Superhero School is a 30-seconds animation I've made. Enjoy
This animation was born as an idea the very moment I heard that we are going to have to use still images for our animation project and put them into, what had to seem as, 3D space. The pictures were made without my presence, but it didn't effect my ambitions much. I knew I wanted to do something like this and I carried on.
I've done some After Effects animations using still images before, here is a playlist of some examples:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF8D7FE1105D3F241&feature=plcp
In this animation I wanted to do something new, and I set out to do limb animation to make some movements more believable. The firs time you see it in the video at 00:04 and you can clearly see how girls arms and legs move as if she is trying to balance her self upon falling. This is an enhanced version and I've made a draft some time ago to show people where I want things to be in the Master edit. Here is the Draft version:
Funny, but the biggest struggle in this animation I had was with the soundtrack.(http://ccmixter.org/files/wired/91)
I wanted it to be spot on, but it just wouldn't fit. And I had to use it, it was part of the assignment. So I've made some tweaks to it, changing to a faster speed and a lower pitch, adding some effects on Adobe Soundbooth, to make it "spicier" and here it was, a version I thought might work. Adding some addional sound clips did the job nicely,
The other thing was the background for the last scene. It was hard to compile everything I needed for it to look at least good. A lot of work in Adobe Photoshop. Custom signs for the school on the walls and gates to sell the look of an expensive, sort of X-men themed, mansion.
I had a lot of fun working on this one, and put a lot of effort to make it look as it looks. I would go back and fix some timing issues and work more on some VFX for them to look crispier. But overall I'm very pleased with the result, and, judging from the feedback I got, so are the viewers.
Thank you very much for reading all this,
Ed.
P.S. Here is a clip of the very first animation I've made a few years ago. Lots of Photoshop and a little AE animation:
Wednesday 7 December 2011
"The Shoe Case" or "Shoe Done It"
Here we go. My edit of our "Shoe Done it" film project is here. Ladies and gentlemen -
Funky music, vivid colours and some computer graphics - this is "The Shoe Case"
This creation started in a group of six people and the agreement on the choice of the genre we wanted to shoot in was achieve fairly quickly. The genre of Comedy was interesting, challenging and unique, in comparison with the choice other groups have made.
The story had to have a girl that lost a shoe and a police officer. We decided to introduce two detectives and curve the story around them. That was how Detectives Cole and Kopowski were born. Although I had ideas of my own and even wrote a script featuring other characters and a slightly different story ( this is the script http://edgarkazaksecond.blogspot.com/2011/11/little-red-robin-hood-or-shoe-done-it.html) we chose to stick with the 70's, 80's "Good Cop, Bad Cop" style. We also had some other things to be included in the film:
1. An interview with a witness in a location in or near the Arboretum
2. An establishing shot, a long shot, a mid-shot and a close- up shot of the interviewee.
3. A range of appropriate shots for the flashback.
4. A flashback, depicting what the witness saw.
5. A graphic showing the interviewees name
6. A graphic showing a map showing the location of the witness and the scene.
We had a rough storyline, just a glimpse of what we had to do. That was because we decided to shoot the film with an improvisational manner. That, in my opinion, happened because we didn't have a leading person, or a consensus on what exactly we want to do. Everyone wanted something of their own in the film. I had my own thoughts and introduced some storyboards and script additions and/or alterations, too. Luckily for us, comedy is a fairly flexible genre and we had a fair material to work with in the end. Unfortunately, due to a hectic timetable and "not planned out" shooting days we missed a lot of opportunities to capture good shots and camera angles. This was and stays my biggest concern. I wish I had been more persuasive in terms of pushing my own ideas forward and more demanding in terms of keeping the team up to pace. After all we all were responsible, and my fault was that I couldn't provide the right explanation of things I had to say. This was a good lesson for me.
Although the filming experience didn't live up to my expectations (I did't really get a chance to do any technical things, but that was generally because I was always one the other side of the camera. ) I was really looking forward to editing the film. I did a whole bunch of editing in the past years so I was aware of the fact that no matter how bad the material is (our material turned out to be way better than I expected, and here I am very thankful to Kalab Khaliq, Jasmine Leung & Kamil Manysiak. I should have had more faith in my team. Sorry.), you can edit it into a great video. The pieces fell together quite well and the core script worked pretty good. The biggest challenge, however, turned out to be turning it into the 70's, 80's themed film. The right music, colours and fonts were crucial. Here is the video that sums up all my research and choices:
The music I used:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/435837
and
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/411826
was a great addition to the film and really gave it a great 70's and 80's feel. I tried to do the same with the visual portion of the film and I was successful in the most part. Though not everything was achieved. I failed to implement the transactions popular in those days. Although the classic "CUT" was pretty helpful, the other, "fancy" transactions just didn't fit for me, and I abandoned the idea. The colour correction nearly suffered the same fate, but I found a way around the problems and was very happy about it. I thought that correcting colour in Adobe Premiere was a very tough thing to do because it had less control. But the problem was that when I tried to do it in After Effects, it was even less controllable, thanks to the live convertion to Premiers sequence line. I had to turn the editing program off and try to do edit the colours in After Effects separately, but it would include a lot of transferring and rendering, so this option soon became obsolete. Everything was close to falling apart, nut I discovered that CS5 version of Premiere had a great feature - layer blending (previous versions like 0.7 and CS3 didn't have this option). And so I added a Ramp effect, added some funky purple and orange, reduced opacity to 34% and turned on the Overlay and it was done. I used the same technique for the title and credits backgrounds, only without blending and with some animation to the key frames, so that colours would switch places.
My last concern was that we didn't add a "graphic showing a map showing the location of the witness and the scene" in our film. Here I did something I've tried before once, but it was still high tech. Here is the clip I made before showing a compilation of completely different scenes in one. Here is the guy entering the room. He isn't actually entering a room but a dark corridor and from outside the house. The other shot is him entering a room with the girl but from a poorly lit corridor. The goal was to combine it together so that it looks like he is entering a room from outside the house. It uses a lot of AE motion tracking, layering, masking and colour correction:
I used the same techniques on "The Shoe Case" and inserted a map of Arboretum with a red "X" on it onto the wall of Detective Kopowskis office. You can see it 00:08 and appears again in 03:34.
After that the film was done and I was more then happy with it, and still am. A classy soundtrack, colours, some cheeky edit to spice up the comedy and here we go, a nice short film about shoe theft.
In the future I would definitely try to make most of the pre-production and try to be more involved into the filming from behind the camera. I would love to do that. I like this edit but there are some "bugs" to fix, such as fast cuts of music and the titles that appear too early. Also some colour correction where the map is inserted to make it more believable. Some cuts in the video were too jumpy ( the main concern of people giving me feedback) and I am sure I can fix that. But overall I like what I see, and I hope it will continue being an enjoyable thing to watch.
Thank you for reading this far,
Ed.
Funky music, vivid colours and some computer graphics - this is "The Shoe Case"
This creation started in a group of six people and the agreement on the choice of the genre we wanted to shoot in was achieve fairly quickly. The genre of Comedy was interesting, challenging and unique, in comparison with the choice other groups have made.
The story had to have a girl that lost a shoe and a police officer. We decided to introduce two detectives and curve the story around them. That was how Detectives Cole and Kopowski were born. Although I had ideas of my own and even wrote a script featuring other characters and a slightly different story ( this is the script http://edgarkazaksecond.blogspot.com/2011/11/little-red-robin-hood-or-shoe-done-it.html) we chose to stick with the 70's, 80's "Good Cop, Bad Cop" style. We also had some other things to be included in the film:
1. An interview with a witness in a location in or near the Arboretum
2. An establishing shot, a long shot, a mid-shot and a close- up shot of the interviewee.
3. A range of appropriate shots for the flashback.
4. A flashback, depicting what the witness saw.
5. A graphic showing the interviewees name
6. A graphic showing a map showing the location of the witness and the scene.
We had a rough storyline, just a glimpse of what we had to do. That was because we decided to shoot the film with an improvisational manner. That, in my opinion, happened because we didn't have a leading person, or a consensus on what exactly we want to do. Everyone wanted something of their own in the film. I had my own thoughts and introduced some storyboards and script additions and/or alterations, too. Luckily for us, comedy is a fairly flexible genre and we had a fair material to work with in the end. Unfortunately, due to a hectic timetable and "not planned out" shooting days we missed a lot of opportunities to capture good shots and camera angles. This was and stays my biggest concern. I wish I had been more persuasive in terms of pushing my own ideas forward and more demanding in terms of keeping the team up to pace. After all we all were responsible, and my fault was that I couldn't provide the right explanation of things I had to say. This was a good lesson for me.
Although the filming experience didn't live up to my expectations (I did't really get a chance to do any technical things, but that was generally because I was always one the other side of the camera. ) I was really looking forward to editing the film. I did a whole bunch of editing in the past years so I was aware of the fact that no matter how bad the material is (our material turned out to be way better than I expected, and here I am very thankful to Kalab Khaliq, Jasmine Leung & Kamil Manysiak. I should have had more faith in my team. Sorry.), you can edit it into a great video. The pieces fell together quite well and the core script worked pretty good. The biggest challenge, however, turned out to be turning it into the 70's, 80's themed film. The right music, colours and fonts were crucial. Here is the video that sums up all my research and choices:
The music I used:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/435837
and
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/411826
was a great addition to the film and really gave it a great 70's and 80's feel. I tried to do the same with the visual portion of the film and I was successful in the most part. Though not everything was achieved. I failed to implement the transactions popular in those days. Although the classic "CUT" was pretty helpful, the other, "fancy" transactions just didn't fit for me, and I abandoned the idea. The colour correction nearly suffered the same fate, but I found a way around the problems and was very happy about it. I thought that correcting colour in Adobe Premiere was a very tough thing to do because it had less control. But the problem was that when I tried to do it in After Effects, it was even less controllable, thanks to the live convertion to Premiers sequence line. I had to turn the editing program off and try to do edit the colours in After Effects separately, but it would include a lot of transferring and rendering, so this option soon became obsolete. Everything was close to falling apart, nut I discovered that CS5 version of Premiere had a great feature - layer blending (previous versions like 0.7 and CS3 didn't have this option). And so I added a Ramp effect, added some funky purple and orange, reduced opacity to 34% and turned on the Overlay and it was done. I used the same technique for the title and credits backgrounds, only without blending and with some animation to the key frames, so that colours would switch places.
My last concern was that we didn't add a "graphic showing a map showing the location of the witness and the scene" in our film. Here I did something I've tried before once, but it was still high tech. Here is the clip I made before showing a compilation of completely different scenes in one. Here is the guy entering the room. He isn't actually entering a room but a dark corridor and from outside the house. The other shot is him entering a room with the girl but from a poorly lit corridor. The goal was to combine it together so that it looks like he is entering a room from outside the house. It uses a lot of AE motion tracking, layering, masking and colour correction:
I used the same techniques on "The Shoe Case" and inserted a map of Arboretum with a red "X" on it onto the wall of Detective Kopowskis office. You can see it 00:08 and appears again in 03:34.
After that the film was done and I was more then happy with it, and still am. A classy soundtrack, colours, some cheeky edit to spice up the comedy and here we go, a nice short film about shoe theft.
In the future I would definitely try to make most of the pre-production and try to be more involved into the filming from behind the camera. I would love to do that. I like this edit but there are some "bugs" to fix, such as fast cuts of music and the titles that appear too early. Also some colour correction where the map is inserted to make it more believable. Some cuts in the video were too jumpy ( the main concern of people giving me feedback) and I am sure I can fix that. But overall I like what I see, and I hope it will continue being an enjoyable thing to watch.
Thank you for reading this far,
Ed.
Saturday 26 November 2011
"Little RED Robin Hood" or "Shoe Done It"
Little RED Robin
Hood
the interpretation of "Show Done it"
Detective Guy Gisborne - 1
Detective Jack Hunter - 2
Miss Carly Reed - 3
Robin Wolf “Thief” Hood - 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHY ARE THEY CALLED THIS WAY
Detective Guy Gisborne - Guy of Gisborne - Legend says he was the Robin Hood's greatest foe.
Detective Jack Hunter - as a refference to The Hunter in the Little Red Riding Hood who saves the girl from the wolf.
Miss Carly Reed - Carly (latin for "little") , Reed - ReED
Robin Wolf “Thief” Hood - Robin Hood & the Wolf - 2in 1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2- The city is in
danger. People are in panic. The winter colds are near and everyone is getting
cold feet.
The only ones they can trust now are the two private detectives
who swore to solve this mystery.
1- You are over
reacting, man. The women’s shoes were stolen, big deal.
2- I am totally
going to write a story of our first assignment on my blog.
1- Jack Hunter!…
2- What?
1- Remember, we
are PRIVATE detectives!
~THEY WERE
APPROACHING THE ARBORETUM ~
1- Hello Miss Reed
3- Hi, thank you
for answering my call, the police refused to help me, saying that this was no
serious matter and…
2- We are on top
of your case, mam! We have put aside everything we had on schedule to help you.
1- Yeah, yes,
indeed. Lets proceed, shall we?
Hello Miss Carly Reed, I’m private detective Guy Gisborne.
Please tell us about the day your shoes were stolen.
3- Well… [fashback], I entered the park on lunch
time, sat on the bench, felt woozy and fell asleep. And then my shoes were
gone. [flash-forward]
1- Alright, lets
try more details, did you see anyone else in the park?
3- Well… Yes, [flashback] there was this guy…
4- Hello miss, my
name is Robin Wolf, I collect contributions fot “Adidas Charity”? [flash-forward]
3- He was
collecting charity. I told him that I [flashback]
don’t have any money.
2- Continue…
3- Am… A few
minutes after….
4- Hello Miss,
sorry to bother you, but would you like to contribute to the “Adidas”
foundation here in Notts?
3- No I don’t! –
I said and pushed him on the shoulder slightly when I was leaving. [flash-forward]
1- What happened
next?
[flashback]
4- Mam, where are
you going?
3- To my
grannie’s house to bring her some God damn pastry! And you know what?! I have
got so much money… Too much, in fact, and I will not share a penny with your
stupid charity! Now piss off! [flash-forward]
2- Wow…
3-Give me a
break, I had a terrible day…
(optional)
[flashback]
2- And after that
you fell asleep on the bench and woke up naked…
1- No shoes.
2- Exactly…
(optional)
[flash-forward]
1- Great, thank
you Miss ____________ . I guess our next move is finding this charity man and
asking him some questions.
2- No problem in
that, here he comes…
4- Hello
gentlemen, nice to see you, mam. Would you like to…
3- Hey! Those are
my shoes!
1,2- Where?!
4- In his bag!
~THE GUY RUNS OFF DROPPING THE BAG~
1- Quick, get
him!
~ONE DETECTIVE IS
LEFT BEHIND WITH THE CAMERA AND THE GIRL AND TRIES TO QUICKLY DISSASEMBLE THE
TRIPOD. THE OTHER RUSHES AFTER THE THIEF~
1- Stop! Stop you
bastard!
~THE THIEF IS CHASED
UNDER THE BRIDGE WHERE HE IS BLOCKED BY JACK, THE SECOND DETECTIVE, WHO JUMPS
DOWN ONTO HIS PATH~
1- End of the
road, man.
4- Wait, you
don’t get it! Yes, I stole some shoes, but they are for the poor. That girl can
buy some more, but the people I give them to need them more… I hope you
understand…
2- Hell yeah we
do! Get him boys!
~AWKWARD SILENCE~
2- I always
wanted to say that.
~ROLLING THROUGH 20
POUND NOTES~
2- I hundred quid
for our first job, not bad. I guess she was pretty rich.
1- Yeah, kind of
greedy too. Didn’t want to pay double for the “super fast work” we did.
2- Good thing I
never introduced myself. Saying it was too easy… Who is she to say that?
1- Yeah, too bad
we couldn’t do anything about that Robin Hood Dude.
2- That would be
legal...
1- It won’t be
long until he is back to his dirty tricks…
~THEY LOOK UP AND SEE
THE THIEF RUNNING AWAY WITH A SHOE FROM SOMEONE LIMPING WITHOU ONE~
1- Oh sh / oe…
2- This is so
going on my blog.
[part of the last phrase after “/” appears
after the credits]
Thanks for reading this guys,
Ed.
Saturday 12 November 2011
Animation (Rough Cut Version)
Right. So I've been a bit busy the past weeks. Working nights and days, being sick and all of that and I guess I fell behind on some assignments at the Uni and even missed all the lectures last week. That is most unfortunate, because I really enjoy the work we do and the things we learn. So, yes, in a few days time I managed to get together what was supposed to be my animation project and I really gave a go to some animation techniques I haven't tried yet. Tomorrow I'll be adding some effects, as fades, color correction, backgrounds, particle effects, sound effects and some fancy Action Movie Essentials Pack stuff... Should be fun! So I expect this to be ready by Monday and I hope that not getting the initial feedback from the tutor will result in... well... Ah... We'll be fine! Alright, here's the video of a rough cut, first version, enjoy!
Thanks for reading and watching,
Ed.
Thanks for reading and watching,
Ed.
Monday 24 October 2011
"The Rule of Thirds" or how hard to find any good pics I made
So as I was unfortunate enough not to attend to the seminar where the Rule of Thirds was presented to our attention I had to sniff about on the web to find out what it is all about. What I found was interesting, because as many genius things it was beautiful, simple and so obvious that it would never come up to your mind as a background for a theory (rule).
The Rule of Thirds, in my humble opinion, is what teaches you that asymmetry is beautiful, and then puts it in a grid and makes it symmetrical, although still beautiful. It explains the beauty of most of the images.
It took me a while to find a good picture that I made myself, and I finally got to my old DeviantArt account where I found this:
P.S. a websit I found - http://www.shutterfreaks.com/Actions/RuleOfThirds.php#Download
The Rule of Thirds, in my humble opinion, is what teaches you that asymmetry is beautiful, and then puts it in a grid and makes it symmetrical, although still beautiful. It explains the beauty of most of the images.
It took me a while to find a good picture that I made myself, and I finally got to my old DeviantArt account where I found this:
This photograph with a reaching hand is mostly played on the contrast and we can see the most contrast, and the main character, lets say, on the left side, in the exact position of two crossovers. These are the highlights. But the interesting part is a third object in the picture - a shadow, which looks so thick you can assume it can grab you. Its pinnacle, its brightest point merges perfectly with the top-right crossover, thus making this image even more beautiful. The final, bottom-right crossover points out the blue of the ceiling making more than just a background. It seems that you mind should insert something of its own into that seemingly empty space for the hand to grab.
I think it is a great example of the composition that features only two real objects, but lets you add many of your own.
Thank you and good night,
Ed.
P.S. a websit I found - http://www.shutterfreaks.com/Actions/RuleOfThirds.php#Download
"Stasis Session" interactive project COMPLETE
Now I've just finished working on my interactive story project and boy, oh boy it cost me an arm and a leg. Then again in the end I think it was totally worth it and these last 2 days that I didn't sleep will pay off.
Deciding to make this project was a big step on its own, despite the fact I've never seen an HTML code before, I knew I was making something huge here. Huge in terms of scale, though I hope the quality will stand out too. After all, a free-roaming game? Eghem...
This piece of work made me think. A lot. I had to come up with new ideas of how to arrange everything in order to make it work and make it look as tidy as possible. It also reminded me of a great saying - "quality over quantity". As it turned out I've worked so much on quantity I forgot about the quality, although looking on the result makes me feel warm inside.)
Here it is, I hope the link works and I'll list the specifics below.
"Stasis Session" >> http://edprojects.netai.net/
P.S. It seems that the whole thing was taken down by the hosting, so unfortunately, currently there is no way to check it out online. I'll try to figure something out, maybe post it on my real web site when that is done after the interactive DP2, but 'till then, there will be no access to the content. Sorry.
The ending product is 134MB of volume and uses 100's of photos and their copies.
1,978 files overall.
For all this I had to come up with the "bubble" system.
The main idea of this adventure map/game is free-roam where you can openly explore big areas a long as you want and when you want. So to keep this in order and making tell a story the "bubbles" became crucial.
"Bubbles"are folders containing the information about a certain area in a certain time of the story. When you reach a key point the "bubble" changes to another one so you can explore more territories and progress through the story without stumbling upon an old "cutscene", for example. This was my main challenge and I'm more than certain that with the help of "bubble" system I've beaten it.
By the way this is the free hosting I used and it definitely the best one I tried so check it out. And download FileZilla for file transfer, because it is way easier. Hope this helps.
Thank you for reading till this very point,
Good luck and good night.
Ed.
Deciding to make this project was a big step on its own, despite the fact I've never seen an HTML code before, I knew I was making something huge here. Huge in terms of scale, though I hope the quality will stand out too. After all, a free-roaming game? Eghem...
This piece of work made me think. A lot. I had to come up with new ideas of how to arrange everything in order to make it work and make it look as tidy as possible. It also reminded me of a great saying - "quality over quantity". As it turned out I've worked so much on quantity I forgot about the quality, although looking on the result makes me feel warm inside.)
Here it is, I hope the link works and I'll list the specifics below.
"Stasis Session" >> http://edprojects.netai.net/
P.S. It seems that the whole thing was taken down by the hosting, so unfortunately, currently there is no way to check it out online. I'll try to figure something out, maybe post it on my real web site when that is done after the interactive DP2, but 'till then, there will be no access to the content. Sorry.
The ending product is 134MB of volume and uses 100's of photos and their copies.
1,978 files overall.
For all this I had to come up with the "bubble" system.
The main idea of this adventure map/game is free-roam where you can openly explore big areas a long as you want and when you want. So to keep this in order and making tell a story the "bubbles" became crucial.
"Bubbles"are folders containing the information about a certain area in a certain time of the story. When you reach a key point the "bubble" changes to another one so you can explore more territories and progress through the story without stumbling upon an old "cutscene", for example. This was my main challenge and I'm more than certain that with the help of "bubble" system I've beaten it.
By the way this is the free hosting I used and it definitely the best one I tried so check it out. And download FileZilla for file transfer, because it is way easier. Hope this helps.
Thank you for reading till this very point,
Good luck and good night.
Ed.
Sunday 9 October 2011
My Design Process or "My mind is an over 9K TB HDD"
It has been a long time since I last made something that I could show to the world and be generally proud of it. A 1 minute and 11 seconds long animation done entirely in After Effects with a thin line of Premier Pro editing. Shall we begin.
The project that I eventually called "Just a Reminder" was initially a try of one animation technique. It started of with an idea of zooming down to Earth and even inside of it to, eventually, get to its centre where you could find something interesting. I started doing that with no sketches, just watching tutorials on the go and keeping everything inside my brain. I soon understood that this is going further than just a trial and that it might have an idea that could impact peoples hearts in the end.
The project required lots of pictures that you could find on the web for free. While searching for some particular picture of Earth I stumbled upon an image from a video game called Mass Effect. The game took place in every single corner of our galaxy about 150 years form now. I did not find the picture but I became obsessed with the idea of making a social commercial for people living in a far future. As I assumed in 150 years, especially if the events would follow the pre-Mass Effect scenario, human race will be scattered all over the Milky Way and remembering where you are originally from would become a social, political, religious and a very personal issue. It is crucial not to forget your roots. So this is what the project was all about. Remembering.
By working hard, day and night, non stop for two weeks I finally made this, a video that made its way through time and space and now is somehow registered on planet Earth in 2157. Take a look:
STATISTICS:
Max layers -98
7 sequences
40 images (aprox.)
2 weeks hard work
71 second result
1 QuadCore 8GB RAM computer - nearly fried
This is the tutorial for the original technique I used:
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/earth_zoom/
Thank you for getting this far.
The project that I eventually called "Just a Reminder" was initially a try of one animation technique. It started of with an idea of zooming down to Earth and even inside of it to, eventually, get to its centre where you could find something interesting. I started doing that with no sketches, just watching tutorials on the go and keeping everything inside my brain. I soon understood that this is going further than just a trial and that it might have an idea that could impact peoples hearts in the end.
The project required lots of pictures that you could find on the web for free. While searching for some particular picture of Earth I stumbled upon an image from a video game called Mass Effect. The game took place in every single corner of our galaxy about 150 years form now. I did not find the picture but I became obsessed with the idea of making a social commercial for people living in a far future. As I assumed in 150 years, especially if the events would follow the pre-Mass Effect scenario, human race will be scattered all over the Milky Way and remembering where you are originally from would become a social, political, religious and a very personal issue. It is crucial not to forget your roots. So this is what the project was all about. Remembering.
By working hard, day and night, non stop for two weeks I finally made this, a video that made its way through time and space and now is somehow registered on planet Earth in 2157. Take a look:
 |
| The initial zoom project |
 |
| 98 layers in AE & 3D Cam |
 |
| Fast fall to the city of Milan |
 |
| The Heart of the Earth |
 |
| You can see the eyelashes in top-right |
Max layers -98
7 sequences
40 images (aprox.)
2 weeks hard work
71 second result
1 QuadCore 8GB RAM computer - nearly fried
 |
| First Contact War. ME. 2157. |
This is the tutorial for the original technique I used:
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/earth_zoom/
Thank you for getting this far.
Cheers,
Ed
Saturday 8 October 2011
Awesome Inspiration & a "Wanabe" Project
Yesterday I was at the NUT's War Gaming and Role playing society's first meeting. It is not yet fully established but you have to give them credit for being highly enthusiastic at what they do and I am sure that in just a few months or even weeks time these guys are going to be fully operational and running.
However my fascination lies in the idea I got just after I left the meeting. Thinking of them being so enthusiastic about what they do and love I stumbled upon my own little wimpy dreams. I love short films, music clips, little stories that you can find on youtube and vimeo and I am blown away how that can become your life, work, a great hobby and a superb portfolio. So far couldn't find myself in an environment that would appeal to that or surrounded by people who would say that they would love to do the same, till this point. And this is where we finally got to the inspiration part.
I generally thought that there are not many people on my course who came here knowing much about production of all sorts of things that we do, and will do, and maybe they are not really interested in this stuff since its just a start of the course, but how horribly wrong I was and I am very sorry for that! Going through blogs of our guys and girls on Reflective journal I turned round some great works and ideas and found a general enthusiasm about their future works and jobs and that made me think, even dream possibly. Guys, I want to make a proposition. How about we create a "Short film, music video and all sorts of our Multimedia arts field's making society sort of thing"? Through this we can escalate our works, teach each-other, learn new skills and gain lots of experience. This would help create great portfolios and maybe even workplaces when we eventually could end up working with TrentTV, Fm or even become youtube partners. This is a pretty big and ambitious idea but I am pretty sure we could make it. We still got 3 years of work here and all the facilities we need so why not use them.
Thank you if you read to this point and I hope you agree with me.
Also a big thanks to you guys for inspiring me either thorough your work, blogs, or just general involvement:
Deano
http://deanoparker.blogspot.com/
Bartholomew
http://bartholabazaz.tumblr.com/tagged/ntumultimedia
Joshua
http://joshesuniblog.blogspot.com/
Kalab
http://kalab92.blogspot.com/
Kamil
http://kamill.wordpress.com/
Kieran
http://kieranm1992.blogspot.com/
Nick Rood
http://nick-rood.blogspot.com/
Nima
http://nimahedayati.blogspot.com/
Rachel
http://rachelgman.blogspot.com/
Beckie
http://beckypike.blogspot.com/
Tom
http://thomasmroberts.blogspot.com/
Zoe
http://zoestroud90.blogspot.com/
Thank you once again. You do understand this list doesn't particularly mean anything but my appreciation for your work and a big thanks and I am sorry if I offended someone in any way.
Yeah guys, I hope you'll think a bit about it.
Cheers,
Ed.
However my fascination lies in the idea I got just after I left the meeting. Thinking of them being so enthusiastic about what they do and love I stumbled upon my own little wimpy dreams. I love short films, music clips, little stories that you can find on youtube and vimeo and I am blown away how that can become your life, work, a great hobby and a superb portfolio. So far couldn't find myself in an environment that would appeal to that or surrounded by people who would say that they would love to do the same, till this point. And this is where we finally got to the inspiration part.
I generally thought that there are not many people on my course who came here knowing much about production of all sorts of things that we do, and will do, and maybe they are not really interested in this stuff since its just a start of the course, but how horribly wrong I was and I am very sorry for that! Going through blogs of our guys and girls on Reflective journal I turned round some great works and ideas and found a general enthusiasm about their future works and jobs and that made me think, even dream possibly. Guys, I want to make a proposition. How about we create a "Short film, music video and all sorts of our Multimedia arts field's making society sort of thing"? Through this we can escalate our works, teach each-other, learn new skills and gain lots of experience. This would help create great portfolios and maybe even workplaces when we eventually could end up working with TrentTV, Fm or even become youtube partners. This is a pretty big and ambitious idea but I am pretty sure we could make it. We still got 3 years of work here and all the facilities we need so why not use them.
Thank you if you read to this point and I hope you agree with me.
Also a big thanks to you guys for inspiring me either thorough your work, blogs, or just general involvement:
Deano
http://deanoparker.blogspot.com/
Bartholomew
http://bartholabazaz.tumblr.com/tagged/ntumultimedia
Joshua
http://joshesuniblog.blogspot.com/
Kalab
http://kalab92.blogspot.com/
Kamil
http://kamill.wordpress.com/
Kieran
http://kieranm1992.blogspot.com/
Nick Rood
http://nick-rood.blogspot.com/
Nima
http://nimahedayati.blogspot.com/
Rachel
http://rachelgman.blogspot.com/
Beckie
http://beckypike.blogspot.com/
Tom
http://thomasmroberts.blogspot.com/
Zoe
http://zoestroud90.blogspot.com/
Thank you once again. You do understand this list doesn't particularly mean anything but my appreciation for your work and a big thanks and I am sorry if I offended someone in any way.
Yeah guys, I hope you'll think a bit about it.
Cheers,
Ed.
Late Notice
Well I just went through the posts and blogs of my fellow classmates and understood that I've missed an important part of Uni's start. I totally forgot that we've went through some interesting stuff during our induction week. And I am talking Pinhole Cameras and Whiteboard Animation. The embed video is going to show our animations that we've done in groups of 2 or 3 people using whiteboards, special markers and Cannon Powershots. Although my first pinhole camera experience wasn't at least partially successful and did not produce any decent part of work, I am certainly glad my first whiteboard animation looks nice and somewhat organised. So here they are, a Whiteboard Animation Video, and an article by Rachel Man on her about the Pinhole Cameras that we did. Enjoy.
Rachels blog:
http://rachelgman.blogspot.com/2011/10/pinhole-camera.html
P.S. I've just stumbled across a great source of inspiration and I'm very much thrilled to shout about it in my next post!
Ed.
Thursday 6 October 2011
Inspiration - "Stay hungry, stay foolish" (c)
I just came across one very interesting video on the main youtube page. Its basically just an ad getting people into using google products and so on... And then again it is very inspiring on its own. Not even a point of it being obviously and intentionally inspiring but the fact is that people care and bother to tell you that YOU CAN and that SOMEONE CARES makes it feel even more powerful and inspiring.
And this brings us to the point.
Inspiration - a much needed resource for us to be productive, successful and, most important, at least shortly, but confident.
And this is where I shut up and actually share some links that I think are most inspiring.
The one I was talking about in the first place:
Dr. Randy Pausch - a man of great wisdom. You might find this inspiring to say the least:
Steve Jobs - well, no need to explain:
So yes, I guess I will be adding some more when they come along but till then,
Thank you and goodnight.
And this brings us to the point.
Inspiration - a much needed resource for us to be productive, successful and, most important, at least shortly, but confident.
And this is where I shut up and actually share some links that I think are most inspiring.
The one I was talking about in the first place:
Dr. Randy Pausch - a man of great wisdom. You might find this inspiring to say the least:
Steve Jobs - well, no need to explain:
So yes, I guess I will be adding some more when they come along but till then,
Thank you and goodnight.
"The Loop Story" gets its own web space!
Well this is funny, I was actually able to post my "Story" thing on the web.
So now both of you ( haha, sad joke )
can actually go through the story interactivelly.
Yeah, here is the link and enjoy this fine piece of, am, whatever.
Enjoy. And thanks for reading till this point.
CLICK THIS LINK
Wednesday 5 October 2011
Interactive "Loop Story" Map
(to enlarge the picture just zoom in on your browser)
The numbers and their position on the image represent
where to click and where it will take you.
The story loops when image 10 goes to image 1
and overall there are 4 paths the story will go
with 3 of them starting at the actual start of the story
and 1 being an extra short bonus.
BTW you don't always have to click on something for it to progress.
Some images, like 5, 6 and the two before
and after 10 will on their own after some short time.
(at least they should, otherwise just click)
The first rough piece of work. I hope I'll be able to upload
the PowerPoint file and post it.
All the images used:
My youtube channel:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)