Applied Animation - Assets

The below are all my assets that i drew up for the mountainous valley that is the spine, and because of the mountains i have assets that have snow as well.

Applied Animation - Backgrounds

Now, the backgrounds for this animation i was originally wanting to do in hand painted acrylics so that they have a more natural feel as well as balancing out the amount digital animation that takes place, but this would require hundreds of drawings of a very detailed image which would be an impossible task so i had to reconsider what i could do.

So when i went back to uni after the half term break i talked too my tutor about doing the backgrounds and he recommended the 3D animation software Maya. With maya i could create a 3d space and add in my own assets. I found this perplexing at first but my tutor showed me an animation that used the flat assets were good as they can easily be duplicated and placed around the space.

to design the space i made a mood board of mountains and then went on to draw on A1 paper the rough idea of how the scenery would look like. The scenery is that of the spine which is a place in the story where the egg is originally found.

Applied Animation - First scene

The first shot of the animation is of dragon picking up Saphiras egg. This is a fairly simple scene however there were a few complications.

The first was animating gradual movement on 25 frames per second is very difficult and the hands movements looked like they were trying to 'grope' the egg so i tried shifting the hands with copy and paste but this eft them robotic looking, so in the end i tried the warp tool which while it caused the hands to be a little deformed resulted in an overall nice shot.

Second thing that was a little awkward to work with was the egg, initially with the swirls on the egg i wanted them to swirl and shift, to make the egg seem alive, so i did this with the smudge tool but this wasn't a good idea either as it just extended what was there and i couldn't add more also the swirls gradually got thinner and thinner so it wasnt consistent so i decided to leave the egg with a non-moving swirl pattern.

Applied Animation - Ra'zac animation

Because of the way the backgrounds are going to be animated, with the camera moving through the trees, i decided to work on doing the animation of the characters as their animation could be placed on top of the backgrounds.

Each character is being animated on separate files and will be put into the respective software that i use to put the animation together.

The razacs movements were really interesting to work with as i was able to make them leap and swerve across the screen, however this was initially quite tricky and their actions were simplified to make the movement easier to animate. Prior to the above animation the razac had their limbs present but this caused their jumping to not make sense as the pushing and falling was unnatural and i didn't know how to carry one movement onto the next so i restarted it into the above. 

Applied Animation - Character Sheets 2

 The Ra'Zac were very tricky to visualise as they were humanoid yet to an extreme extent, not. As there are two ra'zac and the only difference in the book given about them was their size i did only one character sheet as i saw two sheets of very similar and monstrous characters to be unnecessary. There movement was very quick and snake like weaving in and out of space and then as seen in the left top corner the ra'zac will pounce in a very arched way, i wanted to show the Ra'zacs inhuman qualities more than there human ones. The expressions weren't too difficult to do either because i had previously done a beaked character in another module so i was able to transfer my understanding of that characters expressions onto the razac.

 Saphira was interesting to work with and enjoyable to draw because i wasn't too restricted as she didn't have a human form and while she flies her body will move in a wave pattern in an up and down motion like a fish swimming in the sea. Mostly her poses are movement and action poses to show her graceful femininity and her power while the sleeping pose is for a less action based situation. Her Expressions were also really interesting to work on as she had the same problem as Brom in the fact that they have protruding faces which look great from the side but a bit strange from the front however as i said she was the most enjoyable to draw because she was one of the most different characters.

Finally the Shade. The Shade wasn't much fun to draw as his body shape felt really restrictive and his design was one of the more complicated ones, all his poses and expressions were derived from the rage and anger he feels, emotions such as skepticism, frustration and rage he is more human than the ra'zac but less than arya. His poses are all action and battle oriented even with his slim stature. The first two don't look too bad as they show a side view of him as well as an extra expression but the third pose isn't very good. Its foreshortening is terrible and the swipe left by the sword looks dumb unfortunately, it also doesn't look like he's got a foot forward, which he's supposed to. I also want to redesign the swords used by the characters as depending on a persons strength and body type their stances, swords and battle styles.

Applied Animation - Character Design Sheets

Because this animation was more action oriented than my previous animation and i had recently learnt about character sheets from my other module i decided to create character sheets for each of my characters so that i can make it easier for myself to visualise How the character would act and look from slightly different angles.

 With Eragon i wanted poses that show his character early on in the story such as his earnestness to learn to fight as well as his interactions with Saphira when she was sitll small. So i went with two battle stances, sort of, one in preparation to fight where he's  looking in readiness for his opponent, the second is after the fight where he's cut and battered but alive where he's pushing through the pain, the final pose is him with Saphira in his room at the start of the book. Ergon is one of the easier characters for me to draw as he is a very simple box shape overall the only part of him that i feel i struggle with is his hair but i think it will be ok to shift about a bit.
His expressions are simple happy, angry and sad faces as he is still young and very emotion driven because he is still young and uneducated in the world at this point.

Area was the most difficult to draw in varying poses, i feel like her head gets too wide and she just looks way to, odd, but in that respect i quite like it as it makes her seem less human, which she is. Her character is fierce and strong willed so se looks constantly prepared for battle while still holding her title as a princess. The first pose is showing her strong personality as she interrogates someone, probably Eragon. The second she is on her horse bare back as i wouldn't think elves and creatures who live in harmony with nature would use saddles. The final pose is her readying for battle, i imagined her stance to make her a smaller target and to strike quickly and accurately. I think the reason why i struggle with Aryas design is that she's supposed to be too perfect and beautiful so her fierce behaviour causes the expressions to clash with her design here.

The top and bottom expressions are different variants on her anger the top anger and frustration during battle while the bottom one is more along the lines of seething and holding back rage. The middle expression shows her relaxed and enjoying her self which she rarely does as she's a very serious character. 

Brom was one of the most enjoyable but difficult to draw as his nose-head was a little tricky to visualise from different angles, especially from below and the front. But it was because he had such a different look that i really liked drawing him inn different poses. With Brom his personality was more calm and relax as well as thought out, less impulsive so i chose two poses to be calm and collected stances, one where he's standing but looking up to try drawing him from below, and the other is of him sitting on a log which is from a scene early on in the book where he is talking about the past. The centre pose is his battle stance while fighting with his staff however he could have an animated scene of him fighting with a sword.

His expressions are only happy sad and angry but to a more extreme as he knows when he has to feel this way and when it is appropriate to act in such a way also besides the anger his emotions are more subdued because of this.

Applied Animation - Redone Animatic

Once i had finished the storyboard i made another animatic to fit the new storyboard. I wanted the scenes of the camera panning through the trees to be fast paced and exciting while the beginning and end, not necessarily drawn out, but waited left to drag a little in preparation.

Applied Animation - Redone Storyboard

This is my revised and revisited storyboard which includes annotations and stage directions to convey whats happening more clearly. The first six panels are unchanged as the beginning was seen as a good  starting idea during my group crit as it introduced the main character and the egg from the story.

 This is where art began to change, so instead of immediately panning up, the camera will continue through the trees swerving around them and as it does this it will pass the other characters as they either interact with each other or perform an action. They were drawn with green lines to represent that they may be semitransparent if i feel it looks better in the final animation.

 As the camera pans through the trees i will have it speed up and slow down similar to the concept of bullet time in games as it will give the viewer a chance to properly register the characters before they vanish into the distance.

 The final six panels are all re used panels from the original story board however they were originally closer to the beginning middle area. During my crib it was recommended that i move the title shot to either the beginning or the end as it was out of place in the middle and it became lost however the way i bring it on screen is good so i wanted to keep it, i just needed to rearrange the storyboard.

Applied Animation - Clean Animatic

even though i had done an animatic for the roughs i wanted to make use of my storyboards to make a more clear and concise animatic too show the events of the animation. 

Unfortunately i need to make changes to both my story board and my animatic as too much happens during the 30 seconds so i need to shorten the amount of things that happen in the animatic and maybe extend certain scenes such as the shot of the sun or the egg.

Applied Animation - Refined Storyboards

 Establishing shot begins with the egg and the hands come down to pick up the egg after about 2-3 seconds carrying it up until off screen, Eragon stands up right with his back to the camera and turns to face it and the camera starts to pan out and away from him through the Spine, (the woods and mountain range where he finds the egg.

 As the camera pans along it zooms out until Eragon vanishes into the distance of the trees the camera then pans up into the sky and the shot holds for a period ofd time to show the sweeping skycap. The dragon then flys from the corner flying across the centre of the screen revealing the title shot as the dragon flies off into the sun.

 Once the dragon has left the screen the Ra'zac fall from above transitioning to a dark and bleak background and scenery.

 As it zooms out to properly reveal the Ra'zac it shows the Shade standing behind them and the camera continues to zoom out to reveal them standing on a large stone formation looking down on the heroes of the story.

 The Shade then commands the Ra'zac to attack the heroes and they start to weave around the pillar coming closer in to attack. Just as they get close the camera cuts to the heroes and the camera zooms in on a determined Eragon backed by Arya and Brom.

 As the camera comes closer to Dragons face he realises something and Saphira swoops in to save the day and rescue Eragon and Arya because Brom will eventually die to the hands of their foes. The camera zooms out from the close up of Saphiras body to reveal her speeding through the sky.

 As she flys through she comes to an abrupt halt in the sky with wings out stretched showing all her glory.

Applied Animation - Mid term crit

Before breaking up for the easter holiday we were required to do a mid term crib in front of the class and i presented my storyboards and research along with my character designs, development and animatic.

All but my animatic was received well, it was viewed as having too much happening at once which really disappointed me as i thought it was a well thought out storyboard it also apparently gave too much of the story away which was another disappointing factor to hear, so i was told to reduce what happens as well as reconsider when the title shot appears as it appears closer to the middle rather than the beginning or end like a usual title sequence.

So i will have to redo my animatic and change my storyboard slightly.

Applied Animation - Cleaned Animatic

This is my refined and cleaned animatic which is much more legible to see and has small additions of colour to emphasise the blue that is prominent in Saphira, her egg and Dragons eyes. Im considering emphasising the blue to match the first books blue cover.