Seeing the future before it's happened

So i am steadily falling into a rich working pattern of tasks to complete and then moving onto more tasks. Recently i found out that in all the time that the course has run this project nobody has ever created a working demo (at least i think) in any case true or not it spurred me on to want to create a working demo that i am really pleased with in the time we have. Our idea is ambitious but i have my hopes that it is possible. We have produced a concept document and also a complete walk through for the level. I have included below just a few of the concepts that i did for the main Tempora boss character, but i think really the best of the ones i created, and pleased with them. I'm excited to see how this will all end up looking.


I'm finding that being a producer can be tough work, but it's a refreshing and ultimately interesting and challenging experience that i do welcome. Having the power is always fun, knowing how to keep everyone in order but not wanting to kill each other in the process? Well that is something else entirely.

Prepare to go on an adventure in time!

Truth be told it has been a long while since which i have had a moment to update this here blog of mine, but i thought that i really should or else it just looks like i am avoiding it like the plague. (which i was not by the way)

I also should point out that i am a producer on this project, it's a very new and quite daunting role for me but i am prepared to take full advantage of the responsibilities that it entails and work to the best of my ability, fun times!

So basically the current project we have been given is to design one level in a game based on a fictional tv show called TimeWarp. A fairly plain and boring "i've heard it before concept" i hear you cry. Well perhaps, which is why we intend to make it our own and i believe we already are. The aim is to get a working demo by the end of this project and we have just the small time of the rest of the secound year in order to do that. I still have to write up the concept document and have assigned tasks to all on the project including myself for us to complete by this coming tuesday, it's all quite fun.

I shall check back here to put up concepts as i go on with designing them so it remains clear the direction this is going in. Also if you ever feel like checking out where we are at, or want to see just how everyone is working together we have a team website which can be found at this address.

a running wonder

The project looms on, and i realised it has been a small age since i have updated on here, so let's see. Thanks to the wonder that is milliput and some most excellent garden wire, the model (as you can see) is fully positionable and we have a green screen. (which should be better lit but we don't talk about that) We should start animating any day now and then try to pull it all together to literally make our thought process come to life, let's just hope it's in time. I shall remain optimistic!

An explosion of stop motion!

After continuing work on the 30 secound vignette project, I am starting to realise that because our idea is quite ambitious the workload is high, but the pay off should be excellent as i know what we will produce will be really different and a good example of our skills.
But hey, enough of all of that, it's scary really not much time left and we are just sort of bringing everything together, downloaded Istopmotion and made a plasticine figure.
We played around with the stop motion techniques and created a little video, here it is for your enjoyment.

A three dimensional realm, imagined in stop motion.

Okay, so we were recently given this new project at uni, and i must say i am excited by the prospects of it all, it's really got me interested in what we can create. I am working with Rhys on this one and we have already got together a few times to further develop the idea and see where we wanted to go with it. We did our presentation for the idea which went well i think and it seemed that our idea was enjoyed.

Basically because we are making a vignette and it's quite fast paced we thought what better than to combine our love for model making and to make sexy visuals in after effects/maya. We listened to much classical music and discussed ideas, brainwaves poured everywhere and we thought that using classical music in the game would be fantastic.
We really want the visuals to seem fast paced and yet also to get really wrapped up in the moment, i have been studying walk cycles and been drawing out my own concepts for the run cycle trying to see if i can get it right and then i can start working with plasticine and photographing it and see if we can get it looking right.


Here is a concept that i did that i am rather pleased with just a basic outlining of the run cycle, i did have to reference another picture to sort of study what this would look like. Been working on some of the storyboard ideas too...


Been working on this idea of the focus of the beginning animation being the eye, you see it develop from a plasticine ball that eventually becomes a pupil in the eye, that in this storyboard is depicted as a drawn image, once the mp3 player is played then the eye is focused in on and after it blinks it becomes an entire plasticine eye.
After this point the camera pans out and you see the character in a running position with headphones on, the character then will run towards the camera. The important thing was to keep focus on the speed of everything in the vignette, the translation of speed and scale through the rising of the crescendos in the classical music.

His name is buttons, maybe he likes buttons?

Just felt that i would give a little taster on what i am working on outside of uni work, this is just a character design i was thinking about, i must of had borrowers on the brain and this spilled out, much more has to be done on it but it is a work in progress and hopefully a good addition to more unfinished creations.

Flashing lights...

Finally the flash project is finished! To be honest flash is a real pain in the arse, drawing into it you realise that it is a smart program, and the fact that it has vector graphics is awesome but still i am ranting and i should not. It was good working with Todd on this project though and the idea came together nicely, i was really pleased with above picture as the opening to the animation, more so than the actual first shot, i would of liked to have worked into some of the images more but overall i think it was a sucess and i am looking forward to our next university project already.