles pokes the stapler eater's eye out, and then devours it for hurting the eye. This then makes the scribble clan upset and chase the office supplies back to their own world.

The final storyboard page features the highlighter, notepad, and stapler eater returning back to the office, and celebrating for successfully coming back home safe and sound. They celebrate, and immediately return back to their old position because they heard the man open back the door to return from lunch break. He then wonders why his supplies have moved, and continues back working.

                                                        
Editing: The editing took some time of reviewing each frame an fixing the lighting rate of frames per second, and redoing shots. An example is shown below of the lighting changes made for this project. Along with lighting being fixed, the audio also had to fixed at times. Some of the sound effects I found were too loud and needed to have the volume turned down.

Before Lighting was Edited

After Lighting was Edited

Conflicts: Despite the great effort our group made for the project, there were some pitfalls to our project. One consistent problem we had was lighting. Since the project was filmed and shot at the animation room, where only half of the lights are on, we had to turn on all the lights to match the lighting for all of the frames. We didn't realize this until the middle of our project. The lighting was then fixed on After Effects so each frame has the same lighting. While taking pictures with these lights, the stop motion process was hard because if one shot was messed up, or we didn't get enough pictures taken, then we had to restart taking the stop motion frames.



Post-Production: After having the group project being interviewed by my class, they suggested some changes for the final edit.

• Have the characters' sketches overlaid on the notebook before they entered in to indicate their movement from the real world to the notebook world.


• Not use the copyrighted sound effect on the climax frame.


• Fix some of the lighting on the frames to match the yellow lighting present on a majority of the frames.

These changes were then quickly made with the crunched time our group had remaining. I help clean up the project by drawing the highlighter, stapler eater, and notepad. I also contributed with the overlaying process, color correction, and final revision of the project as a whole.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ALONG THE WAY?

Highlighter and Notebook Meet Donald Trumpet

I've learned how to efficiently use a drawing tablet on Photoshop, so I could draw the office supplies at ease. This skill will be necessary for me when I continue doing 2D Animations.

Along with that, I learned that you don't need to use the same brush for each project. In the past, I'd use the default brush for Photoshop, and not bother trying new brushes. But since I had to use a new brush for making the objects, I have learned for myself that the various brushes available are very useful.

Highlighter and the Anime Head

I've also learned how to make Stop Motion Animations in real life. I've had some knowledge before doing this project, but that has now expanded.

One last thing I have relearned is how to use a DSLR Camera and its basic features. I even found out how to change the lighting, a big bonus for my group when shooting!

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

There isn't much I would do differently. If I had time to hand draw every frame for the 2D world, them I would've done it. But because of the crunched time, I had to rely on After Effects for animating everything. I would also have been more observant and avoid as many mistakes as possible.

General Thoughts:  Each group member was productive during the whole making of this project. One member of my group wasn't productive and only made contributions to the Credits for the project. Every group member who participated was open to communicate their thoughts and ideas, making sure everyone was on task, and meeting their deadlines.

VIDEOS 

Notebook World Rough Draft

Note World Final Product (No Audio)

The final product is posted on Youtube. Go check it out!

GROUP MEMBERS

Emma Johnson
Maddie Culotta
Brock Townsend
Nathan Goldberg 
John Pace