Reflection

I feel that with my animation, though I did it under a very short time frame, I managed to achieve some good quality work. I think I have some very clear influences in terms of the design of my machine, the art style and overall flow of the animation works smoothly. I feel that I showed the functionality of the machine quite simply in a way that was clearest to the viewer, I may potentially have been able to make the system longer and more complex to make the animation more interesting, but I feel that the way I have done it provides a clear and effect representation of recycling. I did stray a little bit from my initial roughs, but I look at that more as a development rather than a negative as they are like I said, roughs.

My influences for the animation are based around the idea of recycling and sustainability, but I didn't want that to become a major, in your face this is what this animation is about "we need a change" message because people are likely to be getting tired of seeing the same old message again and again. I just wanted to show a recycling system working in one of its simpler forms to show that nothing is useless, but in fact it can be used to create something new and exciting.

I found a few issues arose when rendering out the whole sequence. Working in flash, there are some serious restrictions to do with the program, that cause crashes time and time again, and if you are not careful you can lose a lot of work very easily. In order to work around this I not only saved often, but broke up my project into multiple different files, one for each new shot or scene. This allowed a better workflow, so I could easily edit specific shots and adjust length travel speeds etc. I found that this kind of work flow allowed me to be a lot more organised in what I was doing and made my progress go a lot faster and become more efficient.

I think I made the right decision in moving on from my initial idea, as through experimentation around the style I was using I realised it wasn't going to work well for me, and managed to move on from a potentially disastrous animation. This experimentation process was very important in reaching my final goal as it was clearly a major turning point for my entire project, and I feel that because of this I have made a much better animation than I ever could have using the previous style.

Research and Inspiration

This was a little bit of inspiration that I used when coming up with the concept of my compression machine. I originally planned on having giant ram rods compressing the junk into a block but I felt this idea added some  more character to the machine that was working as well as saving me from animating repetitive and dull effects.

This scene from star wars, was also a big inspiration in terms of the largely automated, mechanical factory setting that i was trying to create in my animation, there are probably some similarities found in this scene to that in my animation.

In terms of art style though I have to say my biggest influence was probably Machinarium, I used this as a big inspiration not only for character design but also in terms of the colour scheme that while limited brings a lot of life to the characters and the setting of this junkyard world.

Finished!

After working until 6:30 this morning I have finally managed to churn out the amount of work that was needed to finish my animation. Really I only have my self to blame in terms of my poor management skills in terms of this project, but motivation for this brief for me was something that I really struggled with. I am however extremely relieved that i have managed to pull it off and managed to achieve what i feel is still quite a quality piece of animation.

Starting New

After reaching a dead end with my last concept, and having some serious issues with motivation to continue. I finally decided that I would go down the path of recycling, taking junk and turning it into something better. I feel that recycling is something that is very popular in todays world, where people are becoming more and more concerned around the idea of sustainability and the environment. I already had some assets from my previous projects that i could use in terms of junk which would really help me cut down the time it would take to produce something good quality.

Below is a rough storyboard of the idea I had.

Experimenting with water

I was really struggling with the idea of how i was going to animate my water in a way that would be effective but also stylistic as well, as i wanted to create an animation that was artisticly different as well as meet the briefs criteria of creation. I found it very difficult to come up with an idea, and tried a number of different options, all that looked like crap. I settled for a simplistic grayscale look that really didnt look that great and didnt match the style at all. When i showed this to Karin, she felt that there were to many style clashes with the overall animation. At this point considering i had already reached a dead end, i decided to scrap the concept and start with something new.

First steps

Originally with this task I wanted to experiment with the flow of water through pipes and the idea that water is life. To some people the original creator. I designed a photorealistic style of animation for this that would be combined with some watercolour textures for an interesting effect.

Below are some pictures of the creation of my assets that were going to be used in my animation.

First Lesson - The Brief

This semester we have been given the task to create an animation based on some form of system. The challenge of the task being to create a creator. This idea is quite broad because this creation can be anything from a chemical reaction to some form of mechanical device that shits out eggs. The potential is quite large here.