Update 5: New Years Eve

Work is continuing at the same steady pace, another two shots done, short and simple, not a lot to say about them in terms of acting, the just push the story a long.

Meanwhile Pat has fixed the shots from the previous week. I needed
to tweak shot 60 in the end as some things I felt I could only explain by
doing. I changed the pacing of Pup popping up as I know Hilary suggested holding on this shot. The biggest change was to Pups face. It looked as though he was looking to the side, rather than the horizon, and he had an oddly mischievous look on his face. These edits were minor and I wanted Pat to move on to the next shots, I informed her of the changes and she had no problem with them. Will is still behind but is slowly catching up.

Shot 60 Pat's Edit

Shot 60 My Edit

Update 4: Slow and Steady

Shot 41

More shots have been done. I'm particularly proud of Shot 41, the act of her running down the hill shows her trouble of staying stable which foreshadows nicely to her trip later on.

Jenny's final shot was finished as well and although I feel it could be better it works for now and if I still feel disappointed near the end of the animation production then I'll make tweaks then. For now I feel it portrays what is needed for the shot.

Pat has giving me shots but they needed tweaking, I gave her some notes to work with, hopefully

Shot 59

they were helpful. Ella's computer has been recently been fixed, I hope she can get back into the work flow soon. Will has fallen slightly behind. He is working on two films and working on jobs outside of University so things like this are bound to happen. He has promised me that the two shots he needs to do will be done when we get back after the holidays.

For now progress has slowed down slightly but I'd just put it down to the Christmas season and I'm sure people will catch up soon.

Update 3: Christmas Cheers

Shot 33

I've gone home for the holidays and have given everyone my contact information so everyone can keep me up to date with what they're working on. Me and Pat are currently ahead of time, Will is on time and unfortunately out of reasons beyond her control Ella is going to get slightly behind as her laptop is currently being repaired. For now we're just going to push on.





I've been working on shot 41 which is making steady progress. I fixed the legs on shot 33 and now it plays out perfectly. Shot 9 was next on my list and seems to play well. I've decided to work on shot 18.5 as it's very collaborative and it'd  be best to work on it when everyone is around. For now I'm just  going to carry on with whatever's next on the schedule.

I'm also going to try and balance some dissertation research while doing this but seeing as I'm ahead hopefully this wont be to difficult.

Shot 9

Update 2: Keep Moving Forward!

Shot 33 Background

Much progress has been made this week. We seem to be plowing through the shots at a confident pace. The only slight trip up on my part was that I forgot to put down a background for Ella to do for shot 33, the shot I'm currently working on. Instead of giving her more work suddenly and seeing as I was ahead of schedule I managed to make a background fairly easily, referencing Ella's past backgrounds to make sure it would all fit in.

Shot 7, my edit

Also I had to make edits to Pat's shot, Shot 7, nothing big but she was making quick progress with the other shots and the change was nothing big so I decided to just make them while my work was getting finished so quickly. All I did was edit the smear frame and make it so the tale goes up after he falls, so it leads on nicely to the next shot. It's still very much Pat's shot though and she did a great job with it.

Lastly, going back to shot 33, I've been struggling with it, getting Jenny to move around the ball convincingly. Her legs have gone to long as well. This will be something for me to sort out this week. Other than that things are moving smoothly.

Shot 33 WIP

Production!

About two weeks ago we started production. We're currently ahead of schedule, seen here. Everyone is working hard and seems pretty confident so far. I'll try and update weekly. As for now I'm very confident in my team.

Also on another note I created a colouring tutorial video awhile back to give to anyone interested in helping with colour.

Hopefully this will be useful in helping understand the method I'll be using to make this film.

A challenge that we overcame this week was the opening shot. Thanks to Will and some after effects magic we split the background into two 3D planes, the sky and ground, so that that when we panned down it looks convincing. I feel it helps the films opening.

Opening Sequence Sea

I animated the sea it's self in Photoshop, as I felt flash animated water on top of a Photoshop background would look really out of place. I kept the water at a low frame rate, as from previous tests this just proved to give a nice illustrative look. Over all what I did for the sea it's self is something I am proud of.

Then further on we placed the animation of Jenny on top and found the shell needed sea foam running off it. Once again this wasn't something I could do in flash as it stood. I decided we needed to export shot in after effects and then put it back in Photoshop again for the sea foam effects. I was slightly worried about quality being lost after 2 exports but they both seemed clean and the effect needed was there.

There are still some things to add to shot one, such a the seals jumping out the sea, but these rough tests show it can be done rather simply.

Opening Shot Test (after effects by Will Wivell)

Other than that shots are making good progress. Everyone it working well I am hoping to get all the animation done by at least March.

Tutorial: The Colouring Process

The colouring process is the key to making Pups look like Pups.

It mostly involves exporting the line work gifs from flash into Photoshop. I'm using a walk cycle Will worked on to show the process.

We start off opening the gif in Photoshop. Create a new layer beneath the animation layers. Fill this layer in grey with the fill tool.

Next we put all the animation layers on Multiply. You know this is working correctly when you see the grey layer becomes visible beneath the animation layers, like the image to the left.

Then create a Group above the grey layer but below the animation layers and we call this "The White." Now for each frame of animation we create a new layer within the folder. Use the magic wand tool, with the tolerance at about 150, and select the outside of the image. Then with the magic wand still equipped, right click and select "Select Inverse." then fill this white. continue to do this until each frame is filled white like the gif below.

The reason we do this is so backgrounds can be put behind the animation layers and it wont interfere with the colour work. The grey layer is just a stand in until the backgrounds can be added.

Now we close up "The White" group, click the arrow on the group layer and it'll close, and create a new group above "The White." We call this group "Colour." In the group we create a new layer for each frame of animation, like we did with the white. This time though we use the brush tool and the oval brush that you should have been given to hand colour each frame, using the reference sheet given to know what colours to use. You can ether colour each piece at a time and go back through to colour another part, for example I have gone through once to colour Jenny's hair first and then gone through again to colour the coat, or just colour her all in one go for each frame until you're done. Do whatever you feel is best for you. Keep going until it ends up like the gif below.

(Quality slightly reduce due to being in gif format)

Don't cheat! Each frame has be hand coloured each time to create the boil effect. If you cheat by using the fill tool or a similar method then the effect will be lost.

Happy colouring!

Jenny's House V2

Jenny's home has gone through a small change, mostly the windows. It was found that in Jenny's room Pup couldn't actually see out to sea. So it was decided to add long windows, ones Pup could see through, this of course had to be reflected in the house for continuities sake.