TRACKING DOCUMENT
There have been a few slight changes so far to my production plan, the environment and backgrounds are still the same, I will be painting on glass to create the ocean, and there will be many layers used with mixed mediums for the backgrounds. I wont be using a rostrum as I initially thought, the reason for this is I really don’t think its necessary, although it would be a great piece of equipment to have and use, I can get a really nice look just by using the one pane of glass as opposed to many layers of glass on the rostrum. If I get time I may still try and rig something up but it’s not crucial. I will be painting the sky and sand in watercolours and scanning these pictures into After FX.
I have had some inner conflict issues this year firstly with the script and now with the style of the animation. I have always wanted to hand draw the production, as I love this style but wasn’t confident with the quality that I could produce, and also I was concerned with time constraints. So I decided to use the puppet tool, as this style seems to compliment the whole steampunky vibe that I have in my head. However, part of me feels like this just isn’t going to look the way I want it to. Over the holidays I am going to test out both styles of animation and see how they look. The mechanical bird has and always will be animated with the After FX puppet tool; this works well here, as he is a machine and will be moving mechanically. Darren has found a script for After FX that allows you to put IK handles on your puppet, similar to Maya, this is great news and although the mechanical bird doesn’t have arms, it will be extremely useful with squash and stretching him as he ticks, buzzes and whirs.
Working with Jack on the animation brief, I had the opportunity to understand 2D animation a lot better, I feel like I know what I am doing now and there is also a huge amount of support at school when needed from the other students and lecturers.
My data storage and file naming conventions are the same, if hand drawing, I have to be diligent with the file naming as it is so easy to get lost and lose track of page numbers etc, but I think this applies to all styles at the end of the day as animation can get very messy very quickly if things are not named correctly and filed away appropriately (Yes I am speaking of past experience).
Overall the production plan has evolved but the fundamentals are still the same, I still have a fairly clear view of where I am headed, a few more animation tests should solve this problem.
FULL STEAM AHEAD!
