Week 14: Finished Film

I should've added this when the film was done, but never got to it. A link to the finished film "Space Candy" on Vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/23101999

Week 13: Space Candy

The film is complete, finally. Although I was pretty much done last week, there were some finishing touches that I knew needed work. It was basically just some sound editing, credits and fixes in combustion. But the film looks pretty good I think. It's sure to bring some laughs at the screening at the animation screening. The style is really cartoony and I'm glad at how it came out. It feels fun and enjoyable. There are some problems I did run into while rendering, but it's something I didn't notice until all the renders were complete and put together. To fix it would take too much time and it's barely noticeable. Because I used toon shaders, whenever there's an extreme camera motion, and the shot is split but from the same camera, the background color will change shade of green. It's not too noticeable, but it could've been avoidable. I just simply didn't expect it to happen because I didn't account for any weird problems to occur.
The film works well though.

Week 12: Finishing Touches

99% of the animation is complete. All that's left are some lip syncing and I've gotta fix some keys in the cop's dance sequence. Most of the final shots are rendered out in production quality and they look pretty good. All that's left is the sound editing. For the sounds, all I've really got left is to fix the timing on various parts as I've got most of the sounds already, except for the cop siren and radio, and I need new laughter.

Once the final shots are rendered out, I have to throw some of them in Combustion and play with some particle effects with cartoon smoke. I've already got one shot in Combustion and rendered out from there. I've never used Combustion before, so it was weird I guess. I also need to take one of the shots in After Effects and add a flashing light effect for the cop lights. Other than that, the film is pretty much done.

Week 11: Finessing

I finished all the rough animation for the entire film. All I have to do is finesse some areas and animate a dance sequence for the cop. I want the dance sequence so the cop can be in his own little dream world when he eats the candy and the background should be a color changing tie dye image. I was told this could be done by rendering PNG images for the sequence, bringing the images in After Effects and playing with the images in there.

Other than completing a dance scene, the film needs finished lip syncing, some added deformers, finished animations in specific areas, some camera changes, light effects for the cop car, and the smoke coming from the characters coughing, and also from the cop car peeling off. The smoke effects should be able to be done in combustion on completed renders. The rest of the tweaking is in the sound editing which is just fixing sound placement and maybe finding better sounds then the ones currently there.

Week 10: Animation

Everything is set up, and I've begun animating. I'll start with the most complex scene which involves a walk cycle with the cop character, some walking from the stick, candy eating, a quick dance sequence, opening and closing doors, lip syncing, smoke combustion, and some other movement. Once this scene is completed, I should be able to breeze through the rest of the animations with are a little limited as the characters are in their vehicles and have general arm movements with some minor head turns and eye blinking. I really think I'll be able to get all the animation done in the next week. Then I'll do editing in Premiere, with sound, music and that's about it. I don't really need any lighting, since the backgrounds are toon shaded, and so are the building.

I plan on working a lot over the next few days getting that one scene completed, but overall, I think the film will turn out decent. Some of the animation will be rough, but some will also look pretty decent, I hope.

Week 9: Festivals

These are the ten film festivals I might be interested in.
1. Brooklyn Film Festival: Deadline is March 31st, 2011
2. Buffalo Internation Film Festival: Deadline is N/A
3. Ottawa International Animation Festival: Deadline is May 20th, 2011
4. Siggraph: Deadline is April 15th, 2011
5. Chicago International Children's Film Festival: Deadline is May 31st, 2011
6. Sundance Film Festival: Deadline is September 2nd, 2011
7. The Animation Show: Deadline is TBA
8. Toronto Internation Film Festival: Deadline is TBA
9. NY International Children's Film Festival: Deadline is TBA
10. 2D or not 2D: Deadline is N/A

Week 8: Start of Animation

I finished the rigs for the characters but I have to fix the proportions for two of them so they fit with the cop. I could just fix the cop's proportions, but his rig is complex and it'll be easier to do the stick and the skateboard. I'll bring the cop into the town just to get an idea of how the scaling of the town should be. After that, I'll start animating the motion paths of the two vehicles. Once the motions are done, I'll bring in the characters and start animating their actions. I'll probably do the simpler animations first, which is when the stick and skateboard are in their car doing their little motions with the glovebox, the candy eating and their little hand/eye motions. That should be simple. After that, I'll work on the primary scene, which includes some walk cycles, various parent constraints with the candy box and particle effects with smoke from caughing and car speeding off. Another sequence I want to add is a dance sequence with the cop. That'll be somewhat simple and may even be animated in a seperate file just for the black background. Here's some pics of the rigs.