MOOM walking

Using the image plane and Richard Williams' basic walk cycle I have animated MOOM a bit. I found it tricky to get the feet and legs in the positions I wanted because you don;t have direct control of the knee joints.

Banana model

The object I chose to model and texture is a banana. I chose it because it isn't a particularly difficult shape to model, but I can go really in depth with the texturing.

I started with a cylinder, added 10 edge loops and dragged the edge rings into a kind of lozenge shape. Then I applied the Bend non-linear deformer to make a gentle banana-like curve.

Then I used a similar process to make a stalk.

Texture

Finished product

Truck Texturing -- OUAN406

Dan has given me some help with unwrapping and texturing my truck in Maya. Im going for a rundown and rusty look, and will add some details like door handles, a grill on the front and maybe a logo or two.

The finished piece:

E4 Completion -- OUAN406

I have done all the animating for the E4 ident, and now just need to edit in After Effects to fix some colour issues from the lighting, and add sound effects. I am currently looking for free SFX online, but may end up recording them myself with my own voice to add to the rough and ready homemade feel already given by the cutout style.

E4 Progress -- OUAN406

I decided to animate the E4 ident with cutouts, partly asa challenge and to learn a new skill, and partly because from the previous E4 idents I have seen there were none animated by cutout. I think the story is basic enough to be animated this way, and cutout lends itself well to the style that I drew my storyboard and animatic in.

National Geographic 3 -- OUAN406

The hardest scene to make in my National Goegraphic ident was the one where the logo appears partially obscured by trees. I didnt want to have to hand paint a mask around the branches for every single frame, so in order to have the trees look as close as possible to the original I had to employ some Adobe wizardry.

First I made the original footage black and white in After Effects, and also ramped up the contrast to make the sky white and the foreground black.

The effect wasn't quite strong enough so I exported the clip as PNG images, and with Photoshop batch processed them into Bitmap PNGs. When I reimported the sequence in after effects it was ready to use as a mask layer.

This could then be applied over the top of the original footage with all the white areas automatically knocked out, leaving me with the desired effect.

I added a very gentle pan to the rectangle object, in the opposite direction that the trees are moving, to give the impression that the camera is rotating around the logo, and used the After Effects "Color Change" to make the logo look like it was being illuminated by the same light source as the trees.

Final Result:

National Geographic Progress -- OUAN406

I have placed my Maya model into two scenes so far and continue to look for more diverse environments to use.

National Geographic Progress -- OUAN406

I have made a model of the National Geographic yellow rectangle in Maya, and begun looking for nice footage to place the model into. I hope to use a mix of shots including still and moving camera - so some scenes will require me to animate the model, whereas others I can simply use a still render and impose that into the video.

National Geographic -- OUAN406

I have decided to scrap the intial idea of the spinning globe, and instead go for the second concept of placing the logo rectangle into various different environments. I think my initial idea would look great, but the time it would take me to animate does not leave me with much time to work on E4, and this way I also get the chance to do something other than hand drawn animation. I still like the concept, and would like to use it in a future project if the chance arises.

National Geographic Concept 2 -- OUAN406

I am still interested in utilising motion tracking or other techniques to impose images into live action footage, and would like to try to impose the yellow rectangle of the National Geographic logo into various different scenes from all around Earth. This would include cityscapes, rainforests, mountain ranges, beaches, arctic tundra etc. I would like to use timelapse footage preferrably as I like the effect, and it also gives a sort of voyeuristic sense to the footage which I think works well for a TV channel whose main output is documentary programming.

Nat Geo Globe idea -- OUAN406

National Geographic Channel Ideas -- OUAN406

National geographic channel has a wide range of documentary programming focusing on all elements of the earth. Many of these shows are straight up documentaries about social or cultural subjects, for example current series "God" with Morgan Freeman, which looks at the way various modern and historical cultures and religions think about life, death and other religious isues, or "Sea Monsters: the definitive guide" which talks about various real and legendary sea creatures. Other programs follow a more reality-show kind of format, for example "The Great Human Race" in which two archaeologists trace the steps of neolithic people migrating to North America.

The element of their programming that I want to focus on is the broader look at the Earth, and I want to represent the fact that their shows discuss people, places and events from across the entire planet (and outer space).

My initial concept was to create some sort of slideshow, with images from all corners of the Earth. The idea is to display the wide range of subjects shown on the channel, but I am struggling to think of an interesting way to animate this.

I remembered seeing a music video (https://vimeo.com/88360151) which used multiple GoPros mounted on a drone, and when the footage was stitched together it created a miniature globe effect. I thought it would be really nice to have an overhead view of a rotating planet, and every second or so a new environment or ecosystem would appear over the horizon.

The effect would hopefully turn out like this footage from the International Space Station: