Blog 10. Finishing off.

Design

Credits


The music has climaxed, the animation is done, and hopefully the audience have gained a good experience form it. So now all that's left is to title my animation and give thanks to the artist of the song.

I called my animation 'ideas of life' because I related to the themes and ideology of 'ideas' and 'life' throughout, so it made sense.

Blog 9. Climax

Design

Technical


At the time of storyboarding I wasn't sure how I was going to animate the 16 seconds of audio in which the music climaxes. I just knew that i wanted lots of colour and movement to represent the concept of an idea being destroyed.

I finally decided to use trapcode particular as it was something I knew how to use by now, be it very basically. The particles move towards the audience with a motion blur effect applied to give a deeper sense of movement. The velocity increases as the audio becomes more intense in the build up and fades as it drops.




Narrative


By this point the entire colour scheme has changed, just like the narrative. Instead of having the calm blue lighting I used earlier on in my animation, I used a white light on a black background, that you can almost associate with death, while that is dark, it is representing the death of the artists idea concluding with a visual explosion.

The words " and destroyed just as easily" appear concluding the sentence left open at the start. I wanted to send a message to the audience that we can all relate to without being a pretentious wally. However I may have done just that, still its something i had to include so that the audience realise they aren't just looking at a collection of different animations with no meaning.

Blog 8. Deeper and darker.

Design


At this point in the animation the screen needs to be completely black to show the loss of an idea.


Technical


By the time of 2.01 the animation needs to be completely black. This is because of reasons explained below but also due to the audio being at its most minimal point right before its main build up. As you can probably tell this was the easiest part of the animation.


Narrative


At this point the artist has lost the idea, and things begin to go wrong in  his/her mind. This is why the opacity of the orb and particle system fade out until the point of 2.01. It also creates suspense because the audience know that the climax of the song is yet to come.

Blog 7. Final idea

Design

Technical


On paper a glowing orb is a simple concept, digitally, not so much.  The movement of both the orb and particle system was a simple task. I simply used keyframes to move the camera and composition along the X,Y and Z axis.

Creating the orb and streaks was hard and required multiple tutorials. However with enough willpower i gained a result Im quite proud of. The orbs are in fact 2 solid layers with different opacity's and feather lengths to create a glow effect.

The streaks of purple colour were created using the pen tool, polarised and then linked to a singular Null object so they could be manipulated.

Narrative

Two very important aspects need to be visualised at this point of the animation (1 min 31 seconds).

First of all when the Techno synth comes in at 1.31, part of the animation needs to visually match the beat.
I tried very hard to use Trapcode soundkeyes at this point to animate the streaks of purple colour, however this required a considerable amount of ram to provide enough keyframes, required for the segment of audio i wished to relate to the animation. So i kept the streaks animated how i started them, by simply rotating and emitting them around the singular orb to create a visually exciting array of colour and light.

My way around this was to use a particle system moving at a velocity and direction that suited the progression and tempo of the audio, which I think it does quite well.

Secondly, this is the point where the artist has compiled all of his/her thoughts and settled on a final idea. So being an 'artist' the animation needed a good use of color, lighting and movement. Now again reprsenting an idea is hard when it isnt a visual entity, however keeping with the lighbulb theme i created a singular glowing orb with streaks of color radiating from the centre.

This is also where the narrative starts to switch. Up till this point the narrative has been of a positive theme, but this is where it begins to turn negative. I wanted this part to represent an idea being stolen/ destroyed or even forgotten about because this is when the audio begins to break down. This is  why the 'idea'( glowing orb) and  the artists ' motivation/enthusiasm' (Particle system) move in different directions to show that the relationship between them is being lost and simply to utilize all of the domes space.

Blog 6. Flying through the clouds.

Design

Technical

To create the cloud fly though was a hard task but one that I enjoyed the most. I had seen  previous work where a cloud fly through was used as footage, but I wanted to go further. I wanted a digital cloud fly through that conformed to the aesthetic of my animation. The clouds are simply one image made in photoshop but alter in size, rotation and position to give the effect that they are all slightly different.

So the same image has been duplicated many times and placed accordingly on the scene. To create the effect of 'moving' through the clouds I used a camera and a null object to slowly move through the Z axis to give the perception of clouds moving towards the screen. The clouds also alter in size so that it gives the impression that some are further away than others.


Narrative


Each cloud represents different thoughts by a digital artist was to what to do to his/her idea. Thinking about an idea is a long and perhaps slow process and that is why the clouds move slowly towards the screen, as well as keeping with the progression of the audio. The flythrough ends with focusing on one cloud to represent a chosen theme for an idea and this paves the way the cell animation at 1 minute 31 seconds.

The orbs fly away from the audience and into the clouds, I wanted this part to represent high aspirations of a digital artist. Not only this but it effectively adds to the depth of field.

Blog 5. Representing an idea visually.

Design

Technical


Creating the orbs was tricky. Its something i had never done before, and quickly found that I would need certain plug-ins(Trapcode lux, Trapcode Particular) to create the effect I wanted. The orbs grow lighter in intensity as the music progresses.

Getting the orbs to move in 3d was simple. Using camera movement and key frames, I moved the orbs further away on the Z axis.




Narative


Visually representing anything that happens within the human mind is no easy task due to the fact Everyone has a different perception on how the mind works. So keeping with the light bulb concept and staying true to the minimal nature of the audio I designed two glowing orbs. The only reason that there is two is to create a more visually appealing animation. However in the animation the speed, direction and behaviour of the orbs change multiple times to the time of the audio. This is to represent an 'idea' within the mind of a digital artist being changed many times. Be it a technical reason, or a time saving reason, its something all IDAT students can certainly relate to.

I tried to utilize as much of the space I could, not only to create a depth of field but so that the orbs visually represent the 'idea' travelling to different areas of the brain.

Blog 4. The first 16 seconds.

Design 

Technical


 To do this part was fairly simple. By using 2 lens flares I animated the brightness and opacity over the course of the first 16 seconds of audio. The audio changes to a more harmonic tone at 16 seconds and this is why the light dims at this point, to show that an idea has been formed. The blue colour and cloudiness of the scene give the light atmosphere and depth, something of which is essential for a truly immersive animation.

Narrative


For my idea to work the first 16 seconds had to represent the birth of an idea within the mind of a digital artist.We as society generally represent someone having an idea as a light bulb switching on. I adapted this in my animation.