Fantasy Olympics Animation

Here Is My Animation --->

500 Word Ration For Fantasy Olympics

This project has been quite interesting as I have had to use a lot of different software in order to complete it, such as illustrator, premiere and after effects. After effects was the main software for this project as we had to create a 3d environment within it using 2D images. I approached this project by deciding on a sport to alter as if it was in the future, so I decided Kendo and then made it futuristic by making it no gravity Kendo by the contestants wearing flying suits. I then created designs for my character in my sketchbook, and then I recreated the image in illustrator as it doesn’t use pixels so the image will be a lot smoother than it would in Photoshop. My character is a cat person which is grey. The environment for the animation was decided on then. For it, I chose to create a wasteland style environment as it is quite futuristic in terms of cities becoming ruins due to a catastrophic event. 

Once the character was created I had to separate the body pieces in order for me to move them freely in after effects like a puppet. The background in the piece is set right at the back of the scene and I have layered the different components to create the 3D environment, so I have the background and then I have trees scattered in front on different layers so that the character can fly in and out of them. Once I had the scene set up I had to create the animation which involved moving the character and creating key frames for different parts. 

When creating the scenes I made 3 different scenes so that I could get several camera views of the character. So at the start I have a side view of the character flying in and out of the scene which follows onto him flying onto a pillar. Then because I had a clone of the character for the opponent I created a first person view of the character as if it was the clone looking at him. Once all the clips were together I put in some music in order to set the scene and make it feel like the Olympics.

I feel that if I had more time I would have added sound effects to the piece as it would make it better and more interesting to the audience. I would have also added some more scenes to the animation as I don’t feel like there is a lot happening. I would also add more movement sequences to make the movement a lot smoother, such as the arm raising and lowering, or the tail moving back and forth.

What I like about my piece is the drawings I have created for the animation as they were created in illustrator which therefore meant that they weren’t pixelated and it made the animation look a lot smoother in transition.

AE Project progress

My project so far, I have created most of the background I just need to animate it and hope all goes well!

More Inspiration

For the environment of my Fantasy Olympics project, i have decided that the world has become an uninhabitable wasteland like world, where the cities are protected from dangerous toxic gases by a dome.

Backgrounds & Inspiration

These are some of the images I am using for backgrounds and inspiration for my Olympics project.

This is the image I intend to use for the floor of my animation as the Sport is based in the air, it is based over a field.

The simpsons movie dome inspired my idea for the dome that goes over the arena.

These images of arenas are also inspirations for my sport arena as they are the types of shots that I would like in my animation. The image to the right is an idea for the shape fo the arena and the top image for the shot ideas.

ScreenShot Puppet

This is a screen shot of my work in after affects after adding my character into the composition. As you can see, the character is split up into different body parts, so that I can move the parts around easier.

Animation "The Chess Player"

"The Chess Player" Rational

Throughout the making of my animation, I have come across many difficulties. One of the biggest difficulties was the making of the robot arms. This is due to the difficulty of changing the design of the arm to that of the tutorial. Because of this, I decided to keep the arm section the same, but change the hand part. By doing this I was still able to keep the effect I wanted, which was to make the arm seem like a crane game claw.

The making of the chess pieces was pretty simple as I just had to lathe the outline of the piece, making it whole, instead of a line. When drawing the outline, I used the ‘brezier’ setting so that I could create smooth corners for the pieces, making them look more realistic and less blocky. The horse piece was probably the hardest piece to make as I had to make it from scratch, because it wasn’t circular like the other pieces, I could lathe a line for it.

In order to make the animation more realistic, I placed the scene within a box with lighting so that it wasn’t just two robots playing in a black void. With the lighting I had one main light that stood above the robots but then I had one light that lit the whole box and it enabled me to start the scene off with a spot light over the chess board and two robot arms at the edge of the light, then light the rest of the scene up gradually as the robot arms made their way to the board.

One thing about animation that animators have to be weary of is the render time. The more effects, you put into an animation, the more time it has to render. Knowing this I was able to make sure I had created the animation in plenty of time before rendering, so that I would have enough time to change anything if I needed.

The sounds for the animation were recordings from the internet of different squeaks and thuds. I mostly used only a couple of squeaks and then edited them in Adobe Soundbooth, so that they don’t all sound the same. I also added music to the animation on top of the sound effects as it was too quiet without the music. The music I chose was The good, bad and the ugly, as the camera angles and the quick clips makes the robots seem like they are having a standoff in a cowboy film and the music really helped the animation come to life.

Animation render 2

Second render of animation which contains the other robt hand waking up

Animation Beginning Render

This is a video fo the beginning of ym animation, it is a view fo one fo the robot hands waking up, and i plan to have both the robot arms waking together or one after each other.

Quick Render Chess Animation

This is a quick test render for my chess animation. It shows a robot arm waking up and hopping over to the table. The other arm does similar but this is just one point of view for the time being.

Chess Pieces

This is a render of my chess pieces, I went for the normal style as I didnt want to over complicate things and if people dont know which piece is which to begin with, then I dont want them to get even more confused when they watch this.

Chess Board With Robots

Here is a quick render of my robot arms and the chess pieces, i still need to add a lot of things, but this is the simple render of it.

Olympics Project Character Design

 This is a pose for my character when he is getting into a striking pose. His leg's are in this position to give the effect of him flying. 

 This pose is my character at the end of the stike.

This is my characters normal stance when he is standing on the ground.

Robot Arm Complete

This is a picture of my robot arm for the chess project. Instead of having the typical palm with human looking fingers, I was going for a "Toy Crane Game" look, which consisted me having the tips of the 'fingers' pointed.