So, I think the KINO10 ident is done! As far as I can do it, at least. I was having trouble putting sound to it (and it was terrible sound anyway – I am not a sound engineer), so it’s silent.

I tried the best with what I had, which amounts to nine plastic bars, a couple of acetate sheets, tape, fishing wire and two days of camera access. This thing has just gone through a number of hours on After Effects trying to find a cut that I like. In the end, the footage at the front there is sped up with use of the Warp Stabiliser effect, which tries to process the footage into looking like it was shot using a Steadicam. The reason it’s not shot using a Steadicam is that I don’t have one.

Here are the animation tests from last week in a nice large pile.

I have to be honest in that… I’m not sure how much I’m contributing to the final video. Okay, so, I did at least find this neat instructional video on how to create a dry ice smoke effect on Maya:

WhichI was asked to look up. I don’t know when we’re next going to put work into it – then again, I did sorta leave them upstairs to come down to the animation room so that I could shoot the video I just did. But I’ve only had the occasional press about this project, we don’t assemble to work on it often, and it feels like a lot of the stuff is being done without me.

It is probably my fault, though, before anybody says that, and it’s true that I have a lot of work piled up that I don’t really want to do in such a concentrated mess like this. (Essay, group project, solo project, games project, drawing examination, something about a Digital Animation assessment coming up when the teacher hasn’t seemed too fussed about making us fulfil a certain quota of work or our documenting said work?) But… I dunno. Hmm.

Yeeeaaaah, kinda pressed for time right now.

What’s up, you ask? I’m just giving you my final idea for the KINO10 ident, that’s what! I have a mobile planned out and a very basic prototype of it made out of card and acetate.

Here’s the problem with showing you that stuff, though: no camera with usable lead, limited scanner access, and being pressed for time as I’m currently running a little late for a life drawing appointment. Presumably you’ll get the sketchbook scans and some neat little photographs in due time, but right now those are unavailable and inexistent and not going to be existent for a while. That’s okay, though.

However, with the one scan I was able to set up, I managed to make myself one very neat little animatic using After Effects to move around some drawing pieces cut out in Photoshop. This is the animatic I’m going with. There’s a rough storyboard in the sketchbook that’s structured a little like a comic page too, used for reference when making this.

It’s not too fancy, but hey – it’ll involve me building a sturdier mobile that should actually hang on its own, finding a clear space to film it as steadily as I can, then using stop motion to form the address. I’ve not got too much time to do all of this, so hopefully this will work out. Let’s consider I still have a goddamn essay to do on a subject I still don’t entirely understand on one of four projects that I’m trying to work on all at once, and this all becomes much better-feeling.

Maybe.

…Yeah. There’s a thing, isn’t there.

I haven’t used this blog in actual weeks.

I’m pretty sure that actually has something to do with concentration, but I’m also much more convinced that it has something to do with not bothering either. I know I’m not very good at catching up with this stuff. Luckily, the sketchbook has a lot of development info this time around, and the PC stuff can be gotten on with better and explained here on a blog where it’s easier to put it.

Let’s at least talk about today and firefly construction in Maya.

Yeah, we stuck with the fireflies, though they’re more conceptual and iconic right now. It’s not just been concentrating on work or not bothering to blog, I guess it’s also been a derth of genuine updates too – at least on this group project.

Welp, here’s some screencaps of the third attempt at constructing this thing:

The first image shows just the ball’s material with a Glow Intensity of 0.820; the second adds a Glow Intensity of 0.023 to the triangles’ material, which makes it visually clearer, at least.

The triangles are aim constrainted to the ball and the entire thing has two locators – one at the end to follow motion paths that is parented above the entire thing, and one that holds all the triangles together and could probably be used to give them a secondary animation. At the moment, though, that’s not what I’m bothered about, because just making sure that the Motion Path clicked together was a mess for me on its own.

This is not my strong suit. I took on a lot of not-strong-suits lately.

Oh well, behold, movement!

And if you’re bored, I’m getting Nostalgia Critic rips in the related videos.

Yeah, this is playing extremely slow, mostly to check that it’s playing okay. It is, so that’s done with.